12/03/2019 - The 33rd edition of the event that screens fiction and documentary features hailing from Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria will unspool from 9-14 April

On the cusp of reaching its 33^rd edition, the Bolzano Film Festival Bozen (BFFB) is back from 9-14 April to offer a showcase of titles hailing from Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. There are four competitions at the BFFB: the Awards for Best Feature and Best Documentary, the Audience Award and the Euregio Student Jury Award. The festival will also offer a glimpse of the world of Wolfgang Penn, one of the pioneers of South Tyrolean cinema.

Starting with the titles in the feature-length competition, they includeThe Most Beautiful Couple [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sven Taddicken
film profile], a drama-thriller helmed by German director Sven Taddicken (which world-premiered in the Contemporary World Cinema section of the 43rd Toronto International Film Festival). The second film in competition, Adam & Evelyn [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andreas Goldstein
film profile] by Andreas Goldstein, based on the novel of the same name by Ingo Schulze, is set in East Germany during the summer of 1989. From Italy (in co-production with Switzerland) comes The Stone Eater [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Nicola Bellucci, a film noir set on the snow-capped slopes of a valley, revolving around a lead character who is a former smuggler and trafficker of illegal immigrants.

World-premiered at the most recent Venice Film Festival, Joy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sudabeh Mortezai
film profile] by Sudabeh Mortezai is an Austrian film that tells the story of a young Nigerian woman ensnared in the Vienna sex-trafficking network. Lysis by Rick Ostermann tells the intense tale of the relationship between a father and son, and their rafting adventure in the wilds of nature. Meanwhile, If Life Gives You Lemons [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Italy’s Ciro D'Emilio is about the relationship between a mother and son, as it tells the story of Antonio, a 17-year-old boy who dreams of becoming a footballer. Crush My Heart [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Alexandra Makarová is an Austrian production, in which the director lays bare the exploitation of young people who are “imported” from Eastern Slovakia to work as beggars or sex workers in Austria.

There are eight documentaries that will be duking it out for the Bolzano Savings Bank Foundation Award. Among them is another work hailing from South Tyrol, Becoming Me by Martine de Biasi, produced by Helios Sustainable Film, which follows Marion, who is accompanied by a video camera as she embarks on her transformation into Marian, a man. Meanwhile, in Exit, Norwegian director Karen Winther depicts her efforts to look into the motivations that drove her to abandon her fundamentalist militancy. The Cleaners [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck is a co-production between Germany, Brazil and Italy that takes a close look at the dark, hidden underworld of the internet. Rocking up from Italy is Arrivederci Saigon [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Wilma Labate, in which five young women head off on a tour of the Far East in 1968. In The Waldheim Waltz [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ruth Beckermann
film profile], Austrian director Ruth Beckermann reflects on the “Waldheim case”, while Mother Fortress by Maria Luisa Forenza homes in on Mother Superior Agnes, who addresses the effects of the war in Syria on her nunnery, located on the border with Lebanon, where Al-Qaeda and ISIS members are in hiding. The Swiss title Eisenberger – Art Must Be Beautiful, as the Frog Says to the Fly [+see also:
trailer
film profile], helmed by Hercli Bundi, delves into the life of Austrian artist Christian Eisenberg, and The Farmer of Nathal by Austria’s Matthias Greuling and David Baldinger enables us to discover more about author Thomas Bernhard.

(Translated from Italian)