Cine Europa reels off at SM Cinema

The European union film festival, Cine Europa, is now showing at the SM Cinemas. It is now open to the public at the SM Megamall Cinema 6 until Sept. 28.

With this year’s theme, Connecting Cultures through Cinema, Cine Europa 6 will feature 13 critically-acclaimed films from the European Union member states. These include Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Germany’s Nowhere in Africa and Portugal’s Captains of April are historically rooted dramas that can’t be missed. Nowhere in Africa the 2003 Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Language Film and winner of five German Film Awards in 2002, including Best Film and Best Director. Directed by Caroline Link, the film focuses on a Jewish family who emigrates from Germany to Africa and their unusual fate in the their new home in Kenya.

Screened at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, Portugal’s Captains of April is a sweeping historical drama set in Portugal during the heady days leading up to the day when the country was eventually freed of Fascist rule. It is directed by renowned actress Maria de Medeiros.

France’s Karnaval and Finland’s The Handcuff King are coming of age stories, while Belgium’s The Carrier’s are Waiting is a family drama. France’s award-winning Karnaval (1999 Best First Film Awards in Berlin), which is directed by Thomas Vincent is a coming-of-age story who discovers a life he never knew existed in the carnival world. In a similar vein, Finland’s The Handcuff KingArto Koskinen, is about 12-year old boy who realizes one cannot get away from reality, learning in the process that being true to oneself is perhaps the most difficult thing.

The Carrier are Waiting is the Belgian film that received the Best First Film Award in the Montreal World Film Festival in 1999. Directed by Benoit Mariage, the story moves effortlessly between family drama and broad comedy, and pensive lyricism, all the while keeping focus on the humanity of the characters and punctuating the various scenes with stark, iconic black and white images.

The UK has two compelling films in the festival courtesy of Solar Films. Charlotte Gray which stars Cate Blanchett and is directed by Gillian Armstrong, is set in Nazi occupied France at the height of World War II. Based on the best-selling novel by Sebastian, it is the poignant story of a young Scottish woman working with the French resistance in the hope of rescuing her lover, a missing RAF pilot.

Also from the UK is The Magdalene Sisters, a controversial film set in the Magdalene Asylum in Ireland. Directed by Peter Mullan, the movie provides a harrowing insight into a dark period of religious expression.

The festival also has thriller themes. Austria’s The Praying Manthis is black comedy about Trizi Jancik, a woman in the prime of her life who disposes of husbands and people who prove to be a nuisance in a less than legal fashion.

Spain’s entry in this year’s festival is its homegrown director Alejandro Amenabar’s suspense thriller The Others which stars Nicole Kidman. The film is set in an isolated Victorian house on Jersey Island in 1945. The strict orders that Grace (Kidman) has imposed on her household are unraveled and challenged, and all is made clear in the unexpected, chilling conclusion.

Belgium’s Shades starring Mickey Rourkie is a frantic film with a film. Directed by Erik van Looy, this indie is based on the memoirs of an infamous murderer with excitement provided by unreliable financiers, creative differences, love affairs, conflicting self-interests, and jail breakouts.

Providing lots of laughter is Zuz and Zo from the Netherlands, an upbeat comedy directed by Paula van der Oest about three sisters, an unwanted wedding, and the battle for the family hotel on a beautiful beach. Sweden’s Adult Behavior… It’s All in the Mind, on the other hand, is a comedy about the year crisis of a married lawyer who can’t seem to shake off the teenager within him. Frederik Lindstrom and Felix Herngren direct this delightful film.

Catch Cine Europa 6 at the SM Megamall Cinema 6 up to Sept. 28. Admission is free and seats are on a first come, first served basis.

Cine Europa 6, Connecting Cultures through Cinema, is an initiative of the EU Members States and the Delegation of the European Commission. It is co-presented by The Podium, and the SM Cinemas in cooperation with SMART Communications.