02/02/2007

Though very different, the last two European titles to be presented as part of the Tiger Competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam – Spain’s Me (Yo) and Danish film AFR – both explore questions of reality and identity.

Faux documentary AFR is the debut film by Morten Hartz Kaplers, who also stars as the probable assassin of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (who is still very much alive in real life). Using rearranged archive footage and newly filmed material, including interviews with politicians, Kaplers creates documentary truths that do not correspond to any known reality.

Given its subject matter, AFR will push audiences to explore the limits of free speech, which was defended last year by the Prime Minister of the country that saw newspaper cartoons grow into an international controversy.

Controversy is not an unfamiliar marketing tool for AFR’s sales outfit Trust Film, who also have Lars von Trier in their stable. Produced by Liberty Films Aps, with backing from the Danish Film Institute and the Danish Film Workshop, the solid and provocative work is planned for an April release at home.

Rookie writer-director Rafa Cortés and co-writer and actor Alex Brendemühl explore identity and reality on a completely fictional plane in Me. In the atmospheric head-scratcher, Brendemühl plays a German handyman in Mallorca who is haunted by the previous German who had his job and in whose house he lives. Like him, his predecessor was called Hans.

Though too long, Me, produced by Fausto Producciones, Escandalo Films and La Perifèrica, derives numerous pleasures from its strong acting and less-than-sunny atmosphere.