30th Days of European Film

Competition

Best Film Debut

They are breaking down the old order and claiming their own word. Bold films from the emerging generation of filmmakers make up the DEF’s competition programme for the best European debut of the year.

Jury

Films in competition

The Worst Ones

Off the Rails

The Quiet Girl

Sisters

Bread and Salt

Alma Viva

Metronome

Thunder

Piaffe

Award

Glass cylinder decorated with engraving and sandblasting is casted from uranium crystal.

Sharp cut mark in the smooth cylinder symbolizes the author’s “first notch”. The first impression… A quality work leaves a mark.

The author of the film awards for the 30th European Film Days is Zdeněk Vacek.

Photo: Václav Jirásek

Best Film & Music Film

Tones and melodies set the rhythm in the competition section focused on the avant-garde, documentaries and feature films in which music plays the main role.

Jury

Films in competition

Zillion

Karaoke Paradise

The Gravity

Rhinegold

Meet Me in the Bathroom

Award

Glass cylinder decorated with engraving and sandblasting is casted from uranium crystal.

The award for experimental music film engraved with lines that refer to vinyl recordings and to an experimental era when sound was recorded in analogue matter.

The author of the film award for the 30th European Film Days is Zdeněk Vacek.

Photo: Václav Jirásek

Partners

Sisters

Masas

2022 104 min.

Two sisters, Anastasia and Diana, live in a Latvian orphanage. When they learn that a family from the United States will adopt them, the girls have opposite reactions: Diana can't wait, but Anastasia suddenly doesn't want to leave home. In addition, their biological mother Alla appears in such a situation.

Sections: First time

Country: Latvia / Italy

Directed by: Linda Olte

Starring: Emma Skirmante, Gerda Aljena, Katrina Kreslina, Iveta Pole, Elita Kļaviņa, Victoria J. Mayers, Derwayne Mcbayne, Bella Alexandras

Language: Latvian / English with English and Czech subtitles

Supported by:

Program

Bread and Salt

Chleb i sól

2022 99 min.

The gifted pianist Tymoteusz returns to his hometown during the summer holidays. He meets old friends in a new bistro with a kebab, and here he also perceives the growing tension between the local youth and the Arab employees of the bistro. Damian Kocuro's brilliant debut won a special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Sections: First time

Country: Poland

Directed by: Damian Kocur

Starring: Tymoteusz Bies, Jacek Bies, Dawid Piejko, Nikola Raczko, Małgorzata Puzio

Language: Polish with English and Czech subtitles

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Program

Alma Viva

2022 85 min.

Just like every summer, Salomé returns to the mountains to join her family. But this time, it's even sadder. Her grandmother died. While the adults deal with the earthly problems of the funeral ritual of a woman who many believe to be a witch, Salomé perceives the fleeting presence of her grandmother's soul.

Sections: First time

Country: Portugal

Directed by: Cristèle Alves Meira

Starring: Lua Michel, Ana Padrão, Catherine Salée, Duarte Pina, Pedro Lacerda, Nuno Gil, Jacqueline Corado

Language: Portuguese with English and Czech subtitles

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Program

Zillion

2022 138 min.

Sharp businessman Frank Verstraeten had money and wanted to live disco. So he opened the biggest club in Antwerp, with an impressive program and the best sound in the city. Based on true events, the story shows that the 1990s were wild not only in the Czech Republic but also in Belgium.

Sections: Film & Music

Country: Belgium / Netherland

Directed by: Robin Pront

Starring: Charlotte Timmers, Matteo Simoni, Geert Van Rampelberg, Ward Kerremans, Barbara Sarafian, Jonas Vermeulen, Jennifer Heylen, Ella Leyers, Stilian Keli, Dirk Roofthooft, Poal Cairo

Language: Dutch with English and Czech subtitles

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Program

Metronome

Metronom

2022 93 min.

Bucharest, 1972. seventeen-year-old Ana dreams of love and freedom. During the party, he and his friends write a letter to the Metronom music program, which the Free Europe station in Romania secretly broadcasts. Then the secret police break into the apartment. An exceptional debut in which Alexandru Belc openly tackles Romania's dark past.

Sections: First time

Country: Romania / France

Directed by: Alexandru Belc

Starring: Mara Bugarin, Vlad Ivanov, Mihai Călin, Andreea Bibiri, Andrei Miercure

Language: Romanian with Czech and English subtitles

Supported by:

Program

Karaoke Paradise

Karaokeparatiisi

2022 71 min.

Karaoke may sound like an obscure pastime. But traditional evenings with a microphone and well-known hits mean a welcome feeling of human belonging in the far north. A musical documentary reminds of the Kaurismäki brothers' films with solitary characters and unusual backdrops.

Sections: Film & Music

Country: Finland

Directed by: Einari Paakkanen

Starring: xyz

Language: Finnish with English and Czech subtitles

Program

The Worst Ones

Les pires

2022 99 min.

A director and his crew arrive at a forgotten housing estate and select four local children for his new film. In their debut, Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret masterfully handle both the environment in front of the camera and especially behind it.

Sections: First time

Country: France

Directed by: Lise Akoka, Romane Gueret

Starring: Johan Heldenbergh, Dominique Frot, François Creton, Carima Amarouche, Angélique Gernez, Matthias Jacquin, Mallory Wanecque

Language: French with English and Czech subtitles

Supported by:

Program

Thunder

Foudre

2022 92 min.

It takes place in the Swiss countryside at the end of the nineteenth century. Seventeen-year-old Elisabeth returns home from the convent after learning that her older sister has mysteriously died. Debutant Carmen Jaquier masterfully portrays the character of a restless girl on the threshold of adulthood.

Sections: First time

Country: Switzerland

Directed by: Carmen Jaquier

Starring: Sabine Timoteo, Lilith Grasmug

Language: French with English and Czech subtitles

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Program

The Gravity

La Gravité

2022 85 min.

Daniel, a runner, trains on an oval near a housing estate where his wheelchair-bound brother sells drugs. So far, eight planets are aligned in the sky, which could have unprecedented consequences for the very attraction of the Earth. A very original sci-fi drama in which social gangsters from Parisian housing estates meet the apocalyptic mood of Lars von Trier's Melancholia.

Ocenění: Namur International Festival of French-Speaking Film 2022 - Jury Special Prize

Sections: Film & Music

Country: France

Directed by: Cedric Ido

Starring: Hafsia Herzi, Steve Tientcheu, Olivier Rosemberg, Jean-Baptiste Anoumon

Language: French with English and Czech subtitles

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Program

Rhinegold

Rheingold

2022 140 min.

In his new film, director Fatih Akin adapts the autobiographical story of the German rapper Xatar. The Kurdish boy came to Germany as a boy. Although he inherited the genes of his conductor father, he quickly gained fame as a drug dealer on the streets of Bonn. Only when he outlives his career as a badass does the old call for beats and rhymes resound within him.

Sections: Film & Music

Country: Germany / Italy / Netherland

Directed by: Fatih Akin

Starring: Emilio Sakraya, Kardo Razzazi, Karim Günes, Mona Pirzad, Meto Ege, Greta Sophie Schmidt, Kazim Demirbas, Ilyes Moutaoukkil, Uwe Rohde

Language: German with English and Czech subtitles

Supported by:

Program

Off the Rails

2022 95 min.

Two friends have fun with daring parkour tricks in lazy Guilford, England. They dream of millions of views on social networks, but the death of their best friend frames their current lives. Peter Day's documentary debut has the emotional power of the legendary Trainspotting.

Documentary Edge Festival 2022 - DocEdge Award

Sections: First time

Country: Great Britain

Directed by: Peter Day

Starring: Rikke Brewer, Aiden Knox

Language: English with Czech subtitles

Program

Meet Me in the Bathroom

2022 105 min.

The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol. The music documentary of the duo Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern (Don't Shut Up and Play the Hits) tells about the rock scene in New York after 2000. The energetic film loosely adapts Lizzy Goodman's book of the same name.

Sections: Film & Music

Country: Great Britain

Directed by: Will Lovelace, Dylan Southern

Starring: Ryan Adams, Julian Casablancas, Brian Chase

Language: English with Czech subtitles

Program

The Quiet Girl

An Cailín Ciúin

2021 94 min.

It takes place in the year 1981. A nine-year-old girl named Cáit grows up with troubled parents in the Irish countryside. And because the mother is expecting another child, Cáit moves to a distant cousin's family for the summer. She likes her new home so much that she doesn't want to return to her parents.

Sections: First time

Country: Ireland

Directed by: Colm Bairéad

Starring: Catherine Clinch, Carrie Crowley, Andrew Bennett, Michael Patric, Kate Nic Chonaonaigh, Joan Sheehy, Carolyn Bracken

Language: Irish, English with Czech and English subtitles

Supported by:

Side event (only for selected shows)

MASTERCLASS - An Cailín Ciúin

23.04. 7 p.m.

Prague - Světozor

From a small debut to an Oscar nomination is a film masterclass presented by director Colm Bairéad and producer Cleona Ní Chrualaoí, creators of the Irish film drama An Cailín Ciúin, moderated by Louise H. Johansen.

An authentic picture from the Irish countryside about a girl who spends the summer in a foster family became a sensation last year. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best International Film, two BAFTA Award nominations, and was also the winner of the Irish National IFTA Awards.

Dublin native Colm Bairéad spent fifteen years making TV documentaries and short films before embarking on his debut The Silent Girl. It is an adaptation of the book Foster by Claire Keegan. In addition to awards and nominations, the film also resonated in Irish and British cinemas, where it became the most visited film in the Irish language.

Entry: 170 CZK

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Program