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Hungarian director András Fésős is in post-production with his sophomore feature “Rise Up and Walk,” starring Romania’s Bogdan Dumitrache, who won best actor prizes at Locarno with “Best Intentions” and San Sebastian with “Pororoca,” Film New Europe reports.

The film tells the story of a father and son’s difficult reunion, and involves several spectacular firefighter rescues.

Sándor Félix becomes the guardian angel of those who want to end their lives. However, not everyone in town is enthusiastic about his selfless work. After the death of his mother, Félix’s son Kristóf became estranged from his father. He makes videos of depressed people, who have given up hope.

“Beyond the fact that it looks into the depths of the human soul and dissects such a difficult subject as suicide, the film tells a life-affirming story about our times which is intended for a wide audience. From the beginning, I...

The Italian event showcases European arthouse fare to potential local distributors.

Italy’s Bergamo Film Meeting (Bfm) opens on Saturday April 24, a month later than usual as organisers had hoped to run it as a physical edition. Although it is now running entirely online, festival director Angelo Signorelli is undiminished in his enthusiasm for the edition which will showcase the first and second films of international directors in its feature narrative and documentary competitions.

The festival has made a name for itself by hosting the Italian premieres of European arthouse films (and sometimes European premieres) with the purpose of helping them find Italian distribution.

“Identifying Features,” Fernanda Valadez’s searing abduction drama set along the U.S.-Mexico border, was awarded the Golden Alexander for best feature film at the 61st Thessaloniki Film Festival.

The awards were announced Monday at the conclusion of the Greek fest’s digital edition, which ran Nov. 5-15. Valadez’s feature debut, which was a double award winner in the World Cinema dramatic competition in Sundance, follows the extraordinary ordeal of a woman who sets out in search of her teenage son two months after he left their village to find work in the U.S.

“In a cruel world of heartbreaks, tragedy and survival, a story of an unexpected bond is born,” the international jury said in its decision. “The film stands as a reminder of the limitless space artistic expression can take.”

Greek director Georgis Grigorakis took home the Silver Alexander Special Jury Award for his feature debut,...

Cecília Felméri's assured debut begins with a camera travelling across the reflection of a Hungarian fishing lake - at once a familiar scene and yet dislocated by the perspective, ideas that will resonate throughout this psychological drama that finds strength in subtlety. This is a place where the idyllic meets the isolated, as Bence and his partner Janka (Diána Magdolna Kiss) try to get the place he has inherited from his father back on its feet, despite the fact that fish are mysteriously dying - the vague sense of unease in the film's opening moments underlined by one or two fish corpses drifting by.

Although there's a bond, the click of connection sparked by watching your lover messily eating a tomato or the right glance on a lazy afternoon, there's also a spikiness to a relationship that sees Bence...

Meandering with the Living and…the Dead: Felméri Offers Absorbing Sunken Lake Drama

In Spiral, the dead don’t come back, but rather, they attempt to haunt one’s frail dreams. Cecília Felméri‘s mood-swinging horror drama debut unfolds in a fairytale lake setting — away from the strings of civilization and that is haunted by a ghastly curse, that slowly spreads its invisible thread and attaches itself to every thing that is living. Romanian classical literature is obsessed with damned places and the idea of purifying them by fire. In fact, there’s a kinship to The Mill of Good Luck, Ioan Slavici’s notorious novella about an ill-fated innkeeper who desperately tries to reshape a house into a hostel.…...