Personal and cultural identity, women's rights – religious and sexual – and new life concepts are among the topics of the second edition of THE CHANGING FACE OF EUROPE. The programme, curated to reflect on the social, cultural and economical changes affecting Europe today, is presented by EFP (European Film Promotion) in collaboration with Hot Docs – Canadian International Documentary Festival. It features 10 outstanding new European documentaries – including four international and one North American premiere – selected by the festival from submissions made by European film promotion institutes, the EFP member organisations. The selection underlines the exceptional diversity and excellence of European documentaries and also spotlights the increasing presence of works by women – eight of the 10 films are by female directors. EFP's initiative is supported by the Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union and the participating EFP member organisations.
Five of the films are looking at very different aspects of youth culture in Europe: Lord of the Toys by first time director Pablo Ben Yakov is the highly controversial, award-winning portrayal of East German YouTube creator Max "Adlersson" Herzberg. Easy Lessons by Hungarian filmmaker Dorottya Zurbó follows beautiful 17-year-old Kafia who fled a child marriage in Somalia and confronts what it takes to start a new life in Budapest. Also in search of a new life and her true sexual identity is 16-year-old Inga from Latvia, the only hearing member of a deaf family in Inga Can Hear by Kaspars Goba. Homeless young drifter Victorija seeks a place to stay to fulfil her dreams of a home and a life without drugs in How Much Do You Love Yourself?, the award-winning feature debut by Nina Blažin from Slovenia. The Swedish-British co-production Scheme Birds, the feature debut by Ellinor Hallin & Ellen Fiske, tells the story of young trou-blemaker Gemma, who moves directly from childhood to motherhood in one of Scotland's rundown housing estates.
Two of the films centre around female empowerment: The Reformist – A Female Imam, Marie Skovgaard's debut feature, introduces us to Sherin Khankan, the driving force behind Europe's first mosques run by female imams in Copenhagen. Swiss director Barbara Miller travelled around the world to show the successful and highly imaginative fight by women for a self-determined sexuality and a sensual relationship based on equality between the sexes in #Female Pleasure. Equally in search of happiness is Mark in To Share or Not to Share by Estonian visual artist Minna Hint and her co-director Meelis Muhu: Mark gives up a successful career in London to create a life beyond capitalism by founding his own community in Tallinn. In Seahorse, by British award-winning director Jeanie Finlay, a 30-year-old gay transgender man, Freddy, yearns to start a family and finally decides to carry a baby himself. Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė's Acid Forest won the Best First Feature at the Locarno Film Festival and will represent her home country, Lithuania, at this year's Biennale in Venice. She takes a visually stunning look at the devastation a large population of cormorants causes in the Curonian Spit, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and national park at the Baltic Sea.
All of the filmmakers will be on hand to present their films and take part in post-screening discussions with the very well-versed Hot Docs audience. In addition they will participate in industry events including workshops, pitches and meetings with festival programmers and acquisition executives, expanding their professional network on an international scale and supporting their film's access to North American and other international markets. This year the programme has been expanded to include two new features: a panel discussion, presented by EFP and Hot Docs, on Euro-Canadian co-production providing practical advice from seasoned producers and intensive one on one meetings to support the development of new projects between European and Ca-nadian producers, organized with EFP's long term partner, Ontario Creates.
Since 2017, EFP also grants FILM SALES SUPPORT (FSS) for European world sales com-panies to promote and market films selected for Hot Docs. This year two companies seized the opportunity: German outfit Deckert Distribution will additionally push the promotion of I Had a Dream by Italian director Claudia Tosi and Filmdelights from Austria for Una Primavera by Valentina Primavera, both screening in the "Made in Italy" section of the festival.
For more information on the FSS films please click here.
The following EFP members are supporting THE CHANGING FACE OF EUROPE:
Danish Film Institute, Estonian Film Institute, German Films, Hungarian National Film Fund, National Film Centre of Latvia, Lithuanian Film Centre, Slovenian Film Center, Swedish Film Institute and Swiss Films.
Hot Docs, North America's largest documentary festival, conference and market, will present its 26th annual edition from April 25-May 5, 2019. An out-standing selection of approximately 200 documentaries from Canada and around the world will be presented to Toronto audiences and international delegates. Hot Docs will also mount a full roster of conference sessions and market events and services for doc-umentary practitioners, including the renowned Hot Docs Forum, Hot Docs Deal Maker and the Doc Shop. Hot Docs owns the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, a century-old landmark located in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood.
Sherin is opening one of Europe's first mosques run by female imams. The Mosque's members aim to confront and challenge the fear surrounding Islam and call for a new kind of it including a feminist agenda, effecting a break with established gender hierarchies. Sherin is impatient. She wants change and equality now! But her haste divides her organisation to the brink of collapse.
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The Reformist - A Female Imam
Marie Skovgaard
Denmark
Mark is a traveller and he believes in life beyond capitalism. He has given up his successful squash coach career in London and now, in Tallinn, he invites people to join a community where nobody uses any money and everyone shares their skills, experiences, food, and love. Tantric energy liberation techniques are his means to release the Estonian people from the chains of ownership instinct. Struggling to reach the goal, Mark is challenged by a force even greater than his own beliefs.
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To Share or Not to Share
Minna Hint, Meelis Muhu
Estonia
LORD OF THE TOYS follows YouTube creator Max "Adlersson" Herzberg and his gang over the course of a summer and leaves a dystopian impression of the first generation of young adults, who never knew the world without the internet. A story about the West in general and East Germany in particular.
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Lord of the Toys
Pablo Ben Yakov
Germany
Easy Lessons is a poetic journey of a beautiful young girl, Kafia, who on the brink of adulthood leaves behind everything she grew up with in Somalia. Cultural values, taboos and dogmas fall apart in the most casual situations while trying to adapt to a new life in Europe.
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Easy Lessons
Dorottya Zurbó
Hungary
Inga Can Hear is a coming-of-age story of 16 year old Inga, the only hearing member of a deaf family living in the remote Latvian country-side. Since the age of 7, Inga has been the family's interpreter in the hearing world. Her role in the family has forced her to grow up quickly, and she fluctuates between acting as a responsible young woman and a moody teenager. Inga dreams of escaping her role as the family's interpreter and decides to leave her home to attend high school in the nearby city. But she runs into conflict with her classmates and her family starts falling apart. Then, one day, the outside world learns that Inga is actually Edward. Is Inga herself finally being heard?
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Inga Can Hear
Kaspars Goba
Latvia, Estonia
Can you imagine a tourist attraction where people come to see a dead forest? Where they are not only observers but also the ones being observed and listened to by blackbirds? The forest reminds some visitors of nuclear fallout, while others recall Hitchcock's The Birds. People's observations and responses to this environment are as multi-layered and bizarre as the story of the forest itself.
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Acid Forest
Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė
Lithuania
Viktorija is homeless and explores abandoned spaces. Her husband is in prison. When he gets out, they have big plans: to find a place to stay, to get a job, to start a new life. Will they make it? The film talks about universal human desires: to be loved and to belong - someplace, with someone. But first we have to love ourselves.
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How Much Do You Love Yourself?
Nina Blazin
Slovenia
"I don't run away from nothing. I run to it." Gemma's opening words set the tone for an amazingly intimate and at times heartbreaking chronicle of her life in a place blighted by broken promises since the steelworks closed almost 40 years ago. Violence and disappointment are the constants of life here. But Gemma's a "scheme bird", whose courage and determination is memorably captured by co-directors Ellen Fiske and Ellinor Hallin.
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Scheme Birds
Ellen Fiske, Ellinor Hallin
Sweden, United Kingdom
#Female Pleasure is a plea for the liberation of female sexuality in the 21st century. The film questions millennial patriarchal structures, as well as the porn culture. It follows five extraordinary women around the globe, reveals universal contexts and shows the successful fight for a self-determined female sexuality and an equal, sensual relationship between the sexes.
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#Female Pleasure
Barbara Miller
Switzerland, Germany
Freddy is 30 and yearns to start a family but this poses unique challenges. He is a gay transgender man. Deciding to carry his own baby took years of soul searching, but he was unprepared for the reality of pregnancy, both physically and in challenging society's fundamental understanding of gender & family. To him what feels pragmatic, to others feels confronting; this was not part of his plan. Against a backdrop of hostility towards trans people, he is forced to confront his naivety. Made with unprecedented access & collaboration, SEAHORSE is an audacious & lyrical story about what makes us who we are.
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Seahorse
Jeanie Finlay
United Kingdom
