10 Films to Look Out for at Febiofest - Prague International Film Festival 2015

Febiofest - Prague International Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, the 18th of March, and will continue to the 27th of the same month. With a rich programme of modern films and retrospectives from all over the world, this year's edition ensures a riveting and varied selection mostly made up of arthouse cinema titles that have been critically acclaimed at other international film festivals around the world.

 

Here is a list of ten new films that CineCola recommends from the programme. (The list is not in order of preference)

STILL ALICE by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland

 

Still Alice is a film that chronicles a happy family woman’s world crumble as she gradually gives in to the grip of Alzheimer’s disease. Despite dealing with quite a delicate theme, this film has enough sensibility to treat its core subject of Alzheimer’s with a good balance of melodrama and authenticity. Richard Glatzer, who recently passed away, had been struggling with ALS and co-directed this film with his partner Wash Westmoreland - that might be one of the reasons for its genuine representation of strained relationships. The hopeless feeling of relentlessness is carried quite wonderfully by Julianne Moore in one of her most defining performances to date. Her carefully balanced performance tastefully represents her character’s journey into darkness in a tastelessly collected way. Furthermore, this is the type of performance that downright dictates the mood and atmosphere of the film right down to individual sequences, when a blank stare is all that is needed to suddenly change the tone of a seemingly harmless situation. This adds unparalleled dramatic tension and incredible physical depth to a film that is very character driven and not too bothered about seeming narratively well rounded, in order to achieve a thriving genuineness with great credibility.

 

FOXCATCHER by Bennett Miller

 

Based on one of the darkest pages in the history of American sports, this is a story that gravitates around an amateur wrestler Mark whom we meet down and out at the beginning of the film despite having won a gold medal in the Olympics. One day, he randomly gets a call from the estate of John E. du Pont, a multimillionaire who becomes a father figure to him as he trains him for the next Olympics. However, things gradually begin to get more tense as their relationship is placed under strains, and they do not get easier with the arrival of Mark's brother and he seems relegated to the shadows once again. Having revitalised sports drama in his exciting film Moneyball, Foxcatcher stands as a different kettle of fish. The film is soft spoken and moves at a constant hypnotic pace full of emotional and psychological tension, and nevertheless there is also a lot of thrilling suspense in the dramatic situation that reads as a sophisticated vulcano waiting to erupt. Conveying this meditative and edge-of-your-seat approach is also the camerawork that is immpressively fluid and is able to draw you into the atmosphere of Foxcatcher. This film is also enriched by the excellent performance of the three leading players, who deliver three very different performances that complete a perfect dramatic triangle to perfection. Tatum and Ruffalo are excellent, and yet it is inevitable that Carrell, usually regarded as one the funniest personalities on the big screen, should stand out. Playing the obsessive and psychologically troubled du Pont, he is unrecognisable also on a physical point of view and incredibly magnetic throughout the film.

 

QUEEN AND COUNTRY by John Boorman

 

Around thirty years after his film Hope and Glory, John Boorman makes the sequel Queen and Country, which is more or less based on personal experiences and picks up the story where it left off, with the young central Englishman joining the army to fight the Korean War. There is a classic movie charm and appeal to Queen and Country that is rare to come by nowadays. Most particularly, it recalls war comedies of the fifties and sixties that were produced in Britain at the time when this film is set, and so as a result the whole feature is perfectly at ease in its environment. Boorman’s film also feels personal and despite having a lack of heavy messages being much more interested in expressing Boorman’s own formative years in his passions for cinema, the crowd pleasing appeal of the film is well balanced and makes it entertaining and funny with great finesse.

 

THE PRESIDENT by Mohsen Makhmalbaf

 

Taking place in a fictitious totalitarian country, a dictator suffers the consequences of his selfish regime after revolution strikes and he is forced to pose as a poor travelling musician in the hope of fleeing the country and ascending to power again one day. There is a further catch; his little nephew is with him and he must protect his life as well as his own. Having spent a long time in exile from his home country in Iran, Makhmalbaf shot this film in Georgia where cinema is getting more and more interesting. One would expect his views on power and greed to be more strong, yet it is finally the ambiguity of the thematic focus that makes the film more human; in other words the audience must finally be the one to pick sides between the selfish totalitarian and the violent and remorseless revolutionaries. As far as the central figure of the president is concerned, he recalls those conflicted leaders in the films of Kurosawa, but the pace and impulsiveness of The President as well as the intelligent use of satire – of which the musical element is extremely delightful – hails deeply from Mohsen Makhmalbaf himself.

 

X + Y by Morgan Matthews

 

The mathematics of love are explored through the love of mathematics of a young man, who undergoes a coming of age experience after he is handpicked and shortlisted as a member of the British Squad at the International Mathematics Olympiads. But this is far from being a simple film about a math prodigy or boy genius, which has been seen in cinema time and time again. X + Y by Morgan Matthews, in fact his fiction film directorial debut after a celebrated career in documentary, is a deep examination of love which looks at the different emotionally intense facets of its pivotal thematic subject - the need to give love, the need to have it, the inability to understand it and so on. Wonderfully shot with moments of creative artistic visual delight that even allows us to experience things from the viewpoint of the central character, who suffers from Asperger syndrome, this film is never sympathetic of its character and struggles but rather tries to represent them and understand them in order to make for a much deeper and more genuine portrayal of familiar emotions and elements.

PATRICK'S DAY by Terry McMahon

 

Following his bombshell debut feature Charlie Casanova, Terry McMahon returns to the big screen with a remarkable film that recalls the works by the likes of Douglas Sirk and John Cassavetes. Patrick's Day is about a young man with schizophrenia discovering love through a fortuitous encounter with a suicidal flight attendant. Upon discovering the affair, however, the mother gets in the way and hires a crooked cop to keep them apart. The filmmaker handles the heavy theme of mental illness with care and sensibilities, providing perhaps one of the most rewardingly realistic representations of schizophrenia in cinema to date. However, the film neither starts nor ends there, and works perfectly well as a universal coming of age drama as well as one that focuses on the right to intimacy. The powerhouse screenplay is flattered by its very real characters, somewhat unembellished in their imperfect natures. They in turn are portrayed perfectly by the cast, particularly Kerry Fox in the role of the mother and newcomer Moe Dunford in the role of the central character - a greatly challenging role that required a high level of credibility. Aside from that, one can equally admire the great cinematography and extensive use of close ups - techniques that often even take the viewer out of a comfort zone and glorifies the amazing emotional and psychological depth of the story.

 

THEY HAVE ESCAPED by J.-P. Valkeapaa

 

A young boy and a young girl meet at an institution and decide to run away. Another rebellious tale of hopeless romanticism? No way. This is far from being yet another rendition of Badlands by Terence Malick. Finnish director Valkeapaa is very keen throughout the film to trick the viewer into thinking that we are headed for familiar grounds, whilst more and more prominently he hints at the whole experience being a nightmarish one, almost channelling the spirit of the brothers Grimm to the point where the whole film fades into abstraction. Flirting with surrealism and causing frights and shocks especially through a vividly dark and frightening soundtrack, in many ways They Have Escaped is a re-definition of conventional cinematic language where love becomes secondary and staying alive the prime goal in the unpredictability of real life. A special mention goes to Roosa Soderholm, one half of the pivotal couple, who is the type of young Finnish beauty that conceals unspeakable magnetism and embodies teenage rebellion and anarchy to perfection.

 

DARKER THAN MIDNIGHT by Sebastiano Riso

 

Darker Than Midnight is the story of a 14 year old androgynous boy named Davide who flees from the persecution of his father who fails to accept his homosexuality and takes refuge on the streets of Catania among colourful characters and prostitution. With his debut feature, Riso channels the spirit of Pasolini and allows poetry to come right out of the street. In fact, the film could be described as working off two different and parellel platforms, the realist one and the poetic one, the latter also serving as a metaphor which alters from being enrichingly fascinating to being overtly precious and distracting. There is no denying the magnetic charge of the film, which is largely character driven and works also due to the lead performance by young boy Davide Capone - who was apparently picked after a two year casting process. There is also no denying that the controversial nature of the drama aims to sometime shock the viewer - despite a lack of nudity and a focus on human relationships more than a downright celebration or critique on the decadence of the streets of Catania - in order to make its points of observation on freedom of expression of sexual orientation more than simple LGBT rights. Darker Than Midnight is, by choice and by nature, a film that will split the audience in two, but will always provoke some type of reaction.

 

DIFRET by Zeresenay Berhane Mehari

 

A young girl faces an almost certain death penalty after she kills one of her kidnappers. The law is on the kidnappers’ side in accordance to an old Ethiopian tradition that allows such behaviours that lead to marriage. Hope arises when a female lawyer comes to her rescue. Difret by Zeresenay Berhane Mehari is incredibly based on a true story and exposes a subject that is not talked about. Despite its regional implications, Difret feels universally representational as a plea for evolution of mankind’s ethics and an elimination of nonsensical and dangerous traditions. There is also a great use of the theme of female empowerment felt throughout the film. As a human rights feature, it is a greatly affecting one, able to connect with its audience emotionally. It also looks great, and this is also due to the fact that it is shot in glorious 35mm that not only paints a stunning picture of the landscape of Ethiopia but also reveals Mehari’s love for his home country. This reveals that Difret is not simply a film of protest but an inspiring story and a warm act of love and plea for much needed change.

 

BRAVE MEN'S BLOOD by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson

 

After the success of City State, Olaf de Fleur Johannesson returns with a film that is not necessarily narratively to be considered as a downright sequel to it, but rather a film that openly plays with a lot of the same scenarios and the same characters, changing some vital elements and viewpoints. The result is even better this time around, as the attention paid to the numerous characers and the intertwining multiple storylines make the film exciting rather than complex and awkward. The story is that of a young ambitious cop, the son of a legendary policeman, who is given some vital information by a former gangster on rotten activities within the police service. This also ends up getting in the way of the rise of a Serbian gangster to the top ranks of the Reykjavik crime world. The pacing is optimal and the rhythm accentuates an admirable tension and suspense that makes this story all the more gripping and exciting. More than cinematic inflences, the film recalls an impressively condensed TV series season, and considering that Brave Men’s Blood wraps up at a neat feature length duration of around an hour and a half, the achievement is even more venerable.

 

The 22nd Febiofest - Prague International Film Festival runs from the 19th to the 27th of March. For more information, click here to visit their website.