Best young European directors at Premiers Plans

by Fabien Lemercier

22/01/2010 - Kicking off today is the 22nd Premiers Plans Film Festival in Angers (January 22-31), a showcase of the best of young European cinema.

Nine titles will vie for honours in the European debut features competition, whose jury is presided by Belgium’s Lucas Belvaux. These are Danish director Martin Pieter Zandvliet’s Applause [trailer, film focus]; Kamen Kalev’s Bulgarian/Swedish co-production Eastern Plays [trailer, film focus] (to be released on March 10 by Epicentre Films and in competition for the LUX Prize 2009); North [trailer, film focus] by Norway’s Langlo Denstad (Bodega Films, March 10); Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel’s Austrian/Italian film La Pivellina [trailer] (Zootrope Films, February 17); Transmission by Hungary’s Roland Vranik (see news); Spanish director Roberto Caston’s Ander [trailer] (Bodega Films, February 17); The Boat Race [trailer] by Belgium’s Bernard Bellefroid (Pyramide, February 17); The Other Bank by Georgia’s George Ovashvili; and Nader Takmil Homayoun’s French/Iranian co-production Tehran [trailer].

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Last year’s winner, Helen [trailer, film focus] by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, will hit screens on April 7.

A new competitive section devoted to debut French features will show Patric Chiha’s Domain [trailer] (see review - to be launched by Contre-Allée Distribution on March 31); Xabi Molia’s Eight Times Up [trailer] (see news - UFO Distribution, April 7); Olivier Torres’ La Ligne Blanche (“The White Line”); Valérie Donzelli’s The Queen of Hearts [trailer] (Shellac, February 24); and Emma Luchini’s Sweet Valentine.

Out of competition, Premiers Plans will open today with François Ozon’s The Refuge [trailer] (see video interview - to be released by Le Pacte on January 27) and will close with German director Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen [trailer] (Pyramide, March 17 - see video interview).

The programme also includes Polish director Piotr Dumala’s The Forest (see news) in the Free Forms sidebar; the usual sections dedicated to European student films, animated films, European and French debut shorts; and screenplay readings (Cyril Mennegun’s Louise Wimmer, Nathalie Boutefeu’s Des Bonnes, Michale Boganim’s La Terre Outragée and La Frontière by Hugues Hariche and Erick Malabry).

The festival will also host five conferences on the new film economy ("The risks of the profession"), as well as homages and retrospectives dedicated to Jean-Pierre Melville (with Alain Delon in attendance), Guillaume Depardieu (including an avant-première screening of The Childhood of Icarus [trailer]), Czech animated film master Karel Zeman, and “Fear in Cinema”.

(Translated from French)