The World Cinema at 23rd Ankara Film Festival

23rd Ankara International Film Festival, supported by Ministry of Culture and Tourism and organized by The World Mass Media Research Foundation announced today the films screening in this year’s World Cinema Categories. World Cinema showcases the most anticipated and prize-winning international films of the year. Jean-Marc Vallée’s (Director of the CRAYZ) latest film Café de Flore, visually breathtaking 'Three and a Half / Seh o nim’, 2011 San Sebastian Film Festival ‘Best Film’ winner ‘The Double Steps  / Los pasos dobles’ are some of the most talked about independent films to be screened in Ankara.  And the more to discover; Wer wenn nicht wir / If Not Us, Who?, Andres Veiel 2011, GermanyBernward Vesper, the son of a former Nazi poet, who Is passionate about literature and has to live under the shadow of his father whom he tries to defend through his literary work.  He meets  Gudrun Ensslin, a liberated and free spirited woman who is as passionate as Bernward about changing the world through literature, but when political events start to take a course contrary to their believes, Gudrun is influenced by the illiterate but radical Andreas Baader, who is convinced that only through extreme action change can be accomplished. While Bernward struggles against psychedelic drugs to complete a world-changing novel, Gudrun teams up with Andreas Baader and becomes part of the violent RAF (Red Army Fraction, also known as the Baader-Meinhoff Group.) For both of them, there is no turning back. 2011 Berlin FF; Alfred Bauer Award , Prize of the Guild of German Art House Cinemas

2011 German Film Award Outstanding Feature Film

  Los pasos dobles / The Double Steps, Isaki Lacuesta, 2011, Spain, Switzerland In this new work, the filmmaker brings us a fictional documentary taking its inspiration from the novelettish biography of French artist and author François Augiéras. The artist painted every inch of the walls of a military bunker in the desert and let it sink into the sand so that no-one would find it till the 21st Century. Searches for the bunker continue to nurture the myth… Who is Augiéras? A legionnaire, painter, writer, gangster, saint, thief, devil, or a bit of them all? 2011 San Sebastián FF; Best Film Le chat du rabbin / The Rabbi's Cat, Antoine Delesvaux, Joann Sfar, 2011, France, AustriaAdapted from the graphic novels by Joanne Sfar, The Rabbi's Cat is a vivid, lively, and imaginative animated film co-directed by Sfar and Antoine Delesvaux . Set in 1920’s Algiers, a widower rabbi lives with his voluptuous and dutiful daughter and their pesky cat who swallows a parakeet and begins to speak, driving everyone crazy and moving the plot ahead by insisting on having a bar-mitzvah.  Der Sandmann / The Sandman, Peter Luisi, 2011, Switzerland

One fine morning, Benno finds sand in his bed. While he tries to ignore this at first, he soon must accept that he is losing the sand. Day after day the sand increases and his time literally starts running short. He is left no choice and must ask Sandra, who runs a small coffee shop under his apartment, for help. Although Benno hates her with a passion, he has started dreaming of her every night. What could Sandra and the dreams have to do with the sand?

2011 Breckenridge FF;  Best Actor, Best Comedy, Best Director, Best Screenplay 2011 Jackson Crossroad FF; Best Film2011 Max Ophuls FF; Audience Award2011 New Jersey FF; Best Film2011 Route 66 FF; Best Film  Wasted Youth, Argyris Papadimitropoulos & Jan Vogel, 2011, GreeceSummer in Athens. Heatwave blasts the city. A teenage skateboarder sets out for a normal day with his friends. A middle-aged man struggles with raising his family, a job he dislikes and an impending nervous breakdown. This is a portrait of Athens. A film about a city and a society in crisis. Inspired by true events. El estudiante / The Student, Santiago Mitre, 2011, ArgentinaAt first sight, this could be a tale of initiation: Roque, a young man from the interior, comes to Buenos Aires to attend college; and right when he seemed only interested in meeting girls, he starts to get involved with politics and gets ahead in his career as a student representative. But, while focusing in the sole viewpoint of its lead character Roque, the film starts to unfold a vibrant story that opens up to different directions: utilitarian relationships, the pendular oscillation between ethics and betrayal, politics as a generational issue, the youthful urge for getting quickly ahead, the perspective of a future that could either reproduce a rancid and corrupt past or imagine a different future. Santiago Mitre has not only made a film that looks into the world of college –a place rarely visited by Argentine cinema–, he has also presented university as a mirror capable of reflecting social tensions by drawing a plot with a lucid and tireless drive for narrating Argentina. 2011 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Argentina; Best First Work, Best New Actor, Best New Actress, Best Original Screenplay2011 Gijon FF; Best Film, Best Scenario2011 Locarno FF; Special Jury Prize2011 Valdivia FF; Critic’s Award  Café de flore, Jean-Marc Vallée, 2011, Canada, FranceAn epic love story between a man and woman. And between a mother and her son. Two people from two different eras who live two extraordinary moments of passion that shake their lives. A mystical and supernatural odyssey on love. 2011 Atlantic FF; Best Canadian Feature2011 Vancouver Film Critics Circle;  Best Canadian Film, Best Supporting Actress in a Canadian Film Seh o nim / Three and a Half, Naghi Nemati, 2011, Iran

Hanieh, Homa and Benafsheh, three young prisoners in Tehran who are out on temporary leave, have one thing in mind: to flee Iran and never look back. With their belongings stuffed into small backpacks, they meet to leave the city by car and head north. Driving in the rain and snow, they patiently wait for a call from a smuggler who holds the key to their destiny. But Hanieh had no luck getting in touch with a certain Nasser before their departure and is keeping an important secret from her friends. After exploring the escape of three conscripts in his debut feature Those Three, Naghi Nemati this time turns his lens on the quest for a new life from a female perspective.

Morgen, Marian Crişan, 2010, Romanian  Hungarian Turkish

A man in his forties, works as a security guard at the local supermarket in Salonta, a small town on the Romanian-Hungarian border. This is the place where many illegal emigrants try to cross, by any means possible, to Hungary and then further to Western Europe. For Nelu, days go by the same way everyday: fishing at dawn, then work, and finally home with his wife Florica. One morning, Nelu ”fishes” something different from the river: a Turkish man trying to cross the border... Unable to communicate verbally, the two men will somehow understand each other.  2010 Locarno FF; Ecumenical Prize, Special Jury Prize Death Is My Profession,  Marg Kasb Va Kare Man Ast, Amir Hossein Saghafi, 2011 Iran 

Because of labor unrest, three ordinary workers in Iran’s alpine region face hardships in providing for their families and end up trying to sell stolen high-voltage power lines. Worse, during the burglary they accidentally kill someone and wind up fugitives. Atta attempts to flee over the rugged snow-covered mountains but his little girl becomes a heavy burden to him. After getting caught by the villagers and beaten to within an inch of his life, Shokri carries on. By using the rugged scenery, the sound of harsh breathing, and dialogue that is close to being an outcry, director Saghafi effectively portrays a gruesome and critical situation, in which one’s own flesh and blood might be cornered into death. Individuals wither away as they desperately struggle simply to live, while an unchanging social structure continues to produce victims.

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For more info:Müge Çetinkaya0090 312 468 77 45/468 38 92 mediainfo@filmfestankara.org.tr, m.cetinkaya@filmfestankara.org.tr