Lukas Dhont studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. He made his debut as a director and scriptwriter with the short film Corps perdu from 2012. That same year, his short film Skin of Glass was also released, and he wrote the screenplay for another short film, The Air in My Throat. In 2014 he wrote and directed L’Infini which won the “Best Belgian Student Short Film” at the Film Fest Gent.
His 2018 debut feature, Girl, for which he also wrote the screenplay, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section. The film was positively received and won the Caméra d’or (best debut film), the Prix FIPRESCI (international film critics prize) and the Queer Palme. At the Zurich Film Festival, the film received the Golden Eye Award for Best International Film. It also copped the European Discovery Award during the European Film Awards. Girl was the official Belgian Oscar submission and was nominated for the Golden Globes and the Césars. Dhont was a jury member in the Un Certain Regard section at the 77th Cannes Film Festival.
Dhont’s second feature, Close, premiered in competition at the 2022 Cannes festival, where it shared the Grand Prix with Claire Denis’ Stars at Noon. It also won the Sydney Film Prize in June 2022. The film is based on his own experiences at school.
Shinzo was born in Osaka prefecture in 1981. After working as an assistant director for Japanese films, including Nobuhiro Yamashita’s works, he crossed paths with Bong Joon-ho while the latter was shooting Tokyo (2008) and served as his assistant director. Shocked and attracted by Bong’s directorial style, he moved to South Korea and worked for Bong on Mother (2009) as assistant director. This experience hugely affected his creativity afterwards. In 2019, his debut feature Siblings of the Cape was selected by numerous domestic and international film festivals, including Göteborg Film Festival, the Geneva International Film Festival, and the Taipei Film Festival. Despite being a low-budget independent film, its shocking narrative and direction led the film to be an unexpected hit at a Japanese box office, and it gained a high reputation through word of mouth. He now is one of the most promising, emerging directors in Japan. Missing is his second feature.
The Ukrainian director studied at the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University and subsequently at the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing in Poland. She has been a member of the European Film Academy since 2017. She made the films Black Dogs Barking (2009), Love Me (2013) and Omar and Us (2019) together with her husband Mehmet Bahadir Er. Klondike is the first film she has written and directed alone.
Maggie Peren is an award-winning writer and director born in Heidelberg, Germany. After studying literature and psychology in Munich, she started writing her first screenplay (Forget America) when she was twenty-four years old. In 2003, she received the German Film Award for Before the Fall. She followed this by writing numerous screenplays for which she won national and international awards. In 2011, she presented her second directorial work, The Colour of the Ocean. The refugee drama celebrated its premiere in Toronto and was awarded several prizes worldwide. The thriller short film Nocebo (2014) won the student Oscar for best foreign film. The Forger, her most recent feature film, debuted as a special gala presentation at the Berlinale earlier this year.
Born in Iran, Ali Asgari has more than 200 film awards to his name. Two of his shorts were nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes festival and The Baby (the basis for Until Tomorrow) was in the short-film competition at the Venice festival in 2014. Ali’s films are concerned with the precarious lives of those stuck on the margins of Iranian society. His debut feature, Disappearance, had its world and North American premieres at the Venice festival and the Toronto festival, respectively, in 2017. Ali is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and Until Tomorrow is his second feature film.
Kaltrina Krasniqi is an award-winning Kosovo-based film director and researcher working in film, television, and the digital humanities since early 2000. She is a founding member of the Kosovo Oral History Initiative – a digital archive, where personal histories of people from various paths of life are recorded and published, and a co-founder of Dit’ e Nat’, a non-formal setting for the promotion of film, literature, and music. She graduated in Film Directing at the University of Prishtina in 2004, and in 2011 completed her MA at Kosovo’s Institute for Journalism and Communication. In 2015 she continued her professional development at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a focus on Film Producing. Her last film Sarabande (2018) premiered at ZagrebDox, was awarded as Best Documentary in the Cinalfama Film Festival, and was a nominee in the short documentary competition at the Camerimage Festival 2018. Vera Dreams of the Sea, her first feature, premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
Wang Xide majored in film theory at Bournemouth University in the UK. He is currently based in Changzhou, China, a small city built and developed by the riverside of the Great Canal, where he was born and raised. After engaging in different jobs, he returned to filmmaking, which inspires him more than anything else in his life. After making the short film Silver Moon in 2020, he made his feature debut, A Chat, in 2021.
Gu Qing, a tailor in her 30s, lives a mundane life until her niece, Sun Yue, comes from afar and starts to learn tailoring from her. But Sun Yue also has other motives—she’s there to see the boy with whom she lived a three-month love story before he had to leave to work on a film shoot…
First-time director Wang Xide, shooting in gorgeous black and white, gives us three generations of women coping with loss and trying to reconcile with themselves and each other. In doing so, Wang has fashioned the kind of slow cinema that really works: this a film where very little ostensibly goes on, but all of life is revealed. The confidence the director shows in building this world and allowing the editing rhythms to take control of the audience makes for an absolutely lovely work. To top it all off, the soundtrack is fantastic, and there are moments of slyly understated humour. A quiet gift, the film won the Best Film prize at the Chongqing Youth Film Festival.
Gu Qing, een kleermaakster van in de 30, leidt een doodgewoon leven totdat haar nichtje, Sun Yue, van ver komt om van haar het kleermakersvak te leren. Maar Sun Yue heeft ook andere motieven – zoals de jongen terugzien met wie ze drie maanden een romance beleefde tot hij moest vertrekken om aan een filmopname te werken …
Wang Xide die filmt in prachtig zwart-wit, toont ons in zijn regiedebuut drie generaties vrouwen die met verlies omgaan en zich proberen te verzoenen met zichzelf en met elkaar. Daarmee heeft Wang het soort slow cinema gemaakt dat echt werkt: een film waarin ogenschijnlijk heel weinig gebeurt, maar waarin het hele leven onthuld wordt. Het vertrouwen dat de regisseur toont bij de opbouw van deze wereld en de manier waarop hij het montageritme gebruikt om het publiek naar zijn hand te zetten, zorgt voor een ronduit magnifiek werk. Als klap op de vuurpijl is de soundtrack fantastisch en zijn er momenten van subtiele, ingetogen humor. De film is een stil geschenk en won de prijs voor Beste Film op het Chongqing Youth Film Festival.
A fascinating and beautifully acted look behind the scenes at a struggling Mexican tequila factory, Juan Pablo González’s debut captured the Special Jury Prize for acting at the Sundance festival’s World Dramatic competition for Teresa Sánchez’s performance. She plays Maria, the respected owner of the Dos Estaciones tequila factory, which has been in her family for generations and provided employment for numerous locals. But now, economics and a form of blight have left the factory in dire trouble…
‘It’s rare when a debut feature strikes the perfect balance of ingredients, and especially rare when it does so in a distinctive and memorable way. Writer-director Juan Pablo González achieves precisely this in Dos Estaciones… a vivid portrait of a place and its people, an unsentimental ode to the art and craft of tequila-making, a damning depiction of the results of globalizing economic policies, and an exquisite character study.’—Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter
Het debuut van Juan Pablo González is een fascinerende en prachtig geacteerde blik achter de schermen van een Mexicaanse tequilafabriek in moeilijkheden. De rol van van Teresa Sánchez won de Speciale Juryprijs in de World Dramatic Competition van het Sundance-festival. Zij speelt Maria, de gerespecteerde eigenaresse van de Dos Estaciones tequilafabriek, dat al generaties lang in handen van haar familie is en werk verschaft aan talloze plaatselijke bewoners. Maar nu hebben de recessie en een plantenplaag de fabriek in grote problemen gebracht …
“Het is zeldzaam dat een filmdebuut de perfecte balans vindt tussen alle componenten. Al helemaal als dat gebeurt op een karakteristieke en gedenkwaardige manier. Dit is precies wat schrijver-regisseur Juan Pablo González bereikt in Dos Estaciones: een levendig portret van een plaats en zijn mensen, een onsentimentele ode aan de kunst en het ambacht van het tequila maken, een vernietigende weergave van de gevolgen van een geglobaliseerde economie en een voortreffelijke karakterstudie.” Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter
Bright, alive, humane, humorous—and deeply moving: these are a few words and phrases that leap to mind while viewing Fabien Gorgeart’s beautifully made family drama. Anna (Melanie Thierry at her best) lives with her husband (Lyes Salem), her two young sons, and six-year-old Simon (Gabriel Pavie, amazing), a child placed with them by Childhood Social Services at the age of 18 months. One day, Simon’s biological father declares that he intends to regain custody of his son. So begins a rollercoaster ordeal for Anna, Simon, and and the family… What stands out here is that there are no villains in the film—just real people trying to do their best to live and love. And Gorgeart’s visual flair is in perfect synch with the themes and emotions on display. A real gem of a film.
‘Fabien Gorgeart delivers a remarkable, lively, moving, sensitive and highly accurate melodrama on filial feelings and our complex views over what makes a child happy.’—Fabien Lemercier, Cineuropa
Fris, levendig, menselijk, humoristisch en diep ontroerend: het zijn enkele woorden en omschrijvingen die bij het zien van Fabien Gorgearts prachtig gemaakte familiedrama in je opkomen. Anna (Melanie Thierry op haar best) woont samen met haar man (Lyes Salem), haar twee zoontjes en de zesjarige Simon (Gabriel Pavie, geweldig), een kind dat op de leeftijd van achttien maanden bij hen geplaatst is door de kinderbescherming. Op een dag verklaart Simons biologische vader dat hij de voogdij over zijn zoon wil terugkrijgen. Zo begint een rollercoaster voor Anna, Simon en het gezin … Wat opvalt is dat er geen schurken in de film zitten – alleen echte mensen die hun best doen om te leven en lief te hebben. En de visuele flair van Gorgeart is in perfecte harmonie met de getoonde thema’s en emoties. Een juweeltje van een film.
“Fabien Gorgeart levert een opmerkelijk, levendig, ontroerend, gevoelig en zeer accuraat melodrama af over kinderlijke gevoelens en onze complexe opvattingen over wat een kind gelukkig maakt.” Fabien Lemercier, Cineuropa
