Every year Vilnius International Film Festival Kino Pavasaris pays great attention to emerging filmmakers and their films. The 23rd edition of the festival, taking place March 15 – 29, will be opened with France’s Xaviers Legrand’s award winning debut feature Custody (Jusqu'à la garde).
Custody, the cutting-edge family drama, has already won six prizes including Silver Lion for the best director and best debut in Venice Film Festival as well as the audience award in San Sabastian International film festival.
Similarly as Legrand‘s first short feature, an Academy award nominee Just Before Losing Everything, Custody is placing the audience at the center of the strife between two divorcing parents. According to Legrand, the story mirrors everyday reality when usually only parts of a story are being presented. Creating this psychological puzzle, Legrand proves to be one of the strongest voices of the new generation of French cinema.
Custody trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1elCMUauWw
Kino Pavasaris feature selections will be screened across 5 sections: Festival‘s favorites; Discoveries; Critic’s choice; Masters; as well as retrospectives of an influential French director Jean Vigo and Lithuanian classics focusing on the theme of childhood.
Vilnius Film Festival will include works of emerging directors, such as Oscar-nominated Loving Vincent peculiarly made by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman; Iram Haq’s What Will People Say, already winning an AFI Audience Award and a prestigious Goteborg Film Festival Audience Dragon Award. Michaël R. Roskam’s passionate story about star-crossed lovers Racer and the Jailbird amazingly played by Matthias Schoenaerts and Adele Exarchopolous is also added to the festival programme, together with Robin Campillo's Cannes-winningBPM (Beats per Minute) and many more.
This year Kino Pavasariswill also present impressive Asian cinema. Shin Dong-seok‘s debut film Last Child will come to Vilnius after its international premiere at Berlinale. Other screenings will include Anucha Boonyawatana‘s second feature Malila: The Farewell Flower as well as the Mumbai Film festival‘s Jury Grand Prize winner, Dipesh Jain‘s psychological thriller In the Shadows.
All of these films are landmarks of how Vilnius International Film Festival will be this year: inspiring, taking viewers around the world and even into space by showcasing different genres and quality cinema.
