19/10/2023 - Against the backdrop of the conflict in Gaza, the 45th edition of the Cinemed Montpellier will take place from 20 to 28 October, with nine fiction films vying for the Golden Antigone

The animated film They Shot The Piano Player [+see also:
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film profile] by Spanish filmmakers Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal will tomorrow open the 45th Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival which will take place from 20 to 28 October. Among the guests of honour are French filmmaker Yolande Zauberman and the women of the Catalan new wave (directors Carla Simón, Clara Roquet, Neus Ballús, Elena Martín Gimeno, producers María Zamora and Valérie Delpierre, director of photography Gris Jordana, editor Ariadna Ribas), and the festival’s rich programme of 200 titles includes a 24 film retrospective dedicated to Italian director Ettore Scola.

Nine fiction feature will be vying for the 2023 Golden Antigone: Excursion [+see also:
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interview: Una Gunjak
film profile] by Bosnian director Una Gunjak, Phantom Youth [+see also:
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film profile] by French-Kosovan director Luàna Bajrami, Creatura [+see also:
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interview: Elena Martín Gimeno
film profile] by Spain’s Elena Martín Gimeno, The Beautiful Summer [+see also:
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film profile] by Italian director Laura Luchetti, Anna [+see also:
interview: Marco Amenta
film profile] by Italy’s Marco Amenta, Backstage [+see also:
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interview: Afef Ben Mahmoud, Khalil Be…
film profile] by Morocco’s Khalil Benkirane and Tunisia’s Afef Ben Mahmoud, Black Light by Algerian-Brazilian director (based in France) Karim Bensalah, The Vanishing Soldier [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Israeli director Dani Rosenberg and Black Night by Özcan Alper. The jury will be presided by Pascal Elbé (together with Zineb Triki, Nadia Ben Rachid, Jean-Baptiste Durand and Arnaud Rebotini).

Also vying for the Audience Award are the six feature films from the Panorama section: the documentaries The Mother of All Lies by Moroccan director Asmae El Moudir and Machtat [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by French-Tunisian filmmaker Sonia Ben Slama, the French-Belgian-Moroccan production A Summer in Boujad by Omar Mouldouira, Glass Curtain by Turkish director Fikret Reyhan and three Spanish films (20,000 Species of Bees [+see also:
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interview: Estíbaliz Urresola
film profile] by Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, Matria [+see also:
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interview: Álvaro Gago
film profile] by Álvaro Gago Díaz, and Foremost by Night [+see also:
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interview: Víctor Iriarte
film profile] by Víctor Iriarte).

The Documentaries competition will include eight films: Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano [+see also:
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interview: Cyril Aris
film profile] by Lebanese director Cyril Aris, Wedding Blues by French filmmaker Oury Milshtein, Casablanca [+see also:
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film profile] by Italy’s Adriano Valerio, Bye Bye Tiberias [+see also:
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interview: Lina Soualem
film profile] by French-Algerian director Lina Soualem, Smiling Georgia [+see also:
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interview: Luka Beradze
film profile] by Georgian filmmaker Luka Beradze, Death of a City by Portugal’s João Rosas, Between Revolutions [+see also:
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interview: Vlad Petri
film profile] by Romanian director Vlad Petri, and the Swiss-Spanish co-production Nights Gone By [+see also:
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interview: Alberto Martín Menacho
film profile] by Alberto Martín Menacho.

Many premieres (often in presence of filmmakers and actors) complete the programme of Cinemed with, among other films, the French premiere of Out of Season [+see also:
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interview: Stéphane Brizé
film profile] by Stéphane Brizé, And the Party Goes On by Robert Guédiguian, Comme un prince by Ali Marhyar, and the documentaries Madame Hofmann by Sébastien Lifshitz and Viva Varda! by Pierre-Henri Gibert.

Also worth noting are the Special Screenings (including Coup de tampon by Rachid El Ouali), a short film competition and panorama, a tribute to the late Lebanese director Maroun Bagdadi, a focus on Israeli-Palestinian filmmakers Mohammad and Saleh Bakri, and, from 24 to 27 October, the industry days of the Cinemed Meetings which Cineuropa will cover in detail later on.

(Translated from French)