festival reports

Locarno. Winter Vacation (Han Jia), directed by Li Honqqi (China, 2010), convinced both the international jury (Golden Leopard) and the critics' jury (FIPRESCI Prize). This year's edition of the traditional platform of world-wide independent cinema was the first under the new artistic director Olivier Père, former director of the Cannes' "Quinzaine — Directors' Fortnight". Reports

Karlovy Vary. In addition to the Official Competition program, the festival featured "East of the West"; the Forum of Independents; Tributes to Juraj Herz, Karel Vachek and Michel Ciment; Open Eye, Variety's Critics' Choice, etc. Selected carefully by the artistic director, Eva Zaoralová, with the help of her programming team (headed by Julietta Sichel and Karel Och), these programs created a broad and well-informed context, essential for the understanding and judging recent world cinema. (cs) Reports

Moscow. The festival presented a wide range of programs, including the main competition with seventeen features and the sidebar competition titled "Perspectives" with nine films. There were several gala premieres, such as that of the Belarusian-Russian coproduction The Fortress of Brest (Brestskaia krepost'), directed by Alexander Kott, which premiered on 22 June in Moscow and simultaneously in Brest — telling of the heroic feats of Soviet soldiers caught up in the Fortress during the German invasion of 1941. The Festival presented retrospectives of Akira Kurosawa at 100; Sergio Leone's restored classics; Claude Chabrol "8 from 71", and of jury president Luc Besson. Moreover, there was a section presenting Sokurov's new documentary cycle; Evgenii Margolit's amazing programme of "forgotten" films of the Soviet period entitled "Socialist Avant-garde"; a programme of Chekhov adaptation (this year marks the 150th birthday of the great dramatist); Andrei Plakhov's "Moscow Euphoria", which this time consisted of the "FIPRESCI Choice," curated by Barbara Lorey. (bb) Read more

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