06/06/2005

Seventh largest Hungarian city, located 60 km south-west of Budapest, Székesfehérvár welcomes from today until 12th of June the first Alba Regia International Film Festival. This ambitious event, offering a programme of 50 features and a dozen shorts and documentaries, is the only Hungarian film festival to feature a European film competition. Tonight, opening night, will see the screening of Lost and Found a piece made up of five shorts and an animated film directed by filmmakers from Central and Eastern Europe: Kornél Mundruczó (Hungary), Nadejda Koseva (Bulgaria), Stefan Arsenijevic (Serbia), Cristian Mungiu (Rumania), Mait Laas (Estonia) and Jasmila Zbanic (Bosnia).

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In competition for the Silver Globe, which will be awarded to the best feature, are A Hole in My Heart from Swede Lukas Moodysson, A Wonderful Night in Split by Croat Arsen Anton Ostojic, Suburbs [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Slovenian Vinko Mörderndorfer, the Swiss-German co-production When the Right One Comes Along by Oliver Paulus and Stefan Hillebrand and For the Living and the Dead from the Finn Kari Paljakka (selected for the Panorama at the last Berlin Festival).
Elsewhere, a section baptised "Bull's Eye" gives an opportunity to see or revisit some of the most recent successes on the European festival circuit, such as Private by the Italian Saverio Costanzo, Avanim by Frenchman Raphaël Nadjari, the best British film of the year My Summer of Love by the director of Polish origin Pawel Pawlikowski, Histoire de Marie et Julien by Jacques Rivette and also Four Shades of Brown by Swede Tomas Alfredson. Also, in the section "Faces of Globalization", appears the best European documentary of 2004 Le Cauchemar de Darwin by Hubert Sauper.

This first edition of the Alba Regia International Film Festival will close with the German-Spanish co-production One Day in Europe by German Hannes Stöhr which was shown in official competition in Berlin 2005. Lastly, the ARIFF pays homage to the careers of Hungarian actress Mari Törocsik and her compatriot, the director Miklós Jancsó.

(Translated from French)