Cyprus Film Days 2012

The 10th International Film Festival «Cyprus Film Days 2012» opens its doors and launches an exciting programme of screenings, featuring some of the most talked about films of the year, along with some of the most exceptional films from the international independent cinema scene. Tributes, special screenings, a photographic exhibition, workshops and music events make up this year’s much anticipated programme of the official international film festival of Cyprus.

The tenth, anniversary edition of the festival will take place between the 20th and 29th of April 2012, in Limassol at the Rialto Theatre and in Nicosia, at the Zena Palace Cinema.

The festival is co-organised by the Cultural Services of the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Rialto Theatre.

The festival aims at promoting international and Cypriot cinema, supporting and promoting the work of independent filmmakers, showcasing new talent and becoming a meeting point for filmmakers from the three continents surrounding the island of Cyprus. ‘Cyprus Film Days International Film Festival’ is a successful event that brings the international independent cinema closer to the Cypriot audience, and fosters an atmosphere for creative dialogue as well as entertainment.

The selection of films and programming of screenings and parallel events, is undertaken by a three-member Artistic Committee, consisting of Adonis Florides (film director), Costas Constandinides (Film Scholar), and Constantinos Sarkas (Journalist).

Festival Sections:

Glocal Images – International Competition Section: Extraordinary new films are competing in this year’s Glocal Images, the international competitive section of the festival. Panayiotis Fafoutis’s second feature film Paradise is set in Patra, Greece, amidst a colourful, chaotic carnival atmosphere, where four duets are staking their claim on their own private Paradise. Family relationships are at the centre of attention in this year’s competition and are depicted by the directors in a contemporary, exploring viewpoint. The Israeli film Restoration records a dysfunctional father-son relationship, and their attempt to communicate as they must save the family business. At the same time, the Finnish film The Good Son explores an Oedipus-like relationship between mother and son, balancing between psychological drama and black comedy. Young Ilmari is overprotective with his mother, and when she falls in love with writer Aimo, Ilmari becomes unexpectedly violent. The issue of dysfunctional family relationships is also developed in Belgian film My only son, where the protagonist must house his father whom he resents. To find himself confronted with "the ogre" as he calls him, in his own home, would be a trip back to the darkness of his childhood. The film Invisible (co-produced by Israel-Germany) deals with the crime of psychological and physical rape. Two women realize they have been victims of the same rapist and struggle to confront the past and integrate the long repressed trauma into their lives. The Russian period drama The Dry Valley tells the story of Natalia, a young and naive girl who serves in the country house of the noble family of the Krushevs. The story unites the destinies of the landowners and their servants, and is considered as one of the most complete portraits of the Russian life in the late XIX century. In his debut feature film Fish n’ Chips, Cypriot director Elias Demetriou narrates the story of Andy, a hard working Cypriot immigrant in London who deep-fries his way into oblivion, and decides to leave London for his native Cyprus. But his dream turns into a nightmare, as he seems to have overlooked one small detail: Cyprus just isn’t London! German film Combat Girls is a nightmarish depiction of Neo-Nazism from a uniquely female perspective. Romanian film Lover Boy portrays a contemporary drama set in the decadent Romanian countryside. The protagonist, Luca, seduces girls then leaves them in the hands of his friends at the Black Sea port of Constanta, until he falls in love with one of his potential victims.

The international jury will grant the following awards to the films competing: Best Film Award (accompanied by €7.000 cash prize), Special Jury Award (accompanied by €2.000 cash prize) and Glocal Images Award (accompanied by of €1.000 cash prize).

Viewfinder – A Close-up of Contemporary International Cinema: This non-competitive section of the festival hosts awarded films of the past festival year, which are being selected according to criteria set by the Artistic Committee. The main goal of the programme is to introduce audiences with up to date selections of important festival centres. Up to nine (9) feature-length films participate in this section, which will include the five Academy Award winning (including Best Picture and Best Directing) black and white, silent film The Artist, by Michel Hazanavicius, a film that thrilled audiences and critics within and outside the USA. Coming from Greece, the latest film from the Oscar nominated director of Dogtooth, Yiorgos Lanthimos, Alps will be screened. This characteristically peculiar tale won Best Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival. From promising filmmaker and artist Steve McQueen comes Shame, a study on loneliness and alienation. We Need to Talk About Kevin, a ground-breaking film by acclaimed director Lynne Ramsay, explores the nature of guilt, portraying the story of a fifteen-year-old boy who violently attacks his schoolmates. Dressed with the neon lights of nighttime downtown Los Angeles and in early 80’s synth music, Drive by Nicolas Winding Refn accelerates speed and nails us into the passenger’s seat. Markus Schleinzer’s film Michael about the abduction of a ten-year-old boy by a seemingly normal 35-year-old man packs a very strong punch indeed. The film is based on true events, which shocked Austrian society. Las Acacias, a wonderfully portrayed story from Argentina by Pablo Giorgelli, follows the moving road trip taken by a reclusive truck driver who picks up a woman and her baby to drive them from Paraguay to Buenos Aires. The Russian film Elena by award winning director Andrei Zvyagintsev, is a contemporary drama exploring the notion of the survival of the strong at any cost. Celine Sciamma’s second feature film Tomboy follows the story of ten-year-old Laure, a tomboy doing everything to look like a boy, without imagining the consequences of her deeds.

Parallel Screenings - Events

"Cinema Speaks"
The tribute titled "Cinema Speaks" is inspired by The Artist and aims to present the transitional period from silent to talking cinema. "Cinema Speaks" will present key films from this period, which exhibit experimentation with sound, hide an interesting background, or act as a reaction to the expanding domination of the talkies, aiming at displaying the silent film as a superior form of cinematic expression.

"Comic Art in Motion"
The cinematic version of a comic book or graphic novel erases the limitations of the illustrated page, allowing the characters and the action to acquire movement. At the same time, however, various contemporary examples mimic the art of comics creating an interesting stylistic blend. This tribute attempts to present films inspired by comics, graphic novels and manga, which were created in the margins of popular culture and thus aimed to creatively explore the transition of comic art to film.

"The return of Neorealism: The cinema of Ramin Bahrani"
The newly coined term "neo-neorealism", an invention of The New York Times critic A. O. Scott, is a term that is reflected in the cinema of Ramin Bahrani, whose three feature films, which will be screened at the festival, constitute an already significant contribution to the history of independent cinema. Scott understands neo-neorealism as a movement that opposes the tyranny of Hollywood images and suggests that perhaps what the viewers really need is not the escape from reality but the escape from Hollywood tyranny. Thus, films described as neo-neorealist, including the work of Bahrani, do not illustrate the heroic survival from an epic New York catastrophe, but focus on the unbearable hardships of everyday life.

"'Sunday Awaking': A Tribute to Michael Cacoyannis"
Paying tribute to the renowned Cypriot director Michael Cacoyannis, the festival will screen two of his feature films. Iphigenia, the last of the trilogy of Greek tragedies he shot on film and Sweet Country will be screened on Sunday 22/4/2012 at Rialto Theatre.

Throughout the festival, an open photographic exhibition will be set up with photographs from the filming of the documentary film Cyprus is an Island (1946) by Ralph Keene, in which at the time, Michael Cacoyannis participated as an assistant director, taking his first steps in filmmaking.

All the films included in Glocal Images, Viewfinder, Comic art in motion, and the tribute to Bahrani will be Cyprus premieres. In the Viewfinder section there will be a special screening of the film Tomboy.

Additional Information

Subtitles:

All films will be screened in their original language, and will be subtitled both in Greek and in English.

Admission:

- The entrance will be free to all afternoon and late midnight screenings
- €6 day card
- €25 general entry card (for all festival screenings)
- Free entrance for students upon display of student card

A full, detailed programme of the festival is available on the festival’s website at www.cyprusfilmdays.com

For more info and for the detailed screenings programme please call 77 77 77 45 and 77 77 25 52, visit the festival website at www.cyprusfilmdays.com or find us on facebook ‘Cyprus Film Days’.

Click here to download the programme of the Festival