Hungary’s most popular international film festival, the Titanic, is taking place for the 25th time in Budapest, between April 4th and 13th. Titanic specializes in films from all around the world that are not, or not yet, distributed in Hungary, balancing arthouse with mainstream. Altogether 47 features from 34 countries will be screened, with original audio and in the most cases English subtitles, at arthouse film theaters and eminent event venues citywide. Opening the festival will be Wes Andersons’s “Isle of Dogs”, a stop-motion animated comedy which won the Best Director Silver Bear at the Berlinale. Altogether nine films are competing for the prestigious main prize at the Titanic, the “Breaking Waves Award”.

Seven venues – the Uránia National Film Theater, the Toldi Cinema, the Pop-Up Cinema at the Ódry Színpad, the Kino Cinema, the French Institute, the Art+ Cinema and the Magvető Café – screen films during the festival between April 4th and 13th. The selection is truly colourful this year; with the festival placing special focus on Iceland, film lovers can enjoy several features from the land of ice and fire.

The Oath tells the story of a successful heart surgeon whose life turns upside down when his daughter gets mixed up with a manipulative drug-dealing boyfriend. Out of Thin Air presents the biggest criminal investigation that the country had ever seen. In 1976 six young people confessed to two violent murders, in a country where such crimes were almost unheard of. But with no bodies found, no apparent motive and no credible witnesses, why did they confess? While Inside a Volcano: The Rise of Icelandic Football tells the story of Euro 2016 and a fan culture that charmed the world.

Films from Indonesia, Iran, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Hungary and Belgium also feature at the festival. The critically acclaimed second film by Canadian actor/director Xavier Dolan, Heartbeats, shows at a retrospective screening as its female protagonist, Monia Chokri will be making a personal appearance. Chinese director Gen Jun’s black comedy, Free and Easy, a film that received the Special Jury Prize at Sundance last year for cinematic visions, is also part of the program.

RocKabul, a music documentary by Travis Beard, also to appear at Titanic, follows the career of Afghanistan’s first ever heavy metal band, District Unknown. Music fans can also look forward to American Valhalla, a rockumentary co-directed by the Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme about his musical collaboration with Iggy Pop, while A Ghost Story with Academy Award winner Casey Affleck in the leading role will only be featured in Budapest within the framework of the Titanic Film Festival.

Many more interesting motion pictures screen throughout the festival – see the full program here. Altogether only nine compete for the prestigious main prize, the “Breaking Waves Award”, to be decided by a jury that includes Alexandra Borbély, whose On Body and Soul won the European Film Award for Best Actress in 2017. The festival is complete with talks, workshops and cultural events. More details