Future Frames Celebrates 10th Anniversary by Spotlighting 10 Emerging Directors From Across Europe
It’s a perfect 10.
EFP Future Frames – Generation Next of European Cinema is celebrating its 10th edition by spotlighting 10 emerging directors from across Europe, who will screen their films at Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival and participate in a “tailor-made” promotion and networking program.
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Nominated by their countries’ national film promotion institutes, they were selected by KVIFF’s artistic director Karel Och and his team.
Katarína Gramatová (Slovak Republic) will bring “A Good Mind Grows in Thorny Places.”
“The film originated during the preparation of non-actors for my debut feature. To familiarize the boys with cameras, I filmed their everyday lives. This material ended up uncovering issues such as racism or origins of hatred in my home country,” she tells Variety about her “unfiltered documentary.”
Italy’s Emanuela Muzzupappa will focus on “Love’s Servant” instead – already given Special Mention at Trieste Film Festival – showing Pinuccia, who is only 9 years old when a miracle saves her from death.
“From that moment on, she became a miracle worker. Her story is a tale of holiness but above all, of innocence,” she says.
Anna Maria Jóakimsdóttir Hutri, representing Iceland, takes a look at welfare Sweden which, with its increasing elderly population, “faces the challenge of creating a dignified life even for people in their last years.”
“How can Minna sustain her empathic core for her fellow human beings and care for the elderly with compassion, despite the infernal cutdowns of budgets? Can she stay present for her ice-skating daughter at the same time? She witnesses people perish from loneliness. Can she really stay passive to these human destinies?” she says about her conflicted character in “Who Stands Up for Alvar.”
Germany’s Hilke Rönnfeld is delivering “A Study of Empathy,” already awarded the Golden Leopard for Best International Short Film at Locarno.
“I am very fascinated by the age of egocentricity we live in and I was curious to look at shifts in the perception and expression of empathy towards others and towards ourselves. And it was important for me to approach the film as a humorous observation rather than a judgement,” she notes, while Marthe Peters (Belgium/Flanders) explains the origins of Berlinale-selected “Baldilocks.”
“The starting point was a multitude of themes I wanted to talk about and explore further, like depression and vaginismus,” she says. “As I started doing that, it became apparent that the only way to bring the different stories together was to talk about my experience with cancer as a child.”
William Sehested Høeg’s “The Complaint,” representing Denmark, will set out to “uncover toxic group dynamics.”
“During film school I was part of a community with a focus on self-development in a competitive environment. It felt like a convenient topic to tackle in my graduation film,” Høeg says. “The film explores ambition as a human condition, what it does to us, for better or for worse, and how the pursuit of success is about so much more than success.”
Spain’s Lucía G. Romero – bringing “Cura Sana” to KVIFF following her best short film Crystal Bear win at Berlinale – shows two sisters, Jessica and Alma, who are victims of domestic violence at home.
“That’s why they treat each other with violence. That will begin to change through one of his routine trips for food stamps on the night of San Juan,” she explains, while Romania’s Bogdan Alecsandru goes on a “sensorial journey, delving into repressed emotions and sexual awakening” in “If I Float.”
“High school is indeed peculiar. Driven by an interest in visual, immersive, and dreamlike storytelling, we shot it on 35mm film within the confines of a captivating yet isolating blue drenched swimming pool,” he says.
Finally, Marie-Magdalena Kochová (Czech Republic) brings “3 MWh,” which premiered earlier this year at Rotterdam.
“I grew up in a world with a vision of endless growth and prosperity. Now, in 2024, we face many crises at once. Fear, grief and helplessness paralyze me,” she says. “The advice for compulsively returning fear is to look its reason in the eye, to think it through in context, to the end. For me, our film is a loving acceptance that we are not just our bodies, but we are energy. And energy cannot be created nor destroyed.”
EFP Future Frames – Generation NEXT of European Cinema is supported by Creative Europe – the MEDIA Programme of the European Union and organized in cooperation with the Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival and its partner Allwyn.
Variety is the main media partner. See the full list of directors and films below.
Katarína Gramatová (Slovak Republic) — “A Good Mind Grows in Thorny Places”
Emanuela Muzzupappa (Italy) — “Love’s Servant”
Anna Maria Jóakimsdóttir Hutri (Iceland) — “Who Stands Up for Alvar”
Hilke Rönnfeld (Germany) — “A Study of Empathy”
Marthe Peters (Belgium/Flanders) — “Baldilocks”
William Sehested Høeg (Denmark) — “The Complaint”
Lucía G. Romero (Spain) — “Cura Sana”
Bogdan Alecsandru (Romania) — “If I Float”
Marie-Magdalena Kochová (Czech Republic) — “3 MWh”
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