FIFF 2020 celebrates Claudia Cardinale, William Friedkin and Meryem Uzerli
The 34th edition of FIFF (from 20th to 28th March 2020) reflects the burning passion for cinema that informs everything that the Festival team does: whether it is spotting emerging talent from Africa, Asia, Latin America or Eastern Europe – the beating heart of the Festival – or paying homage to the most illustrious names in film history. This year FIFF rolls out the red carpet for actress Claudia Cardinale (The Leopard, Fitzcarraldo), director William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection), and the German-Turkish film star Meryem Uzerli (The Magnificent Century, Ein Fall für zwei).
Fribourg celebrates ‘Italy’s sweetheart’, Claudia Cardinale
FIFF pays tribute to Claudia Cardinale, ‘Italy’s sweetheart’ and husky-voiced muse of many a filmmaker, including Luchino Visconti, Sergio Leone and Federico Fellini. Hommage à… celebrates her prodigious career with “a carefully curated selection of five of Claudia Cardinale’s finest performances. We have located the source of our passion to these five cardinal points!”, as Thierry Jobin, FIFF Artistic Director, notes with relish.
FIFF will also screen Bulle (trailer), a new TV series by the Swiss director Anne Deluz, who died in November 2019. Cardinale is one of the six leads in this unvarnished, very human family saga set in the eponymous Swiss town. Her co-stars include Québec actress Suzanne Clément, who has appeared in several Xavier Dolan films, as well as Swiss actress Elodie Bordas, who will also be a member of the FIFF 2020 International Competition jury.
The Festival will screen the entire series, with German subtitles, on Sunday 22nd March (3x2 episodes). Four episodes will have their world premiere in Fribourg, and the Bulle team will attend the screening. Bulle (Les Prado cinema) will also show the series in full on 29th March. Claudia Cardinale should make an appearance at the Festival over the weekend of 21st and 22nd March.
FIFF 2020 programme:
Hommage à Claudia Cardinale
• 8 ½, Federico Fellini
• Un Été à la Goulette, Férid Boughedir
• Fitzcarraldo, Werner Herzog
• The Professionals, Richard Brooks
• Sandra, Luchino Visconti
and in the section Passeport suisse
• Bulle (TV series), Anne Deluz
FIFF possessed by the spirit of William Friedkin
One year after FIFF gave Carte blanche to South Korean director Bong Joon-ho (whose latest film Parasite not only picked up the Palme d’Or in Cannes but also four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director), another giant of cinema and fellow Oscar winner will be the guest of honour at FIFF 2020. His name? William Friedkin, the uncompromising filmmaker and prodigy of the New Hollywood movement. The director, screenwriter and producer, who alongside Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola helped to shape 1970s American cinema, is one of the youngest winners of the Best Picture Oscar; he was only 36 when he made his award-winning police thriller The French Connection (1971). Two years later, he made The Exorcist (1973), a terrifying tour de force that won two Oscars and four Gold Globes and would capture the collective imagination of multiple generations.
FIFF 2020 offers the public a unique opportunity to (re-)discover this cult film on the big screen, as well as Sorcerer, Friedkin’s next film, which according to Thierry Jobin is “a favourite among the FIFF team and a real diamond in the rough whose making-of was as insane as its plotline.” Filmed largely in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, this 1977 film did not enjoy the box office success it deserved due to the great misfortune of being released one week after Star Wars.
The section Sur la carte de William Friedkin is organised with the support of ECAL (Lausanne University of Art and Design) and in collaboration with Cinémathèque suisse, which will host a Friedkin retrospective of 13 of his films between 3rd March and 28th April. Unfortunately, it is very unlikely that the director will appear in person at FIFF. However, the Festival will organise a live public discussion via video link. An indispensable companion piece is Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist, a documentary by Alexandre O. Philippe which goes behind the scenes of this iconic thriller. Alexandre O. Philippe will attend FIFF from 21st to 25th March and promises to reveal a few more secrets about the making of the film.
FIFF 2020 programme:
Sur la carte de William Friedkin
• The Exorcist – Director’s Cut, William Friedkin
• Sorcerer – Director’s Cut, William Friedkin
• Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist, Alexandre O. Philippe
The Cinémathèque suisse will also host a Friedkin retrospective of 13 of his films between 3rd March and 28th April 2020.
Fribourg welcomes Meryem Uzerli, a screen icon in Turkey and the Balkans
The Hive (trailer), the first feature by the Turkish documentary maker Eylem Kaftan, will be screened as part of the FIFF 2020 International Competition: Feature Films. Actress Meryem Uzerli plays a young woman who leaves behind city life and returns to the mountains of her childhood. She honours her dying mother’s last wish: to look after her beloved beehives.
Since 2011 the actress has enjoyed a meteoric rise, especially in Turkey and the Balkans, thanks to her role as Roxelane, the favourite consort and later the wife of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, in the first three seasons of the hit TV series Muhteşem Yüzyıl (The Magnificent Century, 2011-2013), which tells the story of the Ottoman empire. She was crowned Best Actress at Turkey’s 2012 Golden Butterfly Awards.
The German-Turkish actress went on to join the cast of the German detective series Ein Fall für zwei (A case for two), which has also been shown on Swiss and French TV, as well as the police drama Notruf Hafenkante, broadcast on the German ZDF channel. Meryem Uzerli, who will attend the Festival between 27th and 29th March, will introduce the international premiere of The Hive.
FIFF 2020: Programme and tickets available from 4th March.
Download the press release in PDF.
