Crossing Europe 2010

As I’m sitting here on the train on my way back to Vienna I can’t help but think: “Wow, what an amazing festival it’s been!”. The festival in question was the 7th edition of what is undoubtedly the cultural highlight of my calendar: the Crossing Europe film-festival taking place in Linz, Upper Austria.

Even though I didn’t manage to see quite as many films as in previous years – I think that record is still 18 or 19 – I’ve never before been so satisfied with the program. Out of the 15 films which I saw since Thursday afternoon only 3 were absolutely disasters and the rest ranged between really good and absolutely amazing. In fact it’s never been harder for me to try and pick my favorite(s).

Having said that I think it’s safe to say that Zvonimir Jurić and Goran Dević definitely deserved winning the jury’s award for Crnci / The Blacks (Croatia). The movie is an excellent and thought-provoking account of a small Croatian special forces unit and its members’ emotional states during the last hours of the war in Yugoslavia.

Other films that I particularly liked were

• Iki dil bir bavul / On the Way to School (Turkey) which is centered around a young Turk’s experiences in his first year of being a teacher in a remote Kurdish part of the country.
• Kak ya provyol etim letom / How I ended this Summer (Russia) which focuses on an unlikely 2-man team living in a weather station in the Arctic.

Three other movies that deserve a special mention are:

• South (Austria) for the filmmakers dedicating 12 years of their life to making it happen.
• Kynodontas / Dogtooth (Greece) for being seriously, I mean very seriously disturbing (in that regard it’s right up there with Twentynine Palms which I saw at the first Crossing Europe).
• Hadewijch (France) for simply being the most pointless and boring movie I have seen in my entire life.

(Incidentally I just found out that Twentynine Palms and Hadewijch are from the same writer/director…)

Apart from the movies itself the overall atmosphere at Crossing Europe is always awesome. I met a lot of people which I hadn’t since last year’s festival and a number of interesting folks from all around Europe.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed Crossing Europe 2010 and would like to thank all the people who made it happen!

You can find more information about Crossing Europe on the festival’s Web site, its blog and via @crossingeurope on Twitter.

P.S. Oh, and don’t forget about Crossing Europe 2011 taking place from April 12 through 17, 2011;-)