Rome prepares for ninth Euro Balkan Film Festival
The presentation of the Ismail Kadaré Award for Euro-Balkan Cultural Cooperation to writer Claudio Magris on November 3 will be one of the highlights of the ninth edition of the Euro Balkan Film Festival, scheduled to take place in Rome from October 31 to November 7.
Alongside the film screenings, the festival will launch the Ebff Industry Days, a three-day programme dedicated to production partnerships between Italy, Europe and the Balkan countries, CE Report quotes ANSA.
Organised by the Occhio Blu – Anna Cenerini Bova Association and directed by Mario Bova, the festival will present eleven feature films and twelve short films in competition across four venues: Casa del Cinema, Cinema Farnese, Cinema Troisi and Palazzo San Lorenzo.
Two events will take place ahead of the official opening: on October 17 at Nuovo Moderno in Cerveteri and on October 23 at Palazzo San Lorenzo in Rome.
The theme of this year's edition is "Europe Does Not Turn Its Back on the Balkans."
"The ninth edition of Ebff once again confirms the importance of Balkan cinema, which has undoubtedly become one of the most promising sources of co-production opportunities in European cinema," Bova explained in a statement.
"This is demonstrated by the originality of its cinematic language, the richness of its social analysis, the depth of its historical memory, as well as the growing presence of women's cinema and the innovative work of young filmmakers from the region," he added.
Among the films selected for the international competition is A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra by Jacqueline Lentzou. Winner of the Best Director award in the Orizzonti section at the latest Venice Film Festival, it follows a 15-year-old Greek girl who discovers a possibility of connecting with the world through the voice of a singer.
I Matter by Alina Șerban, winner of the Armani Beauty Audience Award in the Spotlight section of the 83rd Venice Film Festival, tells the story of a Roma teenager searching for a future while facing her father's imprisonment and the possibility of leaving the orphanage.
Meanwhile, Nina Roza by Geneviève Dulude-De Celles, winner of the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay and Canada's submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, follows an art curator who emigrated decades ago and returns to Bulgaria to authenticate the works of a child prodigy who has become an online sensation.
Among the festival's special events, on November 4, marking the 70th anniversary of the Budapest uprising, audiences will be able to watch Dreams Die at Dawn (I sogni muoiono all'alba), a 1961 film made by Indro Montanelli together with Enrico Gras and Mario Craveri.
The film focuses on the night between November 3 and 4, 1956, when five Italian journalists gathered in a hotel in the Hungarian capital await the outcome of the revolution, which would eventually be crushed by Soviet intervention.
Photo: Instagram/eurobalkanfilmfestival
