Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/758493
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 4 DECEMBER 2016 39 This Week European Film Festival at Eden Cinemas aims to shine a light beyond the mainstream CINEMA is an art-form that is continuously evolving but often, the spotlight shines on commer- cial, blockbuster movies, leav- ing the more artistic ones in the shade. Through their European Film Festival, Eden Cinemas will provide a unique platform for more avant-garde storytellers to showcase their creative content. Focusing on six main stories, the festival will run until December 15, allowing patrons the opportu- nity to watch one or all. Tying in with Eden's Side Street initiative, the festival showcases independent movies that dem- onstrate quality, innovation and creativity in both form and con- tent. Eden Leisure Director of Operations, Simon De Cesare, said, "Our aim is to offer the pub- lic a wider variety of great films including less mainstream, high quality, cultural cinema." Thou- sands of films are released every year and cinemas in Malta see less than 1% of its films coming from outside the US and UK. For tickets and more informa- tion please visit edencinemas. com.mt What's on at the European Film Festival Billion Star Hotel Every day, we're faced with the following exercise: to give the world around us a certain cue. To smile, to take everything as a joke, to laugh out loud, or to allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by reality. Some choose to escape, to build their own world, with its own rules, with the memories of fairy tales and dreams that really come to be. It all depends on how you choose to see things. In black, in white, or in sync with the beat. Billion Star Hotel, for each viewer, a different story. Kolekcja Sukienek Eight women of different ages. Love and loneliness. Fear. The vestures that we all wear. This movie makes you realise that when we choose to live a 'half-life', we begin to rot. Women depicted in 'Women Collection' are subjects of a life strange experiment. Son of Saul Two days in the life of Saul Auslander, Hungarian prisoner working as a member of the Sonderkommando at one of the Auschwitz Crematoriums who, to bury the corpse of a boy he takes for his son, tries to carry out his impossible deed: salvage the body and find a rabbi to bury it. Sve Najbolje A Croatian Christmas tale, with singing and poisoning. Winner for Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, National Competition: best Visual Effects, and best supporting actor in Pula Film Festival 2016. The Here After On returning home to his father and younger brother after serving time in prison, teenager John is looking forward to starting new life again. However, members of the local community can't forgive him killing his ex-girlfriend. The Polar Boy Mattias is a young talented photographer in his final year of secondary school, who has a dream to become a student of the Berlin Arts Academy. He unexpectedly falls in love with a wild red-haired beauty Hanna, who doesn't seem to take him seriously unless he proves to be just as adventurous and unpredictable as she is. Mattias risks his whole future by breaking the law together with Hanna, but ends up destroying the girl he loves. Victoria A young Spanish woman who has newly moved to Berlin finds her flirtation with a local guy turn potentially deadly as their night out with his friends reveals a dangerous secret. Victoria The Polar Boy Picturebook puts the environmental battle at the forefront Gorg Mallia releases new picture book for children ĠORĠ Mallia's latest children's book is in English, and draws visual- ly on the Scandinavian 'tomtenissar' (Santa's elves) that are so popular as decorations over the Christmas sea- son. But there's nothing Christmassy about Mallia's Sigurd and the Tree of Life, as it's a tale that involves the last wizard on Earth searching out the tree of life before a poison that's been fed into its roots kills it, and with it all of life in the world. The book, aimed at children that are between eight and 12-years- old, came into being when Mallia, well known for his cartoons and il- lustrations, drew a picture of the traditional 'tomtenisse', lamp in hand, looking out at the reader. The 'tomtenissar's' faces are usually hid- den behind long hats and very long beards, with the nose peeking out. Mallia has stuck with this depiction of his characters, going for a puppet- like rendering of figures, populating the bare forests of the cold north. In fact, Sigurd lives on the edge of one such forest, and is visited by the spirit of an ancient wizard who tells him of the danger to the tree of life. The rest of the book is Sigurd's dangerous quest (with evil wizards creating huge obstacles in his way) to save the tree. There are quite obvious hints to ecology and the way the environ- ment is slowly being corroded by those who are too selfish to think of the future, but this is a subtle, un- derstood message in the story that creates a world full of wonders, dan- gers and a quest that needs to suc- ceed. Sigurd and the Tree of Life is pub- lished in hardback by Horizons, and is illustrated with nineteen full col- our drawings by the author