ArteKinoFestival 2016

I found information about this Festival by casualty as I was looking for movies in the good ARTE +7 of arte.tv. ARTE proposed 50000 free tickets for 10 movies. All the movies are European productions not focused on France and Germany as the TV channel ARTE is. All the movies are available in streaming from an Amazon server. 

For 10 days (September 30 - October 9), these films were available in four European languages (French, German, English and Spanish) plus the original on the website artekinofestival.com.
The idea being amazing, I had to participate and I did. 
The movies proposed by ArteKinoFestival were:

Bella e perduta (Lost and beautiful) by Pietro Marcello (Italian production, 2015)
Safari by Ulrich Seidl (Austrian/Danish production, 2016)
I tempi felici verranno presto (Happy times will come soon) by Alessandro Comodin (Italian/French production, 2016)
Wild by Nicolette Krebitz (German production, 2016)
La mort de Louis XIV (The death of Louis XIV) by Albert Serra (French/Portuguese/Spanish production, 2016)
John From by João Nicolau (Portuguese/French production, 2015)
Dobra zena (A good wife) by Mirjana Karanović (Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian production, 2016)
La jeune fille sans mains (The girl without hands) by Sébastien Laudenbach (French production, 2016)
Suntan by Argyris Papadimitropoulos (Greek production, 2016)
Fatima by Philippe Faucon (French/Canadian production, 2015)
 

After connection and provision of credentials, I had to give some personal data following the rules: 

Snapshot of the rules for ArteKinoFestival 2016

For the technical aspect, the movies are viewed via a video player developed by ARTE France Développement. The distribution service is hosted by a French company SAS OVH who developed the platform Festival scope, while the videos content is hosted by the North American company Amazon Web Services, Inc. 

The access to the videos was organised so that I first had to book the movies I wanted to watch. Many of them were already fully booked due to the limitation of 5000 viewers per movie or because of the unknown rule for limitation per country. Once the booked movie started, I had 24 hours to watch it completely. Therefore it was really comfortable. And I managed to watch some of them: 

Happy times will come soon ( I tempi felici verrano presto) by Alessandro Comodin
The death of Louis XIV (La mort de Louis XIV) by Albert Serra
John From by João Nicolau
A good wife (Dobra zena) by Mirjana Karanović
The girl without hands (La jeune fille sans mains) by Sébastien Laudenbach
Suntan by Argyris Papadimitropoulos
Fatima by Philippe Faucon

I missed Wild, Bella e perduta and Safari because it was already full booked, i.e. 5000 viewers booked these movies before I got connected. 

 

After each viewing, I was able to give a mark to the film, ranging from 1 to 5. The Nespresso Audience Award rewarded the film that has obtained the best score, i.e. 50 000 € to be shared between the filmmaker and the international seller. 

I would recommend John From for its creativity and the originality of magic realism; A good wife for its striking story and the symbolic co-production of ex-enemy countries; The girl without hands for its poetic realisation; Fatima for its authentic and moving story breaking stereotypes spreading in Europe in the last decades.

The public price has gone to: 

A good wife, co-produced by Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia 

It is not clear whether this festival will take place again next year. If it is the case, I will for sure try to make it again and give you my impressions. I found the system very good, even if there is no much festival atmosphere if you don't have a group of friends at home to watch the movie together and give the marks also after discussing the movie.