The Lemesos International Documentary Festival is fast approaching its twelfth edition, set to take off on Tuesday on a journey to give a true insight into modern concerns and ways of life.
The festival, which will take place at the Evagoras Lanitis Centre in Limassol, will screen more than 20 Cyprus premiers, offer seminars, workshops, music events and performances, which will all promote the art of non-fiction filmmaking.
The festival will open on Tuesday at 8.30pm with a screening of the documentary Bobbi Jene. Jene is a renowned American dancer who, after a decade of stardom in Israel, decides to leave her great mentor and choreographer Ohad Naharin and the love of her life behind to return home. Determined to establish herself, she creates her own boundary-breaking performances.
After the screening there will be an opening party to celebrate the start of the festival with Maria Spivak on the decks. Spivak makes electronic music using analogue and digital synthesisers. She brings together rhythmic and melodic elements and uses her voice to tell stories. Her music will sometimes allude to minimalistic and cinematic characteristics and other times will just make you want to dance.
Most days have three screenings which are shown at 6.30pm, 8.30pm and 10.30pm.
Wednesday starts with a screening of The Eagle Huntress by Otto Bell, about Aisholpan, a 13-year-old girl who becomes the first female in twelve generations of her Kazakh family to become an eagle hunter. The second screening is the anti-war documentary Nowhere to Hide by Zaradasht Ahmed, and the third, Modern Man by Eva Mulvad about the famous violinist Charlie Siem.
On Thursday, from 5pm until 6pm, Zardasht will discuss his documentary, which follows male nurse Nori Sharif through five years of dramatic change, providing unique access into one of the world’s most dangerous and inaccessible areas – the Triangle of Death in central Iraq.
The day continues with the film Machines, which takes us into the world of the global textile industry, followed by Big Time which follows star architect Bjarke Ingels over a period of six years. The final screening of the day is Death in the Terminal – a thrilling reconstruction of a terrorist attack at an Israeli bus terminal.
Friday’s screenings start with 69 Minutes of 86 Days by Egil Haskjold Larsen, followed by a live documentary-inspired performance entitled Dying on Stage by Christodoulos Panayiotou. The performance is a meditation on the impossible theatrical representation of death.
Saturday starts with The Other Side of the Wall about sisters taking on parental roles, the performance-based documentary One More Time with Feeling and Pronocracy about the adult film industry.
Graphic Means, about the graphic design industry, starts Sunday off, followed by Hondros, about a conflict photographer, and To Stay Alive: A Method, showcasing Iggy Pop’s way of survival.
Monday’s screening consists of Shadow World based on the international trade in weapons, Last Men in Aleppo, which follows three heroes in a war zone, and Anima Docs, showing today’s reality through the eyes of animated directors.
The last day of the festival is reserved for a screening of Rumble, which concentrates on the role of Native Americans in popular music history, and City of Ghosts which follows a number of anonymous activists.
For full information about the festival go to http://www.filmfestival.com.cy/
Twelfth Lemesos International Documentary Festival
August 1-8. Evagoras Lanitis Centre, Vasilissis Street, Limassol. 8.30pm. €2 per film/ €25 festival pass. Tel: 25-342123
