SCREENINGS
Saturday July 5th
8.30pm - Cinema A - Press and Industry Screening
Sunday July 6th
6.30pm - Karlovy Vary Theatre - Official Screening
Monday July 7th
4.30pm - Lazne III - Official Screening
DCP – HD – 2014 – Serbia – 89min – Color – Teenage Drama
Directed by Ivan IKIĆ
Cast : Žejlko Markovi, Nenad Petrović, Jasna Djuričić, Mirko Vlahović, Marina Vodeničar
Original language: Serbian, English
Feb 17th 2008. Kosovo declares independence and Serbian government announces mass protests, so people could express their discontent. Luka, a troubled teenager on the verge of adulthood, lives in Mladenovac, a ruined ex-industrial town on the brinks of Belgrade, where, with his best friend Flash, he is a leader of local football club fans. During an unannounced visit by the social worker, Luka is faced with a family secret that his father, who was believed to have disappeared in Kosovo conflicts, is in fact alive and asking for him. Torn between family issues, the pressure of his ongoing parole and affection to a girl he can’t have, Luka loses his temper and breaks the leg of the local club’s top player. He is now under pursuit from people who seek revenge because of their ruined investment and even friends from his group take distance. The day of organized trip to Belgrade protests comes and Luka uses this opportunity to leave town. As hooligans demonstrate their rage in Belgrade streets, Luka gathers his strength to finally meet his father who abandoned him years ago.
Produced by SENSE Production (SRB), OR (MNE) & Restart (SLO)
Festival:
Karlovy Vary – Competition - East of the West Section
WIDE is also pleased to present its latest acquisitions and line-up from Eastern Europe and The Balkans
BEST OF THE EAST AND THE BALKANS
A PATRIOTIC MAN
Every nation gets the heroes it deserves
DCP - HD - 2014 – Finland/Croatia - 101min - Color - Drama
Directed by Arto Halonen
Cast: Martti Suosalo, Pamela Tola, Janne Reinikainen, Hannu-Pekka Björkman, Kari Ketoen, Mikko Kouki, Ben Johnson, Eppu Salminen, Kari Ketonen, Pirjo Lonka, Satu Paavola, Lauri Tikanan
Original Language: Finnish
In the 1980’s, Toivo is an unemployed typesetter. His wife Pirkko encourages him to do something useful, so he goes to donate blood. The blood astonishes the hospital nurse and quickly, the Finnish national ski team hires Toivo to join their technical division as a human blood-tank, leading Finland’s brightest star Aino skis to the top of the world rankings. When a disaster occurs, jeopardizing the Olympic Games goal, the Finnish team’s success is in Toivo’s hands…
Produced by ART Films Production
Festivals:
Seattle International Film Festival 2014 – Contemporary World cinema Section
THE MAN IN THE ORANGE JACKET
You are your own worst enemy
DCP - HD - 2014 - Latvia - 71min - Color - Thriller
Directed by Aik Karapetian
Cast: Maxim Lazarev, Anta Aizupe, Aris Rozentals
Original Language: Latvian
A young man is fired from his job at the sea port and begins to stalk his boss and his beautiful wife. After a blood chilling turn of events, he attempts to escape his past by moving into the lavish mansion previously owned by his boss. The embittered young man tries to assume a new identity and lead a luxurious life, but nothing will prepare him for an unsettling visit by a vaguely familiar guest. After that unnerving encounter, the house will no longer be a safe haven, becoming, instead, a twisted and dangerous trap haunted by menacing spirits.
Produced by Locomotive Production
Festivals:
Fantasia Film Festival - Competiion - Camera Lucida Section
ROSEVILLE
It's too late to be afraid
DCP - HD - 2014 - Bulgaria - 120min - Color – Horror Thriller
Directed by Martin Makariev
Cast: David Chokachi, Elena Petrova, Kalin Vrachanski, Lydia Indjova, Plamen Manassiev
Original Language: English/Bulgarian
On November 18th 1985, the police found four bodies in an isolated mountain hut in Roseville, Bulgaria. One of the guests, a man named Vasil, was missing and his whereabouts remain unknown as of today. The case is still labeled "unsolved crime."
The film is an artistic interpretation, a mix of horror and paranormal, based on direct and indirect police information.
Produced by Forward Pictures Ltd., Promotis Ltd., Camera Ltd. , Dream Team Ltd. , Modo Bulgaria, Band of Friends
Awards
Bulgarian Film academy awards:
- Best actor in a leading role (Plamen Manasiev)
- Best actress in a leading role (Lidia Indjova)
- Best production design
FIELD OF DOGS
A visionary love story based on a contemporary reading of Dante
DCP - HD - 2014 - Poland - 101mn - Color - Drama
Directed by Lech Majewski
Cast: Michael Tatarek, Elzbieta Okupska, Karolina Korta
Original Language: Polish, Italian
Father ploughs a supermarket with oxen, the plough ripping up tiles.
A girl in a bikini tempts the hero on the snowy slopes of the Matterhorn.
A forest full of the dead and Niagara falling onto a cathedral altar.
These are the visions of Adam, a poet who has lost his beloved one in a car crash. A national tragedy imposes on a personal one. It is 2010, a Biblical year for Poland with floods, fires, landslides and the catastrophe of the presidential plane being torn apart in mysterious circumstances along with the nation’s elite, 96 people on board.
Adam gives up his job as a professor of literature to work at a supermarket checkout. Yet all he wants is to sleep, escaping from his painful reality. For him the only text to read in these hard times is Divine Comedy. And it is Dante’s masterpiece that brings back some meaning to Adam’s life...
Produced by Angelus Silesius
With the participation of Polish Film Institute, Silesia Film, CG Home Video, Odeon Film Studio, 24 Media, Piramida Film, Bokomotive Film AB
By the award-winning and critically acclaimed video artist, producer and director Lech Majewskiwho directed the worldwide released film, The Mill & The Cross.
Festival:
Munich International Film Festival 2014 – International Independents Section
Odessa Film Festival 2014 – Official Competition
Special Screening in The National Gallery of London – 2014
Taipei Film Festival 2014 – Focus on the city of Warsaw Section
Moscow International Film Festival 2014 –Heavenly Euphoria Section
Istanbul International Film Festival 2014 – Masters Section
THE GAMBLER
Betting on patients. A dark and stylized moral descent
DCP - HD - 109 min - Lithuania/Latvia – Color - Drama
Directed by Ignas Jonynas
Cast : Vytautas Kaniusonis, Oona Mekas
Original language: Lithuanian
Vincentas is the best employee at the emergency services station, whose passion is gambling in different games. Whenever he faces some difficulties, the medic is forced to make radical decisions to return the debts. An idea strikes Vincentas to create an illegal game related to his profession. Financial matters keep on improving, but Vincentas is going to make a fateful choice. Love, life and death will be at stake.
Produced by Studio Uljana Kim and Locomotive Productions
Awards:
Lithuanian Silver Cranes 2014:
-Best Picture
-Best Director
-Best Actor
Festroia 2014 – Silver Dolphin – Best Script and Best Actor Vytautas Kaniusonis
Europe around Europe Festival 2014 – Special Jury Award
Warsaw Film Festival 2013 – Special Jury Award
COWBOYS
Life can be boring. But Western, never
DCP – HD - 2014 – Croatia – 104min – Color – Comedy
Directed by Tomislav MRŠIĆ
Cast: Saša Anočić, Živko Anočić, Matija Antolić, Kruno Klabučar, Hrvoje Barišić, Ivana Rushaidat,Rakan Rushaidat, Radovan Ruzdjak
Original language: Croatian
The film «Cowboys» is a comedy based on a Croatian hit theatre play. It is a story of eight outsiders who will try to create a theatre play while breaking every rule of theatre craft. It tells the story of Sasha, a relatively successful theatre director, who returns from the big city to his home town without a clear notion of what that change might bring, leaving behind his career to re-start the neglected local theatre. The call came from the mayor and Saša’s school colleagues. However, the play will be a succession of hurdles, as the city does not have any actors or anyone who would know anything about the theatre business. The candidates will all be amateurs, and as the play will seem even more impossible to set up, they settle on a common ground: Western.
Produced by KABINET (Croatia) & HRT (Croatian Radiotelevision)
Award:
Pula Film Festival 2013 – Golden Gate of Pula Audience Award
Festivals:
Festroia International Film Festival 2014 – Panorama Section
Shanghai International Film Festival 2014 – Spectrum Section
SUMMER SOLSTICE (PRE-SALES)
Beginning of summer, end of innocence
DCP - HD - 2014 – Poland/Germany - 95min - Color – Drama/Historical
Directed by Michal Rogalski
Cast: Filip Piotrowicz, Jonas Nay, Urszula Bogucka, Maria Semotiuk, Steffen Scheuman, Gerdy Zint, Bartłomiej Topa, Agnieszka Krukówna
Original Language: Polish, German
Poland, 1943. Four main characters are connected through a series of unusual events: ROMEK, a Polish boy from the village in which the action takes place; GUIDO, a German soldier serving in the village during the occupation; FRANKA, the daughter of a well-to-do local farmer; and BUNIA, a Jewish girl that escaped from a train on its way to a death camp. Each of them come across something that at the time is simultaneously a danger to and an escape from their harsh reality: love. Will they be able to hold on to their dreams while facing the horrors of their day and the uncertainty of their future?
Produced by Prasa & Film
Director’s statement:
The horrors of that war tend to overshadow the fact that, even then, people attempted to lead normal lives full of youthful joy, love, and fun. All this while behind the proverbial corner, monstrous crimes were being committed on a daily basis.
And here we are; almost seventy years after World War II. We want to wonder who those people were, that boy and that girl, and what they felt. It’s not enough to simply think that once “there was a war.”
PANAMA (PRE-SALES)
How social media, pornography and vanity can obstruct the true emotions of love
DCP - HD – 2014-2015 - Serbia - Color - Drama
Directed by Pavle Vučković
Cast: Slaven Doslo, Jovana Stojiljkovic, Milos Pjevac, Tamara Dragicevic, Nebojsa Milovanovic, Jelisaveta Orasanin
Original Language: Serbian
Jovan's life is all about clubbing and competing with his childhood friend, Milan, on who will get more girls. He lives alone, supported by his parents from abroad.
Among others, Jovan is seeing Maja, a seemingly ordinary, modest girl and he treats her in a casual manner, like the other girls he is dating.
The first impression of Maja changes when he sees home video clips posted on Maja's Internet page. Maja posts placemarks on the Internet, indicating certain spots in Belgrade. Jovan goes to the marked places, trying to uncover whatever Maja hides.
The passion between them grows stronger. His jealousy and possessive impulses disappear only when they are one, joined through passionate sex.
Suddenly he learns Maja has moved to Panama.
In shock, helpless, Jovan realizes that what he had with Maja was love.
Produced by Collapse Films
Director’s note
Panama depicts coming of age through a destructive love affair, it is an experience of emotional and subconscious levels of this kind of relationship. It portrays fear, pain and joy that appear when two lovers, spiritually, emotionally and physically bounded, suppress their emotions.
Panama describes how intimate relationships are affected by pornography and social networks.
WIDEHOUSE is pleased to present you a "best-of" selection of their catalogue
BEST-OF DOCS
THE CIRCLE
Love ain't a crime
DCP- HD - 2014 - Switzerland - 101min - Drama - Documentary
Directed by Stefan Haupt
Original Language: German
Zürich in the mid 50's: The young shy teacher Ernst Ostertag becomes a member of the gay organization DER KREIS. There he gets to know the transvestite star Röbi Rapp – and immediately falls head over heels in love with him.Röbi and Ernst live through the high point and the eventual decline of the organization, which, in the whole Europe, is seen as the symbol of gay emancipation. Ernst finds himself torn between his "bourgeois" existence and his commitment to homosexuality, for Röbi it is about his first serious love relationship. A relationship which will last a lifetime.From the present, the film looks back to the time when the “Mother” of all European homosexual organizations had its high point until it fell apart.While the repression against homosexuals became increasingly more intense in Zurich, two young and very different men fight for their love and – together with their friends – for gay rights.
Produced by Contrast Film
Awards:
Festroia Intl Film Festival - PRIZE MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT
30. Schwule Filmwoche – Audience Award
Torino Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2014: Award for the Best Feature Film
Boston LGBT 2014: Audience Award for Best Documentary
Berlin 2014: TEDDY AWARD - Best Documentary/ Essay Film
Berlin 2014: PANORAMA AUDIENCE AWARD
MAGICARENA
2000 years of history
200 years Giuseppe Verdi was born
100 years of Opera’s celebrations
1 Verdi's AIDA by La Fura dels Baus
DCP - HD - 2014 - Italy - 90min - Feature Documentary
Directed by Andrea Prandstraller, Niccolò Bruna
Original Language: Italian, Spanish
Marja, Filippo, Maggie, Massimo, Marco, Federico and Nadine, common yet extraordinary people, each with their own passionate connection to a very demanding lover: the Arena of Verona.
Faces you meet among the 2000-strong crowd working behind the scenes of the biggest opera theatre in the world, a temple to tradition. Their duty is to walk on stage once again, on a very special occasion: the Centenary's season debut in a new version made for the third millennium of Verdi's Aida, by the Spanish avant-garde geniuses Fura dels Baus.
Between innovation and tradition, from the winter selections for the chorus members to the much anticipated summer premiere, the everyday social and professional events in our heroes' lives mark the progressive completion of a magical world. An enjoyable balance between life on stage and behind the scenes, private life and public show, sacred enactment and secular entertainment, MAGICARENA reveals the art of Opera like never seen before.
Produced by LE TALEE & K+
ANNA'S GATE
A human approach for different children
DCP - HD - 2014 - France - 82min - Feature Documentary
Directed by Patrick Dumont & François Hebrard
Original Language: French
“Anna’s Gate” takes us in the life of a child psychiatric hospital in a group of kids with various mental disorders.
With no prejudices, without controversy either, we share the hard, titanic and profoundly human work that is accomplished daily by caregivers and educators.
The documentary reflects the joys and sorrows of those disabled teenagers. Through poetic images and music, the film places us in a sensitive state. Take the time to open Anna’s gate, to meet these young people with an extraordinary destiny, to share their perspective on the world.
Produced by Maybe Movies
BALLET BOYS
Being a teenager isn’t easy, being a ballet boy even less!
HD - 2014 - Norway - 73 & 58min - Feature Documentary
Directed by Kenneth Elvebakk
Original Language: Norwegian
Lukas, Syvert and Torgeir experience some very important years in the beginning of their ballet careers. But how do they deal with pressure from parents and teachers?
They face new challenges in ballet competitions throughout France and Sweden and the most important is the audition to enter the Norwegian Ballet Academy.
Out of the blue, Lukas is offered a try-out in the final audition at the Royal Ballet School in London, despite not having even applied! This may be his opportunity of a lifetime to secure his career.
During the course of four years we see those boys become young men, and friends being seperated. These kids sacrifice parties and friendships for school to fulfill their dreams, as admission to a ballet academy means everything to them.
Produced by Carsten Aanonsen (Indie Film)
