Top movies from Sundance, Cannes and Rotterdam compete at Cinematik

One of the most popular sections of Cinematik is the main feature competition Meeting Point Europe. It merges a selection of the best that the European cinematography has produced over the past year, according to the vote of 17 film critics from 17 European countries. The section is under the auspices of the International Federation of Film Critics FIPRESCI.

In this years selection for example we find a fresh autobiographical drama by British filmmaker Joanna Hogg The Souvenir (2019). In the movie, whose main motive is the unbalanced love affair of a young film student, the central characters of mother and daughter are portrayed by a real mother and daughter duo – Tilda Swinton and Honor Swinton-Byrne. The movie had successful screenings at this year’s Sundance festival, where it won the main prize, and also at Berlinale.

Another remarkable film in this section is the drama Dirty God (2019), which Dutch filmmaker Sacha Polak presented at Sundance and the Rotterdam Film Festival. It shows a young mother trying to get her life together after a brutal acid attack has forever branded her with scars on her face, body and soul.

Zombi Child (2019) is a French mysterious drama revealing to its audience the mysteries of Caribbean voodoo rituals in a story where the present mingles with the past. The film was shot by Bertrand Bonello, director of Saint Laurent and Nocturama. His latest movie was premiered at Director’s Fortnight in Cannes and Cinematik’s audience is going to be the first one in Slovakia able to see it.

Diamantino (2018) by Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt brings to the competition a touch of absurdity, fantasy and originality. The crazy grotesque about a football star who, after a disgraceful failure on the pitch is seeking lost talent and fateful love, was nominated for the European Film Award for Best Comedy.

One of the most surprising titles in Meeting Point Europe competition is undoubtedly the co-production thriller Monos (2019) by Alejandro Landes. An intense visual and musical experience from the Amazon forest, where a group of child rebel soldiers entrusted with an unusual task, moves beyond the thin boundary of incalculable anarchy. The film harvested a number of prestigious festival awards, including the Sundance Special Jury Award. The Brazilian director is said to be a rising star in Latin American cinema, which you will surely hear about in the years to come.

Also competing for the Meeting Point Europe award is Sergei Loznicas drama from the environment of the hybrid military conflict Donbass (2018). The Belarusian director is known mainly for his stylized documentaries on key milestones in the history of former Eastern Block countries. This time he introduces a fictional, although reality inspired, collage of life in one of the most restless regions on Europe’s current map.

The festival will also present an important recent film by François Ozon By The Grace of God (2019), which uncompromisingly exposes a hideous case of child abuse by Catholic priests in Lyon, France. The Berlinale jury awarded the movie with a Silver Bear.

At the Eternity’s Gate (2018), a biographical drama about Vincent van Gogh by Julian Schnabel, the director of Basquiat and Skafander and the Butterfly, promises also a strong cinematic experience. Portraying the main character earned Willem Dafoe a trophy from Venice and an Oscar nomination.

The only representative of the sci-fi genre in this section is Claire Denis’s philosophical drama High Life (2018) with Juliette Binoche and Robert Pattinson in the lead roles. The last movie of the competing ten, The Favourite (2018), is an original portrait of Queen Anne, the last Stuart empress of Britain. Yorgos Lanthimos’s film already earned a Silver Lion from Venice IFF and both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Olivia Colman in the lead role.