Filmmakers from Spain, France, Israel and Poland to Present their Films

In the same cinema at 13:00, the Iranian-French director Nader Takmil Homayoun will present his feature-length debut Tehroun (Tehran). The film provides a slightly different perspective on the everyday life of the city, filled with child trafficking, drugs and racketeering. “Tehran is the official side of the country, the capital of Iran. But there is also Tehroun, the other Tehran, the slums, the invisible city that is kept in darkness: the southern boroughs of the city, hot, filthy, polluted, dangerous and overcrowded. Where everything is permitted and nothing impossible,"  said the director. The film represents young Iranian cinema, winning the International Critics’ Week Award at the Venice Film Festival. Named the Best Film at Venice, the war drama Lebanon will be personally introduced by its director Samuel Maoz. The film is based on Maoz’s own memories of the First Lebanese War in 1982, when at the tender age of twenty he experienced this military massacre firsthand. It depicts a four-soldier tank squad in a critical situation, finding themselves surrounded on enemy territory. “Basically it was a need – a need to unload and expose war as it really is, without all the heroic stuff and the rest of the clichés. And it was probably a need, not to forgive myself necessarily, but… I was involved in the war and that in itself is enough for me to feel guilty to an extent. It’s something that I’ll always have to deal with,”  said the director at the London Film Festival. Tatra Banka Cinema will screen the picture at 16:00.  The competition section will also feature the compelling film La mujer sin piano (Woman Without Piano, d. J. Rebollo), which will be presented by its producer Damián París. This sad yet funny film is the intimate story of an aging woman who wants to escape from her life’s emptiness, eventually “losing herself” senselessly in Madrid’s night streets. The woman is played by award-winning Spanish actress Carmen Machi, and the male leading role is performed by Czech actor Jan Budař. “I am not a cerebral director, my outset is never an idea or a thesis. […]  Woman Without Piano, as everything I have ever shot, starts with a coded image: late one night, coming back from a trip, I was walking home from Madrid’s Southern Bus Station when I passed by a woman on her way to the closed terminal, holding on tight to a suitcase and a handbag. […] Another reason to make Woman Without Piano was the pure pleasure of working with Carmen Machi and Janom Budař. […] [T]his movie can be read as the attempt of two bodies to get closer…" stated the director. The film will be screened at Trenčín’s Cinemax at 21:15. Photographs can be found at artfilmfest.sk in the Press section.   The Art Film Fest International Film Festival Trenčianske Teplice/Trenčín is made possible through the financial support of the Audiovisual Fund and the European Union Programme MEDIA.    Organizers: ART FILM, n. o., Forza, a. s. Co-organizers: the Town of Trenčianske Teplice, the City of Trenčín, the Trenčianske Teplice Health Spa General Sponsors: Dôvera Medical Insurance, AquaCity Poprad Main Sponsors: Tatra banka, Slovnaft, Veolia Voda – Central Slovakian Waterworks, OHL ŽS, Alison Slovakia Official Transport Provider: Lancia Logistics Sponsor: DHL; Free student cinepasses provided by: Prvá stavebná sporitelna (First Housing-Construction Savings Bank) Sponsor of the Slovak Season section: Zlatý Bažant; Sponsors: AVI Studio, Baske Guest House, Park Hotel na Baračke Official Suppliers: HUBERT J.E., Kláštorná, GS design, Philips, A Briliant Media Sponsors: Slovak Television, Markíza Television, FilmBox, CSTV, Central Europe Television, Rádio Europa 2, Rádio Hit FM, Pravda, .týždeň, Markíza, Pardon, Cinemax, Kam do mesta, zoznam.sk, Boomerang Media, SITA, euroAWK, superobed.sk