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European film festival at Spazju Kreattiv
European film festival at Spazju Kreattiv
Films hailing from all over Europe will be screened at Spazju Kreattiv this week, as part of a European film festival that’s being held. This is the first event organised by the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC), a network of organisations engaging in cultural relations.
The festival kicked off yesterday evening, starting with Romanian documentary Acasa, My Home by Radu Ciorniciuc. Shown in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the Sundance Film Festival, the feature is set in the wilderness of the Bucharest Delta, where nine children and their parents lived in perfect harmony with nature for 20 years. They are then chased out and forced to adapt and live in the big city.
This evening, at 7:30pm, to be precise, Arts Council Malta will be showing the Sundance-winning Maltese film Luzzu, written and directed by Alex Camilleri. The movie follows real-life fisherman Jesmark, as he risks everything to provide for this wife and newborn child as he enters Malta’s black market fishing industry. The film has been chosen as Malta’s Oscar contender for best international feature film at the 94th Academy awards and has won a myriad of awards thus far. Following the screening, there will be a Q&A session for the audience.
Thursday 11 November
L'Homme du Train still
Director Patrice Leconte
Tomorrow, Patrice Leconte, acclaimed French film director, actor and screenwriter will be leading a master class at 11am. The class will focus on the analysis of a sequence from one of the film he directed. By means of the exercise, Leconte will explain the choices he made when writing the film, creating the mise-en-scene, collaborating with production design and cinematographers and framing the action, as well as when working in the editing room on the soundtrack. The class is open to students of film, professional film-makers and everyone in between, even those who would just like to know more about the craft of directing a film.
Later in the evening, Leconte’s 2002 film L’Homme du Train will be shown later, at 7:30pm. The movie revolves around an old thief who rolls into a small French town with the aim of robbing a bank. However, a chance meeting with a local professor delays his scheme and leads to an unexpected friendship. The screening will also be followed by a Q&A session with the director himself.
Friday 12 November
Zu weit Weg
The Uncertain Kingdom
I never cry
On Friday, Germany will be represented by a film called Zu weit Weg (Too Far Away), by Sarah Winkenstette, which will be screened at 3pm. The movie revolves around 11-year-old Ben and his family, who have to leave their home village when a big company wants to mine coal in the area. In a new city, Ben meets the other new kid, 12-year-old Tariq, who fled the war in Syria.
Also showing is UK’s The Uncertain Kingdom: Volume II, at 5:30pm. Climate change, migration, disability, homelessness and sexuality are just some of the subjects explored in this second anthology of twenty short films from twenty directors, which together offer a unique snapshot of the UK in the year 2020.
The final movie being shown on the day is Poland’s I Never Cry (2020), by Piotr Domalewski. The film follows 17-year-old Olka as she travels to Ireland alone to bring her father’s body back to Poland, after he dies in an accident. Her primary concern, however, is to know whether or not he had saved enough to buy her a car as he had promised.
Saturday 13 November
Deep
Utopia Revisited
Figli
Moving on to Saturday’s screenings, which start at 3pm with Spanish film Deep, by Julio Soto. The animated movie is set in 2100, when humanity has abandoned planet earth and a colony of creatures thrives in the deepest abyss of the ocean. Their home is destroyed and some of the creatures embark on a perilous journey to find a new home. A Q&A session will follow.
A documentary called Utopia Revisited will also be screened at 5:30pm, Austria’s representation, by Kurt Langbein and Hendrik S. Schmitt. The documentary is a showcase of life-affirming positive examples of how a person can achieve a lot for sustainability with ideas and a sense of community.
The festival will come to an end on Saturday evening, with the last screening being Italian comedy Figli, by Giuseppe Bonito, at 8:30pm. The film stars Valerio Mastrandrea and Paola Cortellesi and tells a story of a coiuple whose life is turned upside down due to the arrival of a second child. The film will be followed by a Q&A session.
As it stands, the EUNIC Malta cluster is comprised of the Embassy of Austria for Malta, the Italian Cultural Institute, the British Council in Malta, Arts Council Malta, the Embassy of Spain in Malta, the Alliance Francaise de Malta – Mediterranee, the Embassy of Poland in Malta, the Embassy of Hungary and the French Embassy in Malta.
For more details and tickets, click here. All visitors must present a vaccine certificate at the point of entry and wear masks at all times.
