Meeting Point Europe 2014

Meeting Point Europe presents the best European films of a recent year as chosen by 17 film critics from different European countries. The winner is awarded with the Meeting Point Europe Award.

Audiences can look forward to interesting mixture of festival darlings and “little” films that didn’t get attention they had deserved. As a part of the selection, a new film by Estonian talent Veiko Õunpuu, who visited Cinematik three years ago, will be screened. As in his previous films Õunpuu questions what is the place of a man in a modern society. Free Range is about a film critic who lost his job, but continues in his hedonistic life. When he finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant he must choose between obeying conventions of the society and living the way he wants.

Andreas Prochaska, an editor of some Michael Haneke films, made one of the pleasant surprises at this year’s Berlinale. The Dark Valley (Das finstere Tal) is a western set in the Alps. Prochaska knows the genre perfectly; he omits the clichés and gives it a fresh look – just as Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani do with The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears (L’étrange couleur des larmes de ton corps). Well-known auteurs of Amer once again pay tribute to giallo – their new film is visually striking and dreamy thriller full of imagination and originality.

In the selection there are also a couple of festival hits such as Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger by the Lake (L’inconnu du lac) awarded at the Festival de Cannes and named a Film of the Year by Cahiers du cinema, or FIPRESCI Prize winner from Venice Tom at the Farm (Tom à la ferme) by Quebecois über-talent Xavier Dolan.

Films in the selection:

• Borgman (dir. Alex van Warmerdam)
• Calvary (dir. John Michael McDonagh)
• The Dark Valley / Das finstere Tal (dir. Andreas Prochaska)
• Free Range (dir. Veiko Õunpuu)
• The Great Beauty / La grande bellezza (dir. Paolo Sorrentino)
• Of Horses and Men / Hross í oss (dir. Benedikt Erlingsson)
• The Strange Colour of Your Body Tears / L’étrange couleur des larmes de ton corps (dir. Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani)
• Stranger by the Lake / L’inconnu du lac (dir. Alain Guiraudie)
• Tom at the Farm / Tom à la ferme (dir. Xavier Dolan)