April 12 – 20, 2024

 

Viewfinder

The 16th Cyprus Film Days International Festival, which takes place from the 19th to the 28th of April at the Rialto Theatre in Limassol and the Zena Palace in Nicosia, is proud to announce the out-of-competition films of the Viewfinder section, screened in Cyprus for the first time. This year’s selection of films participating in the out-of-competition section called “Viewfinder – A Close-Up of Contemporary World Cinema” offers viewers an opportunity to engage with the work of promising new talent as well as the work of already established filmmakers, with films that were screened in international festivals, have obtained significant awards, and have won over critics and audiences alike.

The films that will be screened in this year’s “Viewfinder – A Close-Up of Contemporary World Cinema” are:

Sweet Country

Warwick Thornton
113′, 2017 Australia

Accused of murder, an Aboriginal stockman and his wife try to stay ahead of a fervent posse in the harsh outback of the Northern Territory.

Sweet Country participated, among others, at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017, where it received the Platform Prize, and at the Venice Film Festival in 2017, where it received the Special Jury Prize. Other awards include the Best Fiction Feature and the Foxtel Movies Audience Award at the Adelaide Film Festival, and the Best Film Award at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

The Florida Project

Sean Baker
111′, 2017 USA

Set on a stretch of highway just outside the imagined utopia of Disney World, the film follows six-year-old Moonee and her rebellious mother, Halley, over the course of a single summer.

Even though The Florida Project is a low-budget film, it is nevertheless traveling around the best festivals in the world, from the Cannes Director’s Fortnight to the AFI Awards, where it received the Movie of the Year award. Willem Dafoe was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Foxtrot

Samuel Maoz
113′, 2017 Israel, Switzerland, Germany, France

Michael and Dafna are devastated when army officials show up at their home to announce the death of their son Jonathan.

Foxtrot won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, and was Israel’s proposal for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, a fact that sparked several reactions in Israel. The first feature film of Maoz, Lebanon, was screened at the 2010 Cyprus Film Days International Festival.

Lucky

John Carroll Lynch
2017, 88′ USA

A 90-year-old atheist has outlived and out-smoked his contemporaries, and as he comes to terms with his own mortality, he searches for ever-elusive enlightenment.

The latest film of the legendary Harry Dean Stanton (for which he received 4 posthumous performance awards) and the first directing work of renowned actor John Carroll Lynch. The ideas explored in the film take therefore another dimension, closing the actor’s long career in an ironic yet romantic way. The filmmaker David Lynch is also featured in the film.

Love me not

Alexandros Avranas
2017, 99’ Greece

A married couple hires a young migrant to be their surrogate mother and moves her to their beautiful villa.

Love Me Not premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. This year, we will have the honour of having director Alexandros Avranas and the protagonist of the film Eleni Roussinou, as our guests. Alexandros Avranas’ second feature film, Miss Violence, was screened at the 2014 Cyprus Film Days International Festival.

Duty (Wajib)

Annemarie Jacir
96′, 2017 Palestine

A father and his estranged son must come together to hand deliver his daughter’s wedding invitations to each guest as per local Palestinian custom.

Duty was featured in several major festivals around the world, such as Dubai (Best Film Award and Best Actor Award), Locarno (with a total of 4 awards), London (with 2 awards), and Palm Springs, among others. Annemarie Jacir’s first feature film, Salt of This Sea, was screened at the 2009 Cyprus Film Days International Festival.