Tuesday, 17 October 2017 00:00 |
Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival completes the Official Selection lineup with eleven new titles
Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival adds ten films to the previously announced eight that will compete in the Official Selection (formerly called the Main Competition) for the festival’s Grand Prix and one film that will be screened out of competition.
Ten of the films in the competition line-up will have their world, seven their international and one its European premiere. Eight films are from Europe, seven from Asia, two have been made in the US and one in South America.
‘We are especially excited about the selection of countries and it is nice to have both, an Estonian and Finnish film in the competition for the first time since we were accredited by FIAPF to hold the international competition two years ago.’
Adding to the eight films that were announced on the XXX of September the selection will include the world premiere of The Ball by Italian director Pasquale Scimeca whose previous films have been screened at Venice, Toronto, Locarno and Busan. The Ball is his take on the refugee crisis, telling the tale of a brother and sister, forced to leave their home village in search of a better life, thus becoming a statistic in the phenomenon that defines our era.
Marc Recha, the renowned Spanish director who was nominated for the Palme d’Or with his film Pau and His Brother, presents the world premiere of La Vida Lliure, a visual poem to the island of Menorca, experienced through the eyes of two children sent there during the First World War.
Swiss director Christine Repond’s second feature film Vacuum is a psychological drama with a disturbing, yet a shockingly realistic premise: right before her 35th wedding anniversary, Meredith, happy with her life and marriage, discovers that she is HIV positive.
Boldly blending social satire and drama with mythology and sci fi, Ukrainian director Volodymyr Tykhyy dissects in his second feature film The Gateway the ruptures caused by the Chernobyl disaster and the radiation, socio-economical turmoil and legends it left behind.
Turkish director Pelin Esmer who has previously won awards at festivals such as Tribeca, Istanbul and Fribourg, studies the complex question of euthanasia through a lush visual style and a playful narrative involving a poetess and a young nurse, in her third feature film Something Useful.
Having been nominated for the Nika award with his first two films, Kyrgyzstani director Temirbek Birnazarov presents his third film Night Accident, a minimalist yet poetical tale of an old man regaining meaning in his life after hitting a mysterious young woman with his motorcycle one night.
While being a slasher horror film in form, Israeli genre film director Eitan Gafny comments on some disturbing tendencies in Israeli society with his third feature film Children of the Fall. A young American goes to discover her jewish roots and becomes a volunteer at a kibbutz, only to have a terrifying encounter with xenophobic locals.
A two-time nominee of the Hollywood Film Awards, Adam Christian Clark presents his third feature film Newly Single. Having written the script and acted the lead part, Clark has created a portrait of a broken hero of our time, a filmmaker in his 30’s facing a professional crisis and experiencing the destructiveness of trying to comply with the norms of contemporary masculinity.
Having formerly worked for years as the DOP on projects such as Monster (2003), director Steven Bernstein presents his second feature Dominion, a vivid portrait of a true rockstar of poetry, the welshman Dylan Thomas, whose problem with alcohol was as notorious as his talent. Thomas is brilliantly portrayed by Rhys Ifans, while John Malkovich offers strong support in the role of Thomas’ physician. Offering a shrewd portrait into the effects of poverty on consumer culture in Colombia, director Carlos Osuna studies in The Contestant the devastating effects of consumer campaigns on financially insecure groups in society. We follow Christobal, an aimless young man, as he spends the day in a queue alongside thousands of others waiting for the free pressure cookers that a company has promised.
Official Selection - In Competition
The tickets for the first screenings of all the films will go on sale on the 17th October. The premieres of the Official Selection will be screened between the 23rd of November and the 1st of December.
Website: www.poff.ee
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