The spirit of the silver screen is back in the capital: the Luxembourg City Film Festival runs from 29 February to 10 March 2024. Said culture minister (DP) at a press conference, this edition is marked by “a predominance of intimate issues--family and wellbeing--showing that the festival is rooted in our current times.” He also expressed his delight that the films selected are well-balanced in terms of the genders of their directors.
The press conference was also an opportunity for the mayor of Luxembourg City, (DP), to confirm that the renovations of the Cinémathèque, a film archive with a screening room in the Place du Théâtre, remain on course, and that a large new auditorium is planned to replace the nursery that currently abuts it. “This project should see the light of day before the end of my term of office,” she said--which is in just under five years’ time--adding that next to be redone are the Theatre’s underground car park and the public square, “which also badly need it.”
Over 230 screenings
Back to the film festival: family, intimacy and personal journeys are indeed among the themes emphasised, appearing in several of the films selected by the artistic committee, which pared down the final cut from some 804 entries.
“Horror is making a notable breakthrough, with several films of this genre on the bill,” commented Alexis Juncosa, artistic director of LuxFilmFest.
Filmmaker Wang Bing will teach a masterclass during the festival, an exhibition about him will simultaneously be on at the Ratzkeller, and three of his films (“the shortest ones, says Cinémathèque : “his films generally last between 4 and 14 hours”) will be shown.
Other guests include directors Abderrahmane Sissako and Gaspar Noé.
This year’s opening film will be The Outrun, by Nora Fingscheidt and starring Saoirse Ronan, in which a young woman returns home to the Orkney Islands after a decade away fighting alcoholism. At the awards ceremony on 9 March, Viggo Mortensen’s much-anticipated western The Dead Don’t Hurt, starring Vicky Krieps, will be screened. And a final highlight is romantic thriller Love Lies Bleeding, by Rose Glass and with Kristen Stewart, to be shown at the closing ceremony.
Also notable are Firebrand, which tells the story of Catherine Parr (played by Alicia Vikander), wife of King Henry VIII (played by an unrecognisable Jude Law), and the beautifully animated film Kensuké’s Kingdom by Kirk Hendry and Neil Boyle.
The Official Competition
The president of the jury for the official fiction competition is American director Ira Sachs. He will be joined by French screenwriter Nathalie Hertzberg (The Goldman Case), German actor Sebastian Koch (The Lives of Others), Luxembourg actress Vicky Krieps and producer Marianne Slot.
Eight films are competing for the grand prize of €10,000:
—Day of the Tiger
—Essential Truths of the Lake
—Gasoline Rainbow
—Hoard
—It’s Raining in the House
—Melk
—Terrestrial Verses
—Toll
In addition to these works of fiction, six documentaries will also compete, judged by a jury of professionals (Fanny Barrot, Laure Bonville, Alejandro Diaz Castaño, Franck Finance-Madureira and Valeria Wagner).
The other prizes on offer this year are the FIPRESCI Prize, the 2030 Award, the Audience Prize, the Youth Jury Prize, the School Jury Prize, the Children’s Jury Prize and the VR Prize.
Like every year, there is tons to discover: a Made In/With Luxembourg selection, short films, cartes blanches, the “Crazy Cinématographe,” the Young Audiences programme, the virtual reality pavilion in Neimënster (29 February to 17 March) and more. Two new items worth highlighting are the LuxFilmFestFabric, a behind-the-scenes look at how films are made, and the LuxFilmFest Club, a platform for exchanges and meetings between the festival and its partners.
Find more information at Tickets go on sale from 7 February 2024 on the festival website.
This article in Paperjam. It has been translated and edited for Delano.