This year’s festival is set to open with Promising Young Woman, a feminist manifesto by Emerald Fennell that recently premiered at Sundance Festival, earning the status of most anticipated film of the beginning of 2020.
Also to be discovered is YALDA, the night of forgiveness in the presence of director Massoud Bakhshi, a Luxembourgish co-production which won the Sundance International competition. The movie tells the shocking story of an Iranian woman sentenced to death who has to forgive her accusers through a reality show.
A punk adaptation of the life of Ned Kelly, one of Australia’s most famous outlaws, is screened in True History of the Kelly Gang on the festival’s closing night.
Another Luxembourgish production is found in the category of documentaries. Alexander Nanau’s film Collective, which refers to the Bucharest night club attacked by gunmen in 2015, follows a team of investigative journalists in uncovering a national health scandal.
A round table on the role of women in the film industry, an exhibition on the last 10 editions of the festival on Place du Guillaume, and a Virtual Reality Pavillion in Neimenster should add to the previous event successes.
Last year’s interview with artistic director Alexis Juncosa
The jury so far includes Iranian novelist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi, who claimed international success for her autobiographical novel and screen adaptation Persepolis. British Director Mike Newell, famous for Four Weddings and a Funeral or Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Luxembourgish actor Luc Schiltz.
Made up of young cinema enthusiasts aged 16 and above, the Youth Jury is tasked with viewing and analysing a selection of seven Festival films taken from different strands. Participants are given the opportunity to rub shoulders with professionals from the audiovisual world as well as with official jury members during 11 days of festivities. Following its deliberations, the Youth Jury will select the winner of the “Youth Jury Award – by Kinepolis”, which will be handed out during the Awards Night on 14th March at Kinepolis Kirchberg. The goal is to empower these young talents by encouraging them to develop their appreciation of film, as well as their creativity and analytical spirit. Run for the seventh consecutive year.
The same goes for the Kids Jury, aged between 8-12, and the School Jury made up of classe 6eG of the École Privée Notre-Dame Sainte Sophie.
One of the big highlights is a masterclass with Costa-Gavras, the Franco-Greek director, screenwriter and producer that has directed 20 influential feature films. The day following the screening of his most recent film, Adults in the Room (2019), Costa-Gavras will talk about his creative process and the importance of political cinema in a masterclass that will undoubtedly go down as one of the special festival moments.
