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Ljubljana Film Festival

LIFFe or, to give it its proper name, the Ljubljana International Film Festival, is now in its 20th year. The dates for this year’s festival are from 11th to 22nd November 2009. The Festival was launched to compensate for the lack of top-quality home produced films. According to its website, the festival aims sets out to do a number of things including: the provision of an overview of selected, contemporary, world film production; keep Slovenes abreast of which films won awards at important European or World festivals; educate through film workshops, exhibitions and multi-media interactive projects; present “so-called generational films lacking great artistic ambitions but successfully expressing their zeitgeist” and to generate dialogue about both radical and popular movies. The Festival website has an English translation and it provides a great retrospective on the 2008 Festival.

Ticket Prices
The price to see a screening (last year) was 4.20 € for screenings before 18.00 and 4.90 € for screenings in the evening. The organisers point out that there may be tickets available at the last minute – even for sold out showings – and advise you to check half an hour before the screening. Most of the venues are within walking distance of the city centre.

Strands
The Festival is organised into a number of “strands” such as a competition strand “Perspectives” for the Kingfisher award; best short film award; the FIPRESCI prize which is awarded by a panel of judges from the International Federation of Film Critics and, if you don’t want to be left out, you can vote for your favourite festival entry in the Dragon Audience Award. Usually, the screenings are accompanied by a programme of discussion sessions with directors and actors. Last year’s festival had nine such strands.

Gay and Lesbian Film Festival
Ljubljana also hosts an annual Gay and Lesbian film festival which was established in 1984, making it the oldest festival of its kind in Europe. The festival provides a review of Gay and Lesbian films rather than holding a competition.

Further Information