31/10/2006

The tenth edition of the Cinénygma International Film Festival Luxembourg ended this weekend in a victory for the German cannibal drama Rohtenburg [+see also:
trailer
film profile] ( Grimm Love ) by Martin Weisz. The film, censored in Germany over privacy concerns of the real-life cannibal on which the story is based, won the Méliès d’Argent nomination for Luxembourg and will compete for the Méliès d’Or title for Best Fantastic European Film.

A special mention went to the Swedish vampire horror comedy Frostbiten [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by director Anders Banke.

Over the course of a week, the festival showed a host of titles in its Méliès d'Argent Competition, International Competition and preview sidebar. Titles in the latter section included the adaptation of the Jean-Christophe Grangé novel The Stone Council [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Guillaume Nicloux, with Monica Bellucci, Catherine Deneuve and Moritz Bleubtreu; and the closing film Children of Men, an adaptation of the P.D. James novel by Alfonso Cuarón that stars Clive Owen, Michael Caine and Claire-Hope Ashitey and also played at the Venice Film Festival.

Winning film Rothenburg tells the story of Oliver Hartwin (Thomas Kretschmann), who dreams of eating someone, and of his victim, who dreams of being eaten. The film is not an easy drama to watch, but it does offer some morbidly fascinating material and a chance to assess a recent true horror story on the premise that it involved two human beings rather than a sick and twisted monster and a poor victim.

The film is not completely successful (that it was shot in English rather than German, for example, seems unnecessary), though it certainly helps that screenwriter T.S. Faull has added the fictive character of a research student (US actress Keri Russell, Mission: Impossible III) that serves as an easy entry point into the difficult story.

The Japanese horror film Starfish Hotel by John Williams won the top prize in Cinénygma’s International Competition. Also featured was a screening of a restored version of the science fiction classic Metropolis at the Luxembourg Cinémathèque on Sunday. The future of the festival seems uncertain, as funding troubles and marginalisation through the possible emergence of other local festivals lie ahead.