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 successfully succeeded her bringing to the festival a clearer cinefile touch. Although its selection is now maybe less commercial and populistic than before the festival audience is still growing. With close to 50.000 sold tickets the Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFe) is the biggest event in the yearly programme in the Cankarjev dom and also one of the biggest cultural events in Slovenia. One of the reasons for the growing interest are also the international guests (directors, actors, producers, etc.) that are visiting the festival each year in a bigger number.

Sections and Awards

As many similar film festivals around the world also the Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFe) is focusing on young filmmakers in its main competitive section - the Perspectives section. Namely the section is offering a thoughtful selection of first and second feature films from emerging young directors that had their international premier at important film festival around the world (Rotterdam, Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Torino, ...). The best film from that section, selected by the three-member international jury, is bestowed with the Kingfisher Award (introduced in 1996). In the past years the award went to film like East Palace West Palace (Dong gong, xi gong) by Zhang Yuan, The Dreamlife of Angels (La vie reveé des anges) by Erick Zonca, Bred and Milk (Kruh in mleko) by Jan Cvitkovič and Hunger by Steve McQueen.

Other sections of the Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFe) are: the Avant-premieres is the most commercially oriented section since it includes major international productions from established directors that will be screened later in the commercial distribution; the King and queens section brings a variety of works by renowned and awarded masters of contemporary cinema; the World film panorama section is meant for festival favourites from all over the world; with the Extravaganza section the so called ‘midnight cinema’ is brought to fans of daring, bizzare and titillating contents of diverse genres; the Focus section offers an insight into one (or more) of the hottest national cinematographies; the Retrospective section offers an overall presentation of the work by an important contemporary filmmaker; the Tribute section brings a short, condensed presentation of an author who has received a fair share of festival and media attention; the last two sections of the Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFe) are the youngest ones since they were introduced just in the last two years: the Kinobalon section is dedicated to the youngest audience as it offers a selection of films for children aged 7 to 14, carefully selected with the help of the Kinodvor Cinema stuff, while the The world in short is a competitive section for short films by young filmmakers.

From 2008, when the The World in short section was introduced, the three-members international jury (each award has its own jury) is bestowing the Best Short Film Award. At the Ljubljana International Film Festival also the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) has its own three-members jury and it selects the best film from all the works in the programme. Their award is called the FIPRESCI Award and with it they usually promote fresh and innovative approach mostly (but not exclusively) among young or unknown filmmakers. The audience award is called the Dragon Award (introduced in 2000 as a Golden Reel Award) and can be bestowed to any film on the programme. The winning film is later also commercially distributed in Slovene cinemas. Between 2005 and 2007 the Ljubljana International Film Festival had also the Amnesty International Award (granted by Amnesty International Slovenia) but it was moved to the International Documentary Film Festival.

Facts and numbers

For several years now the number of screened films exceeds 100 and approximately 10% of those are shorts. Around 250 official screenings are taking place each year (at least in the last years) – a big majority of them in Ljubljana and just some 10% in Maribor – while just a little less than 50.000 tickets are being sold. The number of international guests is growing each year and lately it reached nearly a third of the number of screened films. In the past years also some well known directors and actors visited the Ljubljana International Film Festival, like Hal Hartley, Eric Zonca, Aleksei German jr., James Benning, Burghart Klaußner and Vlad Ivanov. The festival is followed by around 180 domestic and foreign journalists (the number of foreign journalist is still small but it is growing each year).

Ljubljana International Film Festival is also an active member of many international bodies and associations like 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.

External links

LIFFe website

Festival report on FIPRESCI site

Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFe)

Contents

Sections and Awards

Facts and numbers

See also

External links

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