24/04/2006

Ten European films, all Italian premieres, will be presented during the seventh edition of the European Film Festival (April 25-30) in Lecce.

"The selected films all tackle often underestimated socio-political situations, such as troubled youth", festival artistic director Cristina Soldano told Cineuropa. "Our festival wants to be an intermediary between cultures and different cinematic languages, to become a potential means of promotion of European cinema that focuses on involving young people and that part of the public not directly tied to cinema". The selected films relate stories of violence, rebellion, marginalisation and emancipation: Burnt Out (Sans le respect que je vous dois) by Fabien Godet (France, 2005); Fratricide by Kurdish director Ylmaz Arslan (France/Germany, 2005); Hostage by Constantine Giannaris (Greece, 2005); Keller - Teenage Wasteland by Eva Urthaler (Austria, 2005); Kontakt by Sergej Stanojkovski (Macedonia, 2005); Live! by Willem van de Sande Bakhuyzen (Holland, 2005); Lucy by Henner Winckler (Germany, 2006); Sandra Kristoff by Vito Vinci (Italy, 2006); The Italian by Andrey Kravchuk (Russia, 2005); and Tuning by Igor Šterk (Slovenia, 2005).

The films are competing for best film (the Golden Olive Tree Award, €5,000), to be presented by an international jury presided over this year by Moritz De Hadeln and made up of Ilir Butka (director of the Tirana International Film Festival) and Sophie Chiarello (director).

The festival, which has dedicated a week this year to the discovery and re-discovery of Albanian films, hosting some of the country's most important modern directors, will organise a round table to better understand the role of film in Euro-Mediterranean countries.

(Translated from Italian)