SELECTIONS&FILMS
The best European cinema
Twelve of the best European films produced during the last year are competing for the main
award of the 26th edition of Festroia: the Gold Dolphin for Best Film.
There are directors well-known to the festival’s audience, like the Danish director Thomas
Vinterberg, who comes back with Submarino, and artists that make their Festroia debut, like
Saara Cantell, Finnish director who will try to take one more Gold Dolphin to her country
with Heart beats.
Three more motion pictures come from Northern Europe: A family, by Pernille Fischer
Christensen (Denmark), on the tough choices a young woman must make; A somewhat gentle man,
the first comedy by Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland; and The ape, by Jesper Ganslandt
(Sweden), where a man tries to hold on to a life he lost.
Another area that is very well represented is Eastern Europe, with Soul at peace, Vladimír
Balko (Slovakia), All that I love, by Jacek Borcuch (Poland), and three co-productions: St.
George shoots the dragon (Serbia, Bosnia and Bulgaria), by Srdjan Dragojevic, In the land
of wonders (Croatia, Hungary), by Dejan Sorak, and Metastases (Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia),
by Branko Schmidt.
The last two films competing in the Official Section are also a result of co-productions:
the Belgian-Dutch production The storm, by Ben Sombogaart, and Jaffa, Keren Yedaya’s most
recent work, made with money from Israel, France and Germany.
Included on the Official Section, but off-competition, are two features: Stavros
Kaplanidis’ Canteen (Greece), about three men who work in a roadside canteen and the many
people passing through it, and Case unknown, by Polish director Feliks Falk.