One of the youngest and most promising festivals in Europe is now in its second year. The Mediterrane Film Festival takes place in Valletta, on the island nation Malta, for nine days in the beginning of the summer: between June 23rd and the 30th. And with temperatures averaging 30C, film professionals and lovers can enjoy scorching hot cinema, and perhaps a dip into the Sea. Unless the organisers have enough white wine in order to keep audiences cool, on the intrincatly cobbled streets of the EU’s smallest capital.

The programme boasts four very different strands: Main Competition (films from Mediterranean countries) , Out of Competition (rest of the world), Mare Nostrum (sustainability and environment), and Future Visions (immersive VR). The following Mediterranean nations have already been confirmed at the event: Morocco, Turkey, Greece, Tunisia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Jordan. The event’s top prize has a peculiar name, guaranteed to generate some buzz: The Golden Bee Awards. Newly-appointed Festival Director Teresa Cavina explains: “We have some incredible directors and creatives in this line-up already, across both established and emerging talent, and the selection will offer something for all audiences – from expansive international dramas, captivating psychological horrors and emotional human stories from around the world”.

Iconic British filmmaker Mike Leigh will also be present the event in order to receive a Career Achievement Golden Bee Award, as well as to give a masterclass. We will try to catch up with the Palme d’Or winning director in loco! DMovies will be live at the event unearthing the dirtiest gems exclusively for you. Meanwhile, you can find out more about the action by clicking here.

Below are the films in the main competition strands announced so far. Click on the film title in order to our exclusive film review (where available, these are movies that we viewed in other festivals)

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MAIN COMPETITION

1. Backstage (Afef Ben Mahmoud and Khalil Benkirane):

Aida, member of a contemporary dance troupe touring Morocco, provokes during a representation in a small Middle Atlas town, her life and stage partner Hedi, who injures her onstage triggering a series of events through a long night across a forest, on the way to the next village’s doctor.

2. Hayat (Zeki Demirkubuz):

Forced to get engaged by her father, Hicran runs away from home. Riza, who thinks that Hicran does not want him, does not care much about this situation, but it becomes increasingly difficult for him and he decides to confront Hicran.

3. Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos):

Kinds of Kindness is a triptych fable, following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.

4. The Stranger’s Case (Brandt Andersen):

Aleppo, in the midst of the Syrian civil war. Amira, a paediatric surgeon, performs a life-saving operation during the darkest days of the conflict. Through an unexpected twist of fate, she and her daughter become central characters in a dangerous tale that intricately interweaves the lives of five families spanning four continents and redefines all of their existences.

5. Tuesday (Daina O. Pusić):

A mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, in a profoundly moving performance) and her teenage daughter (Lola Petticrew) must confront Death when it arrives in the form of an astonishing talking bird. From debut filmmaker Daina O. Pusić, Tuesday is a heart-rending fairy tale about the echoes of loss and finding resilience in the unexpected.

6. Sweet Dreams (Ena Sendijarević):

Tumultuous events triggered by the death of a Dutch sugar plantation owner who ends up leaving his Indian Ocean island estate to his young illegitimate son – the child of his Indonesian housemaid.

7. Who Do I Belong To? (Meryam Joobeur):

Aicha lives in the isolated north of Tunisia with her husband and youngest son. The family lives in anguish after the departure of the eldest sons Mehdi and Amine to the violent embrace of war. When Mehdi unexpectedly returns home with a mysterious pregnant wife, a darkness emerges, threatening to consume the entire village. Aicha is caught between her maternal love and her search for the truth.

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OUT OF COMPETITION

1. Dear Jassi (Tarsem Singh Dhandwar):

In 1996 Punjab, India, Canadian-born Indian girl Jassi falls in love with Mithu, a rickshaw driver who is beneath her social status. Their attraction is pure and unconditional, but is it strong enough to fight the dictates imposed by Jassi’s family and Punjabi society?

2. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun):

Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.

3. The Devil’s Bath (Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala):

18th century Austria. Villages surrounded by deep forests. A woman is sentenced to death after killing a baby. Agnes is marrying her loved one and candidly prepares herself for a spouse life. Soon after, her head and heart start to feel heavy. Day after day, she is increasingly trapped in a murky and lonely path leading to evil thoughts. Maybe not just thoughts.

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MARE NOSTRUM

1. Los Ultimos (Sebastian Peña Escobar):

The vast Gran Chaco natural region in Paraguay is under serious threat from large-scale deforestation and wildfires. Filmmaker Sebastian Peña Escobar travels with the German entomologist Ulf Drechsel and the Paraguayan ornithologist Jota Escobar to this vulnerable, flammable area, which looks like an apocalyptic landscape with red dirt roads and dry thorny trees.

2. One Needs a Town – Zavattini, Luzzara and the Po River (Francesco Conversano and Nene Grignaffini):

A reading about the poetry of Zavattini, the father of Italian Neorealism, the town of Luzzara photographed by Paul Strand 70 years ago and the biggest Italian river, The Po River, without water, fragile and wounded due to the global warming

3. Shambhala (Min Bahadur Bham):

In a Himalayan polyandrous village in Nepal, newly married and pregnant Pema tries to make the best of her new life. But soon, her first husband Tashi vanishes on the trade route to Lhasa. Accompanied by her monk de facto husband, Karma, she embarks on a journey into the unforgiving wilderness to find him, evolving into a quest of self-discovery and liberation.

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The three images above are from the 1st edition of the Mediterrane Film Festival.