BEAUTY IN TROUBLE (pictured, left)
2006-Czech
Comedy
Director: Jan Hrebejk (Oscar nominated Divided We Fall; Up and Down)
The film is a love story about a woman called Marcela and about two men: Jarda (Marcela’s husband) and rich Evzen Benes. Marcela and Jarda live in a small, smelly and ugly house with their two children Kuba and Lucie. Jarda steals Evzen’s car and he must go to prison. Evzen offers Marcela help (she can live in his empty house) and he lends her money. Marcela falls in love with Evzen and his money and they move to Italy. Marcela’s mother dies and Marcela comes to her funeral. Marcela has never liked her mother’s boyfriend but now they forget their struggle. Marcela sees her husband again and she finds out that she doesn’t want to live with him any more. She returns to Italy and takes her mother’s boyfriend Richard with her. At the end of the film Marcela lives in Italy but still thinks about her husband.
Winner, Special Jury Prize, Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2006
Official Czech entry, 79th Annual Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film Category
THE PAPER WILL BE BLUE
2006-Romanian
Action/Drama
Director: Radu Muntean
Out of enthusiasm, a Militia soldier abandons his platoon and decides to fight for the cause of the Revolution. His Lieutenant and the rest of the crew look for him during the confused night of 22-23 December 1989. (Taken from www.imdb.com)
LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR (LOVE SONGS)
2007-French
Musical-Comedy-Drama
Director: Christophe Honore (Ma Mere; Dans Paris; 17 Fois Cecile Cassard)
Starring Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier, Chiara Mastroianni, Clotilde Hesme, and Brigitte Rouan
Julie's boyfriend Ismaël lives with her; rather than worry about the time he spends with his colleague Alice, Julie invites Alice to join them. The three walk the streets of Paris, party, read, and sleep together. Sometimes it's lighthearted, sometimes there are jealousies. Then death strikes. In various ways, those left come to terms with the departure and absence of a loved one: showing concern, eating together, attempting new relationships, trying to "be there" for the other. Then, the spirit returns and new commitments are possible. The romantic elements of musical comedy play in contrast to the ambivalence of the lyrics and the story. (Taken from www.imdb.com)
Official Selection (in competition), 60th Cannes Film Festival
Winner, Cesar Awards, Best Music Written for a Film (Alex Beaupain)
I CENTO PASSI (ONE HUNDRED STEPS)
2000-Italian
Political Drama-Thriller
Director: Marco Tullio Giordana (The Best of Youth)
I Cento Passi is an Italian film about the life of Giuseppe “Peppino” Impastato, a political activist who opposed the Mafia in Sicily. The story takes place in the small town of Cinisi in the province of Palermo, the home town of the Impastato family. One hundred steps was the number of steps it took to get from the Impastato house to the house of the Mafia boss Tano Badalamenti. (Taken from www.wikipedia.com)
Nominee, Best Foreign Language Film, Golden Globe Awards 2001
Winner, CinemAvvenire Award for Best Film; Best Screenplay; Pasinetti Award, Venice Film Festival 2000
Official Italian entry, 73rd Annual Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film category
AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER?
2007-British
Drama
Director: Anand Tucker (Hilary and Jackie)
Starring Jim Broadbent, Colin Firth, and Juliet Stevenson
When Did You Last See Your Father? is an unflinching exploration of a father/son relationship, as Blake Morrison deals with his father Arthur’s terminal illness and imminent death. Blake’s memories of everything funny, embarrassing and upsetting about his childhood and teens are interspersed with tender and heartrending scenes in the present, as he struggles to come to terms with his father, and their history of conflict, and learns to accept that one’s parents are not always accountable to their children. (Taken from www.sonyclassics.com)
VITUS
2006-Swiss
Musical-Drama
Director: Fredi M. Murer
Starring Bruno Ganz (Oscar nominated Downfall; The Manchurian Candidate remake)and Theo Gheorghiu
The film tells the story of a highly-gifted boy whose parents have demanding and ambitious plans for him - they want him to become a pianist. However, one day the boy, Vitus, is no longer willing to comply with his parents' plans and ambitions because he wants to follow his own star. (Taken from www.imdb.com)
Winner, Swiss Film Prize for Best Film (2007)
AFTER THE WEDDING
2006-Danish
Suspense-Drama
Director: Susanne Bier (Open Hearts; Things We Lost in the Fire; Brothers)
Starring Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale; Adam’s Apple; Valhalla Rising)
Jacob Petersen has dedicated his life to helping street children in India. When the orphanage he heads is threatened by closure, he receives an unusual offer. A Danish businessman, Jørgen, offers him a donation of $4 million dollars. There are, however, certain conditions... Not only must Jacob return to Denmark, he must also take part in the wedding of Jørgen's daughter. The wedding proves to be a critical juncture between past and future and catapults Jacob into the most intense dilemma of his life. (Taken from www.imdb.com)
Nominee, Best Foreign Language Film, 79th Annual Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Actor; Best Director, European Film Awards 2006
CHILDREN OF THE MOON
2006-German
Drama
Director: Manuela Stacke
Astronaut Paul flies to the moon. Lisa, a scientist, accompanies him. Every afternoon, the 12-year-old has an appointment with her brother Paul (6). He is suffering the incurable "Disease of the Moon" and has to stay inside the house. As a pastime, Lisa has invented a fantasy game, and in their imagination Paul is a spaceship captain and traveling around, lost in space. But when Lisa falls in love for the first time, another appointment is getting in the way, and becoming more and more important. Brother and sister have to learn to adapt with the new reality.
UN FRANCO, 14 PESETAS (CROSSING THE BORDER)
2006-Spanish
Comedy/Drama
Director: Carlos Iglesias
This is a film about the emigration of Spanish workers during the decade of the 1960s to developed Europe. Over two million people, mostly men, emigrate in the post war Spain during the dictatorship of Franco, mainly to Germany, Switzerland (as is the case in this movie), France, Belgium or Scandinavia. Those emigrants were mainly from rural locations, and as the workers demanded in Europe were mainly industrial, they had many problems, firstly with idioms, as they spoke and wrote badly his own maternal Spanish, and in adapting to big cities as Hamburg, Paris, Dusseldorf, and finally with the own industrial work and of course, familiar disturbances as they were sometimes yet married in Spain and many times must separate. (Taken from www.amazon.com.uk)
MOZART IN CHINA
2006-German
Family Comedy-Drama
Director: Bernd Neuburger and Nadja Seelich
Danny and Li Wei, two ten-year-old boys from Salzburg, spend an adventurous summer on the southern Chinese island of Hainan. With the help of Mozart and a Chinese shadow princess they manage to save an old shadow theatre from a greedy hotel chain.
A PERFECT MATCH
2006-Flemish
Director: M. Van Hoggenbemt
On the day of his forced retirement, a grumpy school principal decides to look for a wife on the Internet. It’s not love he is after. Merely companionship. He meets scores of women but can’t seem to make up his mind. Until his new housekeeper arrives. She is almost 40 years younger than him and a total disaster at housekeeping. For the first time in what seems a lifetime, he falls totally and desperately in love.
WHEN THE TIDE COMES IN…
2006-Flemish-French
Comedy/Drama/Romance
Directors: Yolande Moreau and Gilles Porte
Irène is a 45 year old actress: married and mother of a child, she is on tour at the Belgo-French boundary with her one woman show, Sale Affaire. On stage, her character had just killed her lover but still dreams about Love. She therefore decides to choose someone amongst the public; an innocent prey (her ‘Poussin’) to fill that gap. One night, she sets her heart on Dries, a 30- year- old man who sells vegetables at markets and giant fanfare porter.
Mixing fiction with reality, Dries becomes Irène’s ’Poussin’ on stage and in real life. A passionate love affair that will last a few days, a love affair that has incredible similarities to the show Irène is playing on stage.
COLORADO AVENUE
2006-Finnish
Drama
Director: Claes Olsson
Colorado Avenue tells the story of Hanna, a young woman who emigrates to America determined to make money in the Great West and later returns to her home country to face civil war, alcohol smuggling and humiliation. With her American dollars she buys a parcel of rocky land and opens a country store. The store becomes the village centre and the local people begin to respect the industrious Hanna (or “Dollar-Hanna”) as they choose to call her. The film deals with humiliation, shame, respect and making peace with one’s past and is set in the early years of Finland’s independence.
HANDS OFF MISSISSIPPI
2007-German
Comedy/Drama
Director: Detlef Buck
A young city girl is sent off by her busy parents to spend some time in the country with her grandmother, and the girl soon discovers strange events at the neighbouring farm, including a horse called Mississippi. The horse is likely to be sold unless other arrangements are made, and this is where the girl and her grandmother step in. The film develops into a broad comedy where all is not what it appears. The film also features veteran actress Katharina Thalbach who has appeared in many films including The Tin Drum and Sophie’s Choice. Make sure you stay for the closing credits as the film ends with a witty and cleverly animated sequence.
Winner, Best Children’s Film, German Film Awards (2007)
CHEMICAL HUNGER
2003-Italian
Drama
Directors: Antonio Bocola and Paolo Vari
With a backdrop set in a grim housing project of a Milan suburb teeming with social tension, three youngsters, Claudio, Manuel and Maja, face up to the passage from youth to adulthood.
Urban poverty, workers’ rights, and racial conflicts between Italians and Third World extra-comunitari (people from outside the European Union) represent one set of related issues; Claudio’s career and romantic uncertainties and interactions with his more illegal pal Manuel are another. Italian rapper, Zulù, leader of the "99 Posse," comments on the social situation in songs he sings like a Greek chorus.
LATE BLOOMERS
2006-Swiss
Comedy
Director: Bettina Oberli
Lisi encourages 80 year-old Martha to realize a long-held dream: to open a boutique with her own hand-made lingerie. This news turns the placid Swiss Emmental village upside down. When Martha’s son, the vicar, orders her to close the shop, she and her best friends decide it’s high time to show the village what they are made of!
NIGHT RUN
2006-Danish
Drama
Director: Dana Nechushtan
Dennis van der Horst is a kind-hearted young entrepreneur. He lives by the rules of the street. The only people he feels any responsibility for are his brother Marco and his family, who are not very well off. When Dennis gets the chance to obtain an extremely expensive but lucrative taxi-license, he seizes it. In the presence of the manager of MOTAX, the only taxi company in Amsterdam, Dennis borrows a very large sum of money. Dennis is beside himself with joy. The hustling is over. Soon however Dennis finds out that there was a reason why it was so easy for him to obtain such a scarce license. The law is being altered, allowing competition on the taxi market. The licenses of Dennis and many of his colleagues all at once become worthless. As of the moment there is a war going on in the streets of Amsterdam. Dennis gets deeper into trouble when he finds out that he has unwittingly become part of the criminal organization behind MOTAX. Even the police turn out to have secret ties with MOTAX and there is only one thing left for Dennis to do in order to free himself: confront the man who is pulling the strings.
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