26/02/2015 - The line-up includes several Luxembourgian titles, among them Donato Rottuno’s Baby(A)lone

Baby(A)lone by Donato Rottuno (©Ricardo Vaz Palma/Iris Prod)

Tim Burton’s Big Eyes is opening tonight the 5^th edition of the Luxembourg City Film Festival. Until 9 March, the festival will be hosting a programme displaying ten feature films in competition, a selection of six documentaries vying in a section of their own and, among other sections, a special focus on Luxembourgian co-productions. 

Seven out of the ten titles in competition are European productions, or have been co-produced in a minority regime with Europe: Susanne Bier’s A Second Chance [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Denmark), Syllas Tzoumerkas’ A Blast [+see also:
film review
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interview: Syllas Tzoumerkas
film profile] (Greece, Germany, Netherlands), Eskil Vogt’s Blind [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Eskil Vogt
interview: Eskil Vogt
film profile] (Norway), Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s The Lesson [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kristina Grozeva, Petar Val…
interview: Margita Gosheva
film profile] (Bulgaria, Greece), Isa Qosja’s Three Windows and a Hanging [+see also:
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interview: Arben Zharku
interview: Isa Qosja
film profile] (Germany, Kosovo), Signe Baumane’s animation film Rocks in my Pockets [+see also:
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interview: Signe Baumane
film profile] (USA, Latvia) and Diego Lerman’s Refugiado [+see also:
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film profile] (Argentina, Columbia, France, Poland). The other three non-European titles in competition are Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young (US), Aleksandr Kott’s Test (Russia) and Jafar Panahi’s Golden Bear winner Taxi (Iran). 

Luxembourgian titles received the main spotlight from the programmers. Not only is the festival wrapping up with a local title, Baby(A)lone [+see also:
film review
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interview: Donato Rotunno
film profile] by Donato Rotunno, but there will also be a whole section called “Made in Luxembourg” - organised in partnership with the Film Fund Luxembourg – that is dedicated to films produced or co-produced by local professionals.

Based on the novel Amok by Tullio Forgiarin, Rotunno’s new film follows two pre-adolescents, who are already familiar with violence, drugs and pornography. Despite their young age they are exposed to them at school on a daily basis. Produced by Iris, the screening of Baby(A)lone at the festival functions as a promotional platform for the film’s local cinema debut, scheduled for the 11th of March.

Other local co-productions include Jean-Louis Schuller and Sean Clark’s Black Harvest [+see also:
trailer
film profile], an Antevita documentary focused on new extraction techniques, namely hydraulic fracking, and on the people who imigrate to work on it in North Dakota (U.S.); Frank Hoffmann’s and Pol Cruchten’s Les Brigants, a Red Lion production which has recently opened the Max Ophüls Festival; two animation titles - Raul Garcia’s Extraordinary Tales [+see also:
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trailer
film profile] and Tomm Moore’s D’Melodie Vum Mie; Bernard Bellefroid’s Montreal winner Melody [+see also:
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interview: Bernard Bellefroid
film profile]; and many other short-films.

Events parallel to the Festival include the 9^th edition of the European Short Pitch Forum, organised by NISI MASA, a masterclass on Iranian cinema, another masterclass on production design, a workshop on Transmedia and a film criticism workshop with Dutch journalist Boyd van Hoeij.