MODERN FRENCH cinema classic A Prophet, hit Danish rom-com Love Is All You Need, and the new Russian film Single, can all be seen at SUBTITLE, the annual European weekend film festival at the Town Hall Theatre, from Friday January 29 to Sunday 31.
SUBTITLE's aim is to screen popular, accessible, comedies and dramas, that were huge hits on the continent, but are not in English. The weekend opens with Heart Of A Lion (Friday 29, 6.30pm ), where a Finnish white supremacist finds his prejudices challenged when he falls in love with a woman who has a bi-racial child. It stars Jasper Pääkkönen and Peter Franzen from Vikings.
Part thriller, part heist movie, part romance, German film Victoria (Friday 29 9pm, Saturday 20 6.45pm ) stars Laia Costa and Freddie Lau, and was shot in real time, in one take. Casual flirtation between Victoria and Sonne develops into a more sinister relationship, and one which threatens to run out of control.
SUBTITLE will host the Irish premiere of bitter-sweet Danish drama Long Short Story (Saturday 30 12 noon ). The film centres on a group of friends in love, out of love, or looking for love. Told over three years and through eight different chapters, each story is set around a party: a New Year’s Eve, a house warming, a Midsummer’s Eve, a wedding, a surprise party, a naming ceremony, an anniversary, and a birthday.
We stay in Denmark for Love Is All You Need (Saturday 30 2.15pm ), a rom-com by the Oscar-winning Susanne Bier. Lonely widower and estranged single father Philip, played by Pierce Brosnan, meets Danish hairdresser Ida. She is recuperating from chemotherapy and has just learned her husband is leaving her for a woman half his age. The fates of these two bruised souls are about to intertwine as they separately embark for Italy where they are both to attend a wedding.
When mild-mannered snow-plougher Nils is awarded Citizen Of The Year, it seems he has reached the peak of his career. However the murder of his son sets off a series of events which utterly transforms this mild-mannered character and pulls him into a circle of ever escalating violence. This is the black-comedy In Order Of Disappearance (Saturday 30 4.30pm ). It stars Stellan Skarsgård and Bruno Ganz amnd is directed Hans Petter Moland.
Another Irish premiere for SUBTITLE is Dutch film Aanmodderfakker (Saturday 30 9.30pm ). In a standout performance, which earned him Best Actor at the Dutch Film Awards, Gijs Naber shines as a slacker in his mid-20s, unsure of what to do with his life, or what to do with it. He has had love and lost it, had career opportunities and lost them; he has a mother he cannot relate to, and a flat mate whom he cannot stand.
A modern classic now in the extraordinary French thriller A Prophet (Sunday 31 2pm ). Philip Bradshaw of The Guardian called it “a blisteringly powerful prison-gangster… It comports itself like a modern classic from the very first frames, instantly hitting its massively confident stride. This is the work of the rarest kind of film-maker, the kind who knows precisely what he is doing and where he is going."
SUBTITLE concludes with Russian film Single (Sunday 31 5pm ). Danila Kozlovsky stars in this oddball rom-comedy, where he plays stand-up comedian Nikita Kolesnikov who is convinced he has finally met his true love at a variety night; unfortunately it turns out the feelings are not reciprocated and the movie charts the extraordinary lengths to which he goes to win her heart.
Tickets are €9/8. A ticket for all eight films is €55/50. To book see www.tht.ie or call 091 - 569777.
