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CROSSING EUROPE 2019

Crossing Europe to screen 149 films at its 16th edition

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- 11 European movies will compete in the Competition Fiction section, while a new competition programme and an educational section for youngsters are being introduced

Crossing Europe to screen 149 films at its 16th edition
Fugue by Agnieszka Smoczyńska

The Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz, Austria's third-largest film gathering, will for the 16th time focus on first or second feature films by European directors in its Competition Fiction section, unspooling from 25-30 April.

Out of the total of 149 films set to screen at the festival, the main competition strand features 11 titles, all of which will be having their Austrian premieres in Linz. The line-up consists of Polish director Agnieszka Smoczyńska's Cannes Critics’ Week title Fugue [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Agnieszka Smoczyńska
film profile
]
, Natasha Merkulova and Aleksey Chupov's Venice Orizzonti entry The Man Who Surprised Everyone [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Russia/Estonia/France), Ukrainian filmmaker Roman Bondarchuk's Karlovy Vary title Volcano [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Roman Bondarchuk
film profile
]
, Nadejda Koseva's Cottbus prizewinner Irina [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Martina Apostolova
film profile
]
(Bulgaria), as well as two Berlinale-premiered films: the winner of Best Debut Film, Oray [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay
film profile
]
by Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay (Germany), and Monsters. [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marius Olteanu
film profile
]
by Marius Olteanu (Romania), which won the Tagesspiegel Readers’ Jury Award. The best-represented festival in the Linz competition will be Toronto, with three films: Rosanne Pel's Light as Feathers [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rosanne Pel
film profile
]
, Ali Vatansever's Saf [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ali Vatansever
film profile
]
(Turkey/Germany/Romania) and Simon Jaquemet's The Innocent [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Simon Jaquemet
film profile
]
(Switzerland/Germany). The UK title Bait [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mark Jenkin
film profile
]
by Mark Jenkin and the German production Aren’t You Happy? [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Susanne Heinrich round off the selection.

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The Competition Documentary also features 11 films that depict the current state of Europe on a social, political and economic level, but also in relation to contemporary history. The selection includes Anja Komfel's Chris the Swiss [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Anja Kofmel
film profile
]
, Thomas Heise's Heimat Is a Space in Time [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, Eszter Hajdú's Hungary 2018 [+see also:
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]
and Anna Eborn's Transistra [+see also:
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]
, as well as two world premieres: Pierre Goetschel's The Last of Them (France), and Friederike Berat and Ulrike Ertl's We Did What Had to Be Done (Germany). For the full list, please click here.

The newly established YAAAS! Competition will present six feature films aimed at and selected by young people (including Winter Flies [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Olmo Omerzu
film profile
]
Alone at My Wedding
 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marta Bergman
film profile
]
and Consequences [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Darko Štante
interview: Timon Sturbej
film profile
]
). More importantly, under the YAAAS! label, the festival has devised a full programme dedicated to film education, the acquisition of media competence and DIY video production, aimed at 15- to 20-year-olds, in collaboration with educator and artist Robert Hinterleitner and the HBLA for Artistic Design Linz. For more information, click here.

In addition to the traditional non-competitive European Panorama Fiction and Documentary sections (see the line-ups here), the Working Worlds thematic segment this year deals with the somewhat thorny topic of “women and work” under the title Independent Women. 

This year's Tribute section is dedicated to Catalan filmmaker Jaime Rosales, while the Spotlight sidebar focuses on a leading female figure in European cinema for the third time. After Yeşim Ustaoğlu and Ada Solomon, Linz has chosen Albanian filmmaker Iris Elezi, a co-founder of the Albanian Cinema Project initiative intended to preserve the national film heritage, who will showcase a mix of historical and current films from her country. 

The festival will open with five films in parallel: Elezi's own Bota [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Iris Elezi
film profile
]
, Rosales' Petra [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jaime Rosales
film profile
]
, Ulaa Salim's Sons of Denmark [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Elliott Crosset Hove
interview: Ulaa Salim
film profile
]
, Nora Fingscheidt's System Crasher [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nora Fingscheidt
film profile
]
and local artist Joerg Burger's Elfie Semotan, Photographer. For the closing ceremony, Linz has selected the Berlinale competition title God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunija [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Labina Mitevska
interview: Teona Strugar Mitevska
film profile
]
 by festival regular Teona Mitevska.

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