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Era New Horizons transports viewers from Cannes to New Zealand

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Cineuropa

Ten days of high-quality cinematic fare await audiences at the eighth edition of the Era New Horizons Film Festival (July 17-27), which kicked off in Wroclaw last Thursday. This true film feast – which continues to grow year after year – has a 2008 line-up that includes 120 titles unreleased in Poland and a total of 650 screenings, including 230 features.

As festival director Roman Gutek has pointed out many times, the most important section is the official competition, which attracts a significant number of viewers every year, even though the films shown are not the most accessible.

Each edition of the Era New Horizons Festival screens films that are not widely distributed. This initiative is particularly appreciated by connoisseurs and fans of "unknown territories" who will this year be able to enjoy a panorama of films from New Zealand.

Moreover, the festival continues to give pride of place to major names. In the Panorama – Masters section, audiences will be able to discover features presented at the latest Cannes Film Festival, including Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s award-winning Il Divo and Jerzy Skolimowski’s French/Polish co-production Four Nights with Anna, which opened this year’s Era New Horizons.

The festival will close with Lorna’s Silence by Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who are becoming regulars at Wroclaw, as The Child opened the event three years ago.

Other eagerly awaited titles include Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Three Monkeys; Czech director Petr Zelenka’s The Karamazov Brothers (adapted from Dostoevsky’s novel and filmed with Polish actors in Nowa Huta, the "dormitory" area of Krakow); and Krzysztof Zanussi’s latest work, Black Sun.

The programme also features several retrospectives, dedicated to Theo Angelopoulos, Terence Davies and Andrzej Zulawski.

Domestic films include 0-1-0 by Piotr Lazarkiewicz, who died an untimely death last month, as well as internationally recognised titles such as Andrzej Jakimowski’s Tricks and Dorota Kedzierzawska’s Time to Die.

Dorota Hartwich