"Next comes an experimental Hungarian film … no, don't leave your seats, it won't be so bad as it sounds," Simon Popek, the Festival Director, announced the screening of the last year’s film by György Palfi – Final cut: Ladies and gentlemen. "Palfi's film really is something special. It arose from necessity, as an answer to the far from rosy situation in Hungary. What can a director do when the funds for a film are non-existent? Palfi decided to create a film from the film history. He dug into the archives, and pieced together approximately 500 inserts, taken from a number of films, from silent movies to Avatar and Titanic, combining them into the oldest film story: a boy and a girl fall in love," explained Popek. Let us mention that Palfi intends to visit Ljubljana during the festival.
Traditional film ouverture
Simon Popek's opening speech was preceded by Lado Bizovičar's one-person comedy, toying with various movie genres from film noir and western to thriller; he was a detective from film noir, a gunmen from Wild West facing the demands of Popek the »hairless fox«, and a terrorized host running from Mitja Rotovnik as psychopathic Michael Myers, being threatened with the »Jernej Kuntner's dead career« fate.
Until November 17 more than 120 stories will be shown at different venues – Cankar Hall, Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, Komuna, Slovenian Cinematheque, Kinodvor, and Kolosej Maribor, ranging from premiers to extravagant ones. Among the most looked forward to is the Cannes winner Blue Is the Warmest Color by Abdellatif Kechiche in the section Avant-premiers. MMC will regularly provide the reviews of the Festival films as well.