09/10/2009

For its 13th edition, the Münster Film Festival (October 7-11), which has been held biennially since 1981 and whose priority has always been to promote young talents, has chosen the theme of risk in all its forms for its various sections.

The European competition will present eight bold and politically-engaged titles (vying for the Best Director Award, worth €7,500), starting with the opening film, Dutch director Ludi Boeken’s Among Peasants [+see also:
trailer
film profile] . This French/German co-production (launched yesterday in Germany by 3L) is inspired by the memoirs of Jewish woman Marga Spiegel (played by Veronica Ferres), who was taken in by farmers in the Münster region and thus escaped the Holocaust.

The other European features in competition include titles that have already won acclaim: UK director Steve McQueen’s Cannes Camera d’Or winner Hunger [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laura Hastings-Smith Rob…
interview: Steve McQueen
film profile], about the hunger strike by Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) and nine other members of the IRA; Norwegian director Rune Denstad Langlo’s debut feature North [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rune Denstad Langlo
film profile], a snowy road movie; and Ruben Östlund’s Swedish film Involuntary [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Erik Hemmendorff
interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile], which explores the theme of the individual faced with social pressure.

Also competing for honours are Diederik van Rooijen’s Bollywood Hero (Netherlands); Pierre Schoeller’s Versailles [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Geraldine Michelot
interview: Pierre Schoeller
film profile] (France); Béla Paczolay’s The Adventurers (Hungary); and Patrice Toye’s Nowhere Man [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Belgium).

Newly headed by Nicky Schulte, the festival also hosts other sections, including "film|spiegel", which since 1997 has been presenting a comprehensive panorama of recent Dutch productions. Münster is the only German festival to focus so consistently on films from this neighbouring country.

(Translated from French)