10th European Union Film Festival (EUFF 2009)

The Swedish Embassy is proud to present the 10th edition of the European Union Film Festival. In cooperation with Golden Screen Cinemas 19 films from 15 different countries will be screened 12 – 22 November.

This year’s edition of the European Union Film Festival offer something to everyone. The programme consists of dramas, documentaries, thrillers and children’s adventure, including Oscar nominees and award winning films. The films will take you from the Finish snowy Lapland to the South American tropical rain forest and bring you back to the beginning of the 20th century Sweden. Extraordinary tales of love, friendship and adventure are waiting to be told during the Film Festival. The films screened are all products of European creativity and diversity and the festival is an excellent opportunity for Malaysians to take part of European culture.

The films will be screened at GSC Mid-Valley Megamall, GSC 1 Utama and GSC Pavilion Kuala Lumpur. Film ticket price is RM 5 and include one free spin to win prizes at the European Union Film Festival Lucky Draw.

Sweden, as the current holder of the EU Presidency, is organising this event.

For more information please visit the European Union Film Festival website at www.euff2009.com

The European Film Festival

Austria

Lapislazuli

A blazing meteorite crashes into a glacier in the midst of an alpine wilderness, bringing back to life a frozen Neanderthal boy. The boy, whose name is Bataa, meets Sophie, a girl who has run away from a holiday chalet in the mountains. At first their communication is hampered by the divisions of language and time, but, before long, they discover that they have a number of things in common – for Sophie has lost her mother and cannot get along with her new patchwork family, and Bataa feels very lonely and longs for his own family. Both in need of each other, a special friendship soon evolves that is jeopardised when they are discovered by scientists determined to track down and capture Bataa as if he were a wild animal. Sophie helps him escape. The two children hide in an ancient, secret cave that was once a holy site for Neanderthals. Here, Bataa dies his hair with “lapislazuli” according to a mysterious ritual. When Bataa falls ill Sophie persuades her friend to go down into the valley. But the closer they get to modern civilisation, the more Bataa’s condition deteriorates. Sophie realises that Bataa cannot survive in today’s world, and race against time begins…

Original title: Im Auge des Bären

Director: Wolfgang Murnberger

Producer: Danny Krausz, Kurt Stocker

Cast: Clarence John Ryan, Julia Krombach, Hans-Werner Meyer, Lena Stolze

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Belgium

Gilles

Every weekend thousands of proud and nervous football dads cheer their football sons. One of them is Bert, who is only too happy that his 12-year-old son Gilles is a talented and passionate football player. Bert is not just Gilles’ most loyal supporter, he is also his personal coach. Gilles’ ultimate dream and ambition is to run onto the pitch in the shirt of the national football team. But then Bert dies unexpectedly and Gilles’ life crumbles apart. Gilles faces a difficult search in order to find his place in his new life. Gilles is a film about making choices, dreams, letting go and about love. Sometimes you win when you loose.

Original title: Buitenspel

Director: Jan Verheven

Producer: Dirk Impens

Cast: Ilya Vab Malderghem, Filip Peeters, Joke Devynck, Peter Bulckaen

Awards: The film has won 2 prizes at the “2006 Joseph Plateau – Belgian Film Award” for Best Cinematographer and the Audience Award.

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Czech Republic

Night Owls

After Ofka’s boyfriend breaks up with her because he’s been dating her best friend, the 19-year old teen is left to wonder about what really matters in life. Consumed and blinded with her own problems, she’s blind to the feelings of her best male friend, Ubr. Ofka works night shifts at a 24-hour convenience store in modern-day Prague, which leads her to encounter many unique characters, who like her are awake while the rest of the city sleeps.

Despite these odd experiences, she isn‘t moved in any way until the store is held up. This horrible experience wakes Ofka out of her self-absorbed lethargy and makes her re-evaluate life and gives her a different perspective to the world around her. Night Owls is a film about love, the tenderness of friendship, and ultimately hope.

Original title: Deti noci

Directer: Michaela Pavlátová

Producer: Katerina Cerná, Petr Oukropec

Cast: Martha Issová, Jirí Mádl

Awards: Best Actor (Jirí Mádl) and Best Actress (Martha Issová) at the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary. Award at the Czech Academy Awards for Screenplay.

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With Your Permission

Ordinary Jan has no easy life. He is by far the most unpopular employee at work. At home it’s even worse. His marriage with the not so ordinary Bente is on the verge of a breakdown. Jan’s boss finally sends him into group therapy where an unlikely friendship emerges between Jan and the two mechanics Rudy and Alf. Had Jan only known, that Alf loved opera, and had Bente known what Rudy and Alf were up to, they would never have let them into their home. On the corner of chance and destiny, their lives take unexpected turns.

Original title: Til doden os skiller

Director: Paprika Steen

Producer: Leila Vestgaard, Thomas Heinesen

Cast: Lars Brygmann, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Rasmus Bjerg.

Photo: Erik Aavatsmark

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Finland

Christmas Story

A Finnish Christmas Story for the entire family tells the touching story of how Santa Claus came to be Santa.

The film is a story of selfless giving and lifelong friendship. In a remote village in Lapland, young Nikolas looses his family in an accident. The villagers decide to look after the orphaned boy together. Each family will take care of Nikolas for one year. At the end of each year, on Christmas Day, Nikolas has to move to a new home. To show his gratitude to the villagers Nikolas decides to make toys for the children of the family as goodbye-presents.

When the villagers suffers a food shortage, the villagers have to send Nikolas to work as an apprentice for the hermit carpenter, Iisakki. The child-hating Iisakki forbids Nikolas from making presents. The Christmas present tradition is in danger of coming to an end.

Orginal title: Joulutarina

Director: Juha Wuolijoki

Producer: Juha Wuolijoki

Cast: hannu-Pekka Björkman, Kari Väänänen, Minna Haapkylä, Mikko Leppilampi.

Awards: 3 wins including Jussi Awards for Best Cinematography and People’s Choice Awards 2008.

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France

Those Who Remain

Bertrand and Lorraine are those who stay… They are those who pace the corridors and ask themselves forbidden questions, get picked up at the newspaper seller’s kiosk, talk too much in the cafeteria, and smoke on the sly of the roof of this hospital where their partners are receiving care. Because, to cope with the guilt of being well and truly alive, Bertrand and Lorraine have decided to help each other live, laugh, and continue to love.

Original title: Ceux Qui Restent

Director: Anne Le NY

Producer: Jean-Philippe Andraca, Christian Bérard

Cast: Vincent Lindon, Emmanuelle Devos, Yeelem Jappain

Awards: 3 nominations for Actor in supportive role, Actress in supportive role and Best script at the Cesar Awards 2008.

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Germany

And Along Come Tourists

Sven, who has been selected to do his civil service abroad, finds himself in Oswiecim in Poland where the Auschwitz concentration camp was.

He needs to take care for an unpleasant and unfriendly old man, Stanislaw Krzeminski, a former Auschwitz inmate who refuses to leave the camp. Stanislaw feverishly repairs thousands of suitcases that were left behind by Jewish at the concentration camp.

Gradually, as Sven’s understanding of the camp deepens, he becomes fond of the proud, courageous Krzeminski. As days go by, Sven falls in love with Ania, a Polish girl, discovers more about Auschwitz, and learns to understand his role in preserving the memory of this place that has become a center of the local tourist industry.

Original title: Am Ende kommen Touristen

Director: Robert Thalheim

Producer: Britta Knoeller, Hans-Christian Schmidt

Cast: Alexander Fehling, Ryszard Ronczewski, Barbara Wysocka

Awards: The film received a VGF Producer’s Award at the Bavarian Film Festival 2007 and Young German Cinema Award at the Munich Film Festival 2007.

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Cherry Blossoms

Only Trudi knows that her husband Rudi is suffering from a terminal illness. It is up to her to tell him or not. The doctor suggests that they do something together, perhaps something they were long planning to do. Trudi decides not to tell her husband about the gravity of his illness and to follow the doctor’s advice. She convinces Rudi to visit their children and grandchildren in Berlin.

But once they arrive, they realize that their children are so busy with their own lives that they have no time for them. Then, suddenly, Trudi dies. Rudi is devastated and has no idea what to do next. From his daughter’s girlfriend he learns that Trudi’s love for him had led her to forego the life that she had wanted to live. He begins to see her with new eyes and vows to make up for her lost life.

And so he embarks on his last journey – to Tokyo, in the midst of the cherry blossom festival, a celebration of beauty, impermanence, and new beginnings…

Original title: Kirschblueten – Hanami

Director: Doris Doerrie

Producer: Molly von Fuerstenberg, Harald Kuegler

Cast: Elmar Wepper, Hannelore Elsner, Nadja Uhl, Ava Irizuki

Awards: The film received Bavarian Film Award 2007 (Producers’ Prize & Best Actor Elmar Wepper), German Film Award 2008 (Best Film in Silver, Best Actor Elmar Wepper, Best Costumes) and Best Film Golden Space Needle Award Seattle 2008.

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Italy

Giovanna’s Father

Bologna 1938. Michele Casali has a serious problem. His teenage daughter, Giovanna, has just killed her best friend in a jealous frenzy. The girl is declared to be incompetent and is committed to a psychiatric hospital. While inside, she spends her time in almost total isolation. The only person who comes to see her is her father. His visitations strengthen the already strong father-daughter relationship from which Delia, the girl’s mother, has always been excluded. In the winter of 1953, Delia and Giovanna’s eyes cross paths in a small cinema in Bologna: Giovanna is by now much better and is in the company of her doting father. Her mother no longer has any doubts–this is the start of a new life together

Original title: IL PAPA’ DI GIOVANNA

Director: Pupi Avati

Producer: Antonio Avati

Cast: Silvio Orlando, Ezio Greggio, Francesca Neri, Alba Rohrwacher

Awards: The Coppa Volpi award for best actor (Silvio Orlando) and the Leoncino d’oro Agiscuola award for director Pupi Avati at the Venice Film Festival 2008.

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Luxembourgh

Charlotte: A Royal at War

A wife, a mother of six children….and a wartime propagandist for the Allies. Charlotte of Luxembourg faced a terrible dilemma as her tiny country faced enemy invasion by Hitler’s Third Reich. Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg was a ”propagandist in pearls” who used personal charm and the power of radio to reach her people in their darkest hour. Combining vivid eye-witness testimony with dramatic reconstruction, it is the story of how one of the world’s smallest democracies survived the brutal occupation of Hitler’s Third Reich. It reveals a powerful and lasting truth: ordinary people will endure hardship, imprisonment, even death, if they believe they have someone to believe in – to keep alive their hopes.

Original title: Léif Lëtzebuerger

Director: Ray Tostevin

Producer: Candice Allen, Lynn Rothwell

Cast: Josephine Coleman, Steve Roberts, Hannah Cartwright, Charlotte Williams

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Poland

THE BIG ANIMAL

The film’s director (and actor) Jerzy Stuhr stars as Zygmunt Sawicki, and ordinary bank clerk in a small Polish town, who awakens one morning to discover a camel outside his kitchen window. As he and his wife (Anna Dymna) grow increasingly fond of their remarkable pet, the animal evokes their neighbour’s jealousy… and greed. Although the Sawickis are determined to protect their cherished friend, the townspeople and local bureaucrats seem bent on exploiting the great beast. THE BIG ANIMAL is a charming fairy tale for grownups – a wise and cautionary parable about tolerance that is at once funny, compassionate and heart warming.

Original title: Duze zwierze

Director: Jerzy Stuhr

Producer: Telewizja Polska S.A.

Cast: Jerzy Stuhr, Anna Dymna, Dominika Bednarczyk, Blazej Wojcik

Awards: 7 wins and 3 nominations, including the Jury’s Special Prize at the Golden Knight Festival in Tambov (Russia), Grand Prix at the Goest International Film Festival in Wiesbaden 2001 and Emerging Master Award for Jerzy Stuhr at the 27th Seattle International Film Festival.

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KATYN

The Oscar-laureate Andrzej Wajda’s film tribute to the memory of his father, a Polish Army officer, killed in Katyn, and of his mother, who all her life waited for her husband to return home. The crime on thousands of Polish Officers, shot by the Soviet authorities in the spring of 1940 in the Katyn forest, is for the first time the subject of a feature movie. A powerful historical drama presents the never told truth about this murder which has haunted the Polish history ever since and about its political consequences. The movie primarily focuses on the stories of women – mothers, wives, daughters and sisters of those who were killed in Katyn.

Original title: Katyn

Director: Andrzej Wajda

Producer: Telewizja Polska S.A.

Cast: Maja Ostaszewska, Artur Zmijewski, Marek Kondrat, Danuta Stenka

Awards: Nominated for an Oscar as ”Best Foreign Language Film” 2009, Another 12 wins and 5 nominations.

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Romania

15

The movie presents two intercalated story lines: one of a soon to be married young couple during the days of the Romanian revolution and the other about a French journalist who 15 years later comes to Romania in search of his baby…born in dreadful days.

Original title: 15

Director: Sergiu Nicolaescu

Producer: Dana Ionica

Cast: Maia Morgenstern, Cristi Iacob, Ion Dichiseanu, Mihaela Radulescu.

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Slovakia

The Fountain for Suzanne

Based on Eleonóra Gašparová´s novel of the same title, film tells a story about the life and troubles of young people living in the city. The teenagers have to face real life, make their first major decisions, and learn that romance sometimes brings disappointment. The original Slovak music composed for the film by Vašo Patejdl contributed greatly to the film´s atmosphere. It helped to make The Fountain for Suzanne a legendary picture of Slovak cinematography at the time.

Original title: Fontána pre Zuzanu

Director: Dušan Rapoš

Screenplay: Karol Hlávka

Cast: Eva Vejmelková, Jirí Bábek, Katarína Šugarová

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Spain

In The Boundless City

Victor joins his family in Paris to take care of his ailing father, Max. One day, he catches his father throwing away his medicine and furtively getting dressed with the intention of running away from the nursing home. The family, preoccupied with the inheritance of his pharmaceutical empire, dismisses this behaviour as unimportant; it is just the product of his “madness”. Victor, however, moved by the loneliness of the old man, tries to gain his trust and ends up becoming his accomplice. He helps him escape from the clinic and accompanies him through the streets of Paris, where Max spent his youth and which he no longer recognizes.

Little by little, Victor finds out that Max’s madness hides a secret. His father is not the man he had always appeared to be. He discovers that his mother did something which he cannot forgive. And he discovers that the family owes its existence to a lie.

Original title: En La Ciudad Sin Limites

Director: Antonio Hernández

Producer: Antonio Saura, Jose Nolla

Cast: Leonardo Sbaraglia, Fernando Femán-Gómez, Geraldine Chaplin.

Awards: 6 wins and 12 nominations including the Goya Awards (Spain) for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress 2003.

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Sweden

Everlasting Moments

In Sweden in the early 1900s – in a time of social change and unrest, of war and

poverty – the young working class woman Maria wins a camera in a lottery, and

decides to keep it – a decision which alters her whole life. The camera enables Maria to see the world through new eyes, but it also becomes a threat to her somewhat

alcoholic womanizer of a husband, as it brings the charming photographer “Piff Paff

Puff” into her life. The film is based on a true story.

Original title: Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick

Director: Jan Troell

Producer: Thomas Stenderup

Casts: Maria Heiskanen, Mikael Persbrandt, Sebastian Pedersen

Awards: Nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film 2009. Another 8 wins and 6 nominations including Best Film at the Guldbagge Awards (Sweden) 2009. Best Non-American Film at the Robert Festival (Denmark) 2009. Best Actress (Maria Heiskanen) at the Valladolid International Film Festival (Spain) 2008.

Wonderful and Loved by All

There is something about Isabella Ekelöf’s life that isn’t right. By this time she should be a super successful film star with a fantastic boyfriend. It’s as if her real life, the life she’s really meant to live, just never gets started. When her big chance to make a change finally shows up she grabs it without a second thought. That’s when things really start getting bad.

Original title: Underbar och älskad av alla

Director: Hennes Holm

Producer: Patrick Ryborn

Cast: Martina Haag, Nicolaj Coster-Waldau, Ellen Mattsson, Reine Brynolfsson

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The Netherlands

Hannahannah

Hannah, the headstrong rebel of seven siblings, tries to avoid the preparations for her parent’s wedding anniversary, but her charming brand-new lover Victor sort of drags her along, and soon proves to be an ideal son-in-law. As Victor assumes full responsibility for organizing the anniversary river cruise, Hannah is left with mixed feelings. Yet when Victor confides in her that her family is communicating terribly, she claims he is not the person to judge. Suddenly Hannah seems uncertain whether to stay with Victor who proves quite patent and understanding…

Original title: Hannahannah

Director: Annemarie van de Mond

Producer: Zoo Pictures

Cast: Maria Kraakman, Antonie Kamerling, Janni Goslinga, Kees Boot

Awards: 2 nominations including Best Supporting Actor at the Netherland Film Festival 2007.

Photographer for the film photo: Victor Arnolds

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ZOO Rangers in South America

When the ZOO Rangers are asked to find an extremely rare species of butterfly in South America, they initially split up into two groups. a number of rangers pay a visit to the members of the expedition that originally found the butterflies. The others go into the tropical rain forest to seek out the butterflies themselves. Both groups face dangers such as crocodiles, tarantulas, tango competitions, a love-struck ape, stampeding cattle and a team of Brazilian school children. It turns out that their client has left them in the dark about her real criminal aspirations, which could mean the complete destruction of the rainforest.

Original title: Zoop in Zuid-Amerika

Director: Johan Nijenhuis

Producer: Nijenhuis & de Levita Film and TV

Cast: Thomas Berge, Peggy Jane de Schepper, Ewout Genemans, Jon Karthaus.

Award: Movie Squad Junior Award of the Netherlands Film Festival 2007.