Haifa film festival announces guest list

The festival will take place from September 26 to October 5 at the Haifa Cinematheque.

By HANNAH BROWN
film reel, movie, cinema (photo credit: REUTERS)
film reel, movie, cinema
(photo credit: REUTERS)
The 31st Haifa International Film Festival, which will take place from September 26 to October 5 at the Haifa Cinematheque and other theaters around the city, will host more than 80 distinguished filmmakers and film-industry professionals from around the world.
Legendary documentary director Claude Lanzmann, best known for his Holocaust documentary, Shoah, will be the festival’s guest of honor and will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. The award for Lanzmann, who is celebrating his 90th birthday this year, will also commemorate 70 years since the end of World War II and the liberation of the concentration camps.
A new digitally restored print of Shoah will be screened, along with several of Lanzmann’s other films, among them Sobibor, Le Rapport Karski and The Last of the Unjust. Lanzmann will give a master class that will be open to the public, and will meet with documentary film students at the pitching event.
Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf will be head of the jury for the Israeli Feature Film Competition. His latest film, the political satire The President, will be screened. In 2012, Makhmalbaf made the documentary The Gardener, about the Bahai Gardens in Haifa, and it will be shown as part of a retrospective of his films, among them A Moment of Innocence (1996) and The Cyclist (1987).
Peter Greenaway, the British director known for the films Nightwatching, 8 1/2 Women and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, will screen his latest film, Eisenstein at Guanajuato, at the festival.
The film is a biography of director Sergei Eisenstein.
Italian actor/director/screenwriter Sergio Castelitto will present the latest film he directed, No One Is Saved Alone.
Also from Italy, director Luca Guadagnino will attend screenings of his latest movie, A Bigger Splash, which stars Tilda Swinton and Dakota Fanning.
Wayne Blair, who directed The Sapphires, about a girl group of Aboriginal Australians who performed in Vietnam, will present his latest film, a thriller called Septembers of Shiraz. It stars Salma Hayek, Adrien Brody and Israeli actor Alon Aboutboul.
Sharunas Bartas, one of the most acclaimed Lithuanian directors, will present his latest film, Peace to Us in Our Dreams.
Serge Bromberg, a noted producer, director, writer and film distributor will attend and will present a documentary on film history.
The festival will open with a screening of Stephen Frears’ The Program, a drama about the Lance Armstrong scandal.