If you have never heard about the Luxembourg City Film Festival before, it may surprise you to know that the biggest annual film event in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which is surrounded by France, Germany and Belgium, is turning 15 this year.
Long considered a hidden gem on the global fest circuit, the event has steadily gained in stature, routinely attracting big industry names to a country with a population of only around 670,000. Just take last year as an example, when the fest set an attendance record with a 10 percent increase to 19,962. For its 2024, edition, it attracted the likes of Viggo Mortensen, Chinese director Wang Bing, Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako, French director Gaspar Noé — who hosted a retrospective and a masterclass — and a jury that included Luxembourg star Vicky Krieps, German actor Sebastian Koch, and U.S. director Ira Sachs.
For this year’s 15th edition, which kicks off on Thursday, the Luxembourg City Film Festival will welcome Tim Roth (Rob Roy, Reservoir Dogs, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover), who will be featured in a masterclass and a retrospective, and Spanish-Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Amenábar (Thesis, The Others, The Sea Inside, Agora), who will deliver a masterclass and what organizers say will be “one of the most prestigious juries to date.”
Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof (The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Manuscripts Don’t Burn) will serve as jury president and be joined by Danish actress Trine Dyrholm (The Girl With the Needle, The Celebration, The Commune), British screenwriter and long-time Ken Loach collaborator Paul Laverty (Sorry We Missed You, The Angel’s Share, I, Daniel Blake), Austrian actress Valerie Pachner (Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, Egon Schiele: Death and the Maiden, A Hidden Life), Spanish director Albert Serra (Afternoons of Solitude, Pacifiction, The Death of Louis XIV), and Luxembourg’s own Jeff Desom, a director, screenwriter and VFX artist known for his effects work on Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.
Past attendees have also included the likes of Ray Liotta, Margarethe von Trotta, Terry Gilliam, and Michel Gondry.
2024 Luxembourg City Film Festival opening night cocktails
Jointly supported by the Ministry of Culture and the City of Luxembourg, the festival typically features highlights of past festivals, national productions or co-productions, masterclasses and a program tailored to younger audiences.
This year’s competition lineup consists of Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman’s Vittoria, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s Reflet dans un diamant mort, Denise Fernandes’ Hanami, Laura Carreira’s On Falling, Bogdan Muresanu’s The New Year That Never Came, Tato Kotetishvili’s Holy Electricity, Mo Harawe’s The Village Next to Paradise, Radu Jude’s Kontinental ’25 and Huo Xin’s Bound in Heaven.
Gladys Lazareff, managing director of the Luxembourg festival, and artistic director Alexis Juncosa have been building the fest and its reputation from the very beginning.
“The first year, we put together the plan for the festival and the first edition in three months,” Lazareff tells THR. “We packed the work of a whole year into that period. It was all driven by heart and pride.”
“Some told us we were crazy,” Juncosa adds. “But we did it and have since then built the festival based on the idea of being very welcoming, so people started pitching us and wanting to come.”
The fest is also inviting and inclusive when it comes to its audience, no matter how much or how little people follow the ins and outs of the movie space. “We want to be open for everyone,” not just hardcore film buffs, Lazareff says. And Juncosa highlights that the fest follows a come-as-you-are policy. “If you want to wear a tuxedo, come in your tuxedo,” he says. “If you like jeans and a T-shirt, come like that.” Then he laughs as he adds: “Or if you want to come in your sleepwear, we’ll see you in that!”
The two describe the festival’s programming philosophy as a desire to provide a “panoramic” lineup of the best cinema in the world, given that people from around the globe live in Luxembourg. In line with that, the four pillars for Luxembourg have always been an international fiction film competition, a documentary competition, a film program targeting younger audiences, and a focus on Luxembourg productions or co-productions, which have increased over time.
And instead of hunting for world premieres, the team is happy to simply showcase great movies from anywhere in the world.
“We are a B-tier festival that can choose without the pressures that A-list festivals have,” Juncosa tells THR. “Instead of chasing world premieres, we are looking for the best films.”
Taking place soon after the Berlinale and Sundance means that Luxembourg can screen such Berlin titles as Jude’s Kontinental ’25 and Sundance films like Dylan Southern’s The Thing With Feathers, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. The selection process has become professionalized thanks to an increase in film submissions that now requires a bigger team of professional selectors rather than dedicated volunteers. This year, they had to sift through around 1,000 movies.
Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Berlin-premiering Hot Milk, starring Krieps, Emma Mackey and Fiona Shaw, will open the Luxembourg City Festival on Thursday evening, while The Thing With Feathers will close it on March 16.
Viggo Mortensen at the 2024 Luxembourg City Film Festival
Courtesy of Luxembourg City Film Festival/Margaux Gatti
“We are very proud to celebrate our 15th edition this year,” says Lazareff, promising some glamour and fun.
But above all, the Luxembourg City Film Festival wants to celebrate cinema and provide some escapism for its audiences. Says Juncosa: “There is so much going on in the world, and there is so much conflict. We want to bring film audiences 11 days of joy with great films.”