European Film Festival coming to JHB and CPT

The Covid-19 pandemic took away the full cinema experience, with people having to stream movies or series’. However, the European Film Festival is gradually bringing back the theatre experience, announcing a hybrid event taking place next month.

The event is expected to take place between 13 and 23 October, in Johanessburg and Cape Town.

With this year’s theme, Innocence and Beyond, the 9th edition of the European Film Festival will explore innocence – not just as a legal concept, but as a human quality.

According to the festival co-director Magdalene Reddy, the festival will continue to cater for its viewers and followers who have become accustomed to the ease of watching films in the comfort of their own homes, while also providing for those who long to return to the full cinema experience.

The festival will showcase 16 award-winning films selected from Sweden, Netherlands, United Kingdom and France, amongst others, with eight of them by women directors, including two stand-out perspectives through the eyes of children in Petite Maman and Playground.

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France 

Petite Maman by French filmmaker Céline Sciamma focuses on friendship, and family, while Playground will give hindsight of the emotions and experiences of school bullying from a child’s point of view. 

Sweden

After earning two Oscar nominations, viewers will get the chance to screen Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World – a Norwegian, French, Danish and Swedish co-production- about a young woman’s quest for love.

Viewers will get a look into the Swedish film by Erik Poppe’s, The Emigrants – an epic period drama about a poverty-stricken family who emigrate from Sweden to the United States in the 1800s.

On a lighter note, The Good Boss, a Spanish film directed by Fernando León de Aranoa, is hilarious satirical comedy about the indignities of working life, with the questionable innocence of Javier Bardem in the spotlight.

With more films to look into the theme, each film will have a single screening at both Ster-Kinekor’s The Zone in Johannesburg, and at The Labia in Cape Town.

*Compiled by Lethabo Malatsi.

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