This year marks the launch of the Valletta Film Festival, an event which its producers hope will become a yearly staple on both the local and international calendar.
Oliver Mallia and Slavko Vukanovic, along with a team of programmers, formed the Film Grain Foundation last year which - made up of people within the film industry and those passionate about the film industry. Together they chose the films that will be shown during the festival.
Oliver also works as a line producer and services international films, having worked on the Brangelina film shot in Malta ‘By the Sea’.
The Valletta Film Festival will take place between June 15th and June 21st and will see temporary cinemas pop-up in iconic areas around Valletta including St George’s square and in Fort St Elmo.
The Film Grain Foundation is a private is a private initiative, Mr Mallia told The Malta Independent, stressing that this is the first feature length film festival on the island.
This year’s festival will see a total of 35 feature films screened as well as 22 short films screened. Three of these short films were made locally.
One of the Maltese shorts is called ‘Shab’ by Martin Bonnici, another by a Canadian Director produced by a Maltese company called ‘The Maltese fighter’ and one by a Keith Tedesco a film student at the University of Copenhagen with a film called ‘him and her’.
The Festival contains 5 sections. The Competitive section imbues a competition for feature-length films, one for documentaries and one for short films. Each competition will be adjudicated by different international juries and the Feature Film jury will be headed by world renowned director Roland Joffe, responsible for films including ‘The Mission’, ‘The Killing Fields’ and ‘The Scarlet Letter’.
Over 250 submission
The Foundation had received over 250 submissions “even though this is just the first year, and most of these were foreign films. We chose the finalists from these submissions as well as a few we chose ourselves,” Oliver explained.
The Festival will see quite a large selection of films in competition, with a few which premiered in the Cannes Film Festival and one that will Premiere here in Malta.
Naome Kawase’s latest movie will be screened. She is an Author Director who won a Camera D’or in Cannes.
Another section is unique to the Valletta Film Festival and will show movies from or about islands. “There are five films we have selected focussed on island issues. There are films from Cuba, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago etc”.
“There is one rather unique film about a small island between Georgia and Abkhazia that appears and disappears with the current. It deals with cultural diversity and is a feature film called ‘Corn island’”.
Without borders
Another section is called ‘without borders’ - and the idea is to focus on a particular section on the planet each year. This year’s focus will be Scandinavia. “There are five films from different Scandinavian countries and this selection offers a window into Scandinavia, where people can view films not normally released in Malta. One of the films available, called ‘in your arms’ was awarded ‘Nordic film of the year’”.
“We created a very strict set of guidelines for ourselves, where films competing and taking part will only be films released within the last twelve months. The oldest film we will be screening was released last September and most films released in 2015”.
A special screenings section which are not part of any category will be shown. “We made sure these would be highly recognised and acclaimed films. One such film would be ‘Taxi’, directed by, and starring, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and won the Golden Bear award at the Berlinale (Berlin Film Festival). It has never been shown in Malta,” Oliver said.
“All these films are relatively new and are great projects. ‘Taxi’ will open the festival and screen on the 15th. Closing the Festival will be ‘Palio’ that goes into the underworld of Palio di Siena “thus making a great film. This film has only been screened at the Tribeca Film Festival thus far,” Oliver explained.
For the first year the Film Grain Foundation is focussing on local advertising. “We cannot go abroad and advertise a festival that has never been held before,” he said. “We have travelled extensively over the past few years to different festivals to pitch ideas to sales agents and film companies, which is why we have quite a large selection of good and recent films”.
The intension is to begin advertising abroad for next year’s event, Oliver said, “in order to give it more of an international appeal”.
Films to be screened at Fort St Elmo and St George’s square
Films will be screened at three open air venues. The Royal Opera House, and at Fort St Elmo and as St George’s square (where there will be free screenings and will focus on a retrospective of Sicilian Director Giuseppe Tornatore, screening films like ‘Malena’ and ‘Baaria’, classics ad Oliver explained. These will be free of charge and persons coming to Valletta can watch these free screenings.
The cinemas at Embassy and St James Cavallier will also be used, he said, with a selection of documentaries, short films and other side-bars shown at St James.
From 11 am till midnight everyday during the festival, screenings will be shown he said.
The Film Festival will also see 5 Masterclass session. “Colin Vaines, one of the producers of Gangs of New York will be coming over and will host a masterclass on creative production. Mia Bays, an independent producer, will focus her masterclass on crowd-funding and the production of films on micro budgets. Peter Dunn, a veteran marketing specialist that worked at Warner Bros and Dreamworks and marketed Oscar winners ‘Saving Private Ryan’, Gladiator’ and ‘American Beauty’ will deliver a masterclass on film marketing and distribution.
Emmy and BAFTA winner and Oscar nominee Eve Stewart will provide insight on how a film is designed by describing her experience on the Oscar winning films “The King’s Speech’ and ‘Les Miserables’. Sundance Award winner, cinematographer Lol Crawley will give a masterclass on Cinematography. Crawley worked on films like ’45 years’, and ‘Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom’.
This is the right time for the festival
“Over five years ago I would have said that a city like Valletta was not prepared for such an event,” Oliver said, adding that “now it definitely is, with all the regeneration of the city, the restoration of City Gate and St Elmo. It’s the right time and Maltese audiences are opening up to different forms of cinema, not just Hollywood movies that give us a certain kind of entertainment. This is a whole different kind of entertainment with good quality films from all over the world. It will be a showcase and places Valletta in line with major cities, when it comes to the kind of films exhibited and the kind of festival we are offering”.
“It will also turn a city into a cinema. Valletta has a 118 year history of cinemas, and just 13 months after the Lumiere Brothers exhibited their first moving images in Paris in 1895, Malta had its first cinema”.
Tickets for each Masterclass session will cost €15. “Normally these classes abroad cost €50”.
As for prices for film screenings, an individual ticket for a film costs €7 and can be used for any film, “however the more tickets bought, the cheaper the price of every individual ticket,” he said. For example 2 tickets cost €6 each.
For more information visit www.vallettafilmfestival.com