Director Jan-Willem van Ewijk and leading actors Reinout Scholten van Aschat and Gijs Scholten van Aschat are expected to attend the festival opening on 19 September at the Schloßtheater Münster. “Alpha.” is a film about the transformation of masculinity in our society. It gradually strips a father and his son of their modern Western privileges, their technology, their personal sensitivities and their egos, leaving them naked in the face of nature. “Alpha.” premiered at Venice Days 2024 and was awarded the Europa Cinemas Label.
European feature film competition with eight debut films
Eight directorial debuts from European productions, which could not be more different, have been invited to this year’s feature film competition, all of which are being shown in NRW for the first time. They are competing for the prize for best director, which is awarded by an international jury and comes with prize money totalling 5,000 euros. The filmmakers manage the balancing act of transforming both personal and socially pressing topics into entertaining and gripping cinema stories. Despite its seriousness, the film “My Uncle Jens” by Norwegian-Kurdish director Brwa Vahabpour even manages to find slapstick moments in legal and illegal migration. British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri brings a feminist thriller about the Indian caste system to the screen with “Santosh”, which earned her a nomination for the British Film Award. Her film was also the British entry for this year’s Oscars.
Also from the UK comes “Urchin”, the directorial debut of Harris Dickinson, star of “Babygirl” and “Triangle of Sadness”. His film is a deeply human character study of an addict on the streets of London. At the festival in Cannes, lead actor Frank Dillane was honoured as best actor in the Un Certain Regard section, and the film also received the FIPRESCI prize. This year’s winner of the Max Ophüls Prize is the only German entry in the competition: with his adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s “Impatience of the Heart”, director Lauro Cress blows fresh air through an 85-year-old novel.
The complete programme of the 21st Münster Film Festival will be published on 01 September.
