Good warm-up is a must for any serious training and a successful match. In order to make your climb to Film Hill easier, Motovun Film Festival is offering you an opportunity for a good training in Zagreb. Three more films from our program Warming up for Motovun with 21st-Century Classics will be shown in the perfect setting of Tuškanac Summer Stage from 17-19 July at 21:30, thus continuing the cycle of the films by the most relevant filmmakers of the century, launched in Lauba Center in May. The three new names of this guide to modern film of a sort are Andrea Arnold, Yorgos Lanthimos and Ruben Östlund.
Dealing with the fate of generations lost in economic hopelessness, Andrea Arnold is masterfully continuing the tradition of the British social film. The best example of it is her American Honey, a great art film that won the jury award in Cannes. It is kind of a road film, following young people traveling across America and selling magazines, with lots of sex, drugs, alcohol and fun. On Tuškanac stage you can see her 2006 film Red Road on 17 July. It is a story about a woman’s obsession or, as one review puts it, a film about ugly characters trying every ugly way to get hold of anything nice.
The most prominent representative of the Greek New Wave, Yorgos Lanthimos, is currently one of the most relevant artists of his country. His off-center surrealist dramas with a dose of black humor are often compared with Buñuel’s works. His third film, Alps, screening in the Warming up for Motovun program on 18 July, was made in 2011. It is a film about a group of people who, under the harsh regime in the company they work for, replace dead members of other families by taking over their identities and their characters.
The final film of the Warming up for Motovun program, to be shown on 19 July, is Play by this year’s laureate of Motovun Maverick Award and the festival’s guest, Ruben Östlund. The films of one of the most important European filmmakers are detailed studies of the Western way of life, paralyzed with fearof different people and different cultures. Every film of his is also an inquiry into the grimy side of the seemingly ideal Scandinavian societies which often rest on the shaky pillars of political correctness and adherence to standards. His 2011 film Play uses the true story about a Gothenburg child gang systematically abusing and robbing other kids to depict the incredible human trait – the inclination towards group violence.
This is your last chance for warming up, because Motovun Film Festival is only a week away. The feast of films in the heart of Istria is taking place from 24 to 28 July.
