Close to 480 films from more than 50 countries are on the programme at this year's 10th Era New Horizons International Film Festival
For the past decade, the Era New Horizons International Film Festival in Wrocław has consistently presented unconventional, original cinema, featuring films that search for a new lexicon, new forms and themes absent from mainstream productions. For years, the festival's film programme has inspired the discovery of new horizons in other areas of art. The events that accompany the festival - exhibitions and installations, spectacles and concerts, lectures and workshops form a comprehensive, interdisciplinary survey across genres.
As part of the "New Horizons" International Competition, the jury will award the Grand Prix for "Best Film", along with 20,000 euro. Films will also compete for an Audience Award and - for the first time this year - the prestigious FIPRESCI prize, awarded by film critics associated with the International Federation of Film Critics.
For the second year in a row, the jury will also award the "Films on Art" International Competition prize of 10,000 euro. In the "New Polish Films" Competition, the best works will receive the Wrocław Film Award, funded by the Mayor of Wrocław (100,000 PLN).
This is also the second ENH festival in which the winners of the competition are guaranteed distribution in Poland by the festival organisers, the New Horizons Association. At the beginning of 2010, the Association released six of the most popular, most acclaimed films from last year's festival: Hunger, directed by Steve McQueen; Oxygen (Kislorod), directed by Ivan Vyrypayev; The Forest" / "Las by
Piotr Dumała; The Beaches of Agnès (Les plages d'Agnès), directed by Agnès Varda; Burrowing directed by Henrik Hellström and Fredrik Wenzel; and Double Take directed by Johan Grimonprez, currently showing at cinemas and planned for release on DVD in May this year.
This year's festival will focus on Turkish cinematography, surveying about 30 titles, mainly works of young Turkish cinema recognised at international festivals, along with a retrospective of works by Zeki Demirkubuz, one of the first generation of independent Turkish directors who debuted in the 1990s.
On the 10th anniversary of the death of
Wojciech Jerzy Has, one of the greatest visionaries of Polish cinema and world-renowned experimental individualist, a review of his works will grace festival screens. Has's oeuvre will thrive both on screen and in discussion, as well as readings and an exposition prepared specifically for the festival, accompanied by an album.
Another major festival retrospective will be devoted to the artistic father of post-modernism in film, the radical, uncompromising avant-garde artist and co-founder of the French New Wave: Jean-Luc Godard. Godard, who turns eighty this year, is known for his intensive exploration of the aesthetics of cinema, fueled by a passion to deconstruct, to destroy the comfort of naive spectatorship. The retrospective will be supplemented by three publications on the subject of Godard and his cinema.
Stephen and Timothy Quay are among the festival's guests, founders of marionette animation. These contemporary surrealists, often been inspired in the past by the prose of
Bruno Schulz, present a unique approach to fantastical filmmaking. The retrospective of films by Quay Brothers will feature a screening of their latest film The Mask, an adaptation of a short story depicting a dark future for humanity in the robotic age by
Stanisław Lem. The Quay brothers retrospective will be supplemented by the installation "Dormitorium" and a book of essays and interviews.
The festival also dedicates a retrospective series to films by the legendary British feminist film theorist and director, Laura Mulvey, whose 1975 paper Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema initiated a discussion on the female identity in film. Through her analysis of the "male gaze", Mulvey discovered mechanisms of manipulation in classical mainstream cinema.
Another highlight of the festival is a retrospective of works by
Daniel Szczechura, master and teacher with 50 years of experience, an outstanding animator whose works focus on serious subjects - from political allusions to surreal and metaphysical aspects of human existence. In the 1950s, he realised over a dozen amateur films on 16mm film, including the collaboration with Andrzej Błański, entitled "Spojrzenie", won him several awards. He was affiliated with the Se-ma-for studio in Łódź and went on to lecture at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and other major art institutions in Poland and abroad. He won the gold medal "Gloria Artis" for his contributions to culture in 2008, along with other prizes around the world.
One of the most important European composers, Dutch artist and the author of contemporary operas: Michel van der Aa, will be honoured at the festival. Van der Aa, whose adaptation of The Book of Disquiet , a work of the Portuguese modernist Fernando Pessoa, is a starting point for a hypnotic film, music and theatre performance. The part of the narrator will be played by the wonderful actor Klaus Maria Brandauer.
From its very beginnings, the festival has strived to make an impact in the city's public space. This time, the talented Polish artist
Krzysztof Wodiczko will exhibit an installation in the form of a public projection, prepared specifically for the festival.
At the Festival Club at the Arsenal, every evening, concerts presenting bands from the alternative music scene will take place, featuring artists from Turkey and beyond.
For the detailed film programme go to:
www.enh.plSource:
www.enh.pl