13/06/2024 - The latest edition of the event is unspooling between 25 June and 3 July, with forty or so feature films on the agenda

In these early days of summer, the Brussels International Film Festival (BRIFF) is inviting Belgian film lovers to discover unmissable brand-new and classic films, shining a light on international arthouse cinema. The festival is notably organising three competitions, which achieve near gender parity overall, a feat rare enough to be mentioned here. In fact, this 7th edition of the event, unspooling between 25 June and 3 July, is set to open with the screening of Swiss filmmaker and actress Laetitia Dosch’s first feature film, Dog on Trial [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laetitia Dosch
film profile], which was presented in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section.

First up, the International Competition will take us from Argentina to Denmark by way of Corsica, and conceals several high-calibre filmmakers within its ranks, such as Yorgos Lanthimos who’ll be sharing Kinds of Kindness [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], the Larrieu brothers with their latest movie Jim’s Story [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu
film profile] - both of which were discovered in Cannes - and Michel Franco with Memory, which was presented in Venice last year. We’ll also see confirmed talent along the lines of Claire Burger, with her third feature film Foreign Tongue [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Claire Burger
film profile], and Gustav Möller with Sons [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - two titles unveiled in competition in Berlin. Two directorial duos are also in on the action: Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Guy Nattiv who’ll be putting forth Tatami [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], and Maria Alché and Benjamin Naishtat presenting Puan [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Benjamín Naishtat and María…
film profile]. The final film competing in this section is In His Own Image [+see also:
film review
interview: Thierry de Peretti
film profile] by Thierry de Peretti, which screened in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight.

As for Director’s Week, a selection dedicated to European cinema which looks to shine a light on emerging talent, seven films are in the offing. Firstly, there’s the Danish documentary The Mountains [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Christian Einshøj, which revisits the director’s family’s trauma following the death of his brother 25 years earlier. Another family documentary comes in the form of Keeping Mum [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Emilie Brisavoine
film profile] by Emilie Brisavoine, exploring wounds which time has failed to heal. Fiction films likewise jostle on the agenda, namely The Permanent Picture [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laura Ferrés
film profile] by Spanish director Laura Ferrés, and family forms the focus once again in Je’vida [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Finland’s Katia Gauriloff, homing in on the coming together of an aunt and niece. There’s also the Hispanic-Italian co-production Animal/Humano [+see also:
trailer
interview: Alessandro Pugno
film profile] by Alessandro Pugno, and a third documentary entitled Riverboom by Swiss director Claude Baechtold, which looks back on the filmmaker’s experience as a young journalist who landed in Afghanistan the day after 11 September. A different tone is struck by the last film on the agenda of this particular line-up, Plastic Guns [+see also:
film review
interview: Jean-Christophe Meurisse
film profile] by iconic French filmmaker Jean-Christophe Meurisse, which recently closed the Directors’ Fortnight.

The festival is also hosting a National Competition gathering together 8 feature films. We have to remark upon the presence of three female-led documentaries in the first person in this line-up, all exploring the questions which three young women and children of exile ask themselves, in the form of D’Abdul à Leïla [+see also:
film review
interview: Leila Albayaty
film profile] by Leïla Albayaty, (Y)Our Mother [+see also:
film review
interview: Samira El Mouzghibati
film profile] by Samira El Mouzghibati and Yalla, Baba! [+see also:
film review
interview: Angie Obeid
film profile] by Angie Obeid. A family of vampires is at the heart of Céline Rouzet’s fiction film, For Night Will Come [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Céline Rouzet
film profile], meanwhile, whereas a group of siblings seek out the roots of evil in Michèle Jacob’s Lost Children [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michèle Jacob
film profile], the documentary Stolen Life sees Daniel Lambo following the journey of adopted children torn from their parents in their birth country, and Who Cares? [+see also:
film review
interview: Alexe Poukine
film profile] sees Alexe Poukine examining public hospitals and asking how nurses can themselves be kind when they’re crushed by a hostile institution. Last but not least, in Katika Bluu [+see also:
film review
film profile], Stéphane Vuillet and Stéphane Xhroüet follow in the footsteps of Baraka, a former child-soldier who has just been extracted from an armed group and who tries to return to his childhood, his family and his place in Goma society in the Congo.

(Translated from French)