Tag: European cinema

European film brightens up this dark winter!

Posted on by victorfraga

We are delight to announce that the fifth edition of the ArteKino Festival will take place throughout the month of December, from the very first day of the month until the very last day of the year. This gives you plenty of time to enjoy the 10 films carefully selected exclusively for you. This is the fourth year that DMovies has teamed up with ArteKino in order to promote and bring to you 10 dirty gems of European cinema.

The online Festival is aimed at cinephiles from all over Europe who are seeking original, innovative and thought-provoking European productions. You can watch films on ArteKino’s dedicated website and also on ArteKino iOS and Android app (developed in conjunction with Festival Scope). Subtitles are available in ten different languages: English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and Ukrainian.

Once you have finished watching your favourite movies, you can rate them on a scale 1 to 5. The film with the highest score will receive the European Audience Award of €20,000. In addition, a jury of six to 10 young Europeans, aged between 18 and 25, will select a movie to win an award of €10,000. The young Europeans will be invited to Paris for the European Audience Award and the Young Public Award Ceremony in January.

There will also audience awards: one stay at the Locarno Film Festival, (accreditation, transport from their place of residence and accommodation on site) for one spectator, drawn at random from all those registered on the site who viewed and voted for at least 7 of the 10 films in the competition of the Festival; and 50 Google connected objects for 50 spectators, drawn at random from all those registered on the site who viewed and voted for at least 3 of the 10 films in the Festival competition.

ArteKino is supported of the Creative Europe Media Programme of the European Union. Below is a list of the 2020 selection, listed alphabetically. Click on the film title in order to accede to our exclusive review in here in order to accede to the ArteKino portal and watch your favourite European movies right now!

.

1. Cat in the Wall (Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova):

Documentarist duo Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova have switched from the confines of archival footage to a different style of storytelling. Bridging the gap between family comedy and drama, Mileva and Kazakova’s first fiction feature follows a Bulgarian single parent called Irina (Irina Atanasova). She is a mother eager to keep her son from the realities of a country that has voted to stop immigrants such as them. Surrounding her son with a select group of children, the diversity of race which educates her son feels at odds with the lifestyle their more affluent neighbours uphold. One family aches for universality, the other individuality, but both clash over the wonders a wandering cat brings to their homes.

.

2. Central Airport THF (Karim Ainouz):

For most people an airport is a transitory place. It is where they spend a few hours when they travel. Some might even stay overnight, if you miss your flight and are forced to sleep in the terminal (like it one happened to me once, and I wouldn’t recommend the experience to anyone). For refugees in Tempelhof Airport of Berlin, the transit is far more extensive. They can spend weeks, months or even years living in the hangars before their future is determined by German authorities. They come from places as varied as Syria, Afghanistan and the Donetsk region of the Ukraine.

Tempeholf is a magnificently ugly, oppressively calm and yet strangely liberating place. Central Airport THF quickly delves into the building history in the beginning of the film. Some sort of tour guide shows the gigantic building to attentive visitors. We learn that the Airport was originally built in the 1920s, and it was intended to become the world’s biggest and most impressive, had Hitler won the War. We are then abruptly brought back into the present, where the building is used as shelter for refugees.

.

3. Full Contact (David Veerbek):

This Dutch-Croatian film concerns the ethics of drone strikes and the toll it takes on those who operate them. Our focaliser is Ivan (Gregoire Colin), a French drone pilot working for the US military whose job calls for him to kill people on the other side of the world. Despite his remoteness, Ivan feels their presence on an acutely personal level. He wants to know their names and how to pronounce them. He traces his drone activity on Google Maps too, locating the buildings he’s destroyed. All of this, of course, results in self-flagellation.

.

4. Lessons of Love (Chiara Campara):

Italy, the country of renaissance, religion and rhetoric, is the subject of Chiara Campara’s quietly beautiful Lessons of Love, a story steeped in culture and contradiction. At the centre of this story is Yuri (Leonardo Lidi), a rural farmer searching for a meaning beyond the mouths of the cows who have fended him, much as he has fended them. At 30 years of age, Yuri is seasoned enough to have mastered the craft of farming, but still seems young enough to find love in a city even wilder than the animals he and his father hold. There, he meets Agata, a striptease artist anxious to open up his body to pleasures emanating beyond the physical.

.

5. Love Me Tender (Klaudia Reynicke):

In this Swiss dramedy, Seconda (Barbara Giordano) is in the depths of agoraphobia, living in a cramped apartment with her mother and father, both of them dejected by her presence. We see only a glimpse of how they interact, but it seems that Seconda spends her time either sleeping or prancing excitedly as part of some hyperactive exercise regimen.

She has no qualms about her presentation either, darting around in only knickers and a leotard, which she adjusts – her right leg hoisted on an armchair – in full view of the camera. We also see her floss her teeth and smell the gunk afterwards. Then there’s the moment Seconda picks her nose as she receives a phone call from Henry (Gilles Privat), a demented admirer who professes his love for her ‘swan like elegant gestures’, such is the film’s dry, earthy sense of humour.

The picture at the top of this article is from Love Me Tender.

.

6. Motherland (Tomas Vengris):

Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992, a woman returns to her native Lithuania to reclaim her family home. It has been 20 years since Viktorija (Severija Janusauskaite) fled, escaping to America where she married and began a new life. Now weary from her divorce and driven by nostalgic memories, she returns with her American-born son, Kovas (Matas Metlevski), who naively believes they’ll soon be returning to the U.S. In spite of her family’s scepticism, she trusts that Romas (Darius Gumauskas), an old friend and romantic acquaintance can help her. Their plans however are complicated when they find a poor Russian family living out of the run down estate.

.

7. Ivana the Terrible (Ivana Mladenovic):

Ivana is perfectly healthy. Multiple trips to the doctor make sure that there’s absolutely nothing physically wrong with her. But she’s convinced of her own sickness. Constantly claiming her hair is falling out while complaining of dizziness, she might be the most memorable hypochondriac since Woody Allen’s Mickey in Hannah and her Sisters. Played with perfect irascibility by director Ivana Mladenovic, she lashes out at friend and family alike, providing a bristly portrait of a returning expat who really doesn’t enjoy being home.

Based on a true summer in 2017 of the Serbian-born, Romania-based director, when she returned to the border town of Kladovo, Ivana the Terrible provides the metafictional director with plenty of space for self-reflection and insight. It comments on the relations between the two Balkan nations with tenderness and acuity. There’s a lot to absorb that might goes over the head of those not well-versed in inter-Balkan relations.

.

8. Negative Numbers (Uta Beria):

Drawing on nearly five years of material, Beria showcases a vision of prison life far removed from the “hotels” Manny Ray promised his boss in Scarface (Brian de Palma, 1983). Instead, Beria opens our eyes to a Georgian hovel, underfunded and overcrowded, crowbarring more and more criminals into the detention centre. It’s here that we come across a pair of professional rugby players, eager to demonstrate a love of craft in a building where violence, vitriol and venom bring challenges unheard of on a rugby pitch. From somewhere between the prison bars and shadow shapes that amuse these men in their lonesome surroundings, comes a quietly beautiful tribute to a sport that unites millions around the world.

Crumbling beneath the weight of a fallen Soviet Union, the characters capture the fire that built the spiralling union by igniting a prison riot within the shelters of confinement.

.

9. Sebastian Tellier: Many Lives (Francois Valenza):

In the eternally recycled world of rockumentary, the artist in question – from the biting John Lydon to the wiry Robbie Robertson – aches to present themselves as the provocateur they spent a legion of fans persuading. Sebastien Tellier offers no such pretence, but revels in a confidence that crackles in a presence of dazzling ingenuity. Steeped in the mysticism of a ’70s Pink Floyd record, Tellier walked the tightrope between succinct and suicidal in a stage set that made headlines as much for its ambition as it did for the material.

.

10. Son of Sofia (Elina Psykou):

The year is 2004. The Olympic Games are finally returning to their birthplace of Greece. Along with the Russian Olympic team, Misha (Victor Khomut) arrives in Athens for the first time to be reunited with his mother. He is a true little Russian boy, with a Gera the Krokodil t-shirt and a Cheburashka doll affixed to his backpack, a reference to the two stars of the classic Soviet animation. Nervous to be in a new country, things turn worse when his mother Sofia (Valery Tscheplanowa) introduces him to his father-in-law Mr Nikos (Thanasis Papageorgiou).

Using the familial conflict genre while refracting it through dark fairy tales that reference both Greek and Russian traditions, Son of Sofia is a reflection on matters both domestic and national. The first sense we get that this relationship is somewhat transactional is reflected through Sofia’s marriage to Mr Nikos, who didn’t really marry him for love but in order to secure financial stability and as a means to get her son across to Greece.

We’ve walked a long, long way together!

Posted on by victorfraga

DMovies first joined forces with Under the Milky Way and The Film Agency in 2017. Our objective to reclaim the hidden gems of European film often overlooked. These movies are part of the Walk This Way project, which is funded by EU Media (a sub-programme of Creative Europe) and is aimed at fostering and promoting straight-to-VoD European cinema. The Film Agency is handling the PR and communications of the initiative.

According to Walk This Way coordinator Nolwenn Luca “Walk this Way defends the diversity of European documentary works. The public thanks to the programme have the chance to have access to films that they would not have been able to discover otherwise if they were not available in VoD”.

We renewed our partnership in 2018, helping to promote and take a different, refreshing look at cinema make in all corners of Europe. The 18 films this year ranged from Latvia to Spain, from the Netherlands to Italy, touching on topics as varied as painting (The Key to Dali), serial killers, (Profilers: Gaze into the Abyss), cooking (Step Up the Plate), disability (Life Feels Good), grieving (Tonio) and even a very dirty and twisted Santa Claus (Le Pere Noel). Check out all the details, exclusive reviews and how to watch these films by scrolling down.

And that’s not all. On October 26th, DMovies, Walk This Way and Infinita Productions held a very successful industry event in the heart of London, at the prestigious May Fair Hotel (which is also home to the London Critics’ Award). The event was entitled An Evening of Straight-to-VoD, and it included the screening of VoD hit Home (Fien Troch, 2016), a debate about the future of Straight-to-VoD and networking drinks. Find out the event’s key messages and learning curves by watching the video below:

Walk This Way, the Creative Europe MEDIA programme supported project, now closes 4th edition. Along the way, 39 right-holders have trusted the initiative to give visibility to a wealth of 156 European films, reaching audiences in 48 countries around the world. You can find out more about Walk This Way, key facts and figures in the infographic below:

And there’s more information in the video below:

And here is the full list of dirty gems released in 2018. Just click on the film title in order to accede to our exclusive film review!

…

.

1. 10 Billion (Valentin Thurn, 2015):

What will happen when the food runs out of food? Well, in his 2015 documentary Valentin Thurn places this very notion front and centre! Exploring the scientific, agricultural and environmental ways we can prevent global food shortages, all due to global warming, it’s not a feature filled with bias but educated solutions to an impending world problem. Globe jumping from India to England then Germany, the multifaceted nature of its tone makes the issues it is dealing with a tangible reality for the viewer.

.

2. A Symphony of Summits: The Alps from Above (Peter Bardehle and Sebastian Lindemann, 2016):

Part of Europe’s natural beauty, The Alps are towering force over every country they touch. Approaching the scope of the natural phenomena in a highly cinematic manner, directors Peter Bardehle and Sebastian Lindemann deploy a cineflex camera to capture every inch of its beauty in filmic splendour. Telling the tale of its history, socio-political and geographical story, the sweeping shots of the snow-tipped mountains interpolate you into its vistas. Accompanied by the Germanic tones of Emily Clarke-Brandt, man and nature are combined into one form.

3. The Key to Dali (David Fernández, 2016):

This Spanish documentary explores Tomeu L’Amo’s maverick purchase of surrealist artist, Salvador Dali’s, first work for a cut-price 25,000 Spanish pesetas in 1988 (£132 in today’s money). Scratching away at the persona of L’Amo, scenes from the documentary allude towards a recent trend of re-creating history or pastness through a post-modern reimagination. Though the elaborate nature of the man could shadow the work, what emerges is a contemporary discussion on elitism, to which is unearthed in many aspects of society. Unlike the recent retelling of the life of Van Gough in Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, 2017) it is undeniable that The Key to Dali is grounded in the real world, opening pathways for art fans or not into the world of painting.

.

4. Profilers: Gaze into the Abyss (Barbara Eder, 2015):

Adopting the same global view as 10 Billion (Valentin Thurn, 2015), Barbara Eder’s hard-hitting work on the men and women whose job it is to investigate killers does not any soft punches. Intertextually referencing The Silence Of The Lambs, (Jonathan Demme, 1991) in numerous conversations, the grotesque nature of the classic is expressed as a means of the verbal descriptions. Not venturing into sadistic footage of murders etc, this doc holds respect for the victims. A natural intuition, we as humans constantly seek to explain the un-explainable and Eder’s film elicits this notion poignantly..

.

5. Free Lunch Society (Christian Tod, 2017):

The concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been around in some form or another for over half a century, but in recent years it has grown so much in prominence that even entire countries are considering implementing it. Spanning both the hard left and the libertarian right, UBI is an Utopian idea that threatens the very ideals of what most consider to be the economic ordering of society. The latest film from Christian Tod considers the possibility of such a scheme, amassing a wide variety of politicians, activities and businessman to discuss its potential revolutionary aspects. The result is both a fine primer on the history of the scheme and a look forward towards how it may change the world we live in.

.

6. Home (Fien Troch, 2016):

17-year-old Kevin, sentenced for violent behaviour, is just let out of prison. To start anew, he moves in with his aunt and her family and begins an apprenticeship at her store. Quickly he adapts to his new home and gets along well with his cousin Sammy, in his last year of high school. Through Sammy and his friends, Kevin meets John. Upon discovering John’s unbearable situation with his mother, Kevin feels the urge to help his new friend. One evening fate intervenes and questions of betrayal, trust and loyalty start to direct their daily lives more than ever.

.

7. Mellow Mud (Renars Vimba, 2016):

Loneliness, disillusionment and the experience of first love reveal the character of Raya, a 17-year-old living in rural Latvia with her grandmother and her little brother Robis. A staggering turn of events shakes up their lives, and the young girl must come to decisions that even a grown woman would find difficult to make.

.

8. Bobbi Jene (Elira Lund, 2018):

Elvira Lind’s documentary profile of contemporary dancer Bobbi Jene Smith captures new beginnings, endings, and everything in between, and faces the fact that you can switch your life around at just about any time. Having left Guillard at 21 to join Israeli dance troupe Batsheva, we meet Bobbi in a state of arrested development, but about to change things. As a dancer her accomplishments are unparalleled, but she’s now 31 with a Kanken Backpack, a decade younger boyfriend, and little of her own agency.

.

9. Fair Play (Andrea Sedlácková, 2014):

Set set for both a personal and a political journey. From the moment we enter Irene (Anna Gieslerova) and Anna’s (Judit Bardos) apartment, we are clearly in Eastern Europe during the Communist era. The evocatively decorated surroundings with ‘pull out bed’ and utilitarian furnishings, the drab clothing and simple bread and cheese breakfast immerse us immediately in this world. The country is Czechoslovakia, and the decade is the 1980s. As Irene switches on the ‘Free Europe’ radio channel, we meet a woman who is willing to risk listening to forbidden news, glimpsing her position on the political system under which she is forced to exist. Mother and daughter share the extraordinary ability of elite athletes, giving them opportunities not afforded to most citizens.

Not available in the UK.

.

10. Fukushima, A Nuclear Story (Matteo Gagliardi, 2015):

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster on March 11th 2011 marked a turning point in the history of the Japan, when an earthquake followed by a tsunami hit the Tepco Nuclear Power Plant on the country’s Pacific coast. It was the first time in history that the Japanese government declared a nuclear emergency. It was also the first time ever Emperor Akihito spoke on television directly to his people. The last time an emperor broadcast a message live to his people was when his father Hirohito announced the end of WW2.

.

11. I Can Quit Whenever I Want (Sydney Sibilia, 2014):

This film is a clash between the “rise-and-fall” gangster genre and a traditional fish-out-of-water comedy. Director Sydney Sibilia does a great job of depicting his group of oddballs adapting to their new life. Plot-wise, comparisons to the TV series Breaking Bad are inevitable, but while the acclaimed TV series carefully built up its world block by block, I Can Quit Whenever I Want is a much looser affair. In fact, with all its hyper-specific nerd jokes, it is closer in tone to The Big Bang Theory. The mileage of these jokes will vary with how much you understand each subject.

.

12. One Wild Moment (Jean-François Richet, 2015):

It all starts like a conventional French comedy. Laurent (Vincent Cassel) and Antoine (François Cluzet) are old friends going on holiday with their daughters, Louna (Lola Le Lann) and Marie (Alice Isaaz). But initial appearances can be deceiving, as director Jean-François Richet has something far deeper on his mind. A remake of the 1977 film with the same title, One Wild Moment exploits the limits of male desire, offering up a queasy moral play with no easy answers. As the title suggests, the film is structured around one key incident; the seduction of Laurent by Louna by the beach during a party. She may be the one who has started it, but she is only 17 and his best friend’s daughter, making Laurent’s willingness to go along with it all that more problematic.

.

13. Heart of Glass (Jérôme de Gerlache, 2016):

They’ve chosen to name this work Heart of Glass, which evokes the existence of two widely-rcognised projects, the first typified from Joseph Conrad’s prose detailing the descent from maddening stance to madness, the other Blondie’s greatest song, one of the few New Wave records that sounds more contemporary with age. This Heart of Glass, on the other hand, shows how passionate work can saves lives and challenge the human experience in entirely novel ways, in the hands glass artist Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert.

.

14. Step Up to the Plate (Paul Lacoste, 2012):

An ensemble piece that combines fly-on-the-wall observation with lyrical reflections on the Bras family and food, plus a warm work that expertly depicts the passing of the baton– that’s probably the most succinct and accurate way of describing the documentary Step Up The Plate. The French title Entre Les Bras has a double meaning that’s impossible to translate: it means both “in your arms” and “amongst the Bras”.

It stars Michel Bras, owner of the the world-acclaimed three Michelin-star rated Bras restaurant in Laguiole, Southern France, and his son, Sebastien, who has worked in the restaurant for over 15 years and is being prepped to take over.

.

15. Life Feels Good (Maciek Piepryca, 2013):

Getting the disability biopic right can be a difficult task. Lean too hard on the struggle and it can feel exploitative, lead too hard on the sentimentality and it can feel mawkish. Life Feels Good, directed by Maciej Pieprzyca, manages to avoid these pitfalls to discover the deeply human story underneath. Depicting one Polish man’s struggle with cerebral palsy from 1987 to almost the present day, Life Feels Good is a heartwarming and uplifting tale that never softens the edges and is that much stronger for it.

.

16. Tonio (Paula Van Der Oest, 2016):

There is much to be made from death leading to life. Tonio (Chris Peters) is a 21-year-old finding joy through photography. His ambitious father, novel writer Adri (Pierre Bokma), has a differing view on life, while his wife Mirjam (Rifka Lodeizen) plays the peacekeeper in what still appears to be a functional family unit. The film cuts quickly to the untimely death Tonio undergoes and the grief his parents have to endure from now on. At times the film tries to find answers to grief, an unanswerable commotion, and the performances are stellar. A cutback to the past shows two new parents finding joy sleeping with their new baby.

1.

17. Father-Son Bootcamp (Emile Gaugreault, 2015):

Being a good father to a son is not an easy task. And neither is being a good son to a father. The bizarre and grotesque societal connotations of masculinity will often stand on the way of what should be a beautiful and tender relationship. As a result, fatherly love is often murky, sons are traumatised and whole notion of affection is mired in mud. Thankfully someone in France invented a father-son bootcamp where the two generations can reconnect through group therapy and bizarre activities. Well, actually the outcome isn’t as rosy as many would hope!

.

18. Santa Claus (Alexandre Coffre, 2014):

Nailing both the comic and sentimental sides of the festive farce, Le Père Noël is the perfect kind of holiday film to settle down to after a few mulled wines. Fun and tender in equal measure, it makes the most of its inspired conceit, cleverly pairing a career criminal with a young child slowly coming into contact with the cruel ways of the adult world. Key to the film’s mischievous sense of misdirection is its opening, layering different children’s Christmas wishes on top of each other. It lulls us into a false sense of security, thinking that this will be a very run-of-the-mill Christmas tale.