Titanic Film Festival (4-13 April) brings you several musical delicacies and Hungarian films raising important questions.
Nico, 1988 is a road movie dedicated to the last years of Christa Päffgen aka Nico, one of Warhol’s muses and the singer of Velvet Underground. American Valhalla tells the story of an extraordinary musical collaboration between Iggy Pop and co-director Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age. RocKabul introduces Kabul’s underground music scene to the audience. The documentary Occupation 1968 depicts the overrun of Czechoslovakia from the point of views of five countries. In the documentary SelfTheatre: Remake_Bodony youngsters from a village in Baranya County engage in arts based activities in order to reimagine themselves and their social environment. In Árpád Bogdán’s Genesis drunk racists attack a Roma settlement at night where the mother of nine-year-old Ricsi dies. The audience can meet several directors during the festival.
American Valhalla tells the story of an extraordinary musical collaboration between two mavericks of American rock: Iggy Pop and co-director Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age which plays at Budapest Park in June. The result is one of the best albums of 2016: Iggy’s Post Pop Depression. The film – in which appears the drummer from this year’s Sziget Festival guest Arctic Monkeys too – takes you on a journey from the first demos recorded in Californian desert onto the release of the album proceeded by a sold-out American and European tour. The documentary can be watched on 9th April at 18:45 at Toldi.
Golden Lion winner Italian director Susanna Nicchiarelli’s new film Nico, 1988 is a road movie dedicated to the last years of Christa Päffgen aka Nico. She was one of Warhol’s muses, singer of Velvet Underground and a woman of legendary beauty. Her music is among the most original of the seventies and eighties and has influenced much of the musical production that followed. The ’priestess of darkness’, as she was called, found her true calling after age forty when she shook off the weight of her beauty and rebuilt her relationship with her forgotten son. The competition film will be screened on 9th April at 20:30 at Uránia Film Theatre and on 12th April at 9 p.m. at Toldi.
Music documentary RocKabul follows the carrier of Afghanistan’s first ever heavy metal band District Unknown while introduces you Kabul’s underground music scene. Australian born director Travis Beard won Metal Hammer magazine’s Global Metal Award for the film. The festival audience can meet him after the screening on 8th April at 18:45 and on 9th April at 20:30 at Kino Café.
This year’s Hungary-related films raise important questions. In August 1968 five countries of the Warsaw Pact occupied Czechoslovakia. The documentary Occupation 1968 is a collective subjective look on the soldiers of ’friendly’ armies and their thoughts and impressions about the events. The audience can meet one of the directors of this international co-production, Linda Dombrovszky after the screening on 7th April at 6 p.m. at Uránia and on 12th April at 6 p.m. at Kino.
In director Martin Boross’s documentary SelfTheatre: Remake_Bodony a dozen of youngsters from Siklósbodony, a village in Baranya County proclaimed as the poorest settlement in Hungary ten years ago, engage in arts based activities in order to reimagine themselves and their social environment. Participants in this process investigate how creation and distruction, reality and fantasy are related to the slow evaporation of local institutions. The film can be watched on 8th April at 3 p.m. at Art+ Cinema.
There will be pre-premier screenings of Árpád Bogdán’s Genesis on 10th April 8 p.m. at Uránia and on 11th April at 18:30 at Kino Café. In the film drunk racists attack a Roma settlement at night, throwing petrol bombs and shooting at fleeing families. The mother of nine-year-old Ricsi is killed. High school student and passionate archer Virág suspects that her boyfriend Misi might have been involved in the attack on the Roma village. Hanna, a lawyer who is accustomed to success, is appointed Misi’s lawyer. Moral questions as well as her own past force her to reappraise her path in life. Árpád Bogdán’s new work is a drama about sin, catharsis and rebirth.