Montreal World Film Festival Still Duking It Out

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Parent Category: In the Spotlight

Category: General

Published on Tuesday, 10 August 2010 03:15

Written by Laura Blum

As if dramatizing the knockdowns of a Rocky, the Montreal World Film Festival has once again toughed out the slugs of its opponents, and will enter its 34th round in the Quebec metropolis August 26 to September 6, 2010.

MWFF has been in a struggle for its survival since its main Canadian funders resolved to do it in six years ago. Yet, run like a private company by its scrappy founder and president Serge Losique, Montreal's grand cinema fête will screen 430 titles from 80 countries this year, once again ranking it among North America's largest competitive showcase of auteur works from around the globe and securing its place in the ring for yet another sequel.

Coming scant days before the Toronto International Film Festival (September 9 to 19) MWFF invites inevitable comparisons. Hands down, the industry edge goes to Toronto, but for festival-goers seeking obscure picks from obscure places – and virtually no trace of Hollywood – Montreal is the place to be. Not that TIFF abstains from discoveries, but it thrives on the crème of the Berlin, Cannes and Venice crop. Toronto's more maverick sibling mixes off-piste finds with acclaimed submissions and lets them vie for the Grand Prix of the Americas, the top prize. Montreal's poutine school of programming gives it a welcome whiff of liberté, égalité and fraternité that keeps its ticket-buying cinephiles coming back.

This year the opening film is Route 132, Louis Bélanger's road movie about a grieving father and a shyster who set out to bilk naïve old timers of their savings. The Montreal filmmaker's Gaz Bar Blues kicked off the Festival in 2003 and his debut film, Post Mortem, participated in the Official Competition in 1999. The screening of Route 132 will mark its world premiere.

Bertrand Tavernier will close MWFF 2010 with his latest feature, The Princess of Montpensier/ La princess de Montpensier. Set in France during the 16th-century wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants, the film is about a young aristocratic beauty who is intended for a prince but passionately in love with another man. The Princess of Montpensier, which is based on a short story published in 1662, competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. It will screen in the out-of-competition World Greats section, which will also feature new efforts from Zhang Yimou, Carlos Saura,

Otar Iosseliani and other celebrated names. 

Gérard Depardieu will muse on his iconic career and the movie industry at Montreal's first ever masterclass, to be held on the last day of the Festival. The French actor, whose role in Cyrano de Bergerac earned him an Oscar nomination, has performed in more than 150 films for directors ranging from Jean-Luc Godard to Ridley Scott.  

The Festival will mount several tributes, including to French actress Nathalie Baye and Italian acting legend Stefania Sandrelli. Baye starred in films by Gaul's top directors, including Jean-Luc Godard, Maurice Pialat, Claude Chabrol, Bertrand Tavernier, François Truffaut and, more recently, Guillaume Canet (Tell No One) – plus such international names as Steven Spielberg and Robert Wise – and will be on hand to present a retrospective of her work.

Both Baye and Sandrelli will be honored with the Grand Prize of the Americas for their respective careers. Sandrelli will present Christine, Cristina, her debut effort as director. Best known to North American audiences as the teen seductress in Pietro Germi's Divorce Italian Style and follow-up hit, Seduced and Abandoned, Sandrelli also appeared in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist, Novecento and Stealing Beauty, among numerous other films.

Danish director Bille August (Smila's Sense of Snow, Oscar-winner Pelle the Conqueror) will head the international jury.

WFF 2010 spans the following sections:

   * World Competition
   * First Films World Competition
   * Hors Concours (World Greats, out-of competition)
   * Focus on World Cinema (Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania)
   * Documentaries of the World
   * Tributes
   * Cinema Under the Stars
   * Canadian Student Film Festival

For more details about the 34th MWFF, consult www.ffm-montreal.org.

World Competition:

9:06, 2009 / Colour / 71 min, Dir. Igor Sterk, Slovenia - Germany.

ANDRÉS NO QUIERE DORMIR LA SIESTA, 2009 / Colour / 108 min, Dir. Daniel Bustamante, Argentina.

ATASHKAR, 2009 / Colour / 82 min, Dir. Mohsen Amiryoussefi, Iran.
Schedule :

Au pays des têtes, Dir. Cédric Louis, Claude Barras, Canada.

BLOODY CRUMBLE, Dir. Éric Périssé, France.

COEUR ANIMAL, 2009 / Colour / 90 min, Dir. Séverine Cornamusaz, Switzerland - France.

DIA DOKUTÂ, 2008 / Colour / 127 min, Dir. Miwa Nishikawa, Japan.

DIE STANDESBEAMTIN, 2009 / Colour / 90 min, Dir. Micha Lewinsky, Switzerland.

ENEN, 2009 / Colour / 100 min, Dir. Feliks Falk, Poland.

FAST VID DIG, , Dir. Carin Brack, Cecilia Actis, Mia Hulterstam, Sweden.

HOY NO SE FIA, MAÑANA SI, 2008 / Colour / 118 min, Dir. Francisco Avizanda, Spain - France.

JE SUIS HEUREUX QUE MA MÈRE SOIT VIVANTE, 2009 / Colour / 90 min, Dir. Claude Miller, Nathan Miller, France.

JESTEM TWOJ, 2009 / Colour / 109 min, Dir. Mariusz Grzegorzek, Poland.

KORKORO, 2009 / Colour / 107 min, Dir. Tony Gatlif, France.

L'Homme et la bête, , Dir. Martin Thibodeau, Canada.

L'HOMME QUI DORT, , Dir. Inès Sedan, Canada - France.

LA FISICA DELL'ACQUA, 2008 / Couleur / 76 min, Dir. Felice Farina, Italy.

LES MANCHES NOIRES, Dir. Willy Kempeneers, Belgium.

Matières à rêver, Dir. Florence Miailhe, France.

Morgen fruh, wenn Gott will, Dir. Maria-Anna Rimpfl, Germany.

Pigeon: Impossible, Dir. Lucas Martell, United States.

REDLAND, 2009 / Colour / 105 min, Dir. Asiel Norton, United States.

STRAYED, 2009 / Colour / 90 min, Dir. Akhan Satayev, Kazakhstan.

SVETI GEORGIJE UBIVA AZDAHU, 2009 / Colour / 120 min, Dir. Srdjan Dragojevic, Serbia - Bosnia - Bulgaria.

SURMENAGE, Dir. Alexandre Leblanc, Benoît Bourbonnais, Canada.

UN CARGO POUR L'AFRIQUE, 2009 / Colour / 90 min, Dir. Roger Cantin, Canada.

UN JUEGO ABSURDO, Dir. Gaston Rothschild, Argentina.

VANVITTIG FORELSKET, 2009 / Colour / 95 min, Dir. Morten Giese, Denmark.

VIYON NO TSUMA, 2009 / Colour / 114 min, Dir. Kichitaro Negishi, Japan.

VIVE LA ROSE, Dir. Bruce Alcock, Canada.

WAFFENSTILLSTAND, 2009 / Colour / 104 min, Dir. Lancelot von Naso, Germany.

WEAVING GIRL, 2008 / Colour / 100 min, Dir. Wang Quan'an, China.

Montreal World Film Festival

August 26 to September 6, 2010

The Imperial Theater

1430 de Bleury Street
Montreal, Quebec

Theatre Maisonneuve

260 de Maisonneuve Boulevard West

Montreal, Canada

(514) 848-3883
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