The film is set to screen on May 4 in Bucharest, on May 12 in Iași, on May 19 in Gura Humorului and Târgu Mureș and on May 26 in Timișoara.
‘We pushed hard so that, for the first time in the history of the festival, the opening film could be seen in Bucharest as well as in the other cities hosting the local editions of the festival. I’m thrilled that we’re able to offer audiences a very recent film, one that made the headlines and that’s also controversial, but, most importantly, a film that’s highly anchored in the current themes on the European public agenda. For that matter, we imagined this edition of EFF as an opportunity for viewers to question themselves and to examine the complicated society we’re living in. In these times characterized by social and political transformations, cinema - that is more than a just trigger for intellectual delight - can become a useful tool in that respect. The visual identity of the 2017 edition rounds out this new direction’, said
Alex Trăilă, artistic director of EFF.
The Other Side of Hope won the Golden Bear for Best Director at this year’s Berlinale. This film tells two stories that converge after forty minutes. The first of these features Khaled, a Syrian refugee. A stowaway on a coal freighter, he ends up in Helsinki where he applies for asylum without much hope of success. Wikström, the second main character, is a travelling salesman peddling ties and men’s shirts. Turning his back on his trade, he instead decides to put his poker face to good use at a gambling table and subsequently buys himself a restaurant in the remotest corner of Helsinki. When the authorities turn down Khaled’s application, he decides to remain in the country illegally, like so many other people who share his fate. While living on the streets, he encounters all kinds of racism, but also some cool rock ’n’ rollers and genuine friendship. One day Wikström discovers Khaled sleeping in the backyard behind his restaurant. He provides him with a bed and a job. For a while, these two band together with the restaurant’s waitress, the chef and his dog to form a utopian union – one of Aki Kaurismäki’s typical communities bound together by fate which demonstrates that the world could and should be a better place.
The European Film Festival will take place in Bucharest (May 4 - May 11), Iași (May 12 – May 14), Tîrgu Mureș (May 19 – May 21), Gura Humorului (May 19 – May 21) and Timișoara (May 26 – May 28).