The youngest is 13 years old, the oldest nearing her 60s. Hélène’s period of prostitution in the airport where her lover abandoned her is a developmental stage in her metamorphosis.... Hanna, intellectual, but embittered by her loss of fame following the fall of the Berlin Wall, tries to escape unhappiness with the help of drugs.... Rosie, a sensitive and brilliant but dreamy and self-destructive child, sear-ches for meaning in the complex world of the adults who surround her.... Anita, who believed life over at 50 when she was suddenly dismissed, finds an unexpected love which opens the door to her future.... Julia, with an electrifying personality but nonchalant attitude to her work at a real estate agency, has to fight off greedy neighbours if she is to hang onto the fortune she has by chance disco-vered... Madam Osmane is haunted by the fear of solitude and of losing her position among the elite of Algiers society... while Gloria, a girl with a butterfly nature, takes us towards her secret refuge in a remote area of Portugal.

Embryonic women... Women in transition... Women of uncertain future... Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown (to borrow the title of Pedro Almodovar’s film).

What could be the common feature in these roughly sketched portraits of women? And, above all, what do the talented actresses who bring these characters to life have in common? The sublime. Pure and simply, the sublime.

During the weeks spent watching previews and finding new discoveries in order to decide on the program of this year’s festival, the same word, the same thought indeed, came to our mind: the subli-me.

No particular theme had guided our search. But one day it dawned on us that the films we had seen featured the most beautiful portraits of women that the European cinema has offered to us in recent years. From then on, we realized that we had no choice but to make this a leitmotif for this 8th film festival.

Magnificent are the actresses: enigmatic, surpri-sing, profoundly moving. Magnificent, too, are the women scriptwriters, directors, film editors, producers and director of photography, who all knew how to give the best of themselves to move or entertain us.

Then another thought came to our mind. This year’s Festival had to be chaired by a woman. Many months have passed since first conceiving this idea to welcoming Carmen Maura as first Honorary Chairwoman of the Festival and recipient of the Osaka City Prize. This prize is awarded for her outstanding contribution to the cinema and, in particular, for her astounding performances in ’Common Wealth’ and ’The Harem of Madam Osmane’, which receive their first public screenings in Japan at this festival.

If this year’s Festival celebrates women, it is not to say that the central male roles of, for example, ’Bad Luck Love’ and ’My Father Saved My Life’ are any less charismatic. These men also embrace their fate in such a way that I even dare to characterize them as ’Christ-like’.

The reference to these two films allows me now to mention, among the other distinguished guests at the Festival, two more figures of the European cinema: Olli Saarela, a worthy representative of the young generation of Finnish moviemakers, and José Giovanni, whose name and works have been so entwined with the history of the French cinema; indeed, with the history of film itself.

During the course of this festival, I hope the chance to meet with the many other guests from the film world will increase your enthusiasm for European Cinema. Beside the traditional screenings of recent short and long movies, I trust that the friendship party, photo exhibition, debates, conferences, programmes for children and for students of vocational schools, and the festival of commercial films will satisfy your curiosity and expectations.

In conclusion, I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart all the individuals and organizations whose contributions have allowed the realization of this eighth edition of the Osaka European Festival.