Film Under the Stars 2018

Grace and Edward have been married 29 years. When their son Jamie comes home to visit them in the fading seaside town where he grew up, Edward tells him that he plans to leave Grace.

“Prometheus was punished by the Gods for giving fire to man.” Christopher Nolan (Tenet, Dunkirk, Inception) brings the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, often credited as “the father of the atomic bomb”. Nolan’s script was based on the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. A stellar cast including Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer. One of the most anticipated movies this summer.

Rebellious and restless, pious and licentious, independent and transgressive: Caravaggio as revealed by Michele Placido is a cursed artist of extraordinary talent; a rock star far ahead of his time; a rebel without a cause who must face the consequences of a frivolous life.

Thomsen’s Danish-style Teorema (1968) predating Pasolini’s is as double-edged as its title (gift meaning both “poison” and “married”). The director conceived it as a polemical tract against pornography and the moral decay of Danish society. But by filling it with nudity and hardcore snippets, he ironically paved the way for a censorship-free Denmark, which in 1969 became the first country to legalize pornography. The censors covered the explicit scenes with thick white crosses (making them somehow even more obscene). And it is precisely on such a historical 35mm print that we will have the pleasure to see the film!

Kleber Mendonça Filho (Aquarius) vividly conjures the colours, smells and sounds of 1970s Brazil – a time “when the walls had ears and any movement could be suspicious”. The Secret Agent is an unpredictable and witty political thriller, but above all, a loving portrait of a place and its people. Winner of Best Director and Best Actor at Cannes, as well as Best Actor (Drama) and Best Non-English Language Film at the Golden Globe Awards.

In the bustling chaos of Mumbai, the lives of three women from different generations intertwine. The debut feature by Payal Kapadia, winner of the Jury Grand Prize at Cannes, is the first Indian film in thirty years to compete in the festival’s main competition.

After 8 Femmes and Potiche, François Ozon returns with another witty comedy about women and fame, set in glamorous 1930s Paris.

Surprise Screening

Martin Scorsese’s latest film is an epic crime saga about a string of murders in the Osage tribe at the beginning of the twentieth century. The story is portrayed through a prism of an unusual romance between a white newcomer Ernest Burkhart and native Mollie Kyle. 

Carrie by Brian De Palma, based on Stephen King’s first novel, is a study of teenage anxiety with the iconic, Oscar-nominated Sissy Spacek in the lead role. Among its peers—the supreme classics and most beloved horror films of all time—Carrie remains the queen of the prom.

The first lady of French porno chic, Brigitte Lahaie, returns in the original instalment of the cheeky fan favourite Six Swedish Girls at a Boarding School—taking place before the young Swedes found employment at a gas station and well-deserved holidays in Ibiza and the Alps. Directed by the “Swiss Roger Corman”, Erwin C. Dietrich, the evergreen hit from our Socialist past and the once notorious erotic Kino Sloga is bursting at the seams with zany humour, mechanical invention, and healthy minds in oh, such healthy bodies.

The latest work of Macedonian cinematic superhero Teona Strugar Mitevska. The comical surface of the speed-dating scene and the irony-infused title reveal an insightful and touching study of the Bosnia and Herzegovinian society, where 30 years later, the consequences of war are far more present than it seems at first glance.

A gentle ode to love in all its forms. Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes festival.

AFN Presents: That’s what she said programme brings to the audience a thoughtfully selected collection of outstanding short audiovisual works by female and female-identifying filmmakers from the last editions of the Animation Festival Network member festivals. Programmers of Animateka, Animest, Fest Anča, Animafest and Anifilm acknowledge the female power and stress the importance of female voices in the industry of animated films. The selection introduces unique entertaining as well as dark stories told in various animation techniques. The best of the 2023 AFN’s competitive sections. Or that is at least what she said.

In an unexplored vault in Belgrade lies a collection of films known as “The Labudović Reels” containing images of African and Asian liberation movements and revolutionary leaders that defined the era of the 1960s. The film takes us into the story behind the images, on an intimate voyage with the man who filmed them. As the cameraman of the Yugoslav president Tito, Stevan Labudović captured an era of politics, personality and promise, capturing the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers, the young Furiosa falls into the hands of a biker horde led by the warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland, they come across the Citadel, presided over by Immortan Joe. As the two tyrants fight for dominance, Furiosa soon finds herself in a nonstop battle to make her way home. 

A charming comedy in which the title heroine confronts life’s many challenges with half-truths, exaggerations and evasions, parodying the art world and paying homage to Hollywood’s screwball comedies. 

Japanese pinku eiga icon Reiko Ike teams up with cult Swedish sensation Christina Lindberg in a spectacular sword-and-gun-wielding showdown against the yakuza—the former seeking revenge for her father’s death, the latter trying to escape captivity. A cult classic favourite from Toei Studio’s infamous pinky violence cycle, the iconic scenes directed by genre legend Norifumi Suzuki served as an inspiration and blueprint for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill (2003–2004).