EUROPEAN UNION FILM FESTIVAL 2010 at the Royal Cinema (608 College), from today (Thursday, November 18), to November 30. eutorontofilmfest.ca. See listings. Rating: NNNN
You know about the European Union Film Festival, right? The one that offers Toronto a chance to see new feature films from just about every country in the EU well in advance of their commercial openings? And the whole thing’s free?
Well, get wise. Settling in at the Royal for the next couple of weeks, the festival – which offers first-?come, first-?served admission and English subtitles for all features – is a great way to catch up on European cinema. Last year’s offerings included such awards-?season A-?titles as The White Ribbon, A Prophet and Police, Adjective. This year’s program has a recent TIFF gala, a Hot Docs favourite and various other gems yet to be discovered.
Consider Storm (screening November 27, 6 pm), the new film by Hans-?Christian Schmid, who gave us the excellent schizophrenia drama Requiem in 2006. Storm finds the German director marshalling an international cast – including Kerry Fox, Stephen Dillane and Anamaria Marinca, the Romanian powerhouse of 4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days – for a courtroom drama about a Hague prosecutor (Fox) trying to determine whether she can trust a key witness (Marinca) in a war crimes trial. The subject and rigorous execution make it a difficult sell for a Canadian distributor, so this is likely the only chance you’ll have to see it on a big screen.
Estonia’s contribution, Disco And Atomic War (Saturday, November 20, 6 pm) may be the happiest movie about Soviet oppression you’ll ever see. Jaak Kilmi’s documentary examines the impact of Western culture on life in the USSR, as resourceful Estonians tuned into forbidden Finnish television broadcasts to learn about the world beyond the Iron Curtain.
Denmark is represented by Søren Kragh-?Jacobsen’s What No One Knows (November 27, 8:30 pm), a noirish 2008 thriller about a man (Anders W. Berthelsen, of Italian For Beginners) whose investigation of his sister’s death leads him into some very dark places. Imagine a much more sensible remake of Edge Of Darkness than the one with Mel Gibson, by a director who isn’t overpowered by his star.
And then there’s Little White Lies (Tuesday, November 23, 6 pm), Guillaume Canet’s follow-?up to his smash thriller Tell No One. It’s a drama about a group of friends – among them François Cluzet, Marion Cotillard and Benoît Magimel – whose tangled relationships unravel during a summer getaway. I couldn’t spare two and a half hours to see it when it debuted at TIFF earlier this fall, so I’ll be catching up to it here. Thanks, festival!
normw@nowtoronto.com
