What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 11th August 2022.

The 28th Sarajevo Film Festival launches on Friday 12th August and runs through until Friday 19th August. Sarajevo is the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina with a population of just over half a million inhabitants. The city is a prominent centre of culture in the Balkans and exerts region-wide influence in entertainment, media, fashion and the arts. Towards the end of the four-year siege of Sarajevo, in 1995, Obala Art Centar initiated the Sarajevo Film Festival with the aim of helping to reconstruct civil society and retain the cosmopolitan spirit of the city. Today, two decades later, the Sarajevo Film Festival is the leading film festival in the region, recognised by both film professionals and the wider audience. The Sarajevo Film Festival is an international film festival with a special focus on the region of South-East Europe shining an international spotlight on films, talent and future projects from the region. It is the premier and largest film festival in Southeast Europe, and has grown to be one of the largest film festivals in Europe, attracting a paying audience of about 100,000 guests. 

This year eight film titles will compete for the Heart of Sarajevo Award in the Competition Programme - Feature Film 2022. In addition, there are three other competition programmes - documentary, short and student film. In all, fifty-one films will compete for awards at the festival, and of these fifty-one films, twenty-one are World Premieres, along with seven international, one European, twenty-one regional and one Bosnian and Herzegovinian premiere.

Those eight films competing in the Heart of Sarajevo Feature Film Award category and for whom the awards are presented for Best Feature Film – with an award in the amount of €16,000; Best Director – award in the amount of €10,000; Best Actress award in the amount of €2,500 and Best Actor award also in the amount of €2,500, are as follows :-

* 'A Ballad' from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Written, Produced and Directed by Aida Begic. World Premier screening. An unambitious, 30-year-old homemaker and mother to an eight-year-old girl, moves back to her parental home after ten years of marriage. Soon after, she realises she is stuck in a circle of provincial rules and expectations and a complex relationship with her ambitious mother and spoiled younger brother.

* 'Corsage' from Austria, Luxembourg, Germany, France and Written and Directed by Marie Kreutzer. Regional Premier screening. Empress Elizabeth of Austria is idolised for her beauty and renowned for inspiring fashion trends. In 1877 at Christmas the Empress turns forty and is officially deemed an old woman, so she starts trying to maintain her public image.

* 'Men of Deeds' from Romania and Bulgaria and Directed by Paul Negoescu. World Premier screening. A man in his late 30's enjoys the easy life of a village policeman. His passivity during a series of violent events soon turns him into an accomplice to murder. Tension accumulates in the village, forcing him to make a final decision.

* 'Klondike' from Ukraine and Turkey and Directed by Maryna Er Gorbach. Regional Premier screening. The film focuses on the story of a local Ukrainian family trapped at the epicentre of the crash of the Malaysian Airlines MH17. The actions unfold on July 17, 2014, in the village of Grabove, Donetsk region, near the Russian border.

* 'Riders' from Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Written and Directed by Dominik Mencej. World Premier screening. Slovenia, the spring of 1999. Two friends from a small village decide to transform their mopeds into choppers and embark on a journey. Looking for freedom and love, they travel through dreams of the past and visions of the future.

* 'Safe Place' from Croatia and Written, Directed and starring Juraj Lerotic. Regional Premier screening. Follows Damir, who's trying to take his own life while his family wants to save him. Everything happens over a period of just 24 hours.

* 'Serviam - I Will Serve' from Austria and Directed by Ruth Mader. Regional Premier screening. Set in a Catholic girls boarding school for wealthy parents and their daughters near Vienna, in this closed environment, a nun uses authoritarian methods to fight for the faith of each child. Martha, a twelve-year-old girl, encouraged by the nun, is ready to sacrifice herself for the sins of the world.

* 'Six Weeks' from Hungary and Written and Directed by Noemi Veronika Szakonyi. World Premier screening. A defiant teenager gives up her newborn daughter through open adoption, but doubts begin to arise within her body and soul. According to Hungarian law, she has six weeks to change her mind.

The other competition strands are Documentary Film 2022 featuring twenty-two films ranging from twelve minutes in length to 107 minutes duration of which eight are World Premiers, three are International Premiers, one is a European Premier, nine are Regional Premiers and one is a Bosnia and Herzegovina Premier. Then there is the Short Film 2022 category of which there are ten films in competition ranging from ten minutes to twenty-six minutes in length and of which four are World Premiers, one is an International Premier and the remaining five are Regional Premiers. And closing out the competitive strand is the Student Film 2022 of which there are eleven entries ranging from four minutes to thirty minutes duration of which four are World Premiers, four are International Premiers and three are Regional Premiers. 

Additionally, American Academy Award-nominated Actor, Director, playwright and author Jesse Eisenberg will be an honorary guest and on August 15th, Sarajevo Film Festival will honour Eisenberg with the Heart of Sarajevo Award, ahead of a Special Screening of 'When You Finish Saving the World' - Eisenberg’s Directorial feature debut.

For more details of this years 28th Sarajevo Film Festival, you can visit the official website at : - https://www.sff.ba/en

This week then we have four new cinematic releases to tempt you with kicking off with an American Sci-Fi horror offering that follows two California ranch-owning siblings who attempt to capture evidence of an unidentified flying object. This is followed by a German WWII drama documentary film marking the 80th anniversary of a meeting that would seal the fate of some eleven million Jews from across Europe. Next up is an Australian drama film about a young couple who get away to the south western corner of Western Australia for the weekend to decide whether to stay together or end their relationship. And we close out the week with an Australian documentary film about a filmmaker who is obsessed with making home videos of his mother, inadvertently turning her into an online celebrity. 

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the four latest release new films as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release or as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are most welcome to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon outing during the week ahead.

'NOPE' (Rated M) - this eagerly awaited highly anticipated American Sci-Fi horror film is Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Jordan Peele whose two previous film making outings were the highly acclaimed 'Get Out' in 2017 and 'Us' in 2019.  The film saw its World Premier showcasing in Los Angeles on 18th July and was released Stateside on 22nd July, having so far grossed US$98M from its production budget of US$68M and has garnered generally positive critical reviews. The films title was rumoured to be an acronym for 'Not Of Planet Earth' or 'Not Our Planet Earth' based on the movie poster, but Peele later revealed that the title refers to the reaction he hoped to elicit from audiences.

Here then, two siblings Otis 'OJ' Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald 'Em' Haywood (Keke Palmer) who run a California horse ranch for Hollywood film and television productions discover something wonderful and sinister in the skies above, while the owner of an adjacent theme park, Ricky 'Jupe' Park (Steven Yuen) tries to profit from the mysterious, otherworldly phenomenon. Also starring Brandon Perea, Michael Wincott, Keith David and Wrenn Schmidt.

'THE CONFERENCE' (Rated M) - this German historical WWII drama documentary film is Directed by Matti Geschonneck, and shows a historically accurate re-enactment of the real Wannsee Conference held on January 20th 1942 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of that ill fated day when fifteen top ranking Nazi officials meet amidst the Second World War in a palatial villa southwest of Berlin, to discuss over coffee and breakfast for ninety minutes the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Question', meaning the bureaucratically strictly planned organisation of the systematic mass murder of some eleven million Jews from all over Europe. Starring Phillipp Hochmair, Johannes Allmayer and Maximilian Bruckner. This film first aired on German TV back in late January this year.

'EDWARD AND ISABELLA' (Rated CTC) - is an Australian film Written, Co-Produced, lensed and Directed by Adam Morris in his feature film making debut. Self-funded, made entirely during the COVID-19 pandemic and shot in the sleepy coastal town of Albany, Western Australia, the film tells the story of a successful Perth couple Edward (Daniel Barwick in his screen acting debut) and Isabella (Chloe Hurst) who take a weekend break to the Great Southern region of Western Australia to determine the fate of their relationship. Also starring Renato Fabretti as The Doctor, Chloe's psychologist. Filmed on a micro-budget with very limited cast and crew, it goes on limited release in Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales and was officially selected for Film festivals in London, Singapore and Montreal and has along the way picked up Best Film and Best Director awards in Japan, Sweden, the Czech Republic, France and Italy.

'EVERYBODY'S OMA' (Rated M) - this Australian documentary film is Co-Produced, Directed and stars Jason van Genderen in only his second feature length doco following 2007's 'Lockout' although he has helmed sixteen other short films, documentary shorts and television series. Here, filmmaker Jason van Genderen is obsessed with making home videos about his family, and their Dutch matriarch, Oma. He and his wife Megan embrace caring for Oma’s dementia in increasingly whimsical ways, accidentally turning her into an online celebrity. Their unassuming home videos, shot during the COVID-19 pandemic, attract over one hundred million views globally, and follows in the New South Wales Central Coast family’s footsteps as they navigate Oma’s failing health under the spotlight of an enthusiastic audience of well-meaning strangers.

With four new release movie offerings this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere at your local Odeon in the coming week.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-