exground filmfest starts on November 13, 2015 with the Greek entry CHEVALIER, a biting character sketch by Athina Rachel Tsangari. At 7 pm the first film of this year's country in focus Greece will have its Rhein/Main regional premiere at Wiesbaden Caligari FilmBühne.

It is following a group of six men and their absurd competitive game on a luxury yacht. Just like in her renowned feature film debut ATTENBERG (2010) Tsangari once again exactly observes human behavior, giving it a good tint of black humor.
 
Next to director Yorgos Lanthimos (THE LOBSTER), with whom she shot several films (THE ALPS), like no one else she represents "New Greek Cinema". In this year's country in focus section exground filmfest presents 15 more feature length and short films from Greece.

Strong Women at exground filmfest
exground filmfest 28 not only starts with a female director's film, this year's program also presents a number of films on „strong women“. In BETI AND AMAR a young woman in 1936 Ethiopia flees Mussolini's troops and then has to deal with local militia, hunger and thirst, until creatures from another world come to her aid. Director Andy Sieges did his debut film on a shoestring budget and also created the first Ethiopian science fiction film.
 
Another feature film debut leads us to VILLA TOUMA in Ramallah, where time seems to be standing still. There three unmarried sisters long for the times before the six day war more than 30 years ago and ignore reality around them, until their niece Badia shows up and breaks the dull routine. With psychological accuracy director Suha Arraf created an enthralling intimate play on the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian war.
 
In the Swiss entry WHAT’S BETWEEN US (UNTER DER HAUT) after 18 years of marriage Alice is faced with her husband being more and more attracted by men. Claudia Lorenz stages the consequences for the whole family in unagitated, calm episodes, some sad, some bright.

International Stars: Deneuve, Rampling, Garfield
In Catherine Deneuve another strong woman will be presented in the program of exground filmfest 28. Jaco van Dormael's bizarre satire THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT weaves the thought experiment, that god is living with wife and children in Brussels and is a jerk. French cinema's grande dame embodies one of the apostles.
 
The US indie drama 99 HOMES features Andrew Garfield (THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN) as young father fighting for his home, which gets him into a moral dilemma. In JUST JIM Emile Hirsch (PRINCE AVALANCHE, INTO THE WILD) takes teenager Jim under his wings, in order to finally make him a cool kid. Young director Craig Roberts also plays the main character. Guy Maddin's new film THE FORBIDDEN ROOM is a who's who of acting stars - Charlotte Rampling, Udo Kier, Geraldine Chaplin etc. In phantasmagorical sequences Maddin sends his audiences on a delightfully weird trip through film history, liberally using the silent film pool.

Focus: Refugees and Crisis
Another thematic focus in exground filmfest's program is refugees and crisis. Among the films are BETI AND AMAR as well as the Greek film RIVERBANKS by Panos Karkanevatos, telling a love story on the backdrop of the European refugee crisis. In BABAI ten year-old Nori sets out for the dangerous journey to Germany, where his father fled to without him from prewar Kosovo in the 1990s. Eventually the boy finds his father and confronts him. At the Munich film fest BABAI was awarded three German Film New Talent Awards.
 
exground filmfest: November 13 – 22, 2015
The complete program will be available from October 20, 2015  on www.exground.com.