April 12 – 20, 2024

 

Cyprus Film Days 2010

https://youtu.be/h8wXG55tQ4c

Cyprus Film Days is the most celebrated annual international Film Festival that takes place in Cyprus. It is organized by the Cultural Services of the Ministry of Education and Culture and the RIALTO theatre. The 8th edition of the festival will take place from the 10th until the 18th of April in Limassol at the RIALTO Theatre and in Nicosia at the Pantheon Art Cinema. Continuing the tradition of previous years, the festival will host some of the best and most important films of the year that have been critically acclaimed internationally.

For the second consecutive year the artistic Committee consisted of Adonis Florides (Director/Writer), Konstantinos Sarkas (Journalist) and Dr Costas Constandinides (academic) is responsible for the selection of the films and the programme.

The main objective of the festival is the screening and promotion of independent cinema that deals with contemporary social and political issues across the globe. At the same time, “Cyprus Film Days” seeks to bring together filmmakers from Cyprus and abroad in order to exchange ideas and discuss recent developments and trends in world cinema. This year’s program is a selective combination of films that have been distinguished and received awards at international festivals, groundbreaking films as well as low budget productions which are cinematic discoveries in terms of their artistic and narrative approach. All 23 films that have been chosen this year for Cyprus Film Days undoubtedly stand out as authentic samples of a kind of cinema that is characterized and guided by the qualities and point of view of their creator.

The Programme

The main programme of this year’s festival comprises a total of 14 films, among them the critically acclaimed Greek film Dogtooth by Giorgos Lanthimos. The film has won many international awards during the past year, including the Prix UN Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. The film Ajami (Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Film) in which Palestinian director Yaron Shani and Israeli director Scandar Copti tell a variety of stories based on true events, which took place in the district of Ajami in Tel Aviv. The Romanian film Medal of Honor directed by Calin Peter Netzer (FIPRESCI award Thessaloniki Film Festival 2009), is a story narrated with originality, warmth and humor. The film London River (England, France), by Rachid Bouchareb is a deeply humanistic tragedy with exceptional performances. La Pivellina by Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel (Austria, Italy), (Label Europa Cinemas prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009), approaches with great tenderness the stories of marginalized people living in Italy, while the outstanding film Fish Tank by Andrea Arnold, is a brilliant sample of contemporary British cinema. The programme also includes a series of films which did not have the exposure of the above titles, yet they were well received by film reviewers and audiences alike in international festivals; these low-budget films stand out for their sincere and bold approach and one of the aims of the festival has always been to introduce to the public of Cyprus the work of newcomers and of film directors that are not widely known. This series of films includes La Tigra by Federico Godfrid και Juan Sasiain and Plan B by Marco Berger from Argentina; About Elly by Asghar Farhadi, and Tehroun by Nader T. Homayoun both from Iran; the Bulgarian film Eastern Plays by Kamen Kalev and from Croatia, Metastaze by Branko Schmidt.

With the above selection of films the event aspires to highlight the cinema of social intervention; to present films that apart from quality entertainment offer the audience a chance to experience a kind of cinema that invites us to interact with the narrative and the screen on a mental level. As in previous years, this year, the public can actively participate in the festival by voting for the best film and there will also be opportunities to meet, and discuss with, the filmmakers who will attend the festival.