Euro Film Festival starts May 14

JOAN RAMPERSAD

THE 23rd edition of the European Film Festival (EFF) of Trinidad and Tobago begins on May 14, with the screening of a French film entitled “la promesse de l’aube” (Promise at dawn).

It tells the story of the extraordinary life of an exceptional character, Romain Gary, who was an exile, seducer and a soldier but also an aviator, diplomat, filmmaker and notably one of the great French writers of the 20th century. The film is itself based on a novel written by Romain Gary, a winner of the Goncourt Prize – the greatest literary honour in France– and brought twice to the big screen.

So said France Ambassador to TT, Serge Lavroff, who was particularly excited at the launch of the festival at his residence in St Clair on Thursday evening.

“Let me confess something to you, I love cinema. Nothing is more natural for a diplomat. I switch roles and costumes every day, I write political thriller scripts and I put together brilliant casts, like this evening. Of course, I do not forget to appear on the red carpet. This is why I am so pleased to welcome you to this wonderful set where many actors before me have played the role of the ambassador.” Guests laughed.

He said, every year European cinema offers its TT audience its best: a complete array of films directly inspired by people’s lives, their societies and their cultures. “Some of them will make you laugh, others deal with deeper and more serious issues and will make you reflect, and finally others make you travel and discover incredible geographical and cultural diversity and situations on that continent called Europe.

“We hope that beyond the distance that separates us, Europe and the Caribbean are gradually becoming closer thanks to this festival. This will be, I hope, the best lesson that cinema can offer us: showing us that after all humanity is united in its diversity.”

Among the countries that have partnered with the European Union Delegation for the festival over the years are France, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain and the UK. However this year there will also be films from Belgium, Poland, Malta, Portugal, Latvia, Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

Some 44 films will be shown in their original version in all of the European languages with subtitles during the festival that ends May 28. Patrons can look forward to comedy, mystery, romance, children’s features, climate change, environment, migration among other subjects.

There will be more venues this year too, among them, UTT campuses in O’Meara, Corinth, Point Lisas and John Donaldson, MovieTowne, PoS, Centre for Language Learning, UWI, Nalis in Arima, Point Fortin and Couva, the Charlotteville and Scarborough libraries, and Alliance Française.

Also in place this year are side events like the TT premiere of the Luxembourgish feature documentary Grand H, when Marianne Donven, one of the activists in the movie will be in TT for it and to participate in a workshop on Film as Activism on May 13, the eve of the festival.

There will also be a special outdoor screening, as well as schools screenings in libraries throughout TT.