award-winning films on the prgramme
12. July 2022
The first films for the anniversary edition have been selected: they all won main prizes at international festivals in Cannes, Rotterdam and Copenhagen and will celebrate their German premieres at FILMFEST HAMBURG in autumn, including the Palme d’Or winner Triangle of Sadness by Ruben Östlund.
The world of the beauties and the super rich: After a pirate attack, some passengers and crew members of a luxury cruise ship can save themselves on a lonely island, where the hierarchies among the stranded are being renegotiated. As in his previous films Force Majeure and The Square, which also screened at FILMFEST HAMBURG, Ruben Östlund bitingly and provocatively studies human behaviour in the most unexpected situations. On the island, it is the toilet attendant on the luxury yacht who can catch fish and light fires, ensuring the survival of the island’s unwilling community. For his wicked film satire Triangle of Sadness, starring Woody Harrelson, Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean Kriek, Iris Berben and Sunnyi Melles, the Swedish director was awarded the Palme d’Or for the second time at the Cannes Film Festival after The Square.
A donkey is at the centre of Jerzy Skolimowski’s latest film EO. With powerful images and sound, the 84-year-old multi-award-winning Polish director shows the world from the perspective of a grey farm animal and follows him on his life’s journey through Europe with joyful and painful encounters. EO, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes, is both a homage to and a re-interpretation of Robert Bresson’s film For Balthazar, which Skolimowski loves above all else.
For Adam, the son of a fisherman, a dream comes true when he gets a scholarship to the renowned al-Azhar University in Cairo – the epicentre of Egypt’s religious power. When the director of the university dies unexpectedly in front of his students, a power struggle for his successor begins. The dubious government official Ibrahim hires Adam as an informant, putting him not only between the fronts of the country’s religious and political elites, but also in mortal danger. Tarik Saleh’s tense political thriller Boy from Heaven, starring Tawfeek Barhom and Fares Fares, is set in a fascinating environment at the world’s largest religious university and was awarded the Best Screenplay prize at Cannes.
A serial killer is wreaking his havoc in the holy Iranian city of Mashhad in Ali Abbasi’s thriller Holy Spider. He always kills prostitutes in the same way to “clean” the streets. The journalist Rahimi sets off in search of evidence and gets caught up in a vortex of violence and religious fanaticism. For her role as an
investigative journalist, Zar Amir Ebrahim was honoured with the best actress award in Cannes.
In The Worst Ones, French directors Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret explore the streetcasting of children and young people. A film team goes to a French workers’ town to cast actors for a new film. While the four selected young protagonists immerse themselves in the world of film and gain new experiences, the critical locals ask themselves why the “worst” of their neighbourhood have made it in front of the camera. Akoka and Gueret’s feature film debut, which won the main prize in the official “Un Certain Regard” section at Cannes, will be screened at FILMFEST HAMBURG in the “Voilà” section.
For her film EAMI, Paraguayan director Paz Encina ventures into the living space of the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode. The indigenous people live in an area that is experiencing the fastest deforestation in the world. The focus lies on the little girl Eami. After her village is destroyed, she wanders through the rainforest looking for those who are left. EAMI, which means “forest” and “world” in Ayero, is an elegy about decay and at the same time an attempt to capture something that is getting lost. The film won the festival’s top prize, the Tiger Award, at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and is screening in the “Vitrina” section.
On 11 August 1999, there was a total solar eclipse in Europe, and in Serbia people were busy barricading themselves in their houses for fear of the darkness. In her documentary The Eclipse, filmmaker Nataša Urban takes up the eclipse as a metaphor and goes to the country of her childhood to collect stories and anecdotes from her family and acquaintances. Shot on analogue 16mm film, The Eclipse, which won the top prize at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX), is a very personal film about the filmmaker’s growing up during the war in the former Yugoslavia.
The films at a glance
Boy from Heaven (Walad Mil Al Jann)
Dir. & Scr.: Tarik Saleh
Sweden, France, Finland, Denmark, 2022
Distributor: X-Verleih
“Kaleidoscop”
EO (IO)
Dir.: Jerzy Skolimowski | Scr.: Jerzy Skolimowski, Ewa Piakowska
Poland, Italy, 2022
Distributor: Rapid Eye Movies
“Kaleidoscop”
EAMI
Dir. & Scr.: Paz Encina
Paraguay, Germany, Argentina, Netherlands, France, USA, 2022
“Vitrina”
Holy Spider
Dir.: Ali Abbasi | Scr.: Ali Abbasi, Afshin Kamran Bahrami
Denmark, Germany, Sweden, France, 2022
Distributor: Alamode | Theatrical release: 12.01.2023
“Kaleidoscop”
The Eclipse
Dir. & Scr.: Nataša Urban
Norway, 2022
Documentary
“Veto!”
The Worste Ones (Les Pires)
Dir.: Lise Akoka, Romane Gueret | Scr.: Lise Akoka, Romane Gueret, Elenore Gurrey
France, 2022
“Voilà”
Triangle of Sadness
Dir. & Scr.: Ruben Östlund
Sweden, Germany, France, UK, 2022
Distributor: Alamode | Theatrical release: 13.10.2022
“Kaleidoscop”
The complete line-up will be announced on 13 September 2022.
FILMFEST HAMBURG will take place from 29 September to 8 October 2022. 110 productions from all over the world will be shown as European, German or Hamburg premieres. Festival cinemas include Abaton, CinemaxX Dammtor, Metropolis, Passage and the Studio-Kino.
