Fribourg a Festival at the Interface Between Cultures

For the 27th time, Fribourg turns itself into a melting pot of international cinematography. The programme comprises some 90 feature films and 20 shorts from 45 countries. The centrepiece of the festival is the International Competition involving twelve films. But at the same time, the Parallel Sections successfully introduced last year have also been given a prominent position in the programme: sport in international film-making past and present, or a programme comprising films in which children are left to fend for themselves in emergency and crisis situations, and also numerous focal points of cultural interchange: director Atom Egoyan brings Armenia to Fribourg, Uzbekistan's astonishingly diverse cinematic creativity is on show and South Korea is well represented in several programme sections. But the Swiss film sector is also in active dialogue with the world – the programme includes domestic creations filmed abroad, as well as international productions for which Switzerland provided the setting.

Established Masters and New Discoveries

The International Competition and the short-film programme have been the lynchpin of the festival for over three decades. They draw films from talented young creators and established scriptwriters from all over the world, making these venues a platform for extraordinary discoveries and occasionally even the springboard for promising careers. In parallel, the programme includes thematic sections focussing on topics that change from year to year.

Escape to Victory! explores the world of sport on film, ice-hockey in India, table tennis in Korea, football in Latin America, curling in Norway and more. Some twenty, mainly contemporary, previously unpublished sport films reflect themes of our time, principally centred on the question of how to make the breakthrough in a world in crisis. The bold, self-assured Indian production One More (2012) by Shivajee Chandrabhushan will bring this to the silver screen at its world première in Fribourg. A frozen pond becomes the ice-rink for the very first ice-hockey team in Ladakh. The big challenge is already on its way: the first match against a North-American team.

Children are especially sensitive in their reactions to crises. In the Decryption section, the FIFF presents eleven poignant films, most of them previously unknown in Switzerland, in which children are left to fend for themselves and have to learn to cope with catastrophes, strokes of fate or parental neglect. Thus Benjamin Avila's Infancia Clandestina (2011), for example, which was awarded ten Argentinian “Oscars”, looks back on the Argentina of the 1970s. The film tells the story of Benjamin himself, whose childhood was shaped by torture and death, due to his parents’ membership of the movement opposing the dictatorial regime.

In the Diaspora section, Canadian director Atom Egoyan presents a personal selection of films that he himself, together with the Armenian community in exile, likes to watch to remember his roots and recall the past with a certain nostalgia. Further programmes are being compiled by Anaïs Emery, Artistic Director of the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (NIFFF) and the Belgian film-maker Bouli Lanners, while in the Hommage à… section, films from the World Cinema Foundation, established by Martin Scorsese in 2007, are presented. This year, in the Terra Incognita section, there will also be the chance to discover Uzbekistan’s astonishingly complex and exciting film industry. But there is more: on www.fiff.ch you can find in a separate outline programme giving details of all the other central themes of the Festival 2013.

Innovations: Midnight Screenings and www.lekino.ch

Last year, FIFF's programming lasted late into the night for the first time, and presented three Midnight Screenings. They were such a success that, this year, FIFF is making every midnight a cinematic event and showing eight contemporary films that only rarely find their way to general release, in spite of their cult potential and mainstream character. Final Cut (Hungary, 2012) by György Pálfi has already been shown at the Festival de Cannes. Now FIFF has chosen this film, a wonderful love story that at the same time reviews the history of film with the lightest of touches, and is bringing it to Fribourg for a midnight showing.

With its midnight screenings, FIFF successfully attracted a completely new section of the public, mainly young and accustomed to the Internet, generally used to watching films online on the computer screen rather than in the cinema. FIFF has reacted to this phenomenon of our time, and is the first festival in Switzerland to publish its programme on the Internet. Thus www.lekino.ch is more or less an extension of the festival's programme on the Net. It shows classical works and benchmark films, primarily from the sports film category, that best complement the films currently on the cinema screens. Shortly before the festival, a few FIFF highlights from recent years will also be accessible on www.lekino.ch.

The Young Audience

This year, the new FIFFamily programme is celebrating a premiere and inviting the whole family to visit the cinema together. The focus will be on a different country each year, starting with India. Three films will be screened – a really special high spot will be an animated feature film that has already received several nominations and has been screened at numerous international festivals, Arjun: The Warrior Prince (India 2012) by Arnab Chaudhuri, a film that also marks a meeting of Indian cinema with Hollywood.

The schools programme – a traditional treat for over 8,000 German- and French-speaking children and young people throughout the region – will have a prominent position in the FIFF programme. FIFF will once more be collaborating with Netzwerk Cinema CH to make a further training opportunity available to teachers and will be making teaching resource kits available for download.

The Festival in Figures

This year, over 30,000 spectators are once again expected to make the pilgrimage to central Switzerland for a week of discovery of international talented upcoming creators, established scriptwriters and films that otherwise rarely make their appearance in official cinema programmes. FIFF is not only proud of its public and the domestic film sector; it is also expecting some 40 invited guests from the international scene. The festival budget of 1.9 million Swiss francs is made up of substantial contributions from its institutional partners, sponsors' contributions and admission charges.

Save the Date

Mark the date in your diary now: Wednesday, 27 February 2013! That is the day of our media conference, at 10:30 a.m., where the detailed schedule will be announced, with over 100 films on the programme. Of course, we shall also disclose the twelve long-awaited international competition films. The Bern preview will take place this year on Thursday, 12th March at 6:15 p.m., in CinéMovie1. Here, we present our exclusive screening of Infancia Clandestina (2011) by Benjamin Avila. Separate invitations to these events will follow.

FIFF 2013

The Fribourg International Film Festival takes place this year in the week 16–23 March 2013.