Friday, May 9, 2014

Screenings: 23rd European Film Festival, May 13- Jun.1 2014 @ Alliance Française Auditorium

23rd EU Film Festival
Dates: May 13 – June 1, 2014
Venue: Alliance Française Auditorium
Time: weekdays - 5.30 & 7.30 pm and weekends - 3.00, 5.30 & 7.30 pm

Entrance: Kshs 50

AUSTRIA
1.  ATMEN (Breathing)
Drama – 2011 – 94 minutes | General Exhibition (GE)
Screenings: 13th May @ 5.30pm & 24th May @7.30pm

Acclaimed directorial debut from veteran Austrian actor Karl Markovics.  The film is an eloquent portrait of an incarcerated teenager attempting to win parole by working at a local mortuary. To his horror and disgust, he has to handle corpses.  His co-workers are bullies very like his prison warders. Yet Roman must endure this job if he is to get parole and begins to respect the solemn work of handling the dead and starts to come to terms with his own youthful crime.
Nominated for the ‘European Discovery of the Year’ at the 2011 European Film Awards and Winner of  “Label Europa Cinemas”at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival

1. LA TÊTE LA PREMIÈRE (Headfirst)
Romance – 2012 –  89 minutes| Above16 (+16)
Screenings: 13th May @ 7.30pm & 24th May @ 3pm
Young Zoé takes to the road in search of a writer she admires. She believes that a road trip might give purpose to her life. Along the way, she meets Adrien, a young actor who is intrigued by her elusive personality and decides to follow her.

2. TURQUAZE (Turquoise)
Drama – 2010 – 96 minutes | Above16 (+16)
Screening: 20th May @ 7.30pm and 30th May @ 5.30pm

The film explores the lives of immigrants who find themselves torn between two lands and cultures, with roots in neither.   This moving and joyous romantic drama introduces a trio of Turkish brothers, living in Belgium, who redefine family dynamics after their father’s death

1. TMAVOMODRÝSVĚT (Dark Blue World)
War/Drama/Romance – 2011 – 112 minutes | Parental Guidance (PG)
Screenings:  14th May @5.30pm and 31st May @ 7.30pm

An epic romantic drama by the Oscar winning director, Jan Sverák. It is about two Czech pilots, serving together in the UK’s Royal Air Force during World War II, who fall in love with the same woman. The film flits between a post-war camp where Franta is a prisoner, an “enemy of the people” because he flew for the RAF during WWII, and England during the war where Franta is like a big brother to Karel, a very young pilot.
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1. KAPRINGEN (A Hijacking)
Drama/Thriller – 2012 – 103 minutes | Parental Guidance (PG)
Screenings: 27th May @ 7pm – Ciné-Café and 1st June @ 7.30pm

The cargo ship MV Rozen is heading for harbor when it is hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. Amongst the men on board are the ship’s cook Mikkel and the engineer Jan, who along with the rest of the seamen are taken hostage in a cynical game of life and death. With the demand for a ransom of millions of dollars, a psychological drama unfolds between the CEO of the shipping company and the Somali pirates.

2. JAGTEN (The Hunt)
Drama – 2013 – 115 minutes | Above16 (+16)
Screenings: 14th May @7.30pm, 22nd May @5.30pm and 30th May @ 7.30pm

A powerful story of a man wrongly accused of child abuse. Lucas leads a contented life in a small town. A teacher by training, he has been left jobless by the closing of the local school.   He now works in a daycare, looking after kids during the day and drinking with their parents in the evening. Everything changes, however, when — in a moment of anger — one of Lucas’ charges tells the daycare owner he sexually abused her.
Winner of the ‘Best Actor’ Award at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and the ‘Best Screenwriter’ Award at the 2012 European Film Awards

1. 9 MOIS FERME (9 months stretch)
Comedy – 2013 – 82 minutes | Above16 (+16)
Screenings: 15th May @ 5.30pm and 25th May @ 7.30pm

The film tells the story of a morally upright judge; Ariane Felder, who discovers she is pregnant by a criminal wanted for murder.  Ariane can’t remember a thing and tries to find out what could possibly have happened.
Winner of the 2014 César Awards for Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay

2. LE PONT DES SAVEURS (The Brige of Flavors)
Screening: 19th May  @ 7pm - CINE-CONCERT

The French duo ‘Bridge of Flavours’ made up of saxophonist, Julien Petit and pianist, Guillaume Cherpitel, present a Ciné-Concert.  The magic of live musical performance set to silent films from the early 20th century including ‘Paris qui dort’ (Paris Asleep) by René Clair and ‘Le voyage dans la lune’ (A trip to the moon) by Georges Méliès, comes to stage.
Following the success of the Oscar winning film “The Artist’, the two musicians started experimenting with silent films and through jazzy compositions influenced by African music, salsa, soul, rock and funk, the duo invite you to rediscover the special alchemy from the very early days of cinema.

1. BARBARA
Drama – 2012 – 105 minutes | Above16 (+16)
Screening: 15th May @ 7.30pm and 31st May @ 5.30pm

A psychological and political thriller set in1980s East Germany. Barbara, a doctor, has applied for an exit visa from the GDR. Now, as punishment, she has been transferred from Berlin to a small hospital out in the country. Jörg, her lover from the West, is already planning her escape. Barbara waits, keeping to herself. Working as a paediatric surgeon under her new boss Andre, she is attentive when it comes to the patients, but quite distanced toward her colleagues. But Andre confuses her with his confidence in her professional abilities, his caring attitude, his smile. Is she under surveillance? Is he in love? But as the day of her planned escape quickly approaches, Barbara starts to lose control. Over herself, over her plans?
Silver Bear for Best Director at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival (2012)

GREECE
1. ΝΎΦΕΣ(Brides)
Drama/ Romance – 2004 -128 Minutes | Above16 (+16)
Screenings: 12th May @ 6.30pm, 20th May @5.30pm and 24th May @5.30pm

Set in the turbulent social and political climate of 1922, Brides tells the story of 700 young women, some of them teenagers, from Greece, Russia, Turkey and Armenia, who were loaded on a ship heading for New York. They were proxy brides carrying a wedding gown and a photograph of their future husbands. The film illuminates the migrant experience through a moving tale of love, duty and sacrifice.
2004: Greek State Film Awards for Best Film

2. Ο ΒΥΣΣΙΝΌΚΗΠΟΣ  (Cherry Orchard)
Drama – 2000 – 141 minutes | Parental Guidance (PG)
Screenings: 16th May @ 5.30pm and 28th May @ 5.30pm

LyubovRanevskayaleft Russia to escape troubling memories of the death of her son. Now her family is riddled with debt and Lyubov and her teenaged daughter have come home to the family estate looking for a way to pay their bills. Much to their dismay, the Ranevskayas are forced to sell their land to a crude businessman who intends to build a housing development in what was once the family’s cherry orchard.

1. LA GRANDE BELLAZA (The Great Beauty)
Drama/ Comedy –  2013 - 142 minutes | Above16 (+16)
Screenings: 16th May @ 7.30pm, 26th May @ 7.30pm and 1st June @ 3pm

Journalist Jep Gambardella has charmed and seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades. Since the legendary success of his one and only novel, he has been a permanent fixture in the city's literary and social circles, but when his sixty-fifth birthday coincides with a shock from the past, Jep finds himself unexpectedly taking stock of his life, turning his cutting wit on himself and his contemporaries, and looking past the extravagant nightclubs, parties, and cafés to find Rome in all its glory: a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
Winner of the 2014 Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film, the 2014 Bafta Award for the Best not in the English Language

NETHERLANDS
1. DE MARATHON (The Marathon)
Comedy/ Sport-Drama – 2012 – 107 minutes | Above16 (+16)
Screenings: 17th May @ 3pm and 28th May @ 7.30pm

For four disillusioned men there is more at stake than merely finishing the Rotterdam marathon.
Gerard, Leo, Kees and Nico - four friends born and bred in Rotterdam - work side by side in Gerard’s garage, but business has suffered a down-turn. Through Youssoef, the foursome comes up with the inspired idea to get a sponsor and take part in the Rotterdam Marathon in order to save the garage from going under. In the midst of all the preparations for this ultimate run and the saving of the garage, there is actually more at stake for the four guys than just getting to the finish...

1. TIGRE V MESTE (Tigers in the City)
Comedy/Drama – 2012 – 90 minutes |Above 18(+18)
Screenings: 17th May @ 5.30pm and 29th May @ 5.30pm

Three friends about to turn 30 call themselves animal names: BADGER, HYENA and PIGEON. They like to spend time together in their favorite bar in the Bratislava city Zoo, but they all feel that something is missing – they starve for a soul mate for life. After years of fantasizing about a woman’s voice on the radio, Badger finally decides to meet her. Badger’s life takes an unexpected twist, when his friends discover, that a man is trying to kill him. The man is a Russian ex-hit-man hired to kill Badger for his extensive zeal as a state prosecutor, working against local mafia. At the same time, the killer happens to be the husband of the radio speaker, with whom Badger just started a romance. The circle is closed. Now it’s not only a question of falling in love anymore. It’s about staying alive

1. BLANCANIEVES
Drama/Fantasy – 2012 – 104 minutes
Screenings: 23rd May @7.30pm and 29th May @7.30pm

Set in southern Spain in 1920s, Blancanieves is a tribute to silent films.  It is a silent-movie melodrama version of Snow White and the Sven Dwarfs.  Carmen is the beautiful daughter of a once dashingly handsome bullfighter, now a widower and invalid, married to a scheming nurse.  After her stepmother’s bungled murder plan, Carmen is discovered in the woods by a travelling band of bullfighting dwarfs who discover Carmen’s extraordinary talent for bullfighting.
Winner of the 2013 European Film Award for the Best Costume Designer and the 2013 Goya Awards for Best Film,  Best New Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score,  Best Original Song

2. LAS AVENTURAS DE TADEO JONES (The Adventures of Tad Jones)
Animation/Adventure/Comedy – 2012 – 92 minutes
Screenings: 18th May @3pm and 31st May @3pm

Tad is a celebrity archeologist and adventurer just like his hero Max Mordon... in his dreams! In reality, Tad is a Chicago construction worker. One day, however, he is mistaken for a real Professor and takes his place on a flight to Peru in search of the Lost City of Paititi. Professor Lavrof and his beautiful daughter Sara are waiting for the famous professor to crack the code. Unfortunately for Tad, Sara is engaged to real-life hero Max Mordon, but Max has secretly betrayed the Professor by teaming up with the evil Kopponen and his shady Odysseus corporation. Time for Tad to step up.
Winner  of the 2013 Goya Award for the  Best Animation Film and Best New Director

SWEDEN
1. HIMLENÄROSKYLDIGTBLÅ  (Behind Blue Skies)
Drama – 2010- 110minutes | Above 18(+18)
Screenings: 17th May @ 7.30pm and 26th May @ 5.30pm

Martin escapes his alcoholic father for the summer job of his life at the exclusive Royal Yacht Club in the idyllic archipelago of Stockholm in 1975. He meets true love for the first time and is being groomed by Gösta, a playboy in the centre of high society.  Martin is inevitably drawn into one of the greatest scandal of all times in Swedish crime history.

1. LES GRANDES ONDES (Longwaves)
Comedy – 2013 –  85 minutes | Above16 (+16)
Screenings: 18th May @ 5.30pm and 22nd  May @ 7.30pm

It is April 1974 and Julie Dujonc-Renens, young feminist journalist and the cunning Joseph-Marie Cauvin, leading reporter for the Swiss radio, have been sent to Portugal to investigate Switzerland’s aid to poor countries. Sparks fly during the bus trip with Bob, sound engineer approaching retirement. The projects financed by Switzerland prove to be calamitous and the workers’ revolution that suddenly breaks out doesn’t help, obliging our heroes to disregard first the radio’s management, and then their own codes of conduct.

1. NEXT GOAL WINS
Comedy – 2014 – 90minutes | General Exhibition (GE)
Screenings: 18th May @ 7.30pm and 25th May@ 5.30pm

NEXT GOAL WINS is a hilarious and moving exploration of what it really means to be a winner in life.

1. THE CAPTAIN OF NAKARA
Comedy/Romance – 2012 – 87 minutes | Parental Guidance (PG)
Screenings: 21st May @ 7pm – Ciné Café and 25th May @ 3pm
Director: Bob Nyanja. Starring : Bernard Safari, ShirlenWanjari, Charles Kiarie

Afraid of losing the woman of his dreams, Muntu, a small fry criminal, pretends to own a profitable market stall. His honest attempts to turn his lies into reality fail, due to the ubiquitous local corruption. Impersonated as “Captain of Nakara”, wearing a stolen military uniform, Muntu manages to succeed in defending his rights, his happiness – and ends up elected as Kwetu’s president!

2. VIVA RIVA!
Drama/Thriller – 2010 – 98 minutes |Above 18(+18)
Screenings: 23rd May @ 5.30pm and 1st June @ 5.30pm

Set in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The efforts of an 'operator' named Riva to obtain a secret cache of valuable petrol bring him up against the local crime boss - and his beautiful girlfriend.

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