Osaka European Film Festival

For 11 years the Osaka European Film Festival has been bringing the latest and best of European cinema to Kansai.

During the past decade the Festival has given the Japan premieres of some of the most outstanding films to come out of Europe and brought the most renowned European film makers and actors of the age — Naveen Andrews, Jaco van Dormael, Patrice Leconte, Peter del Monte, Jacques Perrin, Bill Pullman and Wim Wenders among many others — to meet the Kansai audience in the discussions following the screenings of their films.

Patrice Boiteau, chairman and founder of the Festival, explains why he feels it necessary to hold such a cinematic event in this part of the world:

"It is vital to maintain a space for ideas and forms of expression which transcend the purely commercial aims of film marketing; it is vital to preserve diverse cultural identities in the face of relentless globalization; it is vital to reflect on human destiny and social reality."

The 11th Festival (Nov 20-24) will be no different from those in previous years in bringing a diverse selection of films, the majority Japanese premieres, with one thing in common: the quality of the acting, directing and cinematography. Boiteau points out another common factor: that they were all extremely successful in their own countries with both public and critics.

Together with the films comes a distinguished list of celebrity guests to lead the debates: this year's honorary chairman, legendary Belgian actor Jan Decleir; former Skids band-member Richard Jobson; Lone Scherfig, Danish director of the internationally acclaimed Italian for Beginners; Italian director Egidio Eronico; rising star of German cinema actor Thomas Kretschmann; director of the most popular French movie in France this year Christophe Barratier; and, from Finland, Jukka-Pekka Laakso, director of the Tampere International Short Film Festival. Jan Decleir, star of Daens, which opened the very first Osaka European Film Festival in 1994, and of the Oscar-winning Karacter (4th OEFF), will receive the prize of Osaka City for lifetime achievement at this festival.

Of the films, those likely to be of widest appeal to the foreign community in Kansai are the three English language films to be screened on Sunday 21st.

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, Lone Scherfig's latest film is set in Glasgow where the good-hearted Harbour (Adrian Rawlins) has spent his whole life trying to rescue his motherless little brother, Wilbur (Jamie Sives), from his numerous suicide attempts. Enter Alice (Shirley Henderson - Trainspotting; Bridget Jones’s Diary) and her daughter Mary, bringing love and meaning into the two brothers' lives.

Based on Richard Jobson's acclaimed semi-autobiographical novel of the same title, 16 Years of Alcohol relates the attempts of Frankie Mac (Kevin McKidd - Trainspotting) to escape from his alcoholic and violent past. Now attending an alcoholics' support group, Frankie recalls the three decades of his life beginning with a working class childhood in Edinburgh visiting pubs with his hard-drinking father.

"This is a film about hope," says Frankie in a voiceover, but, despite his attempts to break free of himself, he is always getting dragged back.

Between the two 'Scottish' films is the Italian, Hungarian, Brazilian co-production My Father, a gripping depiction of the inner struggle of Hermann (Thomas Kretschmann - The Pianist), a young man torn apart by loyalty to his beliefs and to his monster of a father who, as a doctor and genetic scientist, was responsible for the deaths of thousands of prisoners in the concentration camp of Auschwitz.

Charlton Heston gives the performance of his career as the evil Hermann senior, a part based on the character of the Nazi Mengele.

The main Festival ends on Tuesday 23rd with the Spanish comedy Torremolinos 73 (English subtitles), but the grand finale comes on the nights of 3rd and 4th December with the extremely popular Night of the Ad Eaters, showing 500 commercial films by 52 producing countries.

Text: Peter Mallett • Photos: Courtesy OEFF