Sometimes you wonder if film festival juries watch the same movies as us ordinary mortals, however our selection for the Best of the Fests strand takes a consensus view from across the globe and we are sure that this group of films will both entertain and challenge.
We have two films from Down Under. The Dark Horse from New Zealand was that country's film of the year. It out-performed, in box office terms, anything released by its neighbour across the Tasman Sea and was well received at Festivals as diverse as Palm Springs and Rotterdam. That is not to say that Australia's The Infinite Man is in any way inferior – it won magnificent reviews at Festivals such as the South by South West in Austin, Texas.
Your Beauty is Worth Nothing is an Austrian film that deals with a newly-arrived Turkish family's struggle with day to day life in Vienna – it virtually swept the board of Golden Oranges at Antalya despite being the Director's Final Year project and Excuse my French survived the Egyptian censors before making it to the Festival circuit.
Stray Dogs left audiences and critics at the New York and Toronto Film Festivals mesmerised, and took the Grand Jury Prize from the panel at the Venice awards.
Class Enemy was also a winner at the Venice Festival and also played at Sevilla. The Venice Jury tends to like a dark film and this exploration of classroom dynamics promises to be up there with the best in the genre – you may remember The Wave at KFF14. The Venice critics (along with those at Sundance) also went for White Shadow an African tale of the perils faced by an albino boy.
The Retrieval is our offering from the USA. It too is a favourite of the Festival circuit, enjoyed by audiences in Deauville, New Orleans and Phoenix.
The real arbiter of what is a good film is you. Will any of these international favourites be good enough for a KFF Audience Award?
Never before screened in England, our opening film from New Zealand is an emotionally-charged and inspiring story of a man who has to overcome his own adversities to inspire a group of young people – through the unlikely medium of chess. We have enjoyed a number of powerful films from New Zealand such as The Piano and Whale Rider and The Dark Horse is sure to join that cannon of great films. One not to be missed.
Difret is based on a true story and tells of the experiences of a young girl who fights back against the traditional Ethiopian method of finding a bride – essentially kidnapping. In trying to escape she sets in motion consequences that bring the full weight of the tribal as well as judicial system against her. Defended by a female lawyer who hears about her case on the radio, Difret is a story about justice and the emerging place of women in a traditional society.
Described as a dark comedy, Excuse My French centres on Hany Abdullah Peter Soussa (Ahmed Dash), a young Egyptian Copt boy, who, after tragically losing his devoted and influential father, is uprooted from private education and enrolled in a state school. Overwhelmed by this new dog eat dog environment, Hany is mistaken for a Muslim by pupils and teachers alike and, for fear of being ostracised by his new peers, decides not to correct them on their assumption.
Director Amr Salama's screenplay for the film survived four rejections by the Egyptian censor of three successive governments before the final cut was approved for filming.
Set during the American Civil War, The Retrieval tells the story of three Afro-Americans and what they had to do in order to survive. This is a meticulously shot period drama that eschews battle scenes in favour of character development and is all the more powerful for it.
All the great world's cities contain pockets of different nationalities and in the case of Vancouver in the 1930s, this film focuses on the Japanese community, more specifically the Canadian-born first generation of Japanese immigrants, who started their own baseball team – the Vancouver Asahi.
Out-sized and out-muscled by their Caucasian opponents and in the face of racism and prejudice, the team rethinks its strategy and starts to find success.
Much more than a sporting underdog movie, The Vancouver Asahi goes on to explore the tensions between communities and between generations as World War II looms.
Please note that this film is now showing at 1pm in The Theatre By The Lake and not 1pm at The Alhambra as stated in the programme.
Many films feature a suicide and its aftermath but few, if any, do so in quite the way depicted byClass Enemy. Set in a school, the conduct of a new German teacher sets in train a sequence of events and speculation. This masterpiece not only shows the impact on those who claim to know the victim but also the lengths to which the establishment will go to protect its interests. Based on events witnessed and experienced by the director, although the story has been heavily fictionalised, this is a stunning piece of cinema.