ALEXANDER HANTRUSSIAN DIRECTOR OF HOW VIKTOR ‘THE GARLIC’ TOOK ALEXEY ‘THE STUD’ TO THE NURSING HOME

JASMINE, THE FORTUNATE

I want to see the film More in theofficial competition because I metthe film’s producer and he told meabout its story. It’s a very interestingtheme for me, about young people,because now I’m writing a storyabout teenagers. And I want to seeTarkovsky’s The Mirror becauseI know it’s a new restored version.You know, it’s hard to see this filmon the big screen. I’ll try to see asmany films as I can in my competi-tion (East of the West) and the offi-cial competition because I want tosee what the situation is in cinematoday. (MS)

REPLAYSEE YOU THERE

Ken Loach and Paul Laverty mine little-known corners of society for rich characters.

by Will Tizard

Master humanist filmmaker Ken Loachand writer Paul Laverty have coveredground from the Irish revolution toNicaraguan death squads to working-classheroes of every stripe in films such asCarla’s Song, Cannes fest-winning I,Daniel Blake, Bread and Roses and TheWind that Shakes the Barley. KVIFF hon-ors their teamwork this year with twoCrystal Globes for Contribution to WorldCinema and their films Land andFreedom and Sweet Sixteen screen in thesection 30 Years of the European FilmAcademy.

What’s your collaboration processlike? Who comes up with the scriptideas?

Laverty: A lot of piss taking.Loach: We talk about it a little bit first,

then Paul writes it, starts with a blankpiece of paper and a pencil. Then I makestupid comments.

And who generates the ideas for yourfilms? They cover such diverse subjects,eras, people…

Laverty: It’s all very organic, discus-sions and talks. We see each other all thetime. Every project is different. It dependswhat comes up and what happens. It usu-ally just comes out of discussion. There’sno master plan.

But you’ve said you decide to exploreareas, or the worlds most people knowvery little about in which fascinatingcharacters live.

Loach: Yeah, like, ‘Let’s do somethingabout such-and-such’ and then Paul willwrite a character or two characters.

Laverty: For example in It’s a FreeWorld, we just knew that there was a vi-ciousness in the way the economy wasworking and the way that immigrantworkers were treated. So we spent a lot oftime just digging around, talking to peoplewho were harvesting, people who wereworking, people from Eastern Europe. Weworked our way from the north ofScotland to the south of England. But itwas told from the point of view not of theimmigrant worker but from the point ofview of someone who was exploitingthem, a single mom in a very precariousposition. It gave us a way of examining

generations. So you have to examine thatworld, do that investment in work. The re-ality in the world nourished the characters.

You use humor masterfully withcharacters that are all too human. Theydrink too much, get in fights, are neu-rotic or self-defeating…

Loach: You can’t be in the world andnot find things funny. It’s not somethingyou put on. It’s absolutely implicit ineverything. And people are contradictory,aren’t they? They’ve got to be contradic-tory.

Laverty: You see films about peoplewho are in very tough situations and younever see a trace of humor. That doesn’tbear true in my experience. People inCiudad Juarez on the Mexican border,even in these very tough areas, they’ll tellyou daft stories. They’ll take the piss.They’ll make fun.

Often your main characters, who getbuffeted around by life a lot, don’tscore a big win in the end, though nowand then one breaks through.

Loach: Yeah, it’s like life. And if it’sjust one damn thing after another, every-

thing’s predictable. And often what seemsa victory isn’t a victory. In Daniel Blake,he gets his appeal finally...he’s gonna win.There are victories that aren’t victoriesand defeats that aren’t as bad as theyseem. That’s how life is, isn’t it? You’vegot to have a defeat in order to have a vic-tory sometimes.

So when is it time for a winner?Laverty: You have to be truthful to the

premise of the story. In The Wind ThatShakes the Barley, those people paida cost. And in Bread and Roses, there’sa great personal cost to the main charactereven when the trade union wins. So manypeople’s lives are destroyed by what hap-pens. There’s a lovely quote by HowardZinn in a story I read a long time ago. Hetalked not about making films but aboutmaking history, writing history, which youhighlight. He said there’s no such thing asobjectivity because there’s always selec-tion. But if you end up making onetragedy after another you don’t see thesemoments when other possibilities are al-most within reach. Black people havemade such progress, trade unions...youhave to look at history. All costing a great

deal but there’s been massive progress inmany of these things.

In your documentary, The Spirit of‘45, you capture a sense of the hopefulrebuilding of British society after thewar. What do you think would be TheSpirit of 2017?

Loach: It’s difficult to know whenyou’re in the middle of it. But it could bea turning point. I think we’re all workingas hard as we can to make it a turningpoint. It seems to be that with the seriousleft it seems like the tide could be turningin their favor. Or it could be just a mo-ment of optimism that fades. At the mo-ment it’s absolutely in the balance –which is why it’s such a critical moment.And remembering the changes that weremade after the war, they were good butthey didn’t go far enough because theywere easily washed away. They weregood in that it came out of a sense of sol-idarity in people. We owned the gas, theelectric, the water, the mines, the rail-ways. We owned a huge amount of in-dustry. Of course it was all given away tobig business. And now the left has a pro-gram to start saying ‘No.’ z

SPECIAL EDITION OF

KVIFF’s MAIN MEDIA PARTNER

TOUGH, FUNNY, TRUTHFUL HEROES

The Italian actress del giornoJasmine Trinca is humble, stun-ning and immediately likeable.When she walked up to the podi-um of the Grand Hall yesterdayat 11:30am to present the Italianfilm, Fortunata, she expressedher gratitude that so many peoplecame to see it “so early in themorning.” With that line she, ofcourse, won the hearts of the au-dience.

And not just with the line.Her portrayal of Fortunata,

a hairdresser and a single motherliving on the outskirts of Rome,in director Sergio Castellitto’sFortunata (Lucky), is extraordi-nary and already won her the UnCertain Regard jury award forbest performance at this year’s

Cannes Film Festival. Not badfor an actress who studied art his-tory, not acting.

“I don’t think I am a great ac-tress,” she said in an interview,“but I do have some traits thatI can use in acting because I havelived through a lot of things andmet a lot of people and I know re-al suffering.”

Playing this particular role waschallenging, she said, becauseFortunata – very much unlikeJasmine – although strong, iscoarse and licentious, a womanwithout limits. “In Italy, most di-rectors would choose a differenttype of actress to play the role,”she said.

It’s a good thing Castellittodidn’t. z (IR)

INSIDEOfficial Selection:The Cakemaker, BirdsAre Singing in Kigali

English Section, page 2

Growroom:Not a Pothead Show

English Section, page 3

Double Date forMidnight Movies

English Section, page 4

54/7 2017

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More is screening today at 10am [PuppCinema] and July 6 at 9am [DrahomíraCinema] The Mirror is screening today at12:30pm [Small Hall] and July 7 at 1pm[Karlovy Vary Municipal Theatre] z

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strana 2 / page 2 FESTIVAL DAILY Tuesday, July 4, 2017

KVIFFEFE – TWEET OF THE DAY

THE CAKEMAKER – PARALLEL LIVES IN BERLIN AND JERUSALEM

OFFICIAL SELECTION

by Michael Stein

From the start it’s clear thatBirds Are Singing in Kigali is notyour typical film about helpingrefugees any more than one aboutthe horrific event behind its pro-tagonist's escape from her nativecountry. The film shows a Polishornithologist named Anna savingClaudine, the Tutsi daughter ofa colleague, during the Rwandangenocide in 1994, from where shebrings her to safety in Poland.Director Joanna Kos-Krauze be-gan the long project together withher husband, fellow directorKrzysztof Krauze, and continuedwork on it after his death in 2014.

For Kos-Krauze, being inRwanda and hearing what peoplewent through was a difficult butfruitful experience: “Everyone hastheir own story there. Everyone iseither a victim or a killer there, ora killer’s descendant. It’s all verycomplicated. All those emotionshave not cooled yet,” she says.

Most films on refugees presentthem with two distinct receptionsin their new homes: there is theoutright hostility of racists andxenophobes versus the sympathyof those who welcome them. Butthe relationship between Annaand Claudine is much more com-plicated and is far more revealingof the incredibly wide spectrum ofemotions which come into play inwhat is summarily described inthe media as the “refugee crisis.”

The subject of refugees is typi-cally filmed with a heavy emo-tionalism, if not outright senti-mentality. This film is the veryopposite, both in substance andstyle. It is shot with the gritty im-mediacy of a documentary, some-times lingering for long momentson the corpses of animals forpowerful symbolic effect. Thereare also seemingly mundane,everyday moments that make itseem as if you are witnessing thehorrors of what has taken place inRwanda as an onlooker.

After Claudine’s returned toRwanda in search of her families’bodies she goes to a stadiumwhere corpses are laid out to beidentified. At one point there isa long shot, without any livingpeople in it. It starts to rain, anda UN tarp is pulled over the bod-ies to keep them from getting wet.It’s a practical matter, everydaylife there, but far more powerfulthan the usual swelling symphon-ic music and tearful reunions thatwould be in a Hollywood film.Not that there aren't emotionalscenes, but the emotion is arrivedat by less traditional means, topowerful effect.

In the few scenes with Hutus, ofviolence or an attempted con-frontation after the genocide, younever get a clear view of the ene-mies’ faces any more thanClaudine gets a clear explanationof why her father’s former col-league and friend (and her godfa-ther) perpetrated the massacre ofher family. z

BIRDS ARE SINGING IN KIGALI –OVERCOMING THE UNIMAGINABLE

OFFICIAL SELECTION

Rwandan actress Eliane Umuhire plays a refugee who goes to Poland and back in Birds Are Singing in Kigali.

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This Russian drama about twomedical professionals who arebetter at their jobs than they areat their relationship is a wonder-fully acted affair. As marriedcouple Oleg and Katya,Alexander Yatsenko and IrinaGorbacheva offer two of the verybest performances of the wholefestival, in a film that has many

people buzzing. You might con-sider checking it out now, sowhen the awards are announced

on Saturday night you can turn toyour friends and say, “See, I toldyou so!”

ARRHYTHMIADirector: Boris Khlebnikov

Russia/Finland/Germany,

2017, 116min

July 4, 11.30am, Drahomíra Cinema

Menashe feels both foreign andfamiliar, telling the story of a wid-owed, single father struggling toraise his son and make it in the BigApple. Seen that before? Maybe –but never quite like this. DirectorJoshua Z. Weinstein’s film mixesdocumentary and fiction, takesplace in Brooklyn's ultra–exclu-sionary Hasidic community, and isacted entirely in Yiddish. Lead ac-

tor Menashe Lustig plays a versionof himself, and though he livesa wholly different life than most ofus are used to seeing, by the end of

the film you can’t help but relateto him – even if you don’t speakYiddish, have a kid, or have everset foot in New York City.

MENASHEDirector: Joshua Z Weinstein

USA/Israel, 2017, 81min

July 4, 2pm, Grand Hall

More loosely plotted than someof Michael Haneke’s other recentfilms, Happy End is something ofa magnificent enigma. The storyof an upper class family dealingwith upper class problems, thefilm is more interested in present-ing little mysteries on screen andthen making you work to solvethem. The film both demands and

rewards our close attention, butHaneke is such a master – hisframing so precise, his form so

rigorous – that it sucks us in bydefault and builds to a killerpunchline. z

HAPPY ENDDirector: Michael Haneke

France/Germany/Austria,

2017, 107min

July 4, 8pm, Drahomíra Cinema

THREE PICKS FOR TODAYBEN CROLL, FILM CRITIC, THE WRAP & SCREEN INTERNATIONAL

by Zbyněk Vlasák, Iva RozeDirector Ofir Raul Graizer di-

vides his time between Israel andGermany. And his OfficialSelection movie The Cakemaker,too, is set between Berlin andJerusalem and explores the chal-lenges of immigration and identi-ty, both sexual and cultural. Thefilm has its world premiere inKarlovy Vary this year andGraizer is here to present it thisafternoon in the Thermal GrandHall.

The title character of Graizer’smovie is a German man namedThomas who runs a popular cakeshop in Berlin. One day Oran, anIsraeli businessman on one of hisregular trips to Germany showsup. A fleeting encounter soonturns into an intense – and clan-destine – love affair only to becut short in a few months’ timeby Oran’s tragic car accident.

Thomas feels so lonely and

empty that he decides to travel toIsrael.

He hopes an exposure toOran’s world will fill some ofthat void, so he sets out to divestraight into Oran’s “other” life,one that that he was always keptout of and one that included hisson and widow Anat. He hopesthat being close to Oran’s familymight help him feel less alone inhis grief. And loneliness is one ofthe crucial themes of TheCakemaker.

“The Cakemaker is a filmabout secrets, love, romance,”Graizer says. “But for me it isabout immigration, search foridentity and family, and the at-tempt to create a new life aftera personal loss.”

Pretending to be a randomtourist, Thomas eventually getsa job in Anat’s coffeeshop inJerusalem and with his pastrychef skills he enriches her menu.

His pastries are an instant suc-cess with the patrons and Anat

starts becoming close to him. Onone hand they share their pain, onthe other hand, they never talkabout it. Nor do they talk aboutOran. Thomas never tells her heknew him and he never tells herhe was gay.

In the background anothertheme unfolds. Anat’s familytakes pride in their café’s kosherstatus, and frowns upon the newemployee, who is not just non-Jewish, but also German.

The horror and treacheries ofhistory might have faded in thepast, but they are never com-pletely forgotten.

“The Cakemaker is a very per-sonal film that I have been tryingto do for seven years, right aftermy film studies, and in parallel tocreating a new life in Germany,”Graizer says. “But for me it isabout immigration, search foridentity and family, I am gratefulto have managed to tell this story,set in a small kitchen inJerusalem.” z

The Cakemaker is a film about secrets, love, romance, but also about immigration and identity.

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Tandoor $$I.P. Pavlova 25Open Tue-Sat 12 – 9pm

‘To a man with an empty stom-ach food is God.’ So said MahatmaGandhi, clearly a man who’d donehis fair share of watching lengthyfilms with nothing to eat sincebreakfast. The Indian restaurantTandoor has long been a staple forfestival-goers who tire of the blandfare on offer in the shadows of theThermal. So if you’re sick ofsausages and not pining for a pani-ni, head on over to Tandoor.(Entrance is off the street, in a lit-tle courtyard.)

Tandoor transforms into more ofa bistro in festival-time, and its sixtables in the main room and an ad-ditional two by the bar are oftenfull. But don’t despair; turnaroundis fast, and it’s de rigueur for twopairs to share a table for six. To

keep things speedy, the restaurantcondenses several millennia ofMughlai, Punjabi and Goan cuisineinto seven favourites which offerfew surprises but plenty of comfort.

Perhaps in homage to the Czechobsession with soup before everymeal the first item is a red lentil dal(40 CZK). The six main dishes(vegetable korma, vegetablemadras, chicken vindaloo, chickentikka masala, beef curry and lambmadras) range from 175-220 CZK.Not the cheapest, but portions aregenerous and include rice.

I went for the madras and it wastrue to form; the sauce hot witha tantalising tang and pleasinglyserved with fresh coriander on top,as it should be. The lamb was suc-culent and fresh. Indian restaurantshere are often guilty of wateringdown the fiery dishes of the sub-continent for the traditionally un-

adventurous Czech palate. Butthere was little sign of such heresyat Tandoor. The two Urdu-speak-ing festival-goers besides me wereconsuming their curries with littleguttural noises of contentment.

Oh and did I say it was fast?Food came in four minutes. I wasin and out in fifteen. Others – thosewith no articles to write or films tocatch – were savouring their meals.Drinks: Draught Gambrinus for 35 CZK, a refreshing change ifyou’re all “Lobkowiczed out.” Plusfour different kinds of lassi, thepopular Indian yoghurt drink(sweet or salty, 50 CZK each).

What’s not to like? z

$ – Inexpensive$$ – Moderate$$$ – Expensive$$$$ – Very expensive$$$$$ – If you have to ask...

ON THE TOWNROB CAMERON, BBC CORRESPONDENT

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Tuesday, July 4, 2017 FESTIVAL DAILY strana 3 / page 3

I’m fascinated, and often appalled, bydubbing. At its worst, not only are theoriginal voices removed but also much ofthe soundtrack, rendering many filmsand TV programs unwatchable (or moreaccurately, unlistenable). But dubbinghas long had a foothold, and even garnersprestige, in the Czech lands. Take theFrantišek Filipovský Prizes, which haveannually celebrated outstanding achieve-ments in dubbing since 1995.

Two issues ago I outed Victor Griss,a colleague at the Czech and Slovak FilmFestival of Australia (CaSFFA), asa “freelance Michael Caine imperson-ator” on the front page of the Daily.Traveling with him to his first Vary washis partner, our fellow CaSFFA col-league Linda Studená, who reminded methat her father Zdeněk Maryška also en-joys a curious relationship with anglo-phone celebrity voices. On top of hisstage work with Prague’s Divadlo naFidlovačce, Maryška is a voice actor whoenjoys the rare distinction of havingdubbed into Czech both an Oscar-win-ning Welshman (Anthony Hopkins) andan animated, green-suited pachyderm(Babar the Elephant).

I find it fascinating that certain foreignactors are stars here even though a dis-tinctive, native-tongued vocal delivery isintegral to their star persona elsewhere.Sean Connery is a prime example.Connery has a rich, thick, Scottishbrogue beloved of playground parodists.Whether playing James Bond, a Russiansubmarine commander in The Hunt forRed October or the immortal JuanSánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez inHighlander, Connery has always sound-

ed unmistakably and improbablyScottish. Umpteen Czech actors havedubbed him over the years without hisuniquely ubiquitous Scots elocution everpossibly coming across.

I’m also intrigued that in many casesa single Czech actor will wind up voicinga foreign star throughout their career.The 52nd KVIFF poster boy Jean-PaulBelmondo has often been dubbed bya Czech actor with a very distinctivevoice of his own, Jan Tříska. Do Czechpeople see and hear Belmondo, or dothey see Belmondo but hear Tříska? Theconstruction of a star persona in theCzech Republic is an altogether differentmatter than in those lands where thecombination of subtitles and originalvoices rule supreme.

Not that things can’t get mixed-up intranslation with subtitles - or even withtitles. A favorite Czech translationmishap of mine concerns SteveMcQueen’s film Shame, a movie abouta man’s sexual dysfunction. Its title inCzech? Stud. Which is fine as a transla-tion, but hilariously, awkwardly loadedwhen read on a poster with Englisheyes. z

DUB-IOUSPLEASURES

DAILY RANTCERISE HOWARD, FESTIVAL DAILY WRITER

by Jan Škoda

Two years after his debut The GreedyTiffany, the Czech director who callshimself Andy Fehu is back at KVIFFwith his Growroom series about Ondřej,a young man who works off his debt inan underground cannabis growroom he’snot allowed to leave for three months.Thousands of viewers of the popular on-line TV channel Stream.cz have seeneight out of the nine episodes of this firstCzech online thriller. Fehu made themwait for the final episode until its pre-miere at KVIFF.

You say that viewers moaned aboutthat. How about potheads? Did theycomplain?

I tried not to present it as a potheadshow, getting stoned is secondary. Thepeople who had expected that lost inter-est. From their reactions it sometimesseemed that every Czech had a grow-room at home and knew how it should bedone. But we built a fully functionalgrowroom.

Where did you shoot?It doesn’t seem so but in the center of

Prague, not far from Karlovo náměstí.We found an underground space, we re-moved rubble from it and equipped it.We didn’t have the cash for a studio, butI wouldn’t want it anyway for the sake ofatmosphere – for both the viewers andactors. Initially I didn’t even want to letthem out but I didn’t get away with that.

There was this very real fungus and anyfood not eaten within two hours wentmoldy. Our prop guy pricked his hand ona nail and his whole arm turned black intwo days. But you can get used to the en-vironment. We spent two weeks there intotal.

And you brought in cannabis.Yes, I did. Three months ahead we

started growing industrial hemp in a gar-den and transported a thousand plantsright to the center of Prague (laughs).The tourists took pictures of us andasked whether it was legal here. On oneoccasion this German tourist strayed in,saw our little garden of hemp, got fright-ened and called the police. He wouldn’ttalk to us at all, he only shouted:“Cannabis down, cannabis here!” Thepolice told him they knew about us andthat it was OK. He moved out of the ho-tel by the next day. I guess he was scaredwe would be after him.

How did the Vietnamese actors whoplay Ondřej’s partners in the grow-room feel about your working witha stereotype?

The last thing I wanted was to turn theshow against the Vietnamese. I mean,their boss is Czech. It was more like theywere confused at the beginning becausethey didn’t know their role was so cru-cial. At the end they were actually sad itwas over.

Another important character isŠembera, who is in charge of the grow-room. How did you find the actor?

Martin Hub is one of our best knownstuntmen. He was in Titanic, SavingPrivate Ryan and Gladiator. there aren’tmany work opportunities for stuntmen inthis country so he was happy forŠembera because every stuntman harborsacting ambitions. z

The main character’s claustrophobia is the least of his problems when stuck inside anunderground cannabis growroom for three months.

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IT’S NOT A POTHEAD SHOW

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strana 4 / page 4 FESTIVAL DAILY Tuesday, July 4, 2017

INDUSTRY EVENTSFACES

Iulia Rugină Rachel Israel Priit Pääsuke

Cristi Iftime Alfoz Tanjour Soňa Červená

One of the main roles of thefestival’s Film Industry depart-ment and its partners is to supportprojects in various stages of de-velopment. Every year KVIFFselects several dozen best proj-ects and their authors presentthem to a group of experts fromdifferent branches of the film in-dustry, such as production, fi-nance, sales and distribution.

A number of Czech and Slovakfilm projects in various stages ofdevelopment that have a potentialto succeed on the internationalfilm market will be presented to-day at 10am at the IndustryPool as part of the event titledPitch & Feedback @KVIFF.

How does a pitch work? “Filmmakers have only a few

minutes to showcase the bestfrom their projects in terms ofsubject matter, script editing andthe director’s or producer’s inten-tion in front of an expert audi-ence.

The experts get acquaintedthoroughly with the projects be-fore the pitch and afterwards theycan offer professional feedbackfrom their respective fields.

The panel gets an overview ofthe best from the works inprogress in both domestic and in-ternational cinema and confrontsthe selected projects with the an-alytical inquiries of the expertswho consider the works to have‘international potential,’” saysDaniel Machill from KVIFF’sFilm Industry department. For asuccessful pitch it’s important not

just to come up with a good proj-ect but also to be able to presentit well, to capture the idea and theimagination of the panel. It is al-so a good networking opportuni-ty for filmmakers and interna-tional film professionals.

Today’s Pitch & Feedbackevent, organized for the fifth timeby the Czech Film Center, theSlovak Film Institute and KVIFF,will also involve closed consulta-tions of the projects with invitedexperts.

“The aim of Pitch & Feedbackis to create an efficient platformfor Czech and Slovak projectsthat could give them the rightmomentum and attract the atten-tion of the international expertaudience,” Daniel Machill says. z

(FIŠ)

Made in Czechoslovakia is one of the film projects selected for the Pitch & Feedback session this year.

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PITCH AN IDEA, CATCH FEEDBACK

by Michael Stein

People have different ideas ofwhat makes the perfect midnightmovie. Various recipes includebuckets of blood and gore, gener-ous helpings of the bizarre, per-haps a bit of crime, gratuitous sexand general mayhem. TheMidnight Screenings section atthis year’s KVIFF contains allthese elements and more, butthere is also a more particular fea-ture that runs through the selec-tion.

Imagine a situation in life thatwould scare anyone – being low-ered in a cage to watch greatwhite sharks, reaching the nightof your 30th birthday still a vir-gin – then imagine those real-life

situations through a prism offreakish terror.

The hero of Benjamin Barfoot’sdebut feature Double Date, Jim, isonly hours away from turning 30and his best friend vows to helphim his lose his virginity.Everything looks like it’s goingaccording to plan when they meeta pair of beautiful sisters whoagree to go out with them. The on-ly problem is that the plan is thesisters’ and it involves lots ofblood and human sacrifice, a clashof intentions that leads to a wildand hilarious climax.

The film is marked by uniquevisual feel, a result both of the di-rector’s influences and his earlierplans for what he thought thefilm’s budget would be. “Initially,

I thought Double Date would bea micro budget film and I had al-ways hugely admired DougLiman’s approach to makingSwingers,” Barfoot says. “I reallylearned so much just listening tohis interviews about how he madeit and it’s such a charming come-dy. Our film ended up havinga bigger budget with a differentfeel, but certainly Swingers pro-duction methods were a big influ-ence.”

“I’m also a fan of 70’s horror -Don’t Look Now, The Exorcist,The Texas Chainsaw Massacre –and listening to Goat’s music,who did the score, was just draw-ing me to some kind of feelingI had about the girls. Of psyche-delic, murderous sirens and folk

horror and paganism,” Barfootsays.

47 Meters Down, directed byJohannes Roberts, also featuresa pair of sisters, but in this casethey are the victims of a shark-viewing dive gone terribly wrongwhen the chain holding their cagejust below the surface of theocean snaps and they plunge 47meters down into the depths. Thefilm possesses an impressive castthat includes Claire Holt andMandy Moore in the lead rolesand Matthew Modine as the skip-per of the boat who brings themout on their ill-fated expedition.

Another midnight movie strate-gy is to go full-on apocalyptic,and two films this year are perfectexamples of this, though in very

different ways. We are so far in thefuture now that the cyborg fromJames Cameron’s Terminator 2:Judgment Day 3D has not onlybecome a good guy but a formergovernor of California and is nowa vocal environmental activist.This year festival-goers havea chance to see this action classicin full-screen 3D for the first timeever.

Cyborg invasion isn’t exactlya Hollywood monopoly, asJapanese director and special ef-fects master Yoshihiro Nishimurashows in his madcap MeatballMachine Kodoku. Things are badenough for lonely 50-year olddebt collector Yuji, who has ter-minal cancer and three months leftto live. But when it rains it pours,

and in this film it rains blood.According to the filmmakers,a full four tons of (fake) bloodpoured down on set in wild scenesof surreal, cyberpunk battle.

A midnight movie legend inShaun of the Dead-director EdgarWright has a more big-budgetcrime feature with Baby Driverstarring Ansel Elgort and withother big names such as KevinSpacey and Jamie Foxx addinglustre to this car-chase, shoot’em-up extravaganza.

In his feature debut Irish-Welshdirector Liam Gavin delves intoblack magic rituals, grief and oth-erworldly terror in the minimalisthorror A Dark Song, a film whichbuilds up with steadily grippingintensity and force. z

DOUBLE DATE FOR MIDNIGHT MOVIES, ANYONE?

In Benjamin Barfoot's debut feature Double Date sisters Kitty and Lulu take bad first dates to a sinister new level.

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Yoshihiro Nishimura’s Meatball Machine Koduku supposedly used four tons of fake blood on set.

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The fifth day of the 52nd KV-IFF welcomes director IuliaRugină, actress Voica Olteanand actor Andi Vasluianu fromthe main competition filmBreaking News. Other main com-petition arrivals are directorRachel Israel to screen her filmKeep the Change and actor AlešBílík with the film LittleCrusader.

The East of the West sectionwill see the arrival of director

Priit Pääsuke and actressMaiken Schmidt from The Endof the Chain, director CristiIftime and actor Adrian Titienifrom Mariţa, director BülentÖztürk with his film Blue Silenceas well as actress Jale Arıkanfrom The Stone.

The documentary competitionwelcomes director of My Lifewithout Air, Bojana Burnać aswell as director of A Memory inKhaki, Alfoz Tanjour.

Iranian Director MohammadRasoulof is coming to screen hisfilm A Man of Integrity in theHorizons section, as is directorEmmanuel Gras with his filmMakala and Jonas Carpignanowith his film A Ciambra. DirectorOlga Sommerová and actressSoňa Červená are coming toscreen the film Cervena in theCzech Films 2016–2017 sectionas is actress Johanna Tesařováwith the film Little Harbour. z