Since this year is the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, the Representation of the European Commission in Malta will be hosting the annual European Film Festival at the St James cinema. This year's festival will be the 10th edition. It will open on April 12 and run for almost four weeks, ending on May 8, effectively making this edition the longest film festival ever hosted.
The event will see the participation of film directors and producers from most member states in the European Union. However, to link this event to the celebration of diversity the festival has also been extended to include films sourced from other continents.
Therefore St James will also be hosting films from Egypt, Australia, China, Austria, Belgium and the US.
Each day will be dedicated to a film from a different country and all film shows will start at 8.30 p.m., with no intervals.
Appropriately the festival will be opened with the screening of Malta's own representative production, Engelbert Grech's impressive World War II documentary Heroes in the Sky.
On April 24 and 25 there will be a special screening for school children of Roberto Benigni's award-winning film Life is Beautiful to be followed by animated workshops. In the evening of April 24 there will be a programme of Maltese short films, followed by a forum discussion with the participation of three foreign film directors.
Two days later Media Desk Malta will hold a morning workshop on film funding, development and production. On
May 4 a selection of six short feature films by students from the renowned Polish National Film School in Lodz will be screened at St James.
The festival also extends to Gozo, where on May 2 and 3 two films, one from Finland and another from the UK, will be screened for Gozitan audiences. The screenings will commence at 7 p.m. Among some of the exceptional films to be shown at the festival are Slovakian director Miloslav Luther's Escape to Budapest. This 2002 feature is a psychological love story set in the 1920s, at the time when Czechoslovakia has just been born as a nation.
From Germany is Wer früher stirbt, ist länger tot. A first-time movie from Marcus H. Rosenmüller, its protagonist is 11-year-old Sebastien, who believes he is responsible for his mother's death.The film deals with the unusual way he copes with his feelings of guilt.
The Lebanese-born Swedish writer and director Josef Fares also has an entry. It is his semi-autobiographical feature Zozo. Set in war-ravaged 1980s Beirut, Zozo is a young lad who is about to be evacuated to Sweden with his family. Fate takes a cruel turn when his family's Beirut apartment is shelled and he is the family's sole survivor.
The first half of the film shows Zozo trying to get to the airport to catch his flight to Sweden, while the second half shows the boy adjusting to life after being taken in by his hysterically bickering grandparents in the Scandinavian country.
Another interesting movie on offer at the festival comes from Cyprus. It is writer/director Marinos Kartikkis's Honey and Wine. The heroine Eleni lives alone haunted by memories of the past. Her life is rather dull, until she witnesses a quarrel between a young couple in the house across the street. One afternoon, Eleni receives an unexpected visit from Rhea, the young woman from that house. She has locked herself out and needs to use Eleni's phone in order to call a locksmith. And so begins a relationship between the two women with unforeseen consequences for them both.
The European Film Festival 2008 will be - by a long way - the most important and exciting festival of films ever to have been staged on our islands. And it represents one of the more positive aspects of joining the EU.
The event will see the participation of film directors and producers from most member states in the European Union. However, to link this event to the celebration of diversity the festival has also been extended to include films sourced from other continents.
Therefore St James will also be hosting films from Egypt, Australia, China, Austria, Belgium and the US.
Each day will be dedicated to a film from a different country and all film shows will start at 8.30 p.m., with no intervals.
Appropriately the festival will be opened with the screening of Malta's own representative production, Engelbert Grech's impressive World War II documentary Heroes in the Sky.
On April 24 and 25 there will be a special screening for school children of Roberto Benigni's award-winning film Life is Beautiful to be followed by animated workshops. In the evening of April 24 there will be a programme of Maltese short films, followed by a forum discussion with the participation of three foreign film directors.
Two days later Media Desk Malta will hold a morning workshop on film funding, development and production. On
May 4 a selection of six short feature films by students from the renowned Polish National Film School in Lodz will be screened at St James.
The festival also extends to Gozo, where on May 2 and 3 two films, one from Finland and another from the UK, will be screened for Gozitan audiences. The screenings will commence at 7 p.m. Among some of the exceptional films to be shown at the festival are Slovakian director Miloslav Luther's Escape to Budapest. This 2002 feature is a psychological love story set in the 1920s, at the time when Czechoslovakia has just been born as a nation.
From Germany is Wer früher stirbt, ist länger tot. A first-time movie from Marcus H. Rosenmüller, its protagonist is 11-year-old Sebastien, who believes he is responsible for his mother's death.The film deals with the unusual way he copes with his feelings of guilt.
The Lebanese-born Swedish writer and director Josef Fares also has an entry. It is his semi-autobiographical feature Zozo. Set in war-ravaged 1980s Beirut, Zozo is a young lad who is about to be evacuated to Sweden with his family. Fate takes a cruel turn when his family's Beirut apartment is shelled and he is the family's sole survivor.
The first half of the film shows Zozo trying to get to the airport to catch his flight to Sweden, while the second half shows the boy adjusting to life after being taken in by his hysterically bickering grandparents in the Scandinavian country.
Another interesting movie on offer at the festival comes from Cyprus. It is writer/director Marinos Kartikkis's Honey and Wine. The heroine Eleni lives alone haunted by memories of the past. Her life is rather dull, until she witnesses a quarrel between a young couple in the house across the street. One afternoon, Eleni receives an unexpected visit from Rhea, the young woman from that house. She has locked herself out and needs to use Eleni's phone in order to call a locksmith. And so begins a relationship between the two women with unforeseen consequences for them both.
The European Film Festival 2008 will be - by a long way - the most important and exciting festival of films ever to have been staged on our islands. And it represents one of the more positive aspects of joining the EU.