Some thoughts on the Luxembourg Film Fest….I bought the online pass, and hoped that a number of friends would do the same so that we could discuss and dismantle the films we saw over the two week period. However, as the 11th annual Luxembourg City Film Festival comes to an end it didn’t quite work out as I planned. As a family we managed to watch a number of films together and enjoyed them, but honestly the slower pace of the arthouse movies, and the heavy topics of some didn’t give the mood uplift initially hoped for. The films were quality, no doubt about that, the issue lay with me and my need for a pick-me-up.
I found myself returning to images in the films the next day, and the next again day…One of the film’s that stayed with me, was indeed Quo Vadis, Aida? by Jasmila Žbanić , and this was the film chosen by the Press Jury for the Grand Prix for the– by ORANGE and Critics' Award. The film deserves reward; a family tragedy set against the backdrop of the massacres in Srebrenica. Quo Vadis, Aida? commemorates the terrible massacres committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s, the inaptitude and mistakes of the UN Peace Force and highlights the continuing scientific research still trying to identify the victims. The film lingers with you. I was left haunted by images of the main character Aida running and searching and hiding her adult sons and husband, only to fail to save them in the end. The sense of urgency, of the need to fight and the need to protect her loved ones resonates.
Life is brutal. LOS LOBOS de Samuel Kishi Leopo was another film that I found myself returning to the next day. Again, a mother trying to protect her children, this one ends with a slight sense of hope and something better to come. The child actors were phenomenal.
Despite the intensity and gravitas of most of the films I chose, I did get my feel good movie in the end, and that came in We are the Thousand… it was exactly what I needed. Hot sweaty people coming together at a home made festival to make music. Roll on the day…
With regards to the experience of the online pass and the hybrid festival; yes, in a year of pandemic, online was better than not being able to take part at all. However, nothing can replace the experience of visiting the cinema and watching films together, bumping into friends and other film lovers, to discuss and chat about the films that we have watched together.
Let the cameras roll for LuxFilmFest 2022…