angamaly film festival

Les Secrets

Les Secrets (2009)
Dir:Raja Amari
Country:Tunisia
Run Time:98mins

The film tells the story of Radia (Bel Hassen Probes), Aicha (Hafsia Herzi), and their mother (Wassila Dari) who live outside of the world in an abandoned house. For Raja Amari, this house is more than just scenery. "It's a real character in this story and not just a place. This house is also involved in the drama of this story, since it is a place where they can hide. There's the upstairs and the downstairs. It may in some way be a metaphor for a particular social condition," said Raja Amari to GettyImages.fr. In this house, Radia, Aicha and their mother worked as domestics. Their routine changes on the day a young couple moves into what the director sees as "a fairytale place" or "a haunted castle". The three women hide their existence from the newcomers for fear of attracting attention to their situation and to be thrown out. Indeed, they hide a dark secret. "I just shot sequentially (...) That's how we could work out the evolution of each character," declares Raja Amari, writer and also director of "Eddowaha.

Tuesday, After Christmas

Tuesday, After Christmas(2010)
Director: Radu Muntean
Country: Romania
Runtime: 95




aul Hanganu married Adriana ten years ago. They have an eight year old daughter, Mara. For the past six months he has been involved in an extra-marital affair with Raluca, a twentyseven-year-old dentist.
Paul, who is struggling to find time for Raluca, for gift shopping and for his family, decides to take his daughter to the dentist one last time before Christmas. An unexpected change in Adriana's schedule brings the two women in the same room for the first time. The meeting forces Paul to face a difficult decision.

The Tree (L'arbre)

The Tree 2010 (L'arbre)
Directed by: Julie Bertucelli
Country: France | Australia
Runtime: 100 min



The O'Neills lived happily in their house in the Australian countryside. That was until one day fate struck blindly, taking the life of Peter, the father, leaving his grief-stricken wife Dawn alone with their four children. Among them, eight-year-old Simone denies this reality. She is persuaded that her father still lives in the giant fig tree growing near their house and speaks to her through its leaves. But the tree becomes more and more invasive and threatens the house. It must be felled. Of course, Simone won't allow...

To Die Like a Man

To Die Like a Man(2009)
Director:João Pedro Rodrigues
Country: Portugal/France
Runtime: 128



Once upon a time there was a war… In the darkness of the night, a young soldier goes AWOL.
Tonia, a veteran transsexual in Lisbon’s drag shows, watches the world around her crumble. The competition from younger artists threatens her star status.
Under pressure from her young boyfriend Rosário to assume her female identity, the sex change operation that will transform her into a woman, Tonia struggles against her deeply-held religious convictions. If, on the one hand, she wants to be the woman that Rosário so desires, on the other, she knows that before God she can never be that woman. And her son, whom she abandoned when he was a child, now a deserter, comes looking for her.
Tonia discovers that she’s ill. To get away from all her troubles she travels to the countryside with Rosário, on the excuse of visiting his brother. Rosário takes the road of his childhood but will never find the right way. Lost, they find themselves in an enchanted forest, a magical world where they come across the enigmatic Maria Bakker and her friend Paula.
And that meeting will turn their whole world on its head…

Kosmos

Kosmos (2010)
Directed by: Reha Erdem
Country: Turkey, Bulgaria
Runtime: 122



Kosmos is a thief who works miracles. He arrives in this timeless border town from the wilds weeping, as though a fugitive. No sooner is he there than he rescues a small boy from drowning in the river, and is recognized as a man who works miracles.

Kosmos, is a rather uncommon person. He never appears to eat nor sleep. His single form of nourishment is the granulated or lump sugar he consumes by the fistful. One of his more striking skills is the ability to scale the tallest trees with uncommon agility. He is also frank in declaring his wish that startles the townspeople: He is looking for love. Soon Kosmos and Neptun, the teenager sister of the rescued boy, grow closer in the most bizarre of ways: imitating the screech of birds in trees and on rooftops.