08/09/2006

The 21st Namur International Film Festival – which opens on September 29 with a preview screening of Rachid Bouchareb’s Days of Glory [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean Bréhat
interview: Rachid Bouchareb
film profile] and closes on October 6 with Private Fears in Public Places [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the latest offering from master French director Alain Resnais – has a packed programme yet again this year.

Presided over by French actress Dominique Blanc, the official jury will choose from 12 films that include Cages [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the directorial debut by Belgium’s Olivier Masset-Depasse; the co-production Congorama [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Canadian helmer Philippe Falardeau; Bled Number One [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Algeria’s Rabah Ameur-Zaimeche, winner of the Youth Award at Cannes this year; French title Don’t Worry, I’m Fine [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Philippe Lioret; Zabou Breitman’s The Man of My Life [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; Gabriel Le Bomin’s debut feature Fragments of Antonin [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; My Brother is Getting Married by Swiss director Jean-Stéphane Bron; and Romanian title Hartia va fi albastra (lit. “The Paper Will Be Blue”) by Radu Muntean, recently screened at Locarno.

Aside from these official competition films, one of the festival’s distinctive features is its presentation of a wide variety of recent French-language productions in each of its sections. With films from Quebec, Switzerland, North and East Africa, and shorts, features and documentaries, as every year Namur offers festival-goers an impressive number of titles in all categories.

The festival will also be holding several events for the public, such as a very rich pedagogical programme, a co-production forum and several round tables for professionals, to provide an opportunity for the intermingling of both genres and people.

Alongside a range of French-language Belgian productions from 2005 and a category dedicated to Flemish Belgian cinema (including Fien Troch’s gem Someone Else’s Happiness [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and the recent The Only One [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Geoffrey Enthoven), the festival’s line-up will include some enticing world premieres, such as Azur & Asmar [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Jean-Pierre Daroussin’s Premonition [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile].

Also lined-up are 50 shorts, including 16 French-language productions, and 20 documentaries on top of the 15 presented in official competition, including William Karel’s My Dad Is Into Terrorism and La Petite dame du capitole by Switzerland’s Jacqueline Veuve.

The Panorama section will screen nine films that have yet to find distributors in Belgium, including Bénarès by Mauritanian director Barlen Pyamootoo and Claire Simon’s scorching feature On Fire [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which was screened in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes and, it is hoped, will pick up another distributor at Namur.

(Translated from French)