3^rd Ascona Film Festival

 

We are please to announce the 2014 Ascona Film Festival, showing international short films and organized exclusively via social networks. The festival will take place from Thursday February 27^th through Saturday March 1st 2014 in the events hall of the Hotel Ascona, located on Ascona’s Monte Verità, at via Signore in Croce 1.

 

Also this year we were flooded with over 1500 entries from all over the world. For the international competition we have selected 29 short films from 15 countries to be screened over the three evenings of our festival, and three out of competition feature length films, which will be screened on Friday and Saturday afternoon. On Friday we will screen Tempo Girl, first feature by talented swiss director Dominik Locher. On Saturday, the first feature, “Bissige Hunde” (Vicious Dogs), is a German police thriller directed by Alex Eslam. This is his first feature film. The second feature, “Who Killed Johnny?” is a dark comedy. A Swiss production filmed on location in Los Angeles directed by Yangzom Brauen, produced by local artist Shari Marcacci, with Melanie Winiger, Max Loong and Carlos Leal.

 

Among this year’s films in competition we will present “Aquel no era yo” by Esteban Crespo, Spain, nominated for this year’s Academy Award in the category short film (live action), “Butter Lamp” by Wei Hu, China, showing a glimpse of modern day Tibet, “Drunk History Christmas Special” by Jeremy Konner USA, with Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendez and Jim Carrey, and Metube: August sings Carmen ‘Habanera’, by Daniel Moshel, Austria, a very amusing video opera which is also in competition in the YouTube category at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

 

This year we are also presenting a substantial number of Swiss shorts, like “Vigia” by Marcel Barelli, winner of last year’s silver pardino in the national competition for short films at the Locarno film festival, “Tauchä”(Dive) by Dominik Locher, in competition at the Festival of the Max Ophüls Prize, which is the most important festival for young German cinema and “Hylas und die Nymphen”(Hylas and the Nymphs) by young actress Lisa Brühlmann.

 

All films will be screened in English or with English subtitles. Entry to the screenings is free of charge.

 

This year the filmmakers will be competing for three public prize awards offered by our generous sponsors. First prize in the amount of

CHF 1000.-, second prize in the amount of CHF 700.- and the third prize in the amount of CHF 500.-

 

A very heartfelt thank you to Electronic Studio from Locarno for sponsoring and organizing the big screen for the festival.

 

As our festival grows, we have changed the criteria of selection for the films in competition. This year we have decided to concentrate primarily on fiction, abandoning art video and video art for now. On top of this, this year we invited various filmmakers to join us during the screening of their works. For the rest we always offer the possibility to be conferenced in via Skype. Also, on Saturday we will offer a live video feed via Bambuser of our last day of screenings, so any filmmaker or film aficionado not able to come join us in Ascona, can still have a little feel of festival ambience from the privacy of their computer. A personal registration will be required to access said live video feed. We hope to be able to always offer more to both artists and our audience in the years to come.

 

Official program of the 3^rd Ascona Film Festival

 

Thursday February 27th 2014

19.00 Welcome cocktail and finger food

19.30 Opening ceremony

20.00-23.00 Films

 

Friday February 28th 2014

17.00-18.30 Tempo Girl (CH) Dominik Locher

19.00 Welcome cocktail and finger food

20.00-23.00 Films

23.00-??? Festival Party

 

Saturday March 1st 2014

14.00-16.00 Bissige Hunde(Vicious Dogs)(D) Alex Eslam

16.30-18.00 Who Killed Johnny?(CH) Yangzom Brauen

19.00 Welcome cocktail and finger food

20.00-22.30 Films

23.00 Prize ceremony

23.30-??? Festival party

 

 

The films in competition are:

 

 

 

Aquel No Era Yo	Esteban Crespo	Spain	2012
Argile	Michaël Guerraz	France	2012
Bissige Hunde	Alex Eslam	Germany	2013
Blinder Passagier	Maria Brendle	Switzerland	2013
Chippendale	Kamila Safina	Russia	2012
Cushion	Ninian Green	Switzerland	2013
Drunk Histrory Christmas Special	Jeremy Konner/Derek Waters	USA	2012
Electric Indigo	Jean-Julien Collette	France	2013
Finale	Balazs Simonyi	Hungary	2012
Freunde	Luca Ribler	Switzerland	2013
Hogar Hogar	Carlos Alonso Ojea & Fernando Polanco	Spain	2013
Hylas und die Nymphen	Lisa Brühlmann	Switzerland	2013
Io Sono Qui	Mario Piredda	Italy	2011
La Donna	Nicolás Dolensky	Argentina	2013
La Lampe Au Beurre de Yak	Wei Hu	China	2013
le début de la fin	Jean-Francois Vercasson	Switzerland	2011
Merry Christmas	Pablo Palazón	Spain	2013
Metube: August sings Carmen’ Habanera’	Daniel Moshel	Austria	2013
Mousse	Fredrik Bjelke	Sweden	2012
My Friend Nietzsche	Fáuston da Silva	Brazil	2012
Où je mets ma Pudeur?	Sébastien Bailly	France	2013
Pain Staking	Adolfo Martinez Perez	USA	2012
Parachutes	Wendy Pillonel	Switzerland	2012
Red Light District Bar	Sarah Bellin	Switzerland	2013
Saloperie de Pruneaux	Rinaldo Marasco	Switzerland	2012
Tauchä	Dominik Locher	Switzerland	2013
The Mass of Men	Gabriel Gauchet	U.K.	2013
Vigia	Marcel Barelli	Switzerland	2013
Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten	Piet Baumgartener	Switzerland	2013
Without You	Torben Lunding	Denmark	2013

 

The official program will be published at the beginning of February 2014 on www.asconafilmfestival.org

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