10-17-2016, 07:59 PM
Best Foreign Film
A Dog in the Wolf's Lair (2016)
Un chien dans l'antre du loup (French)
Ein Hund im Wolfshaus (German)
Following the tragic death of his family in a house fire, 20-year old Mathieu Escoffier leaves his small rural village of Sart in French-speaking Westerheim to pursue a new life among the bright lights and busy streets of Cologne, the Westerheimer capital, deep inside German Westerheim.
Soon after arriving in the huge city, young Mathieu becomes isolated and alone; unable to communicate with anyone except an old widow who learnt her French from a soldier she took as a lover in the final days of the Second World War.
A spiral into the dark underbelly of metropolis life rapidly begins, however, as Mathieu, unable to work due to the language barrier, soon turns to darker methods of making ends meet. Plagued by guilt and drug-induced visions of his dead family and with no one left to turn to following the disappearance of the Widow, Mathieu soon finds himself balancing on the very edge of oblivion.
The debut picture from Pierre Calvet, who both wrote and directed the film, A Dog in the Wolf's Lair explores the hitherto rarely mentioned, but quietly omnipresent, tensions and troubles in Westerheim between German and French-speaking citizens. Scathingly critical of both the integration and support processes for the two language groups, the film also casts an eye over the seedy underworld of the nation's capital, with Calvet himself having spent his early twenties in a self-proclaimed cycle of drugs, prostitution and petty crime in Cologne. The film is also unique in only assigning a proper name to Mathieu; a technique Calvet says aims to "alienate and empathise in one".
Starring previously undiscovered actor Hugo Dupont as Mathieu and 1960s film star Margarethe Siegrist as the Widow in her first role for 30 years, and the last before her recent passing, A Dog in the Wolf's Lair won 6 awards at the 2016 Westerheim Screen Awards, including Best Cinematic Production (Best Film), Best Male Performance and Best Debut Director. The film's entrance into the 2016 IDU Film Festival marks its first major outing at a foreign film awards outside of the SLU.
Submitted by Westerheim of the Social Liberal Union
A Dog in the Wolf's Lair (2016)
Un chien dans l'antre du loup (French)
Ein Hund im Wolfshaus (German)
Following the tragic death of his family in a house fire, 20-year old Mathieu Escoffier leaves his small rural village of Sart in French-speaking Westerheim to pursue a new life among the bright lights and busy streets of Cologne, the Westerheimer capital, deep inside German Westerheim.
Soon after arriving in the huge city, young Mathieu becomes isolated and alone; unable to communicate with anyone except an old widow who learnt her French from a soldier she took as a lover in the final days of the Second World War.
A spiral into the dark underbelly of metropolis life rapidly begins, however, as Mathieu, unable to work due to the language barrier, soon turns to darker methods of making ends meet. Plagued by guilt and drug-induced visions of his dead family and with no one left to turn to following the disappearance of the Widow, Mathieu soon finds himself balancing on the very edge of oblivion.
The debut picture from Pierre Calvet, who both wrote and directed the film, A Dog in the Wolf's Lair explores the hitherto rarely mentioned, but quietly omnipresent, tensions and troubles in Westerheim between German and French-speaking citizens. Scathingly critical of both the integration and support processes for the two language groups, the film also casts an eye over the seedy underworld of the nation's capital, with Calvet himself having spent his early twenties in a self-proclaimed cycle of drugs, prostitution and petty crime in Cologne. The film is also unique in only assigning a proper name to Mathieu; a technique Calvet says aims to "alienate and empathise in one".
Starring previously undiscovered actor Hugo Dupont as Mathieu and 1960s film star Margarethe Siegrist as the Widow in her first role for 30 years, and the last before her recent passing, A Dog in the Wolf's Lair won 6 awards at the 2016 Westerheim Screen Awards, including Best Cinematic Production (Best Film), Best Male Performance and Best Debut Director. The film's entrance into the 2016 IDU Film Festival marks its first major outing at a foreign film awards outside of the SLU.
Submitted by Westerheim of the Social Liberal Union