Domestic audiences experience European cinema at film festival

Tove (2020) was selected as Finland’s Oscar candidate. It will be screened in Hà Nội on May 31, HCM City on May 27 and in Huế on June 3. Photo moomin.com

HÀ NỘI — The 22nd European Film Festival is taking place in Hà Nội, HCM City and the central province of Huế, showing nearly 20 contemporary European films.

They include multiple award-winning entries set across a range of spatial-temporal contexts.

The festival introduces various characters – parents and children, sports figures, artists, writers, emigrants, friends and strangers – who go on journeys all over the continent to explore their identity, community and heritage while often having a memorable time in the process.

Close, from Belgium, is about friendship and responsibility. It won Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival 2022 and was a nomination for US Academy Award 2023 and Best Picture Non-English Language nominee at Golden Globes 2023.

It also took the Critics Choice award at Norwegian International Film Festival 2022 and Sydney Film Prize award at Sydney Film Festival 2022.

Close tells the intense friendship between two seemingly inseparable thirteen-year-old boys, Léo and Rémi, suddenly gets disrupted. Struggling to understand what has happened, Léo approaches Sophie, Rémi's mother.

Close will be shown at BHD Star Cinema at 8pm on May 27 in Huế.

Grand Prix won at Cannes Film Festival Close and will be shown at BHD Star Cinema at 8pm on May 27 in Huế. Photo npr.org

Spanish film Champions tells a professional basketball coach. He is in the midst of a personal crisis and one day finds himself training a team of individuals with intellectual disabilities. What starts as a problem for him ends up becoming a life lesson.

Champions won the best new actor award at Goya Awards 2019, Cinema Writer Circles Award, Best Comedy Film at Feroz Awards 2019 and best-supporting actor at Spanish Actors Union Prizes 2019.

The film will be shown in Hà Nội's National Cinema Centre on May 27 at 6pm, in HCM City's Cinestar Quốc Thanh on May 29 and in Huế's BHD Star Cinema on June 1 at 8pm.

Historic drama action film The Rising Hawk will bring the audience back to the 13th century in the Carpathian mountains. In 1241. the Mongol horde led by cruel Khan Burunda moves west, destroying everything in its path. Reaching the Carpathian mountains, the troops encounter unexpected resistance.

Consumed with rage, the Khan decides to take revenge and attempts to destroy the Carpathian settlements. A small group of mountain hunters assemble and hatch their plan to stop the enemy horde once and for all.

The Rising Hawk won best production design, best make-up, and best costume design at Ukrainian Film Academy Awards 2020. Its shows will begin at 8pm in Huế on May 25 and in Hà Nội on May 28.

The other films screened at the festival are made by Germany, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Netherlands, France, Hungary, Finland, Ireland, Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia and Belgium.

The festival is brought to the audience by the EU Delegation to Việt Nam, in co-operation with embassies and cultural institutions representing EU member states, as well as the Embassy of Ukraine in Việt Nam, with support from the EU Policy and Outreach Partnership initiative (EUPOP).