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FESTIVALS Germany

Fathers, daughters and all kinds of complications at Oldenburg

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- The Oldenburg International Film Festival has presented the line-up for its 22nd edition

Fathers, daughters and all kinds of complications at Oldenburg
God of Happiness by Dito Tsintsadze

With the line-up for its 22nd edition, the Oldenburg International Film Festival is continuing its strong commitment to innovative and independent filmmaking. “If I had a thousand sponsors,” stresses Shakespeare actor Stacy Keach in this year’s festival trailer, “the first humane principle I would teach them would be to forswear thin entertainment and addict themselves to the Oldenburg Film Festival.” 

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At the gathering, located in the small city of Oldenburg in Northern Germany, festival director Torsten Neumann is hosting German premiere screenings of films by acclaimed filmmakers, but also those by new artists. The world premieres on the upcoming programme include God of Happiness [+see also:
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film profile
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by Silver Leopard winner Dito Tsintsadze (Zghvardze - On the Borderline, Lost Killers), about a complicated relationship between a father and his daughter who became estranged from him a decade ago. In the French remake One Wild Moment [+see also:
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by Jean-François Richet, which stars Vincent Cassel and François Cluzet, fathers and daughters start getting much closer with one another.

Back in Oldenburg for the third time is Belgian filmmaker Pieter Van Hees with his neo-noir thriller Waste Land [+see also:
film review
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interview: Pieter Van Hees
film profile
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, which completes his “Love and Pain” trilogy (also comprising Left Bank [+see also:
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and Dirty Mind [+see also:
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). Meanwhile, up-and-coming German filmmaker Tom Sommerlatte, who competed for the German Independence Award in 2014, is returning to Oldenburg with his debut feature, Summers Downstairs [+see also:
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, about a fraternal conflict that takes place in a family’s summerhouse in France. Further highlights on the programme include Travelator [+see also:
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by Serbian filmmaker Dusan Milic, Ethiopian sci-fi feature Crumbs [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Spanish writer-director Miguel Llansó and various US independent films, such as the psycho thriller Dark by Nick Basile, which takes place during a blackout in New York, and the modern Bonnie and Clyde story Dixieland by Hank Bedford

As this year’s special guest, the Oldenburg International Film Festival honours American filmmaker George Armitage with a retrospective of seven movies. The work of this extraordinary director who adapted pulp novels for the screen includes the premiere of the director’s cut of The Big Bounce. Based on a novel by Elmore Leonard, the picture stars Owen Wilson, Morgan Freeman, Charlie Sheen and Harry Dean Stanton. Some special events will also take place at a local prison, which has formed part of the festival’s screening facilities for a decade now.

Furthermore, the gathering will host the nominations for the EFA’s Discovery Award. For the second time, the Linking the North co-production meeting will bring together producers from Germany and Norway in order to present their projects and discuss possible collaborations. The 22nd Oldenburg International Film Festival takes place from 16-20 September and will close with the official awards show.

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