How Lux Film Fest is putting gender parity at the heart of its programme

The Luxembourg City Film Festival (Lux Film Fest) returns for its 16^th edition on March 5 and is bringing top international festival titles and talents to its diverse local audience. Industry execs from Luxembourg and neighbouring France, Belgium and Germany are also arriving to exchange market intel and debate hot topics at the famously relaxed event.

Lux Film Festival also has fresh impetus to ensure one of its founding values of achieving gender parity is reflected across its 187-strong film line-up. Artistic director Alexis Juncosa reveals he and his team faced a significant decline of between 10% and 20% in the number of films submitted directed by women.

“It’s a very big issue, because it’s something that we, as gender balance advocates, have fought to address,” say Juncosa.

The team has achieved a 48% to 53% split across the entire programme, with male directors just nudging ahead.

Markus Schleinzer’s black-and-white Rose, will kick off the festivities. Sandra Hüller stars in the black-and-white character study set in 17^th-century Germany that was one of the standout titles at last month’s Berlinale. Screening in the main competition, Rose is one of nine titles in the running for the Lux Film Festival’s €10,000 Grand Prix.

Karim Aïnouz’s Rosebush Pruning will close the festival on March 15, screening out of competition. The English-language feature from the Brazilian director is loosely inspired by Marco Bellocchio’s incendiary 1965 debut, Fists In The Pocket, in its portrayal of a rich, dysfunctional family. Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Lukas Gage, and Elena Anaya star.

Two films by female filmmakers are screening in the official competition. Sophy Romvari’s debut autobiographical feature Blue Heron, a Canada-Hungary co-production set on Vancouver Island, Canada, in the late 1990s, and Nina Roza, by Canadian filmmaker Geneviève Dulude-de Celles, a drama about a Bulgarian-Canadian art curator that premiered in competition at the Berlinale.

Further films in official competition include UK filmmaker Mark Jenkin’s mystery drama Rose Of Nevada, about two young men from a derelict fishing village who take jobs aboard a vessel that has mysteriously reappeared after vanishing 30 years prior.

Also in competition is Akinola Davies Jr’s My Father’s Shadow. The UK-Nigeria co-production follows two young brothers as they explore Lagos with their estranged father during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis. The film includes Yoruba, Naija-Pidgin and English language.

Also tilting at the prize will be Hungarian filmmaker Gábor Holtai’s dramatic thriller Feels Like Home, which is about a kidnapped woman who must survive by assuming the identity of a supposedly missing daughter.

“The Competition films are illustrative of this moment in time where everyone is struggling with their life, reconsidering their lives,” says Juncosa. “There are a few crossover themes running through the selection on the question of identity, families and memory.”

The international jury is comprised of Spanish filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Luxembourg-Singaporean DoP Rae Lyn Lee, Argentinian filmmaker Lisandro Alonso, UK musician Peter Doherty, Finnish actress Alma Pöysti and French actress-director Emmanuelle Béart. 

Additionally, six films are eligible for the festival’s €5,000 documentary award, sponsored by BGL BNP Paribas. This year’s strand boasts Vladlena Sandu’s Memory, a Feance-Netherlands docu-fiction that adopts a child’s perspective to recount the lasting impact of violence and exile between Crimea and Grozny, and the handcrafted animation Endless Cookie, by the Canadian filmmaking team of Peter and Seth Scriver. The film animates dialogue between Toronto and the Shamattawa First Nation.

Alongside the two competition strands, the festival has out-of-competition screenings and a Made in/with Luxembourg programme of features.

Local accent 

To highlight the diversity flourishing within the borders of the Grand Duchy, the festival is also shining a light on films co-produced with Luxembourg partners.

German director Ulrike Ottinger’s vampire spoof The Blood Countess, starring French icon Isabelle Huppert, boasts Amour Fou Luxembourg as coproducer. The film will screen as part of the tribute to Huppert, who is the recipient of the festival’s honorary award.

Also being showcased is Lithuanian director Andrius Blaževičius’s How To Divorce During The War, co-produced by Luxembourg’s Red Lion, and supported by Film Fund Luxembourg.

The Industry Days programme sees members of Europa Film Festivals, of which Alexis Juncosa is chairperson, and Europa International come together for conferences, workshops and social events to meet with Luxembourg’s financiers, funders and filmmakers.

One of this year’s conversation points will be centred on unconscious bias and decision-making in the film industry.

“In the creative industries, our decisions often seem to be dictated by knowledge, instinct or experience,” Juncosa notes. “However, invisible cognitive mechanisms, or unconscious biases, subtly influence our choices, from project selection to storytelling. How might our brains influence diversity and equity in the audiovisual industry?”

There will also be a panel event to explore festival crisis management and how producers, rights holders and festival programmers work together to negate upheaval or difficulties.

Luxembourg City Film Festival is supported by Luxembourg’s Ministry of Culture and the City of Luxembourg.

Contact: info@luxfilmfest.lu 

Website: https://www.luxfilmfest.lu