Yesterday I was invited to the press conference of Cineast, the festival of movie from East and Central Europe that will take place in Luxembourg from 6 to 23 October.

This was a really interesting opportunity to learn more about the festival and, above all, about its events! (wow!, more things to do in Luxembourg).

Cineast got now to its 9th edition and counted 10,000 participants in total between screenings and events connected.

Regarding the movies proposed, its distinctive characteristic is to show a quality program, most composed by movies that had very much success at international film festival (Berlin, Locarno, Sundance), but are less accessible to people in Luxembourg. The idea is also to attract not only movie lovers, but also young people, through as said a series of events, including concerts and gastronomical nights.

Under a cultural point of view, it will be an interactive way to learn about another face of our international population. The festival does not want to appear as a political manifesto, but for sure most of the movies have some political values and touch actual themes. It will be the case as well of the main event connected to the festival, the photography exhibition at Neimenster entitled “Away from Home”, that really should not be missed.

There will be an official competition with 8 recent movies, including the Polish Hristo that will be presented in Warsaw the week ahead the festival, Dogs, that was presented in Cannes, and the sarcastic Kill on Wheels, the only comedy among the movies in the competition, which has a very strong Tarantino accent.

60 long movies and 40 short films are then included in the program, documentary, classic and award-winners. Godless, for example, has been awarded in Locarno and is a pretty tough movie about a home nurse who is trafficking the ID cards of her patients. The last family was acclaimed in Cannes and United States of Love in Berlin, while It’s not the time of my life is a very raw movie on budget that shows the life of its maker. I Olga will tell us the story of the last woman to be executed in Poland and All these sleepless nights will take us through the lascivious life of two youngsters during Warsaw nights.

Movies will be shown in the city – mainly at Cinematique and Neimenster – as well as around the country (Esch, Mersch, Vianden, Mondorf, etc..)

You can find the complete program of the screenings here:

Cineast Programme

As said, Cineast is not only movies, but there will be also plenty of events, some strictly related to the movies, as debates and public interviews, some more on the party side – as reminded during the press conference indeed, the most important art is the art of partying 🙂

Take your agenda and note down:

On October 8th, Toporkestra (a gipsy band) will perform at Melusina, followed by a Balkan party.

On October 13th, Rotondes will welcome an Eastalgia party, with food, music and quiz inspired by the times when Eastern European countries were part of the communist bloc.

On October 15th, All sleepless nights will be followed by a Warsaw-style party at Rocas.

Last but not least, the closing event, on October 22nd, at Sang & Klang in Pfaffenthal, with Balkan music and live DJ set.

There will be two silent movie projection, with live soundtrack: on October 14th The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a classic Polish movie, at Cinemateque, and on October 20th, a Slovak night at Neimenster, followed by a jazz jam session.

Details about the events can be found here:

Cineast Events

I will be attending most of the events as they really look amazing, so I hope to see some of you there!