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European 2023

Rivière

17 years old Manon, an outstanding hockey player, leaves her home in Switzerland to go look for the father who abandoned her and her mother years ago. She arrives at a small French town on the Swiss border, where she makes new connections and falls in love for the first time. Manon is determined to make her dream come true – to become a professional hockey player, but before that she must accept her sexuality as well as the reality where her parents will never be there for her.
“Rivière” describes the journey of a young woman who has to fight the entire world for her place in it because nothing is a given. Lead actress Flavie Delangle (Manon) gives us a tough and captivating character from the beginning till the end. Get ready for a particularly moving drama.

 

My Sole Desire

A striptease show to a techno remix version of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the sugar plum fairy”, nude reading of Chekhov and a satirical striptease on the theme of yellow vests protests. All these and more are part of a show in the Parisian strip club “À Mon Seul Désir”, a place where stripers with artistic flair can take professional risks and challenge their audience.
Manon (Louise Chevillotte, “Synonymes” by Nadav Lapid) is a young aimless woman with no real purpose in life. She spontaneously decides to start working at the club and is immediately drawn to her new colleagues, especially Mia (Zita Hanrot, “Angry Annie”), an ambitious actress with a partner and a child. The relationship between the two intensifies as they spend more and more time together and Manon finds herself falling for Mia. The two begin a secret affair in a place where you must draw the line between love and work.
Director Lucie Borleteau created a film about sex workers through a female non judgmental gaze. She describes the world of the women working in the club with all its complexities. The result is a surprising and unusual cinematic journey with excellent actresses in the lead roles and quite a few surprise guest appearances, such as Melvil Poupaud (“Time to Leave”), Félix Maritaud (“120 BPM”), legendary director Frederick Weisman and actress Ariane Labed (“Lobster”).

Viewing is 18+ due to explicit sexual content.

In association with the Embassy of France

Homecoming

Catherine Corsini, director of the excellent “The Divide” (TLVfest 2021), is back with another magnificent drama that was part of the Palme d’Or official competition at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
Khédidja is working as nanny for a wealthy Parisian family that takes her to the summer holidays on Corsica island. She brings along her two teenage daughters Jessica and Farah. This is an opportunity for the mother and two daughters to go back to the island they left in a hurry 15 years ago under tragic circumstances. While the mother is overcome with memories, the two daughters enjoy everything summer has to offer – unexpected rendez-vous, first love experiences and parties far into the night. In between, questions of their family history on the island arise, which lead the two girls to discover other sides to their mother’s version of the events that she never disclosed.

Just like in her previous film, Corsini creates a microcosm of tensions due to race, sex and gender with a strong and moving female story. “Homecoming” is a drama that is sure to move and impress the viewers.

 

In association with the Embassy of France

Passages

Thomas is a German filmmaker, who is under a lot of pressure towards his last day of filming in Paris. In the evening there’s a party to celebrate the end of shooting. Thomas starts the night dancing with his British husband Martin, but ends it in the arms of Agathe, a young preschool teacher. She falls under Thomas’ spell and what starts as a flirtatious dance ends up as a passionate and surprising night. The next morning Thomas openly tells his husband he’s slept with a woman which throws the couple into a whirlpool of emotions that will change their life.

New York based gay filmmaker Ira Sachs (“Married Life”, “Love Is Strange”, “Keep the Lights On”) brings to the big screen an achingly beautiful film full of passion, a film full of laughter and sorrow about an unlikely throuple in Paris. This film stars some of the finest young actors of our age – Franz Rogowski (“Great Freedom”), Ben Whishaw (“Atlas Cloud”, “Paddington”), Adèle Exarchopoulos (“Blue is the Warmest Color”) and Erwan Kepoa Falé (“Winter Boy”).
Viewing is 18+ due to explicit sexual content.

20,000 Species of Bees

Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s increadible debut film entered the Berlin Film Fesitival’s official contest and earned its star – 10 years old Sofía Otero – Best Actress Award.

“20,000 Species of Bees” is a quaint family drama, its atmosphere can even be described as impressionist. The film was shot in the Basque region in northern Spain and follows the summer holiday of a mother and her three children. In their very traditional village, eight years old Lucia can no longer keep her secret inside.

Director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, in her debut full length film, creates a sunny and emotionally exposed drama. She takes her audience on an intimate journey with her heroines – the daughter, the mother, the grandmother and the rest of the women living and ruling the small Basque village. Those women are different and varied as the different species of bees.
Solaguren, who also wrote the script, handles the subject delicately and creates a natural feeling, almost a documentary one. The new up and coming actress Sofía Otero gives a gut wrenching performance that wouldn’t leave a dry eye in the audience.

In association with the Embassy of Spain

Opponent

Iman is a former wrestling champion, a refugee from Iran, who is now wandering between refugee hostels in Sweden with his wife Miriam and their two daughters. Iman has escaped his homeland Iran in fear of persecution after a violent crime he committed. He is looking for ways to provide his wife and daughters a place to live and works delivering pizzas on a snow motorbike.
When Miriam becomes unexpectedly pregnant for the third time, and the talks with the Swedish immigration become tougher, Iman decides to renew his wrestling career, despite the promise he made to his wife never to engage in the dangerous sport again.
Iman is hoping that being included in the Swedish team will earn him a special staying permit as a sportsman. As his skills are very much appreciated by the local team and also by one of his fellow teammates (Björn Elgerd, “Are We Lost Forever”), the deeper reasons that lead Iman to fleeing Iran are about to surface.

In his second film, director/screenwriter Milad Alami is aided by a superb cast lead by Payman Maadi. He creates a complex and layered social drama dealing with culture clashes, identities, and how the individual is getting lost inside the political.
Swedish submission for the Oscar Awards 2024.

 

In association with the Embassy of Sweden
  

The Lost Boys

In a juvenile reform center, Joe is getting ready for his return to society, but he’s not sure how life will be on the other side of the fence. When William, a new inmate, moves to the cell next to him, Joe’s desire for freedom is turning rapidly into a different kind of want.

Using Camera Obscura shots, ink paintings, dance and rap, William and Joe embark on a shared journey of self-discovery – both are surprised by the emotional and physical attraction to each other. When the desperation and longing around them grows, they find solace in each other.

Director/Screenwriter Zeno Graton’s debut film traces expertly the twists and turns of desire between two young men and offers an uncompromising vision of love. Even behind bars, an unexpected crush can lead to a freeing and moving love story.

 

In association with the Embassy of Belgium.

   

Bones and Names

Boris the actor and Jonathan the writer are a couple, but their relationship reached the point where they can spend their evenings together-apart – one in bed reading scripts and the other working at the office desk in the next room. Boris is sinking further and further into rehearsals for a new film with an ambitious director whose way of work starts to affect his personal life. Meanwhile Jonathan is trying to redefine his voice as a writer. The couple is experiencing a period of emotional distancing, betrayal of trust, fear of losing their relationship as well as fear of losing themselves in it.

This is the debut feature film of actor, screenwriter and director Fabian Stumm, and he shows that he is one of most interesting young voices in German cinema today. Stumm manages to turn what seems to be banal and everyday scenes – in the bedroom, supermarket or rehearsal room, into something unexpected in a film that is an intelligent and amusing takeout on relationships.
The Israeli audience will remember Knut Berger, who plays Jonathan in the movie “Walk on Water” (2004).

 

Who I Am Not

In this gentle and moving documentary we discover the stories of Sharon-Rose who is entering the Miss South Africa beauty contest and of social activist Dimakatso, two very different people. There is one thing that is binding them together – they were both born intersex. Even though they come from completely different worlds they provide support for each other. They navigate their lives, between decisions and discoveries in their unique journeys, struggling with issues of identity, family relations, health, romance and eventually, self acceptance.

Romanian director Tünde Skovrán followed the lives of Sharon-Rose and Dimakatso for five years and the personal journey of her protagonists is unfolding on camera. The result is emotionally powerful and visually hypnotic. One of the producers of this film is Oscar winning actress Patricia Arquette.

The screening is in association with Project Gila & part of the earnings are a donation to the project.

Gila Project for Trans Empowerment (AKA Transgenders for Social Justice) was founded in 2010 by and for the transgender community. It began as an activist group working to change the lives of transgender people, with a focus on personal empowerment, advocacy for rights, and demanding access to resources and opportunities. The Project grew into a strong trans-led nonprofit that continues to uphold these values and goals, and works in the field of LGBTQ rights, human rights, and social justice.

Un Prince

Botanical erotica. In his first feature film, documentary director Pierre Creton takes us on a journey in the life of a young man who arrives as a student to an horticultural school. As much as the hero of the film is passionate about learning and working, he’s also full of passion for the older men who work as farmers in the countryside, and even finds himself as part of a throuple with two of them.
“Un Prince” is a quiet cinematic piece where nature and male bodies unite in an organic manner in the pure surroundings. Botany and sexuality bloom in this surprising and unusual film, full of unforgettable images.
The film is accompanied by a VO by some of France’s veteran movie stars – Gregory Gadebois, Mathieu Amalric and Françoise Lebrun.

In association with the Embassy of France

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