Bermuda International Film Festival line-up announced

The selections for the 17th annual Bermuda International Film Festival has been announced.

The festival, taking place next month, March 21 to 27, includes more than 25 feature-length and short films which will be screened this year at Liberty Theatre

This year’s theme is Global Visions with the widest film selection geographically in the history of the event.

This year's World Cinema category comprises offerings from Chile, Egypt and Japan, alongside the filmmaking powerhouses of the USA and UK and from Bermuda. There will be both narrative features and documentaries across a diverse range of subjects.

BIFF 2014 kick starts this cinematic world tour with the critically-acclaimed “Le Week-End,” a British film set in Paris. It stars the much-loved Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan as a fifty-something couple returning to the city of love, in which they honeymooned, in an attempt to rejuvenate their marriage.

BIFF will be bringing three Oscar-nominated films to Bermuda for the first time: “Missing Picture, Omar and The Square.

The Missing Picture, made in Cambodia, recounts director Rithy Panh's experience of suffering at the hands of Pol Pot's communist regime. While Omar, competing for Best Foreign Film, is a gripping thriller about betrayal in the occupied territories of Palestine. The Square covers the Egyptian revolution and is up for the Best Documentary gong.

The narrative line-up within the World Cinema strand also includes Gloria with Paulina Garcia as a women who realizes she can shine brighter than ever in her golden years; Like Father Like Son a family drama about a child switched at birth, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival last year; Abuse of Weakness a French film depicting a women taken advantage of by a career conman as she recovers from a brain hemorrhage; and The Double, the latest offering from director Richard Ayoade who scooped the Audience Choice Award at BIFF 2011 with the celebrated Submarine.

Documentaries screening at BIFF 2014 are Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq about “the most transcendent young ballerina of all time”, who was tragically struck down and paralyzed at the age of 27 by polio; Finding Vivian Maier telling the story of a mysterious nanny now considered one of the best street photographers of all time; and The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, a true-crime Darwin meets Hitchcock story about murder on the uninhabited Floreana Island.

The mid-point of the festival is marked with a Gala Presentation of The French Minister. This off-the-wall comedy about French politics is based on the award-winning graphic novel by Abel Lanzac, a former government speech writer. The film has been widely praised for its rapid-fire dialogue and a brilliant ensemble cast.

The Onion Patch strand showcases Bermudian cinematic talent with three films: Ben Watson's Downing's Wreck documentary about Bermuda's most famous shipwreck, Sea Venture; Robert Zuill's documentary An Ancient Window also about a shipwreck that tells the tale of early Bermuda; and Gareth Fletcher Pit Bull dog documentary, Bullied Breeds, completes these category.

As BIFF is one of only a small number of Academy Award Qualifying festivals for the Short Film – Live Action Oscar, there will once again be a diverse line-up of high quality short films from all around the world. This year, 16 shorts will screen in competition at BIFF 2014 for the coveted Bermuda Shorts award within three packages.

More laughs will be provided by the Gala Presentation of Alan Partridge to close the festival. Steve Coogan returns in his BBC television comic creation of Alan Partridge, a broadcaster at the edge of his own sanity. We join the conceited, petty and anal Partridge at the centre of siege as a radio DJ colleague holds the station hostage after learning he is getting fired.

Further information about each film and more detailed synopses are available in the BIFF 2014 online guide on www.biff.bm, which launches today. Tickets will go on sale on the website when the BIFF 2014 Box Office opens next Monday, March 3. BIFF Patrons and Sponsors will be contacted directly and offered priority access to purchase tickets in recognition of their valued support.

To keep up to date with all the BIFF 2014 news as it breaks, ‘like’ them on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @BERMUDAFILMFEST. More information is also available on our website: www.biff.bm.