Luxembourg City Film Festival

The organising team of the Luxembourg City Film Festival is delighted to announce the artistic content of the fifth festival edition , which will take place from 26 February to 8 March 2015 in the City of Luxembourg at CINÉ UTOPIA, the CINÉMATHÈQUE DE LA VILLE DE LUXEMBOURG, UTOPOLIS-KIRCHBERG, CERCLE CITÉ and many cultural partner institutions in Luxembourg.

A NEW IDENTITY 

Born as Discovery Zone – Luxembourg City Film Festival in 2011, Luxembourg's official film festival has chosen to shorten and simplify its denomination to give it a better international visibility. The new graphic design has been entrusted to the Michel Welfringer agency, responsible among other things for the logo of the Cannes Directors' Fortnight.

TIM BURTON TO OPEN, DONATO ROTUNNO TO CLOSE 

BIG EYES (Tim Burton) and BABY(A)LONE (Donato Rotunno) will bookend the festival, emphasizing its two primary aspirations : offering a panorama of contemporary cinema and promoting the Luxembourg cinema.

OFFICIAL COMPETITION: HEADLINE TITLES 

In a difficult international context with festivals fighting tooth and nail for the hottest new films– the Artistic Committee in charge of the festival's programme is particularly proud to have secured some most recent and emblematic films of contemporary cinema. Thus,WHILE WE'RE YOUNG, directed by Noah Baumbach (FRANCES HA), combines a Hollywood A-list cast (Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts…) with an innovative screenplay. After showing CLOSED CURTAIN two years ago, the Festival remains faithful to the banned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who is directing himself as a TAXI driver, his latest refreshing film, which will make its international début in Luxembourg a few days after the world première in Berlin. Central and Eastern Europe is particularly well represented this year, with the Kosovar Oscar-candidate THREE WINDOWS AND A HANGING, the astonishing animation project by the Latvian Signe Baumane, ROCKS IN MY POCKETS, and the Bulgarian THE LESSON (Kristina Grozeva, Peter Valchanov), which is currently winning acclaim on the festival circuit. Still further to the east, TEST bears witness to the strong visual power of current Russian cinema. From territories more regularly covered by the festival comes the Argentinian Chicago Prize winner REFUGIADO (Diego Lehrman), the highly original BLIND by Norwegian director Eskil Vogt and the smashing Greek film A BLAST whose director Syllas Tzoumerkas and main actress Angeliki Papoulia will make the journey to Luxembourg, The latest entry, German-Swiss production DORA OR THE SEXUAL NEUROSES OF OUR PARENTS (Stina Werenfels), will add a touch of spice to the competition.

THE DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION 

Two years ago, THE ACT OF KILLING drew you into a whirlwind of emotions. It was thus logical for this year's festival to welcome THE LOOK OF SILENCE, the second chapter in Joshua Oppenheimer's exploration of the anti-Communist purge that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths in Indonesia. A prize-winner at Sundance just a few days ago, PERVERT PARK examines the lives of a handful of Americans condemned for sex crimes. The same country is home to Joe Arpaio, the most controversial sheriff in the United States. THE JOE SHOW (Randy Murray) is entirely devoted to this iconoclastic figure. Graphic artists who have chosen to make their mark on the façades of Sao Paulo's buildings, the PIXADORES (Amir Arsames Escandari) follows these unruly daredevils from the favelas….to Berlin. In the disturbing WAR OF LIES, Mathias Bittner, puts the blame for the American-Iraqi conflict on one single man, whereas Alexander Nanau draws a powerful and bigger than life portrait of the children of a Roma family in TOTO AND HIS SISTERS.

AWARDS 

Two awards, the GRAND PRIX - BY ORANGE, worth €10,000, and the DOCUMENTARY AWARD - BY BGL BNP PARIBAS, worth €5,000, will be unveiled together with the YOUTH JURY PRIZE at the festival closing ceremony on 7 March (Utopolis, Kirchberg). For the first time, the Luxembourg film critics' association will award their own CRITICS' AWARD.



THE JURIES 

The Franco-Luxembourg journalist, radio host,and TV writer-director STEPHANE BERN has agreed to be part of the jury, alongside DESIRÉE NOSBUSCH, actress, presenter and director from Luxembourg. After showing his magnificent first film, MOURNING at the festival in 2012, the Iranian director MORTEZA FARSHBAF – who has just completed his second feature – will be back this time as a member of the jury. Co-starring with Jean Dujardin in OSS 117: RIO NE RÉPOND PLUS (OSS 117: LOST IN RIO), and known for her role in LES PETITS MOUCHOIRS (LITTLE WHITE LIES) by Guillaume Canet, LOUISE MONOT will return to Luxembourg, where she filmed PLAN DE TABLE. The jury will be completed by Ireland’s EITHNE O’NEIL, the experienced filmcritic of the renowned French film magazine POSITIF and SAÏD TAGHMAOUI, Actor. The Film LA HAINE earned him a César Award nomination for Most Promising Actor. He has since pursued an international career.

 

THE DOCUMENTARY JURY 

The French documentary producer ALAIN ESMERY will work together with the Belgian producer WILLY PERELSZTEJN and the producer, director and ex-manager of the Institut européen de cinéma et de l'audiovisuel (European cinema and audiovisual institute) in Nancy, REGIS LATOUCHE to select the best documentary film. They will be joined by NIELS VAN KOEVORDEN and SABINE LUBBE BAKKER, the directors of NE ME QUITTE PAS, which won the documentary competition last year.

 

OFFICIAL SELECTION – OUT OF COMPETITION 

A host of films chosen for their inventiveness, originality or importance in the contemporary cinema will complete the programme. 52 TUESDAYS bridges the gap between the young audiences programme and the general programme. An Iranian art-house tour de force, A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT follows a vampire in a chador in her terrifying nocturnal wanderings. The Luxembourg actress Vicky Krieps can be seen as THE CHAMBERMAID LYNN for which she has already received several acting awards. After a satirical comedy about a black students’ activism (DEAR WHITE PEOPLE), drone warfare (GOOD KILL), prepare for shudders with the latest release from Tetsuya Nakashima (THE WORLD OF KANAKO) and hold on to your seat at a film that won two awards last weekend at the Gérardmer fantasy film festival, GOODNIGHT MOMMY.

ENCOUNTERS WITH AUDIENCES AND FILM PROFESSIONALS 

We will be making the most of Morteza Farshbaf's presence in the jury and invite him to a conversation about Iranian cinema, followed by a screening of the Persian thriller MELBOURNE. We will also have the honour of collaborating for the first time with the United Nations and present a film of their CINE-ONU programme, THE SUPREME PRICE, which examines the situation of women in Nigeria. The Academy Award winner production designer ALLAN STARSKI (“Schindler’s List”) will show Polanski’s OLIVER TWIST after his masterclass. And you mustn’t miss the conference on transmedia storytelling with a case study of the prize-winning SOUNDHUNTERS (A-Bahn) nor the 9th NISI MASA EUROPEAN SHORT PITCH co-production forum.

 

FILMS FROM LUXEMBOURG 

Apart from Donato Rotunno’s BABY(A)LONE that will close the festival, films from Luxembourg are well represented this year. BLACK HARVEST (Jean-Louis Schuller, Sean Clark) is a documentary on fracking and the human migration it causes. Academy Award Nominee D'MELODIE VUM MIER (Tomm Moore), nominated has its Luxembourgish-language première. Another animation film produced by Mélusine, EXTRAORDINARY TALES (Raul Garcia) will finally be unveiled in its complete version. Having opened the recent MAX OPHÜLS festival, LES BRIGANDS (Frank Hoffmann, Pol Cruchten) will have its Luxembourg première in the presence of the directors and actor Tchéky Karyo. The highly acclaimed MELODY (Bernard Bellefroid), the touching OOOPS! DE NOAH ASS FORT… (Toby Genkel, Sean McCormack) and the family film SECRETS OF WAR (Dennis Bots) complete the Made in Luxembourg programme which also includes the eagerly awaited SHORT FILMS NIGHT.

 

AT THE HEADQUARTERS AND OUTSIDE THE WALLS 

The "Ratskeller" exhibition space at Cercle Cité in the heart of Luxembourg-City will become an ideal meeting place inbetween screenings, hosting the URBAN "POP-UP" BAR. Here you can admire the exhibition MELANCHOLIC DISLOCATION by Martine Feipel and Jean Bechameil, produced jointly by LUXEMBOURG CITY FILM FESTIVAL and CERCLE CITE.

The festival also extends OUTSIDE THE WALLS. 

The CARRÉROTONDES will welcome TRAINS OF THOUGHTS, a CinéLive event with the Austrian group SOFA SURFERS, as well as the 20TH ANNIVERSARY PARTY of TARANTULA. The CASINO LUXEMBOURG – FORUM D’ART CONTEMPORAIN will come to CINÉ UTOPIA to present THE SCORPION’S STING, an artistic short film project inspired by LUIS BUNUEL's L’ÂGE D’OR. NEIMËNSTER will host the screening of I AM FEMEN, a documentary by Alain Margot about the militant feminist group, in the presence of Oksana Shachko, one of its founders. MUDAM invites you to a screening of EPISODE OF THE SEA, an astonishing documentary film by two artists, Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan, who examine the lives of the population of a peninsula undergoing a profound transformation.

 

YOUNG AUDIENCES 

We have already received over 4,000 school registrations for the Young Audiences films and workshops. The festival has always made young audiences one of its main priorities, and there was a massive response from schools.

 

SPONSORS 

The event's major institutional sponsors are the Ministry of Culture and the City of Luxembourg. The main private sponsor of the festival is the UTOPIA S.A. group. The Centre national de l'audiovisuel, the Cinémathèque de la Ville de Luxembourg, Film Fund Luxembourg and several associations of film professionals are all jointly supporting this fifth festival edition. 

The festival is also proud to renew its partnerships with its official sponsors ORANGE Luxembourg and BGL BNP PARIBAS and happy to be able to rely on its historic supporters, the CHAMBRE DE COMMERCE, MERCEDES-BENZ LUXEMBOURG, LUXAIR, Imprimerie FABER and CERCLE CITÉ.

 

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