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EOS 2017 to feature grumpy yet lovable Europe
Migrant crisis: A scene from Fire at Sea, a 2016 documentary capturing the life on the Italian island of Lampedusa, at the frontline in the European migrant crisis
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span class="inline inline-center">Migrant crisis: A scene from Fire at Sea, a 2016 documentary capturing the life on the Italian island of Lampedusa, at the frontline in the European migrant crisis. The film was directed by Gianfranco Rosi. Situated some 200 km off Italy’s southern coast, Lampedusa has appeared in world headlines in recent years as the first port of call for hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern migrants hoping to make a new life in Europe.(Courtesy of EOS)
The 17th annual Europe on Screen (EOS) film festival will return to Indonesia from May 5 to 14 and will feature 74 highly acclaimed European films from various genres and categories.
Films are often the best representation of a society and EOS festival director Orlow Seunke said he was hopeful that this year’s festival would live up to the expectations of being able to represent the current situation in Europe to the Indonesian audience.
Orlow said that as usual, the EOS would not have a specific theme as he believed a great film festival and films did not need to be put into the rigid frame of a certain topic.
“I do not believe in a theme, I strongly believe in programming the best possible films […] The themes will be dictated by the films and by the filmmakers who reflect the problems of their society,” he said.
The festival will open with the screening of Spanish director Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s comedy drama film A Perfect Day at Epicentrum XXI in Kuningan, South Jakarta, on May 5, and will close with Norwegian director Gunnar Vikene’s comedy Here Is Harold at Erasmus Huis on May 14.
The number of films featured in the festival this year is down to 74 from 78 last year but Orlow promised that the selections were among the best because audiences would be able to feel and connect with the most current issues within European societies through them.
“We have five films about refugees because it is a topic in Europe,” Orlow said.
“We have three films on EU [European Union] decision-making and we have three funny feature films about a grumpy old man […] Probably because Europe is grumpy at the moment,” he added.
Orlow and the organizers have divided the films for the festival into three main sections and three side sections.
The first of the main sections is the XTRA, in which the festival will feature 18 films that are mainstream box office hits in Europe, have won or have been nominated for Oscars or the Cannes Film Festival.
Five venues in Jakarta — the Erasmus Huis, the GoetheHaus, the Institut Francais d’Indonesie, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura and the Kineforum — will host the screening of these films for free.
One of the must see films in the XTRA section is A Man Called Ove, a film from Sweden that humorously and heartwarmingly tells the story of a grumpy old man named Ove who hates his life following his wife’s death but actually has a heart that is so big and gentle that he eventually wins the hearts of everyone in his neighborhood.
Then there is the DISCOVERY section which features 23 acclaimed works by emerging directors such as the Oscar-winning Son of Saul from Hungarian director László Nemes and the horror film Goodnight Mommy from
Austria.
Europe’s top 16 documentaries are set to thrill fans and geeks in the DOCU section of the festival.
One of the most recommended documentaries in this section is Italy’s Fire at Sea, which tells the story of the island of Lampedusa in southern Sicily, to which thousands of African and Middle Eastern migrants travel, risking their lives in the hope of a better life in Europe. This documentary was the winner of the 2016 Berlin Film Festival.
One of the three side sections in the festival is the RETRO, which features classic films from legendary Spanish film maker Luis Bunuel and master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock. The two other side sections are Open Air and Film Meetings, which feature four special guests — writer and director Martin Koolhoven, producer Jeroen Beker, actor Andrzej Chyra and documentary film maker Marko Rohr — who will provide film workshops at the SAE Film Institute.
The Delegation of the European Union to Indonesia Charge d’Affaires Charles-Michel Geurts said he hoped the 2017 EOS film festival would continue to project European culture to a wider Indonesian audience.
“I hope that this festival may continue to build bridges between people with different beliefs, ideas and values through entertaining yet thought-evoking ways,” Geurts said.
