NEW FACES IN EUROPEAN CINEMA

European Film Promotion (EFP) presents the 2nd Annual "New Faces In European Cinema" at AFI FEST 2005 presented by Audi

EFP member organizations, in collaboration with the Festival, have selected eight "NEW FACES," one from each of the European countries participating in the venture, to showcase Europe's emerging filmmakers. Support from the MEDIA Programme of the European Union, EFP and several associated Consulates in Los Angeles will bring the delegation to the Festival.

Partnering with EFP on this 2005 initiative are the Consulates of the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland. The Icelandic Film Centre, Swiss Films and The U.K. Film Council US.

CHRISTIAN ALVART was born near Frankfurt, Germany. He started making small video and Super-8 films with his friends in 1990. At 19, he became an editor and layout designer with the X-TRO Filmmagazin, working his way up to be editor-in-chief and ultimately owning the special interest publication. In 1997, he abandoned his career as a film journalist and moved with his company Syrreal Entertainment to Berlin to start making his own films again. To get a glance at the world of "professional filmmaking," he started as a runner, soon working his way up again to be a 1st AD in two features within the same year. In 1998, he'd written, produced and directed his first feature CURIOSITY & THE CAT, a low budget thriller, which was nominated for the Max-Ophuels-A
ANTIBODIES is his second feature film as a director.

RICHARD BRACEWELL--UNITED KINGDOM
Director, THE GIGOLOS

RICHARD BRACEWELL makes his feature film debut with THE GIGOLOS. He produced, directed and shot the film himself. Richard used to be a cinema usher in London where between tearing tickets and shovelling popcorn, he taught himself to be a film cameraman from old BBC training manuals. He learned directing by watching the movies of Godard, Hitchcock and Richard Lester. THE GIGOLOS is Richard's third collaboration with writers/performers Sacha Tarter and Trevor Sather. Together, they have developed an approach to filmmaking based on improvisation. The result is original, truthful performances, and a highly personal approach to cinematic storytelling. Richard formed Punk Cinema with brother Tony Bracewell in 2004 to make commercial, independent British films.

JOSEF FARES--SWEDEN
Director, ZOZO

JOSEF FARES was born in Lebanon. Ten years later, he and his family moved to Sweden to the town of Oerebro. Josef started making films when he was 15 and sent them around to amateur film festivals. About 50 shorts and many awards later, Josef entered film school in 1998. His association with Memfis Film began with the pilot COOL GUYS and was followed by the box office smash JALLA! JALLA!. After that, Josef directed KOPPS, a film that proved equally as popular with audiences, resulting in over 775,000 admissions in Sweden. Both films were distributed in over 20 countries. His current feature ZOZO is the official Swedish entry for the Academy Awards(R) Foreign Language Film category.

RICHARD ARI ALEXANDER ERGIS MAGNUSSON--ICELAND
Director, SCREAMING MASTERPIECE

ARI ALEXANDER ERGIS MAGNUSSON was born in Reykjavik, Iceland. He earned a BFA in Fine Arts from Parsons Paris School of Design in 1996 and has since exhibited his pa recent years, he has focused more and more on documentary filmmaking.

RICHARD MARKUS SELIN--FINLAND
Producer, ADDICTION; directed by Minna Virtanen

MARKUS SELIN started his career in film production in the mid-'80s, when he and Renny Harlin produced the international adventure thriller BORN AMERICAN. Because of its anti-Soviet slant, the movie was not distributed for over a year. Selin's next production, SUNSET RIDERS, was awarded two Finnish Movie Awards: Best Actor (Juha Veijonen) and Best Direction (Aleksi Maekelae). Markus won a Producer of the Year Award in 1999. His films have received a total of 10 Finnish Movie Awards, in addition to five audience awards for the most popular film of the year.

PAVEL STRNAD--CZECH REPUBLIC
Producer, WRONG SIDE UP; directed by Petr Zelenka

PAVEL STRNAD was born in Prague in the Czech Republic. After graduating from the Czech Technical University, he studied film production at the Prague Film Faculty FAMU, Film School Praga. He is co-founder of Negativ, a production company that focuses primarily on working with young filmmakers. The company's greatest successes to date include RETURN OF THE IDIOT, a nominee for the European Film Academy Award for the Best Script; YEAR OF THE DEVIL, a winner of the 37th Karlovy Vary IFF in 2002; and SOMETHING LIKE HAPPINESS (dir. Bohdan Slama, 2005), the Best Film of the 53rd San Sebastian IFF in 2005. He has been Chairman of the Czech Producers' Association APA since 2001 and a member of ACE network since 2003.

DANIS TANOVIC--FRANCE
Director, HELL

Danis Tanovic was born in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and studied music, engineering and film there before war broke out in 1992. He left Sarajevo to study directing at L'Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle et des Techniques de Diffusion (INSAS) in Brussels. He has directed such documentary shorts as PORTRAITS D'ARTISTES PENDANT LA GUERRE (1994), L'AUBE (1996) and CA IRA (1998). NO MAN'S LAND (2001), his first feature, was a Gala presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2001 and won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film in 2002. HELL (L'ENFER) (2005) is his second feature film.

RICHARD GIJS VAN DE WESTELAKEN--THE NETHERLANDS
Producer, 06/05 THE SIXTH OF MAY; directed by Theo van Gogh

GIJS VAN DE WESTELAKEN, born in The Netherlands, started his career as a film critic in the '70s for the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, and was managing editor of the weekly newsmagazine De Haagse Post and editor and publisher of the Dutch edition of Esquire Magazine. In 1995, he switched to television and in 1999 became the CEO of Column Productions partnering with director Theo van Gogh. Their collaborations included the 13-part drama series NAJIB & JULIA, which was awarded the Dutch Academy Award for Best TV Drama (Gouden Kalf), and the six-part drama series MEDEA. Column produced the feature films INTERVIEW, COOL, and, in 2005, 06/05 THE SIXTH OF MAY, a thriller surrounding the murder of controversial Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. In between the filming of MEDEA and 06/05, they produced the television short film SUBMISSION. On November 2, 2004, Theo van Gogh was murdered by an Islamic extremist.

RUXANDRA ZENIDE--SWITZERLAND
Director, RYNA

RUXANDRA ZENIDE was born in Bucharest and is both Swiss and Romanian. After receiving a diploma in International Relations in Geneva, she studied for a year in the FAMU, Film School Praga, where she directed the short film DUST. DUST was selected by numerous film festivals and won the Swiss Hope award in Locarno in 2002. Her second short film GREEN OAKS won multiple awards throughout the world. RYNA is her first feature film.