The United Kingdom’s entry in this year’s EUFF is this lovely Welsh-made
ensemble piece and period drama, produced by a Cardiff-based company,
shot partly in the Welsh language, and set against the beautiful landscapes of
south-western Wales. It is spring 1914, and Tom Evans (Gareth Bale) has
invited his Oxford best friend Edward Turncliffe (Tom Ellis) to join him on a
visit to his family’s prosperous estate farm in Carmarthenshire County. Tom
doesn’t yet know that his father, Josi (Mark Lewis Jones), has left his mother, Rachel (Rhian Morgan), to take up with Miriam (Nia Roberts), the local schoolteacher, who happens to be pregnant with Josi’s child. Tom’s sister, 18-year-old Catrin (Catrin Morgan), is outraged by her father’s indiscretion, but when she falls for the ardent attentions of Edward, who has a fiancée back in Oxford, she finds herself in a similarly compromised position. The film’s Welsh-language title, Calon Gaeth, translates as “Captive Hearts.” The work is adapted from a 1979 novel, now regarded as a classic of Anglo-Welsh literature, by Carmarthenshire native Sian James. Colour, 35mm, in English and Welsh with English subtitles. 120 mins.

Kafka meets Carrie in writer-director Ilian Simeonov’s spooky, metaphorical Balkan drama, just announced as Bulgaria’s official submission to the upcoming 80th Academy Awards for consideration in the Best Foreign Language Film category. The film’s protagonist is the Boy, a 13-year-old orphan who has spent his life living and working in a cemetery. Death is his métier and daily occupation; nightly, bodies are piling up on the premises from an unnamed military conflict raging off screen. The Boy has two close friends who depend on him, and he is determined to see to their happiness. One is the Artist, who does make-up for the corpses at the cemetery but dreams of being a great painter. The other is the Old Man, a former political prisoner whose sole remaining reason for living has been to see the death of the General who sent him to the gulag and stole his wife. The film begins with the General’s funeral. When, shortly after, the Boy has a prophecy that someone will die in ten days, all assume it will be the Old Man. Enter a young woman named Maria. Is she the muse that will inspire the Artist, as the Boy intends, or is her role in this drama something else entirely…? Colour, 35mm, in Bulgarian with English subtitles. 105 mins.