*** Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 34th edition of FIFF has been called off. Parts of the programme will be presented to the audience in various ways during the year. Those events form a new programme called "Edition 34 ½". ***
International Competition: Long Films
The International Competition is the backbone of the festival programme. As every year, we present about twelve brand new productions from Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe that stand out for their innovation and capability to touch the audience. No style or genre is favoured. Nor is the fact that it is or isn’t a director’s first film. The only criterion is the quality of the work. The films are given four screenings. Usually, filmmakers will travel to Fribourg to defend their films in person and compete for the Regard d’or and other awards endowed with prizes for a total amount of CHF 70,000.–.
The winners perpetuate the impressive list of personalities who have made up the list of recipients of the FIFF award over the past three decades: Gaston Kaboré, Souleymane Cissé, Shaji N. Karun, Ömer Kavur, Raoul Peck, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Fernando Pérez, Abderrahmane Sissako, Stanley Kwan, Pablo Trapero, Edward Yang, Jia Zhang-ke, Carlos Sorín, Bahman Ghobadi, Ernest Abdyjaparov, Lav Diaz, Eric Khoo, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Brillante Mendoza, Lee Chang-dong, Júlia Murat, Wang Bing, Lee Su-jin, Christian Díaz Pardo, Yaelle Kayam, Boo Junfeng, Valentyn Vasyanovych, Alejandra Márquez Abella and for sure, Amjad Abu Alala, winner of the 2020 Grand Prix for You Will Die at 20!
International Competition: Short Films
For the sixth consecutive year, FIFF presents its International Short Film Competition. All the directors of the selected short films are invited to present their work at Fribourg.
Designed to support the next big names and offering spectators a new wave of talent, the three short film programmes (fiction, documentary and animation) presented at FIFF are the perfect opportunity to discover new cinematic movements straight out of Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
The best short film will be awarded with a prize of CHF 7500.– and join the ranks of past FIFF winners such as Manuel Abramovich (La Reina, 2014), Tofigh Amani (Ants Apartment, 2015), Juliana Gómez (Iceberg, 2016), Raed Rafei (Salam, 2017), E del Mundo (Man of Pa'aling, 2017) and Payal Kapadia (And What is the Summer Saying, 2018)
For the third consecutive year, a Jury made up of film students from the Réseau Cinéma CH will be awarding an additional prize of CHF 3000.– as well.
Out of Competition
Opening film
Heroic Losers, Sebastián Borensztein, 2019
Some of the finest Spanish-speaking actors around, led by Latin American film star Ricardo Darín, play a group of residents from a small town outside Buenos Aires who ill-advisedly deposit their collective savings in a bank right before the 2001 financial crisis. Determined to recover their money, they set about organising the heist of the century. This fast-paced social comedy gets FIFF 2020 off to a rollicking start.
Trailer
Closing film
Mossad!, Alon Gur Arye, 2019
You could be mistaken for thinking that they do not make comedies like Airplane! anymore. But thanks to Israeli director Alon Gur Arye, and creative input from David Zucker, one of the comic geniuses behind the 1980 cult film, they are making a comeback. This spoof espionage movie is audacious than the upcoming 007 adventure and transcends the tensions in the Middle East with a supersize helping of goofball humour.
Trailer
