The Luxembourg City Film Festival (Lux Film Fest) returns for its 15th anniversary edition in characteristic informal style. The Grand Duchy’s leading film event brings top festival titles and talent to the diverse local audiences and gives industry execs from Luxembourg and its neighbouring countries of France, Belgium and Germany to congregate and catch up in a relaxed atmosphere.
“We don’t do co-production markets or red carpets,” says artistic director Alexis Juncos of the festival’s signature casual but lively format, which last year saw admissions figures hit a record near-20,000.
Alejandro Amenabar is the recipient of this year’s honorary award and the Spanish-Chilean director will also host a masterclass.
Two English-language literary adaptations will open and close the festival. Kicking off festivities on March 6 is UK director Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Hot Milk, starring Emma Mackey and Fiona Shaw, with festival favourite, the Luxembourgish-German star Vicky Krieps.
Based on the novel by Deborah Levy, the film follows a daughter and her ill mother who travel to a Spanish seaside town in hope of a cure. It premiered in competition at the Berlinale in February.
Dylan Southern’s Sundance premiere The Thing With Feathers, staring Benedict Cumberbatch, will close the festival on March 16. The adaptation of Max Porter’s bestseller Grief Is The Thing With Feathers sees Cumberbatch as a grieving father helping his two sons come to terms with the sudden loss of their mother and his wife.
Nine titles have been selected for the main competition and are in the running for the €10,000 grand prix. They include veteran Chinese screenwriter Huo Xin’s directorial debut Bound In Heaven, a genre-infused drama about domestic abuse in contemporary China, Denise Fernandes’ Hanami, a drama set on Cape Verde that won the international debut award at the Goteborg Film Festival earlier this year, and Georgian director Tato Kotetishvili’s Holy Electricity, a comical odyssey set in the capital of Tbilisi.
Also screening is Radu Jude’s Berlinale premiere Kontinental ’25, which depicts the existential crisis of a female bailiff in the aftermath of a dramatic event. It was cofinanced by Luxembourg’s production label PTD.
Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof is the chair of the international jury which also comprises Danish actress Trine Dyrholm, UK screenwriter Paul Laverty Austrian actress Valerie Pachner, Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra and Luxembourgish director, screenwriter and VFX artist Jeff Desom whose credits include Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.
Additionally, six films are eligible for the festival’s €5,000 documentary prize. Among them is About A Hero, Piotr Winiewicz’s essay on the questions engulfing artificial intelligence.
The Israel-Palestinian conflict is explored through archival footage in Kamal Aljafari’s A Fidai Film, while personal history is at the heart of Home Game by Lidija Zelović, which sees the filmmaker grow into what she believes is her destiny to be a filmmaker. The film is comprised of self-shot home movie footage dating from Zelović’s youth in war-torn Sarajevo to her contemporary life in Amsterdam
Alongside the two competition strands, the festival also has out -of -competition screenings, a Made in/with Luxembourg programme of features and an evening screening session dedicated to TV series for the first time.
Among the highlights of the Made in/with Luxembourg programme is a screening of Désirée Nosbusch’s Poison, a family drama starring Tim Roth and Dyrholm from a screenplay written by Lot Vekemans, and Ali Asgari feature documentary Higher Than Acidic Clouds, described as a graphic and autobiographical response to censorship. Roth is also hosting a masterclass on March 12.
The Industry Days programme, will bring together members of Europa Film Festivals - of which Juncos is chairperson - and Europa International for a series of conferences, workshops and social events, offering a chance to meet with Luxembourg’s financiers, funders and filmmakers.
One of the debate topics is the role of trigger warnings for audiences ahead of screenings and the self-censorship threat they may pose to filmmakers.
“Thanks to the new generation of cinemagoers, there is a request among certain audiences not to be confronted with things they themselves have suffered or been through,” says Juncos.
The festival also curates a wide-ranging programme of films for young audiences from throughout the festival strands and organises a series of educational initiatives for schools. A Kids’ Jury of children aged between seven to 11 years hands out a prize to a fiction or documentary film from a choice of five age-appropriate films from this selection, while the School Jury of high-school students age from 12 to 15 year chooses a winner from a separate selection of five films.
Luxembourg City Film Festival is supported by Luxembourg’s Ministry of Culture and the City of Luxembourg.
Contact: info@luxfilmfest.lu
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