SHADOWS. Two out of the 14 films in the Shadows section presented by ShortsTV will be presented as special screenings. Canibal, one of the most awarded recent Spanish films, comes to Cluj together with its director, Manuel Martín Cuenca, and its main actress, Olimpia Melinte, whose double performance brought her a Goya nomination as Breakthrough Artist of the Year. The film tells the story of a man with a very dark secret: he feeds himself with the flesh of the women for whom he cannot have feelings. Everything changes when Nina comes along... She's a young Romanian immigrant and he falls utterly in love with her. Canibal will premiere theatrically via Transilvania Film.
Actress Anamaria Marinca returns to Europa Report, Sebastián Cordero's SciFi in which she plays an astronaut sent to look for other forms of life on one of Jupiter's moons. The film also stars Sharlto Copley, of District 9 fame. In Story of My Death, Albert Serra's Golden Leopard winner which was shot in Romania, in the Viscri village, Casanova meets Dracula, and in Takashi Miike's Cannes competition film Shield of Straw, four cops have to protect a murder suspect against a billionaire who wants him dead and, thus, set a whole country against him. Patch Town comes with a bizarre story, to say the least: in a factory, the workers collect babes from cabbages, babes who are destined to become toys for other kids.
In the experimental film A Masque of Madness, British actor Boris Karloff (1887-1969) becomes 170 different characters, thus setting in motion a schizophrenic horror trip in which he needs to confront himself. In Denis Villeneuve's Enemy, winner of the Grand Prize in Sitges, a man becomes obsessed with his double. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon and Isabella Rossellini. Last but not least, in Love Eternal, a suicidal man decides to take home the body of a young woman.
NO LIMIT. Similarly thought-provoking are the 12 films selected in this traditional section in which boundaries are pushed beyond any imagination. The highly-anticipated Tom à la ferme, the newest film by Xavier Dolan and last year's Venice critics' darling (it won the FIPRESCI award), will premiere at TIFF. Dolan stars as a copywriter who goes to the countryside in order to attend a funeral and thus enters a sick game. Another sick game is entered by the protagonist of R 100, by Hitoshi Matsumoto.
Famed Korean director Kim Ki-duk pushes the boundaries yet once again, this time with Moebius, a film without dialogue in which a family gets pushed to utter ruin. Another family, this time with a small child, is caught in a drama about domestic violence – The Police Officer's Wife, winner of the 2013 Venice's Special Jury Prize. Chills down the spine come in the form of two films in which the directors chronicle their personal suffering: in New Boobs, director Sacha Polak finds out she's carrying the BRCA1 gene which is responsible for hereditary mammary cancer but who cannot decide whether to amputate the breasts or not; and in What Now? Remind Me, Joaquim Pinto, HIV positive and suffering from hepatitis, is the protagonist of a year of submitting himself to medical investigations and trial drugs with strong consequences.
Intense and highly controversial, L’Inconnu du lac, winner of the Best Director award in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes, follows the passionate love story of two men who meet by a lake. Sexual attraction between two young men is also the subject of the Swedish film Something Must Break, winner of the Tiger Award in Rotterdam. In Ruin - the Orizzonti Special Prize in Venice – two lovers run away from the dangerous and exploitive world of today's Cambodia.
MIDNIGHT DELIRIUM. Thanks to a special horror program, TIFF intends to keep the audience wide awake until 3 in the morning. From Monday to Friday (June 2 – 6), starting at midnight, Cinema Arta becomes the host of Midnight Delirium, a section curated by Mihai Mitrică. On Tuesday, June 3, at the Cockneys vs. Zombies screening, those wearing zombie make-up and clothing will have free entrance and will be photographed at the TIFF panel. In this horror comedy, two brothers and a couple of old guys ready to wreck havoc fight against the London zombie apocalypse.
Countless exorcisms are performed in Asmodexia, a SciFi horror about a soul infection which spreads very fast and which need the energy of a priest. In the Hindi film Fly (Most Original Film - Toronto After Dark 2013), a man turns into a fly and exacts revenge against the man who stole his girlfriend, while in Sawney: Flesh of Men a journalist has to fight against a family of cannibals. Every superhero grabs power from wherever he or she can: for high schooler Kyosuke Shikijo, this power comes from wearing woman's lingerie. Thus, he becomes Panty-Man and he can defend the whole school against a crazed maniac in the highly amusing HK Forbidden Superhero, winner of the best Asian film at Fantasia 2013.
Teaser Midnight Delirium: http://youtu.be/Yfv-oRhRKVs
***
The TIFF 2014 app is available in App Store and Google Play.
You can also check us on: www.tiff.ro | facebook: TransilvaniaIFF | twitter: #TIFF2014 | Instagram.com/tiffromania
