{"id":54351,"date":"2023-09-12T15:04:16","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T12:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=54351"},"modified":"2023-10-06T17:37:23","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T14:37:23","slug":"haifa-film-festival-2023-new-international-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=54351","title":{"rendered":"Haifa International Film Festival 2023: New International Films"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Io Capitano\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An intriguing harvest of new, exciting, and thought-provoking international films will be shown at the 39th<\/sup> Haifa International Film Festival, which will take place from September 28 \u2013 October 7, 2023. Many are award winners from recent leading film festivals, such as Jonathan Glazer\u2019s The Zone of Interest<\/em>, winner of the Grand Prix and FIPRESCI Prize at the 76th<\/sup> Cannes Film Festival, which will hold its Israeli premiere at the festival. This year\u2019s program features several films with themes of resistance and the fight for freedom. A special focus on new Iranian Films, will include films by Mehran Tamadon and Steffi Niederzoll, who will be guests of the festival. In the spirit of films on the struggle for freedom, the festival\u2019s closing film will be Io Capitano<\/em>, an odyssey of immigration which follows two Senegalese men, Seydou and Moussa, as they make their way from Dakar to Europe. The film\u2019s director, Matteo Garrone, won the Silver Lion for Best Director at the 80th<\/sup> Venice Film Festival, and Seydou Sarr won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for his performance in the film.<\/p>\n

Among the films focusing on the struggle for freedom are:<\/p>\n

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Europa\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Europa<\/em>, directed by Sudabeh Mortezai, follows Beate (Lilith Stangenberg), an executive working for Europa, a corporation looking to expand its territory. Under the guise of investing in underdeveloped areas, the corporation seeks to buy lands from locals in Southern Albania, with Beate as their representative and negotiator. However, she runs into difficulties when Jetnor (Jetnor Gorezi), a local farmer, refuses to leave his land. The film\u2019s director, Sudabeh Mortezai, will be a guest of the festival.<\/p>\n

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Libertate\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Libertate<\/em>, directed by Tudor Giurgiu, focuses on the Transylvanian city of Sibiu, during the days of the December 1989 revolution that overthrew the Communist regime in Romania. An assault on a police unit escalates into a violent confrontation between soldiers, policemen, civilian protesters, and the secret police. In his attempt to escape the siege, police captain Viorel (Alex Calandiu) is captured by the army. Tudor Giurgiu will be a guest of the festival.<\/p>\n

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The Settlers\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his feature film debut, The Settlers<\/em>, Felipe G\u00e1lvez Haberle looks at Chile\u2019s colonial past with a film set in 1901, that follows three horsemen who are hired by a wealthy landowner to mark out the perimeter of his property. But the expedition turns into a \u201ccivilizing\u201d raid. The film was chosen as Chile\u2019s entry for Best International Film at the 96th<\/sup> Academy Awards.<\/p>\n

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The Survival of Kindness\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rolf de Heer\u2019s The Survival of Kindness<\/em> won the FIPRESCI Award for Best Film at the 73rd<\/sup> Berlinale. The film follows BlackWoman (Mwajemi Hussein), who is abandoned in a cage on a trailer in the middle of the desert and left to die. She refuses to accept this fate, and escapes the cage, determined to make her way to the city.<\/p>\n

Award winning films to be shown at the festival include:<\/p>\n

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Evil Does Not Exist\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Evil Does Not Exist<\/em>, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, which won the Grand Jury Prize and FIPRESCI Award at the 80th<\/sup> Venice Film Festival. The latest film from the director of Drive My Car and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, is set in the rural village of Harasawa, where single parent Takumi lives with his daughter Hana. The two lead a serene life in the beauty of nature, as Takumi makes a living doing odd jobs for neighbors. The peaceful region is disrupted by the arrival of Playmode, a company about to begin construction of a glamping site for tourists.<\/p>\n

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Perfect Days\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wim Wender\u2019s Perfect Days<\/em> also focuses on a humble character, Hirayama (K\u014dji Yakusho), who works as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. The film, which is structured as four short stories, won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, and K\u014dji Yakusho received the award for Best Actor. The film was selected as Japan\u2019s entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th<\/sup> Academy Awards.<\/p>\n

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Anatomy of a Fall\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Justine Triet\u2019s Anatomy of a Fall<\/em> won the Palme d\u2019Or at the 76th<\/sup> Cannes Film Festival. Sandra H\u00fcller stars as Sandra, a German writer whose husband falls to his death under mysterious circumstances. Living in a remote location with only their vision-impaired son as witness, Sandra is accused of murdering her husband and must stand trial.<\/p>\n

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Pot-au-Feu\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Inspired by the character of the gourmet created by Marcel Rouff in his novel La Vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Tran Anh H\u00f9ng\u2019s Pot-au-Feu<\/em> (released in the US as The Taste of Things) is set in 1885 and depicts a romance between a cook and her gourmet employer. Tran Anh H\u00f9ng was awarded Best Director at the 76th<\/sup> Cannes Film Festival. Canine afficionados take note \u2013 the film also was awarded the Palm Dog.<\/p>\n

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Monster\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kore-eda Hirokazu\u2019s Monster<\/em>, with a screenplay by Yuji Sakamoto, explores the experience of a mother (Sakura And\u014d) whose son Minato begins to behave strangely. She discovers that a teacher is responsible and storms into the school demanding answers. The film was awarded Best Screenplay and Queer Palm at Cannes.<\/p>\n

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The Teacher’s Lounge\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u0130lker \u00c7atak\u2019s The Teacher\u2019s Lounge<\/em> won the Arthouse Cinema Award at the 73rd<\/sup> Berlin Film Festival, as well as the Label Europa Cinemas Award. Leonie Benesh, who will be a guest of the Haifa Film Festival, stars as Carla Nowak, a dedicated teacher who resolves to uncover the truth when a series of thefts occurs in the school. The film was selected to represent Germany in the competition for Best International Feature at the 96th<\/sup> Academy Awards.<\/p>\n

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Blaga’s Lessons\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Blaga\u2019s Lessons<\/em>, directed by Stephan Komandarev, was awarded the Crystal Globe at the 57th<\/sup> Karlovy Vary Film Festival. A 70-year-old retired teacher with a strict moral code, Blaga finds herself in a quandary when scammers con her out of the money she had saved for her husband\u2019s grave. Director Stephan Komandarev will be a guest at the Haifa Film Festival.<\/p>\n

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Animal\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Director Sofia Exarchou will be a guest at the Haifa Film Festival with her film Animal<\/em>, that looks at the lives of entertainers at an all-inclusive island resort in Greece. Dimitra Vlagopoulou stars as the dancer Kalia, a role for which she was awarded Best Performance at the 77th<\/sup> Locarno Film Festival.<\/p>\n

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There is Still Tomorrow\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Paola Cortellesi directs and stars in her debut feature There is Still Tomorrow<\/em>. Set in the mid-1940s, the film focuses on Delia (Cortellesi), wife to Ivano (Valerio Mastandrea), and mother to their three children. She accepts Ivano\u2019s role as head of the household, and her own role as caregiver, finding respite in her friendship with Marisa (Emanuela Fanelli).<\/p>\n

The full program will be available on the Haifa Film Festival website. https:\/\/www.haifaff.co.il\/eng<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An intriguing harvest of new, exciting, and thought-provoking international films will be shown at the 39th Haifa International Film Festival, which will take place from September 28 \u2013 October 7, 2023. Many are award winners from recent leading film festivals, such as Jonathan Glazer\u2019s The Zone of Interest, winner of the Grand Prix and FIPRESCI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":54353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[391,100,96,375,353],"class_list":["post-54351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-award-winning-films","tag-festival","tag-film","tag-haifa-film-festival","tag-international-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}