Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFe)

Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFe) was launched in 1989 as the Film Art Festival Ljubljana. The festival is organised by Cankarjev dom Culture and Congress Centre, Film Programme, but films are also screened at Slovenian Cinematheque, Kinodvor Cinema, Kinoklub Vič and Kolosej Maribor. It can be classified as specialised competitive festival that features an overview of contemporary world film production, but also focus on emerging directors and new trends in contemporary cinema. For many years the programme director of the festival was Jelka Stergel, but in the last few years Simon Popek more that successfully succeeded her bringing to the festival a clearer cinefile touch.

The main purpose of the festival is to familiarise audiences with non-Hollywood films which are not usually screened in commercial Slovene cinemas, since the art cinema distribution network in Slovenia has only developed very recently. At present the Festival comprises the following sections: Perspectives - the official competitive section of the festival, which presents the work of first- or second-time directors; Avant-premieres - which screens major European and other films by established directors that will be screened later in the commercial distribution; King and queens - works by renowned and awarded masters of contemporary film; World film panorama - festival favourites from five continents; Extravaganza - the so called ‘midnight cinema’ brings daring and titillating contents of diverse genres; Focus - An insight into one (or more) of the hottest national cinematographies; Retrospective - An overall presentation of films by an important contemporary cineaste; Tribute - A short, condensed presentation of an author who has received a fair share of festival and media attention; The world in short - competitive section that brings a selection of short-length films by young filmmakers; Kinobalon - a selection of films for children aged 7 to 14; in association with Kinodvor Cinema.

Awards

Numerous awards are presented at the Festival. The main festival award is the Kingfisher Award (introduced in 1996) - presented by three-member international jury - that goes to best film of the Perspectives. The Audience Award (introduced in 2000 as a Golden Reel Award; in 2008 it become the Dragon Award) can be bestowed to any film of the festival; the FIPRESCI Award is awarded by the International Federation of Film Critics; Best Short Film Award goes to best film of the section The world in short.

Ljubljana International Film Festival has been a member of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) since 1992. It is also a member of Europa Cinemas, the Association of European Film Exhibitors, Paris ECFF, the European Co-ordination of Film Festivals (ECFF), Brussels and the Motion Pictures Association, Brussels.

The 20th Ljubljana International Film Festival of 2009 featured as many as 106 films (15 shorts). For 254 official screenings they sold 46.000 tickets. It closed with the screening of Bent Hamer's latest film O'Horten (part of that year's World film panorama section). Radmila Djurica, member of the three-member FIPRESCI jury, bestowed the FIPRESCI Award to the US independent drama Go Get Some Rosemary, presented in the Perspective festival section. The winner of the 2009 Dragon Award, bestowed by the audience for the best film of the festival, was the Canadian bittersweet drama I Killed My Mother, directed by Xavier Dolan. The prestigious Kingfisher Award went to Croatian dark war drama Blacks by Goran Dević and Zvonimir Jurić. The three-member jury decided to give a Special Mention to the Romanian film Police, Adjective by Corneliu Porumboiu, presented in the Perspectives section.

External links

LIFFe website

Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFe)

Awards

See also

External links

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