The HIFF Spring Break festival returns for the second time to showcase long-awaited film premiers, handpicked rarities, and 90s throwbacks. This year’s festival is themed around passion and the full program will be published on Thursday March 7th.
“During the last year, I have seen amazing movies that are not afraid to explore different sides of passion without prejudice. They have sparked my interest to delve deeper into the topic. We are all driven by passion, no matter if it’s related to music, cooking, loving, or protecting nature. However, passion can also be destructive. The difficulties that the arts and culture sector has faced in the last few years have also highlighted the passionate relationship people have with cinema. I hope that during the festival, the audience can relate to a life filled with passion they see on screen. Hopefully, these movies will also inspire them to seek excitement and be curious in their lives outside the cinema.” Program coordinator Outi Rehn explains.
In the hot and obscenely funny road film Drive-Away Dolls, directed by the uncontested legend of the American indie genre, Ethan Coen, two young women (Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan) run into some utterly simple criminals. The movie set in 1990s Tallahassee provides the audience with plenty of queer-punk comedy in the spirit of Bruce LaBruce, Gregg Arak, and John Waters. The renowned actor Pedro Pascal makes a delightful appearance as one of the supporting characters. The film preview will be shown at the Spring Break festival on Thursday March 21 and the film’s national premiere is on Friday March 22.
Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon is a movie that bravely breaks the tradition of artist biopics. The movie set in 1960s London has been directed by John Maybury (Remembrance of Things Fast, HIFF 1994), who is known as a director unafraid of controversy. The biographical film about painter Francis Bacon (Derek Jacobi) expresses beautifully both the artist’s passion for making art and his passionate yet harrowing love affair with petty crook George Dyer (Daniel Graig). Tilda Swinton leaves a lasting impression as the Colony Room Club’s fierce matron.
Lasipalatsi Bio Rex provides an amazing setting for the sizzling hot 1990s hit Cruel Intentions dress-along screening on Saturday March 23. The deviously sexy drama about forbidden love, power, and seduction is an inventive adaptation of the French author Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782). Among the players in this cruel game of seduction are several upcoming Hollywood stars, such as Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Ryan Philippe.
HIFF Spring Break in Helsinki from March 21 to 24, 2024