NexT IFF 2015
After last year’s successful edition, NexT International Film Festival brings a unique selection of films, masterclasses, workshops and more from the 15th to 19th of April, at Studio Cinema, Cinema Elvire Popesco, CinemaPRO and the Romanian Cultural Institute, in Control Club, J’ai Bistro, ArCuB, Cărturești, Garajul Ciclop, with a warm-up in Control Club on April 1st, presenting a sample of this year’s selection, in a free-entrance night with movies from different sections, and a party. Created in the memory of two talented filmmakers, director Cristian Nemescu and sound designer Andrei Toncu, NexT continues to discover new names and perspectives in cinema.
36 shorts are competing for the awards of the festival
146 films are part of this year’s program and 36 of them competing for the awards of the festival, in the international and national competitions, after a selection from 3500 shorts by critics Irina Trocan and Andrei Rus.
The International Competition features 24 films from 17 countries including Spain, France, Portugal, Belgium, Israel, Poland, Argentina, Canada and more.
The viewers will enjoy a romantic comedy “until the sad end” – She Was Like, He Was Like, a horror with puppets and exorcism – Ancha es Castilla, an absurd and courageous “cine-tract”, with three women outraged by the scandal of the financial crisis – Et que ça saute!, conjugal dramas and falling in love, an unusual story about those who suffer from electromagnetic hyper sensibility – Quiet Zone, or an app that brings you the girl of your dreams – 97%. Two Romanian movies enter the competition: In Which the Protagonist Hides and Then Has an Unexpected Encounter, by Tudor Cristian Jurgiu and Honeymoon by Sebastian Mihăilescu.
The Jury of the International Competition is formed of Ewa Puszczynska (Poland), the producer of the movie Ida, recently awarded with an Oscar, Edvinas Pukšta (Estonia), in charge of the selection of the Vilnius International Film Festival, Michał Oleszczyk (Poland), film critic and researcher, the director of the Gdynia Film Festival, the film director Ana Lungu (Self-Portrait of a Dutiful Daughter), the writer and film critic François Bonenfant (France), the journalist and musician Maria Balabaș, the film director Eduardo Williams (Argentina), winner of the award for best soundtrack from last year, with The Sound of the Stars Dazes Me.
The National Competition includes 12 shorts, among which the latest short by Gabriel Achim, Rabbit Meat, the story of a 45 year old weight lifter who is looking for a partner by placing a matrimonial add, Bogdan Drumea returns with The Hoods, Paul Mureşan (recently featured) brings an animation, Baby Nap, and Ioana Flora and Alexandru Potocean are the protagonists of the movie Tie, directed by Marius Olteanu.
The Romanian films will be judged by Renate Roginas (Germany), manager of Villa Kult from Berlin, an innovative meeting place for international clients from different arts and media, and previously the PHARE program coordinator in the Romanian audiovisual sector, Agnès Wildenstein (France), one of the programmers of DocLisboa, and the animator Matei Branea, author of the visual identity of NexT.
David Cronenberg and avant-garde cinema
Two new sections will be introduced this year – Avant-garde and Behind the Scenes, while Arthouse Shorts makes a comeback after last year’s success.
In Avant-garde, moviegoers will rediscover the art of pure experiment, cinema working with the minds of the spectators through graphic means in order to amaze, intrigue, amuse and sharp their visual sense. The experiments are varied: Sun Song plays ingeniously with sunlight, Panchromes, with colored pixels, Cut Within recycles found footage, and Doing My Rounds, Checking Some Rounds transforms a feminine figure into a gracious and delicate graphic pattern.
Behind the Scenes will entice spectators that are curious about how movies are actually made. This section contains shorts that have as protagonists film directors, screenwriters, actors, projectionists etc., and the films vary from absurd comedy to desktop documentary.
One of the most appreciated programs from last year, Arthouse Shorts, has been specially created for established directors. This year, David Cronenberg brings The Nest, an earth shattering film about a woman’s obsession to surgically remove her left breast, the French cineaste Claire Denis minutely examines the life of a couple in Voila l’enchaînement, Albert Serra, winner of the Golden Leopard with Història de la meva mort (2013), brings a homage to Rainer Werner Fassbinder in Cuba Libre, and João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra da Mata catch in unforgettable images the unraveling of a Macao community in IEC Long, recently shown in Berlin.
Oscars Night
CinemaPRO / Friday, April 17th, at 20:30 h
All five shorts (live action) nominated this year at the American Film Academy Awards, including the winner of the award for Best Short Film, The Phone Call, directed by Mat Kirkby, will screen for the first time in Romania in a program provided by Shorts TV. Having received multiple awards, before the Oscar, The Phone Call presents British actress Sally Hawkins in an emotional role, the one of an employee working at a helpline call centre who engages in a conversation with a mysterious man (Jim Broadbent) that will change her life forever.
Aya, directed by Mihal Brezis and Oded Binnun, has been a real premiere in the film industry, being the first short film independently and successfully released in cinemas in Israel. In Parvaneh, a film by Iranian director Talkhon Hamzavi, a young Afghan girl goes to Zurich to send money to her parents and there she encounters a punk girl. In Boogaloo and Graham, by Michael Lennox, two kids having two chickens on their shoulders learn different stuff about life. And in the fascinating Butter Lamp, distinguished with several awards, director Hu Wei skillfully outlines a whole political image of Tibet.
Kung Fu, music and the best European short films
Kung Fu NexT consists of several action shorts parodying the Asian “fight movies” genre, with kung fu iconography, comedies that show how much this form of popular cinema has penetrated the culture. A new section, NexT Beat focuses on music, sounds and rhythm (Sunday, April 19th, 20:30 h, at Cinema Elvire Popesco), while Short Matters! is on tour this year as well, returning at NexT film festival. The best European short films, awarded at major festivals and nominated in 2014 at the European Film Awards (EFA) can be viewed in premiere in Bucharest, at the Romanian Cultural Institute, on Thursday, April 16th, at 18.00 h.
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Oscars Night tickets and subscriptions are for sale on www.eventbook.ro.
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