June 4, 2020 - June 18, 2020
Online Festival
Welcome to our special early summer EUFFestival - Online Film Festival!
In addition to the EU Short Film Festival back in May, and to further whet your appetite for our upcoming 35th edition of the European Union Film Festival (happening at its usual time in the second half of November), the Canadian Film Institute is proud to partner again with the Delegation of the European Union to Canada to bring you more free European cinema!
Until June 18, you can 'travel' cost free to Europe via these five features and three short films. It's a program that includes fiction, documentary, and animation works made by some of contemporary European cinema's most acclaimed filmmakers, such as Mads Brügger, Faouzi Benzaïdi, and Silvio Soldini. Just follow the viewing instructions below.
We hope you are all doing well and staying healthy. Now it's time to take a two week cinematic holiday in the European Union.
Bon voyage! Bon cinéma!
Tom McSorley
Executive Director
Canadian Film Institute
How to Watch
When you click one of the Watch Now links below, it will take you to that film’s page on Festival Scope. When you click the Watch Film link on that page, you will have to create a Festival Scope account and confirm your account by clicking the link in the email sent to you, which will take you right back to watch the film. Once you’ve created your account, it will be as simple as clicking the Watch Film link on any film to start watching.
The CFI’s Film Selection
One Step Behind the Seraphim
Daniel Sandu | Romania | 2017 | 147 min
Gabriel is a 15-year-old teenager who wants to become a priest and is admitted to an Orthodox seminary. He starts by trying to fit in but eventually realises the system is completely corrupted and abusive. Caught up in the fight for power between an incorruptible, but abusive priest and a cunning, crooked and unscrupulous secular teacher, the students learn that lying, stealing and betraying are skills they have to master in order to survive in the seminary. Who will graduate and become a priest? What kind of priests will they make after spending several years in this system?
The Magic Life of V
Tonislav Hiestov | Finland | 2019 | 82 min
Haunted by childhood traumas, Veera is trying to become more independent through live roleplaying. As she guides herself and her mentally-challenged brother through worlds of multiple roles and identities, witches and wizards, she finds the courage to face the demons of her own past and her abusive father's legacy. Winner of Best Documentary Film, Sofia International Film Festival.
Homo sapiens
Nikolaus Geyrhalter | Austria | 2016 | 94 min
Homo sapiens is a film about the finiteness and fragility of human existence and the end of the industrial age, and what it means to be a human being. What will remain of our lives after we’re gone? Empty spaces, ruins, cities increasingly overgrown with vegetation, crumbling asphalt: the areas we currently inhabit, though humanity has disappeared. Now abandoned and decaying, gradually reclaimed by nature after being taken from it so long ago. Homo Sapiens is an ode to humanity as seen from a possible future scenario. It intends to sharpen our eyes for the here and now, and our consciousness of the present.
Cold Case Hammarskjöld
Mads Brügger | Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Belgium | 2019 | 119 min
On the night of September 17, 1961, the plane of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld crashed in the Congolese province of Katanga, in strange circumstances. Defender of Congo's independence, Hammarskjöld had made himself unpopular with the Western powers present on the African continent. The mysterious crash has never been fully elucidated. More than 50 years later, the provocative Danish director and journalist Mads Brügger (The Ambassador) investigates. Determined to make the whole truth, he heads for the African bush with the Swedish private detective Göran Bjorkdahl. The duo discover a fabric of deceptions and betrayals which raises new questions. After a false start, a short runway and a few mind-blowing interviews, it's a much bigger deal that is surfacing.
Open Door
Florenc Papas | Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Italy | 2019 | 78 min
Rudina sets off on a long journey with her unmarried pregnant sister, Elma, to meet their strict and traditional father in the Albanian village where they were born. As Rudina's car makes its way over the mountains, Elma comes up with a plan to enlist a former classmate to play the part of her husband.
Short Films
Olmo
Silvio Soldini | Italy | 2019 | 8 min
Olmo, eighty years old, looks out of the window of a building in the suburban area of a city. His eight-year-old grandson Giulio is reading him an article from the newspaper about melting glaciers, the greenhouse effect, methane and CO2... “What is C-O-2?” asks the child. “Do you remember the carbon dioxide we studied?” says Grandpa. “The one the trees breathe?” asks Giulio. The day after, they’re leaving for a short tour instead of going to school, searching for an old tree.
Tant de Forêts
Burcu Sankur, Geoffrey Godet | France | 2014 | 3 min
The short film is based on a poem by Jacques Prévert. The poem speaks of the irony of the fact that the newspaper warns us about deforestation although they are made of paper themselves.
A Sunny Day
Faouzi Bensaïdi | France, Morocco | 2019 | 10 min
Under the impacts of a changing climate, the world changes, it has already changed. In a distant and near future, both fantastic and absurd, men and women survive as they can. Following a man, a slender figure between Tati and Buster Keaton, we discover through scenes of his daily life how devastating the effects of climate change are on humans and nature. How do we barricade against excessive heat or cold? How will it be to go to a supermarket, or a zoo filled with different animals and species? A disturbing and hilarious ride in the future, that is already our present.