15/01/2008

For its tenth anniversary edition, the programme of Bologna’s Future Film Festival (January 15-20) is teeming with 27 features and over 160 short films from throughout the world.

The important film event has become a reference point for all those – industry professionals, film lovers or the simply curious – who want to be the first to see the latest in animation and special effects.

The biggest change this year is the introduction of a competition section of 10 films (all premieres in Italy) that are equally divided among animation and live action.

The usual special events include the highly anticipated “10 years of new technologies”, which will offer an overview of the evolution of cinema in the last decade. There will be tributes to the past – to Britain’s award-winning animation duo John Halas and Joy Batchelor, as well as a brief focus on pornographic animation. As well as snippets of the future in the form of the worldwide premiere of the first images of Horton Hears a Who!.

There are four European films in competition: Belgian director Nic Balthazar’s Ben X [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nic Balthazar
interview: Peter Bouckaert
film profile], the debut feature by multi-media artist, as well as three animated title that attest to the genre’s increasing presence in Europe.

Two are from veterans: Borislav Sajtinac makes up for a low budget with a sophistication of design in French title Tueur de Montmartre and Philippe Leclerc presents Christian Jacq’s Egypt in the French/Belgian/Hungarian co-production La Reine soleil [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Léon Zuratas
interview: Philippe Leclerc
film profile]. Whereas the vitality of Spanish animation can be seen in Galician filmmaker Miguelanxo Prado’s De profundis [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a silent melodrama nominated for a Goya.

Also the object of the retrospective Pantalla Animada, alongside a selection of short films from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain is even more present out of competition, with the titles La crisis carnivora by Pedro Rivero (the first Spanish feature-length film made entirely using flash animation), Nocturna [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Adrià García and Victor Maldonado (acclaimed at Venice) and Antonio Zurera’s RH+ El vampiro de Sivilla.

There is also much anticipation over the animated Baltic film (an Estonian/Latvian co-production) Lotte from Gadgetville by Heiki Ernits and Janno Põldma; and for Max & Co. [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Samuel and Frédéric Guillaume, the top-grossing Swiss film of all time (made with Belgian, French and British financing), and the first animated film to be lensed by renowned DoP Renato Berta.

The only Italians “in competition” are three members of the jury that will award the Lancia Platinum Grand Prize to the best film: special effects specialist Carlo Alfano, screenwriter Giorgia Cecere and filmmaker Enzo d’Alò. The director of The Blue Arrow and Opopomoz is currently working on Pinocchio designed by Lorenzo Mattotti. The project, begun years ago, recently received state funding and may be at the Future Film Festival – in 2011.

(Translated from Italian)