New sections, a stronger selection in the competition program and more colorful specials at the Miskolc IFF, the leading international film festival of Hungary, 9-18 September.
This year eighteen films have made it to the feature competition program. Movies like the Sundance hit Swiss Army Man, The Hunt for the Wilderpeople by the New Zealand helmer Taika Waititi or the renowned American director Kelly Richard’s new piece, Certain Women are all part of the program.
The Danish director’s Land of Mine will also run for the festival`s Emeric Pressburger Prize, just like the family drama dividing the critics in Cannes but getting the Grand Prix nonetheless, It’s Only the End of the World by Xavier Dolan. And, if we have already mentioned Cannes and critics, the most adored film of all time at the Croisette, Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann is also here in the competition program.
Hungarian film is represented by Szabolcs Hajdu’s This Is Not the Time of My Life, but there is a Hungarian co-production as well, Anca Miruna Lazarescu’s That Trip We Took with Dad.
The most innovative piece in the competition program is undoubtedly the Motel Mist by the Thai writer genius, Prabda Yoon. Yoon will be present at the festival to introduce his film. There are also two arthouse science fictions, the Native and the Equals, the later one, by Drake Doremus, being a special Orwell adaptation, parallel in many ways to George Lucas’ THX 1138 that is also screened at the Jameson CineFest.
The Open Eye section is stronger than ever with films like the Death in Sarajevo by the Bosnian director, Danis Tanovic, the witty romance Love&Friendship by Whit Stillman, or Paul Verhoeven’s absurd thriller, also the closing film of the Festival, Elle that can be understood as the sequel to Basic Instinct. Hungarian films have also made it to the Open Eye selection: the screenwriter István Tasnádi’s directorial debut Memo, and an American co-production The Boy on the Train starring Barnabás Tóth and Tibor Szervét.
This year the CineClassics focuses on Kieslowski’s Three colors trilogy, the Lifetime Achievement Award goes to the Hungarian legend Károly Makk, three brand new DVDs from the Budapest Film Archive will be presented at the festival, the great ‘hangosfilm.hu’ introduces itself and we remember a Hungarian actor who started his career in Miskolc: the great Zoltán Latinovits passed away 40 years ago.
The festival’s new special program, Midnight Screenings brings us old and new horrors to watch: from the digitally re-mastered Wes Craven classic A Nightmare on Elm Street to the Cannes debut Train to Busan that is the most expensive South-Korean production of all time.
Another new program is the MusicDocs selection, bringing us a genius documentary on Frank Zappa by Throsten Schütte, an IDFA hit When The Earth Seems To Be Light and Csaba Bereczki’s Soul Exodus that talks honestly and deeply about klezmer musicians form New York.