ദി കാറ്റ്സ് ഓഫ് മിറി കിടാനി

Cats of Mirikitani(2006)
Documentary
Dir;Linda Hattendorf
Country;USA
Documentary about red-bereted Jimmy Mirikitani, a feisty painter working and living on the street, near the World Trade Center, when 9/11 devastates the neighborhood. A nearby film editor, Linda Hattendorf, persuades elderly Jimmy to move in with her, while seeking a permanent home for him. The young woman delves into the California-born, Japan-raised artist's unique life which developed his resilient personality, and fuel his 2 main subjects, cats and internment camps. The editor films Jimmy's remarkable journey.

New York documentary filmmaker Linda Hattendorf should be proud of what she did in filming Asian-American artist Jimmy Mirikitani, his paintings, and his telling the stories of his life of living in an internment camp during World War II. This Sacramento-born, Hiroshima-raised artist is frank and occasionally profane in his feelings of what the American government had done to him especially when he had to sign his U. S. citizenship away, which explains why he initially refuses Social Security. Taking place before and after 9/11, Mirikitani experiences some deja vu when he watches television reports of Arab-Americans being treated like second-class citizens. But with Linda's help, he also talks on the phone with his sister who he lost contact with during the war and discovers a poet daughter of a cousin named Janice, who lives in San Francisco. He also gets his own apartment and starts teaching an art class. The most touching scenes come at the end when he and Linda travel back to where he was interned at Tule Lake. Essential viewing for anyone wanting to know how narrow-minded the American government was during World War II and how far we've come since then. Oh, and the title refers to the many cats he paints.

ആന്‍ ആര്‍മി ഓഫ് വണ്‍

An Army of One(2010)
Documentary
Dir;Guillaume Coudray
Country;France

I came to Vilnius as a young man ten years ago to work with Lithuanian master filmmaker Šarūnas Bartas. I wanted to discover what made Bartas’s films so exceptional, how he achieved his unique balance of visual contemplation and dissolved narration. I lived in a corner of his “studio”, an old wooden house in the middle of the forest, and little by little began to get inside his elusive creative process, but I always felt that I was missing the big picture. In order to put the pieces together, I needed to come back. —Guillaume Coudray

ദി ഹൌസ് ഓഫ് ബ്രാഞ്ചിംഗ് ലവ്

The House of Branching Love(2009)
Dir:Mika kaurismaki
Country:Finland

Tuula, the wife, and Juhani, the husband, are a nice couple living in a nice house. He is a family therapist and she conducts motivational business seminars. Both are successful professionals, and both expect to have an amicable separation and divorce once they made the decision to break up the marriage. They start with Juhani moving his bed into another room and the two setting up rules to manage living in the same house until the divorce finalizes.

ഷികോ സേവിഎര്‍

Chico Xavier(2010)
Dir:Daniel Filho
Country:Brazil

It's a quite hard work to portrait the essence of Chico Xavier's life. Although he lived 92 years and psycho-graphed more than 400 books, Chico Xavier's life was, above all superlatives, an example of charity, love to his fellowman, resignation, patience and true Christian humbleness. Not even his written works are more important than his example as a good man.

The movie, based on Marcel Souto Maior's best-seller As Vidas de Chico Xavier (The Lives of Chico Xavier), portraits his life from the age of 9 (performed by the incredible boy-actor Matheus Costa) until his adulthood. Ângelo Antonio performs Chico Xavier as young man and Nelson Xavier (no parenthood, by the way) performs the character as a mature/old man. It's quite poignant to see how Chico Xavier was misunderstood during his childhood and and throughout his life. As a boy he was called "the haunted kid", lunatic and lier. Such "fame" would result in terrible beatings by his father and godmother (who took care of him after the death of his beloved mother). As a young man he was persecuted and accused of mystification, despite having given his entire life to ease the pain of many families who lost their loved ones.

Daniel Filho's direction is discreet. He opted to tell the story without special effects (had every reasons to use them) or great cinematographic tricks. His direction is secure, almost linear, but resulted in a great effect, since it never conflicts or steals the spotlights from the most important figure of the movie, Chico Xavier itself. Egbert Gismonti's musical score is superb, fusing traditional religious songs with sounds of nature, involving the scenes with a magical and emotional atmosphere at the same time. Marcos Bernstein's screenplay is correct but fails a bit when leaves many important facts out of the final script. Nonato Estrela's cinematography is good, although a little dark in many sequences of the movie.

Concerning the cast, the movie has the amazing performance of Nelson Xavier, which resemblance to the character itself is creepy. He gives the character a suave/humorous without exaggerating in any time. Ângelo Antonio shows an insecure and naive Chico Xavier in his younger days and Matheus Costa plays the role with all its suffering and feeling of incomprehension. Ana Rosa as Carmen shows how to make bigger a bit participation. Tony Ramos and Cristine Torloni are pure emotion, André Dias as Emmanuel (Chico Xavier's spiritual guide) plays his role with great dignity and Pedro Paulo Rangel as Father Scarzelo gives a show-stopping performance making his character to explode on the silver screen.

For all those above reasons I do recommend the movie. For those who, like me, met him in person and for those who still do not know him, this movie is a great opportunity to get to know who was Chico Xavier, a man called love! ....imdb

ഹൌ ഐ സെലെബ്രെറ്റെദ് ദി എന്‍ഡ് ഓഫ് ദി വേള്‍ഡ്

How I Celebrated the End of the World(2006)
Dir:Catalin Mitulescu
Country:Romania
2 wins See more »

Bucharest 1989 - The last year of Ceausescu's dictatorship. Eva lives with her parents and her 7-year-old brother Lalalilu. She is 17 years old, very attractive and caught up in the turmoil of falling in love for the first time while struggling to come of age. Eva has a secret dream she shares only with her brother : escaping from Romania and travelling the world. Lalalilu is devastated at the idea of losing his sister. With Tarzan and Silvica, his best friends from school, he devises a secret plan to kill the dictator so that Eva can stay and live in a free country.

"How I Celebrated the End of the World," explains Catalin Mitulescu, "reflects this blend of sadness and joy, reality and fantasy which I associate with this period of dictatorship. This film is a tragicomedy with touches the absurd and the sublime. It expresses all the emotion of those bleak days in Romania and gives an idea of what we retain in ourselves, my generation and myself, in this new world which we have entered. The film is also a homage, not only to all those who had the courage to rise up against the dictatorship, but also those who, like our parents, fell silent and endured, out of fear that something might befall their loved ones."

ഹൌ മച് ഫര്തെര്‍

How Much Further aka que tan lejos(2006)
Dir:Tania Hermida
Country: Ecuador
2 wins & 2 nominations See more »

Esperanza and Tristeza both have to get to Cuenca. However, by an unlucky turn of events, the bus they are on gets delayed due to a worker strike. Taking their journey into their own hands, they decide to hitchhike to Cuenca. Along the way they meet interesting characters who help them re-evaluate the purpose of their journey

ലെസ്ബിയന്‍ ഷോര്‍ട്ട് ഫിലിംസ്

The Ultimate Lesbian Short Film Festival(2006)
"The Ultimate Lesbian Short Film Festival" featuring 10 short films full of intrigue, fantasy, suspense, and of course, sex! Short films include: Dani & Alice, A Woman Reported, Frozen Smile, everything Good, Saint Henry, Blow, Transit, Half Laughing, Tina Paulina: Living on Hope Street and The Black Plum.

ലണ്ടന്‍ റിവര്‍

London River(2009)
Dir:Rachid Bouchareb
Country:Algeria
2 wins & 1 nomination See more »



After traveling to London to check on their missing children in the wake of the 2005 terror attack on the city, two strangers come to discover their respective children had been living together at the time of the attacks

മരിലെന ഫ്രം പി 7

Marilena from P7(2006)
Dir:Cristian Nemescu
Country:Romania
Short film
4 wins See more

Andrei, a 13-year-old teenager living at the outskirts of Bucharest, decides one day to steal a bus in order to impress Marilena, a prostitute he fell in love with. Things you do for love? ?Marilena from P7 plunges into the universe of teenage emotions that we all remember. It is a study on the ? sometimes small, sometimes big ? reasons that make us turn from children into teenagers. The story takes place in the ?exotic? outskirts of Bucharest, and the background is peopled with many authentically racy characters. Besides telling the story, the film also makes a cross-section of the life in the suburbs of Bucharest at the beginning of the 21st century, with no intervention whatsoever on most of the locations and extras. The hand held camera shooting style offers the opportunity to capture details and genuine background elements that enforce the ?documentary? atmosphere of the movie?

ദി ഹൌസ് മെയിഡ്

The Housemaid(2010)
Cannes official selection 2010
Dir:Sang-soo Im
Country:South Korea


Eun-yi, a middle-aged divorcee, is hired as an upper class family housemaid. But soon enough, master of the house Hoon takes advantage of his social position by slipping into her sheets. Hoon's visits become frequent and Byung-sik, an old housemaid, reports the affair to Hae-ra's mother, Mi-hee, who plots to give Hae-ra the control over her husband. Soon Eun-yi miraculously becomes pregnant and wants to keep the baby. This is discovered by the family and she's forced to have an abortion by Mi-hee despite Eun-yi's plea to let her keep the baby and leave the house. Mi-hee's plot backfires when Hoon scrutinizes her for terminating his child, even if that child is conceived illegitimately. Her forced abortion turns Eun-yi's mental condition for the worst and she decides to take the matter into her own hands.