The Festival International du Film de Mons just announced its programme for its 36th edition, which will take place entirely in person. Traditionally planned for the end of winter, the festival will exceptionally be held this year at the beginning of summer, from 9 to 16 July. All the elements that make the spirit of the festival will be there, with the International Competition, premieres, meetings, and a spotlight on Belgian cinema. 

The International Competition will present 10 films hitherto unseen in Belgium. In diametrically opposed genres, we will discover Amigo [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Spanish filmmaker Óscar Martín, a horrific tale with very dark humour that showed in Sitges, the dramatic comedy My Wonderful Wanda [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Bettina Oberli
scheda film] by Bettina Oberli (Switzerland) and the Serbian social drama Father [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Srdan Golubović
scheda film] by Srdan Glubovic, discovered in the Panorama section at Berlinale 2020. Two French features will be on the programme, benefiting from the Critics’ Week label from Cannes 2020: Beasts [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Naël Marandin and Gold for Dogs [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Anna Cazenave Cambet. Sweat [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Magnus von Horn
scheda film] by Swedish director Magnus Von Horn, which also got the Cannes 2020 label, is a co-production with Poland that follows the daily life of a fitness coach and Instagram influencer. Another Polish film present is I Never Cry [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Piotr Domalewski
scheda film] by Piotr Domalewski, seen last year in the New Directors section in San Sebastian, a coming of age story with intra-european immigration as its backdrop. Lastly, we will note the selections of Russian film The Whaler Boy [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Philipp Yuryev
scheda film] by Philipp Yuryev (co-produced with Poland and Belgium, and winner of the GdA Director’s Award at the Giornate degli Autori in Venice last year), Kazakh production Yellow Cat [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Adilkhan Yerzhanov, and Palestinian film Gaza mon amour [+leggi anche:
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The festival will also highlight Belgian cinema (with exclusive feature films and special screenings) and, most importantly, young talents from the country with a dedicated short film competition. A conference about cinema professionals will ask the questions “Where are female directors in the history of cinema? What is the place of women in the film industry? What are the sexist stereotypes conveyed through films and what are the solutions to get out of this paradigm?” and will project the short films of the Female Gaze collection imagined by Sarah Carlot Jaber, Alice Godart, Aude Verbiguié Soum, Juliette Klinke, Léa Rogliano and Salomé Richard with the support of the Elles font des films collective.

Moreover, the festival will programme 14 Belgian premieres, including The Big Hit [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Emmanuel Courcol, which will be the opening film, and My Father’s Stories [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Jean-Pierre Améris which will close the event. The festival will also pay homage to filmmaker Jaco Van Dormael on 11 July.