Festroia's blog


The 25th edition of FESTROIA: TROIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL will be held from September 4 to 13 in the beautiful coastal resort town of Setubal, Portugal. The Festival, the country's oldest and most prestigious, is known as the "Cannes of Portugal" and showcases international talents from around the world, with competition sections, special events and a program  of new works from emerging North American independent filmmakers from the U.S.A. and Canada.


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EMPTIES Wins Top Prize At Festroia

 Monday, June 16------EMPTIES, the ironic comedy by Czech director Jan Sverak, has won the Gold Dolphin, the top award at the 24th edition of Festroia in Portugal. The film, a comic love story about a man facing old age, is the third in a trilogy that includes the director’s previous films ELEMENTARY SCHOOL and the Oscar winning KOLYA. The film has previously won the Czech Lion (the local Oscar) for Best Director and Audience Prize, as well as the Audience Award at last year’s Karlovy Vary ...

Prix UIP Shorts Shown At Festroia

Saturday, June 14------A very distinctive program here at Festroia is the presentation of Prix UIP, a European short film contest, sponsored by distributor United International Pictures and the European Film Academy.The short films are screeend at fourteen European film festivals, including events in Ghent, Valladolid, Ángers, Rotterdam, Berlin, Tampere, Krakow, Grimstad, Vila Do Conde, Sarajevo, Edinburgh, Venice, Drama and Cork. This year, Festroia was added to the European tour.The overall...

Hommage To Spanish Actress Assumpta Serna

Saturday, June 14-------This evening, as part of the official Awards Ceremony of the 24th edition of Festroia, the Festival will honor the career achievement of Spanish actress Assumpta Serna with a Gold Dolphin award. The talented actress has won more than 20 Best Actress prizes and has acted in more than 60 films in six languages: Spanish, Catalan, Portugese, Italian, French and English. Born in 1957, she has acted in theater and fiilms in over 20 countries. She is a board member of the Europ...

Director´s Statement: Marius Holst

Saturday, June 14-----Marius Holst is a Norwegian filmmaker who was born in 1965 in Oslo and trained at the London International Film School. He became internationally known for his feature film CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO DIE, which won the Blue Angel Award at the 1995 Berlin Film Festival. After spending time directing big budget commercials, he returned in 2001 to the world of feature filmmaking with the film DRAGONFLY. His third film MIRUSH, an intense family drama about a young boy from Koso...

The Other American Cinema

 Friday, June 13-------American Independent cinema occupied a very specific niche in the American media landscape. I am talking here about true American Independent films.....not "independent spirit" projects that receive most of their monies from divisions of the major studios. This is more classic indie.....a filmmaker and a camera and a dream.FESTROIA, which enters its final weekend, has been a hospitable home to American Independent films and filmmakers. For the past ten years, th...

Film In Focus: WORLDS APART

Thursday, June 12------One of the strong contenders for the Festroia Golden Dolphin grand prize is the competition film WORLDS APART from Danish director Niels Arden Oplev. The film, which is based on a true story, is a compelling story of a young teenage girl, whose family are committed Jehova´s Witnesses, who falls in love with a "non-believer".Young actress Rosaline Mynster gives a passionate performance as Sara, a budding teenager who must fight the temptations of sex and partying...

Exploring Multiculturalism At Festroia

 Thursday, June 12-------This year, Festroia has devoted a special screening section to films that explore the difficulties and opportunities of multiculturalism. Dubbed "Migrations And Multiculturality", the series highlights 3 feature films and a program of shorts.In Spanish director Gerardo Olivares´THE GREAT MATCH, the director focuses on a family of Mongolian nomads and a group of Indians in the Amazon, bought of which live far outside the technological saturation of the West. W...

Director´s Statement: Damien Odoul

Wedneday, June 11-----French director Damien Odoul´s film THE STORY OF RICHARD O is included in a special showcase at the Festroia called Seduction Cinema. The director began his career as an actor and alternates between acting and directing. His 2001 film SPECIAL BREATH won a Special Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI International Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival."This is not a movie about seduction, nor eroticism. It is just a film about sex, burlesque and poetry. It is very rare to s...

The Poles Take Portugal

 Wednesday, June 11-------Although they are both part of the European continent, Poland seems as far away from Portugal as one can imagine. I’ve now been to both places, and while it is a cliché and an exaggeration that Poland is always rather cloudy, gloomy and weighed down by its difficult history, the Polish sensibility (and humor) are decidedly dark. It is intriguing to have that sober mood contrast with the lightness and sparkle of Portugal in early June, but that is exactly the contras...

Thinking About Portugese Cinema On Portugal Day

 Tuesday, June 10--------One of the charms of Festroia is that it always falls in the period when Portugal celebrates Portugal Day, the national day of independence. Today is the holiday, which is characterized by colorful parades and a day at the beach. It also is an opportunity for local audiences and visiting filmmakers and professionals to sample the finest Portugese films of the past year.Festroia has a commitment to showcasing this work in a special section of Portugese Cinema of the Year...

Film In Focus: THIEVES

Tuesday, June 10------One of the more arresting posters on display during Festroia is of an impossibly handsome young man who plays the lead in the Spanish film THIEVES (LADRONES). The film, directed by Jaime Marques, had its world premiere at the Malaga Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Award. It has been a hit on the Festival circuit, winning a C.I.C.A.Ê. Award at the Locarno International Film Festival.The follows the story of Alex, who has spent his childhood in an orphanage and ...

Director´s Statement: Paul van den Boom

Monday, June 9------Dutch director Paul van den Boom was born in the Netherlands in 1973 and studied film and visual arts in Brussels. Since 1999, he has been living in Canada, working on many Canadian and American film and television projects. In 2004, he completed his first documentary, ACROSS THE ATLANTIC, and is presenting his newest film AMERICAN PSYCHE at Festroia."I wanted to meet everyday Americans, those that we don´t see on television or hear on the radio. I wanted to grasp the A...

Israeli Director Amos Kollek Comes To Festroia

Monday, June 9------Celebrated Israeli director Amos Kollek arrives at Festroia later today, in preparation for the screening of his new film RESTLESS in the Official Competition here.The director, the son of long time Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek (about whom he made a documentary in the 1980s) was born in Jerusalem in 1947, a year before the State of Israel was declared. He is a renaissance man, who has directed feature films and shorts, written five novels and is a regular contributor to news...

STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING Opens American Independents Competition At Festroia

Sunday, June 8------One of the most celebrated American Independent films of the past year has opened the American Independents Competition at Festroia: Troia International Film Festival last evening. STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING, a character drama set in the literary world of New York City, features an award-winning performance by veteran stage and screen actor Frank Langella, who won the Best Actor prize from the Boston Film Critics last year. Langella's performance was critically hailed by maj...

Troia Film Festival Opens 24th Edition

Saturday, June 7-------The Troia International Film Festival (Festroia), known as the "Cannes of Portugal" opened last evening with a Gala Screening of the Oscar nominated Polish film KATYN. The film, directed by European screen legend Andrezj Wajda, is a dramatic recreation of the one of the great human crimes of the Second World War.....the mass slaughter of Polish army officers by the Russians in the beginning days of the conflict. Wajda brings his customary sweep mixed with intimac...

2007 FESTROIA Award Winners

Sunday, June 10------The 23rd edition of FESTROIA: Festival Internacional de Cinema came to a dramatic close last evening as awards were announced in a dozen categories at the concluding ceremonies of the Festival in the Forum Luisa Todi in the coastal resort of Setubal, Portugal. BORDER POST, a wry political satire set in a small border post on the Yugoslav-Albanian border in 1987, won the Golden Dolphin as Best Film of the Festival. The film, written and directed by Rajko Grlic, also won a Sil...

American Independents Compete For Jury Prize

 Friday, June 8--------Six American independent films are competing for a juried prize in the Independentes Americanos section of FESTROIA. The Festival has been a long supporter of American independent films and is one of the few in the world that showcases the work in a seperate section of its own and with a separate prize of its own. "America has always been a source of inspiration for world cinema", FESTROIA director Fernanda Silva explained. "We feel it is important to let ...

Christopher Plummer In An Oscar-Worthy Performance

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Friday, June 8-------On the (regrettably) long list of top-flight performers who (quite astonishingly) have never even been nominated for an Oscar, Christopher Plummer is certainly among the most neglected in this respect. Awards aside (and he has won his share), the veteran actor has a long list of film credits going back to the 1960s, which includes such classics as THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965), INSIDE DAISY CLOVER (1965), THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN (1969), SOMEWHERE IN TIME (1980), MALCOLM X (19...

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