25th Filmkunstfest Schwerin

The festival in Schwerin also showed a programme of films from the Baltic countries awarded with FIPRESCI prizes in 2014. The titles were Leviathan from Russia, directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev,  I Am Yours (Jeger din) from Norway, made by young actress and talented director Iram Haq, Free Range by Veiko Ounpuu of Estonia, Heart of a Lion (Leijonasydän) from Finland, directed by Dome Karukoskiand, and Force Majeure (Turist) by Ruben Östlund of Sweden.

The FIPRESCI programme in Schwerin was established in 2009 as an international part of the festival. After a lot of trouble and changes in the board of the festival, Volker Kufahl has been in charge for two years. He established the new programme “Focus Baltic” in 2015. The FIPRESCI films are part of the selection.

The movies were chosen and introduced for the audience in Schwerin by Ingrid Beerbaum and Katharina Dockhorn. All films were shown twice and with German subtitles. One screening of Leviathan was followed by an interesting discussion about filmmaking, censorship and state support in Russia and the trouble in the Russian Oscar Committee, organized in cooperation with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Schwerin.

Force Majeure and Leviathan were released theatrically in Germany before, but never shown in Schwerin. The cinemas show normally only American, European or German mainstream films. Heart of a Lion was released on DVD for the German market in the beginning of May, and I Am Yours has already been picked up by a distributor. (Katharina Dockhorn)

Filmkunstfest Schwerin: www.filmland-mv.de