News

Opening film As An Eilean

The 10th edition of the Folk Film Gathering in Edinburgh will be held at the at Cameo Picturehouse and the Scottish Storytelling Centre from 3 to 12 May this year, opening with 1993 Gaelic language feature As An Eilean. An exploration of Scottish island life, it will be introduced with traditional songs sung by one of its stars, Wilma Kennedy, and there's a great selection of additional musical performances scheduled to support other festival screenings.

The festival will feature the UK première of Katja Gauriloff's Skolt Sámi saga Je'vida, which deals with the impact of colonialism and the struggle to reclaim identity, and will be supported by a live concert with Finnish musicians Lau Nau and Pekko Käppi. Pat Collins’ documentary Songlines, which celebrates the songs and singers of the Irish traveller community, will see Jess Smith and Joss Cameron perform some of those songs live. And Alexander Dovzhenko’s.

The Yellow Affair has boarded world sales on Sundance World Cinema Dramatic Competition title “Reinas,” directed by Klaudia Reynicke. Variety has been given access to the trailer (below).

The film is set in Lima in the summer of 1992. Lucia, Aurora and their mother Elena are about to leave. They are apprehensive about saying goodbye to a country, to family and friends, but above all to Carlos, a father and ex-husband who has all but disappeared from their lives.

In the midst of Peru’s social and political chaos, this announced departure will give rise to contradictory feelings, reviving old regrets and generating new illusions. Facing the uncertainty of their future head on, their frustrations and fears are mixed with excitement and expectation, as the family faces the difficult truth about the losses this departure implies.

The Yellow Affair says the film is a “beautiful, dramatically intense and ultimately heart-warming film...

Je'vida Photo: Iikka Jaakola

When an older woman returns to the remote house where she once lived with her grandparents, sorting through old family possessions to decide what to keep and what to burn, she feels shame and discomfort around them. Pressure from her niece, who doesn’t understand why, prompts her to reflect on the course of her life and the way that her Skolt Sámi heritage was methodically stripped away from her, so that eventually she can regain confidence in herself. This is Je’vida, Katja Gauriloff’s very personal exploration of what happened to her people. I first caught it during Tribeca, but when it subsequently screened in Toronto I was pleased to have the opportunity to talk to Katja about it.

Despite all the difficult and distressing issues which the film addresses, I suggest to her that it feels, in itself, like a triumph over colonialism. Getting a film like.

Director Katja Gauriloff has made history with “Je’vida,” the first feature shot in the Skolt Sámi language.

“It’s my native tongue, but because of forced assimilation in Finland [of the Sámi people] I didn’t actually learn it. I am studying it only now,” she tells Variety ahead of the Toronto premiere.

“It’s endangered: we have only 300 speakers. There is maybe one village where it’s still in everyday use, which also influenced casting. But we are doing everything we can to keep it alive.”

In “Je’vida,” starring Sanna-Kaisa Palo and “Compartment No. 6” breakout Seidi Haarla, not all actors are Sámi.

“It was a compromise, of course, because I had to be realistic. But also, we are talking about people who are changing cultures. These two women are fully Finnish, so they shared their characters’ confusion. That being said, I would love to make a film with an all-Sámi cast one day,...

The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled the lineup for its Visionaries informal conversation series presented by The Hollywood Reporter, led by Spike Lee, Guillermo del Toro, Nadine Labaki and The King’s Speech producer See-Saw Films.

Oscar-winning director Lee will be on hand to discuss his long career in Hollywood, which includes the groundbreaking 1992 biopic Malcolm X. French filmmaker Ly will also be in Toronto for the world premiere of Les Indésirables, the follow up to his debut feature Les Miserables, which won the Jury Prize in Cannes and earned an Oscar nomination for best international feature at the 2020 Oscars.

And del Toro, who has shot many of his movies in Toronto, including the Oscar-winning The Shape of Water, will take part in the Visionaries series to talk about his cinema of fantastical worlds, as will See-Saw founders Iain Canning and Emile Sherman, whose prestige film output includes Lion and Jane Campion...