Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival unveils the opening film and Flanders Focus lineup

The 21st Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (aka PÖFF) will see Flanders, Belgium as the focus region of the festival, that will include 10 films in the specially-curated programme In Focus: Flanders. The festival will be opened with another film from the region, Racer and the Jailbird.

Following the tradition of choosing a country of focus for each edition to introduce slices of its culture and cinematic history, PÖFF has instead focused on a region this time, choosing the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium - Flanders - as its region of focus for 2017. The festival has curated a retrospective programme of 10 films that explore the developments in Flemish cinema between 1983 and 2016.

The programme includes two Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award nominations - Daens by director Marc Didden (1983) and Bullhead by Michaël R. Roskam (2011), the only film in the programme that has screened at PÖFF before. One of the films, Facades by directors Kaat Beels & Nathalie Basteyns, will have its international premiere at the festival.

Other entries include the winner of the best director award in Venice’s Orizonti competition Home by director Fien Troch, Cargo that was nominated for the Sebastiane award at San Sebastian and Toto the Hero, a co-production between Flemish, Walloons and Germans, that was nominated for a BAFTA and won the Golden Camera award for the director Jaco van Dormael at Cannes in 1991.

The film to be screened at the opening ceremony of the festival on 17 November in the Nordea Concert Hall is Racer and the Jailbird, the romantic heist thriller by director Michaël R. Roskam that had its world premiere in Venice. The film has been chosen as the Belgian candidate for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Says Tiina Lokk, director of Black Black Nights Film Festival: ‘Why Flanders? Because it is a remarkable region with a rich cultural heritage and an exciting cinematic output. What I, as an Estonian, admire especially is how they have made a much greater impact in the world than their size would seem to suggest. They’ve been making great, distinctive films for decades now, having put themselves strongly on the map with two Academy Awards nomination in the last decade and a remarkable presence at the festival circuit.

And their films have always made a strong impact our festival’s audiences and juries alike. To bring some examples, in 2012 Felix van Groeningen’s Broken Circle Breakdown won the audience award, in 2014 Gust van den Berghe’s Lucifer won the Grand Prix and in 2015 Martha Canga Antonio won the best actress award for Black. In addition, we have a great Flemish debut Resurrection in this year’s First Feature Competition programme.’

Says Yves Wantens, General Representative of the Government of Flanders:
‘The kind of Flanders Focus with Black Nights is one of the bigger events we have initiated with a film festival. The reputation and the quality of the PÖFF festival was one of the elements to decide on this collaboration with PÖFF.

From the side of the Flemish Government we try to promote the internationalization of our movies and audio visual series from a cultural and an economic side and participation in festivals like PÖFF is also one way of promoting our movies to the international public.’

The focus is supported by the Government of Flanders, the Flanders Audiovisual Fund and Screen Flanders.

The tickets for the Flanders Focus films are now available at poff.ee.

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival takes place from 17 November until 3 December.
 

In Focus: Flanders

Brussels by Night (1983), director Marc Didden
Crazy Love (1987), dir Dominique Deruddere
Toto the Hero (Toto le héros, 1991), Jaco van Dormael
Daens (Daens, 1992), Stijn Coninx
The Misfortunates (De helaasheid der dingen, 2009), Felix van Groeningen
Bullhead (Rundskop, 2011), Michaël R. Roskam
Home (2016), Fien Troch
Past Imperfect (Le passé devant nous, 2016), Nathalie Teirlinck
Cargo (2017), Gilles Coulier
Facades (Façades, 2017), Kaat Beels & Nathalie Basteyns