Viudas (2011)

Viudas (2011)

Director: Marcos Carnevale 
 Country: Argentina
Runtime: 100 min







 Widows will tell the story that begins when a woman (Borges) receives a call that tells about the terrible accident suffered by her husband. In desperation, the lady comes to the scene and found her husband dying in the arms of a much younger woman. You will discover the double life of his partner and enter into a relationship with her lover captive in the context of a black comedy.

Stuck on Christmas (2010)

Stuck on Christmas (2010)

Director: Iulia Rugina
Country: Romania
Runtime: 37 minutes







It's Christmas Eve in a small mountain train station and no train is coming since all the tracks are blocked with snow. Four people are waiting for a train that doesn't show up. They don't know each other, how long it's going to take or if they will ever reach their destinations. But as the hours pass, Madalina, Cristi, Ozana, Alex share the absurd, the despair and the hope. Because they are accidentally stuck here. Because no one knows when it will end. And because it's Christmas.

Seawards Journey (2003)

Seawards Journey (2003)

Director: Guillermo Casanova 
Country: Uruguay-Argentina
Runtime:73min

It's a Sunday morning 1963 in a bar in a town of Minas. Rataplan, the sweeper, Quintana, the undertaker, Seven and Three Ten, the seller of lottery Aquino and her dog, waiting for Rodriguez, who's going to take you to see the sea for the first time.The Basque, his foreman, reluctantly accompanies them. Fresh from the capital, an elegant Unknown joins the entourage at the last minute. Along the journey, the sun, in the ramshackle truck Rodriguez, the six characters will reveal his particular way of living and feeling surrounded by green landscapes of the mountains to the coast and the unknown sea ...
The trip to the Sea is based on the story of the same name of the author Juan José Morosoli Minuano, first published in 1952. Uruguayan director Guillermo Casanova (with the collaboration of Julio Cesar Castro "Juceca" in the dialogues) made this kind of "road movie" Creole on six characters starting from a small town in the interior to meet the sea.
For the filming, the team consisting of about 50 people, including technicians and actors, he moved to the city of Minas, the capital of the Department of Lavalleja to 122 km from Montevideo on Route 8.In the first four weeks were filmed scenes involving landscapes Lavalleja saws and locations in the cities of Mines and Aiguá Maldonado, 153 km from Montevideo with reconstruction of the Route 13 era (the film is set in 1963) . In the last week were shot in Atlantis Mdeo 45 km. Route Interbalnearia, Costa Azul and Parque del Plata, the scenes of the resort and the beach.
The journey to the sea was one of the awards in 1999 FONA also support Ibermedia Program in 2001. It is the first feature film by Guillermo Casanova, and it has won the top prize at the 29th Latin American Film Festival of Huelva and a special prize of the Official College of Architects of Huelva.

The First Grader (2010)

The First Grader (2010)

 Director: Justin Chadwick
 Country:  Kenya
Runtime: 103 min




In a small, remote, mountaintop primary school in the Kenyan bush, hundreds of children are jostling for a chance for the free education newly promised by the Kenyan government. One applicant causes astonishment when he knocks on the door of the school. He is Maruge (Oliver Litondo), an old Mau Mau veteran in his 80s, who is desperate to learn to read at this late stage of his life. He fought for the liberation of his country and now feels he must have the chance at the education so long denied—even if it means sitting in a classroom alongside six-year-old children.
Moved by his passionate plea, head teacher Jane Obinchu (Naomie Harris) supports his struggle to gain admission, and together they face fierce opposition from parents and officials who don't want to waste a precious school place on such an old man.
Full of vitality and humor, the film explores the remarkable relationships Maruge builds with classmates some 80 years his junior. Through Maruge's journey, we are taken back to the shocking untold story of British colonial rule 50 years earlier, when Maruge fought for the freedom of his country and eventually ended up in the extreme and harsh conditions of the British detention camps.
The First Grader is a heartwarming and inspiring true story of one man's fight for what he believes is his right in order to overcome the burdens of his past. It is a triumphant testimony to the transforming force of education.

Pumzi (2009)

Pumzi (2009)
Director:Wanuri Kahiu
Country: South Africa | Kenya
Runtime:21 min

 

Pumzi, Kenya’s first science fiction film, imagines a dystopian future 35 years after water wars have torn the world apart. East African survivors of the ecological devastation remain locked away in contained communities, but a young woman in possession of a germinating seed struggles against the governing council to bring the plant to Earth’s ruined surface.

Filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu takes her sci-fi short Pumzi to Sundance this year.
Photo: Chris King

The short film, which will compete in screen at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, “started off as a small script about what kind of world we would have to be if we had to buy fresh air,” writer/director Wanuri Kahiu told Wired.com in a Skype interview.
Like recent standouts District 9 and Sleep Dealer, the short film taps into Third World realities and spins them forward for dramatic effect. But to produce Pumzi, Kahiu looked to the past, as well as the future.
She researched classic 1950s films to create her movie’s futuristic sets, comparing the processes of matte painting and rear-screen projection with indigenous African artwork.
“We already have a tradition of tapestries and functional art and things like that, that loan a backdrop for films,” Kahiu said.
Made with grant money from Focus Features’ Africa First short film program, the Goethe Institut and the Changamoto arts fund, Pumzi will share the screen with two other films as part of Sundance’s New African Cinema program.
Mentors from Focus Features introduced Kahiu to South African producers, including Simon Hansen, who worked with Neill Blomkamp on Alive in Joburg, the predecessor to last year’s sci-fi smash District 9. Kahiu said she hopes Blomkamp’s blockbuster will attract attention to other African films.

Kenya, frequently used for location shooting, boasts experienced crews but little funding. “You just hustle,” Kahiu said. “There is no set funding option. You borrow against banks, you do anything that you can to make your film.”
Distribution is another difficulty. While Kahiu hopes to offer Pumzi online, the Kenyan infrastructure is too underdeveloped to effectively distribute the film in her country. Meanwhile, directors in the country have been watching the prolific film community in neighboring Nigeria for inspiration.
“Nollywood has its own distribution network and Kenya is slowly copying and picking up that very grass-roots distribution route,” Kahiu said.
Focus Features granted Kahiu complete control of her film. After producing commissions for African networks and retaining no rights, she helped create Dada Productions. Her first feature-length movie, From a Whisper, a dramatization built around the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, garnered five African Academy Movie Awards.
Kahiu’s future plans include expanding Pumzi to feature length as well as nurturing her local film community.
“I would like to work and build an industry, so that everyone walks away well-paid, with great hours,” Kahiu said. “Just a humane society, of sorts.”

Blood in the Mobile

Blood in the Mobile

 Director: Frank Piasechi Poulsen
country: Denmark
runtime: 82 minutes

A dramatic document about an impossible mission of the Danish documentary filmmaker, Frank Piasecki Poulsen, and his search for the carefully hidden dark secrets of the highly civilized Western society. A dynamic documentary style turns this film into a suspenseful thriller whose main character is the author himself. Extremely bravely, exposing himself to drastic risks and dangers, and with a surprising persistence, Frank Piasecki Poulsen follows the roads of the blood minerals that are the essential material for cell phone components. Unmasking hypocrisy of the leading European multinational companies, the author discovers a shocking mechanism of the contemporary society. Commercials, as representations of the ideal beauty, incessantly try to convince us that the modern hi-tech merchandise has been created in completely controlled processes that guarantee both environmental and our own safety. Aiming to awake our conscience and critical thinking, this film directly discovers that the situation is often drastically different. A magnificent example of complete devotion and commitment, this documentary takes us from one part of the world to another, from the most dangerous dark depths of Africa, to the highest pinnacles of the developed Europe.

Selector's word: I think about it every time I take my cell phone. It is a terrible thought. Provoked by this film that is such an achievement by the director. Courageous it is from the side of the director, to be admired, it is far beyond normal investigative journalism, it is made with a heart and a true indignation. Sometimes interviews, sometimes visually and emotionally stunning sequences when he goes down into hell.

Frank Piasecki Poulsen

Graduated at The National Film School of Denmark in 2001. Before entering the Film School he worked at a local TV network in Copenhagen. After graduation, he have been working as director, photographer and scriptwriter, primarily for DR TV. The themes of his work include youth, politics and third world issues. Therefore he has travelled all around the world – especially to Africa. Works on establishing a departmant for international documentary production in the production company “Koncern Film og TV A/S”.

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY

DISOBEDIENCE.DK (Ulydighed.dk), 2002
EUROPE AT STAKE, 2003
GUERILLA GIRL, 2005
SEDUCER'S FALL (Forforerens Fald), 2008
BLOOD IN THE MOBILE (Blod i Mobilen), 2010

Late Bloomers (2011)

Late Bloomers (2011)

 Director: Julie Gavras
 Country: France | Belgium 
Runtime:88 minutes




 This is the story of Adam and Mary, a man and a woman who are deeply in love whilst everything conspires to drive them apart. In spite of their feelings for one another, they are compelled to separate so that they can later come back together and form a harmonious couple. Contrary to what you might think, Adam and Mary are not your usual twenty or thirty somethings. They are pushing sixty and yet still have something to learn about life and love...

He Who Must Die (1957)

He Who Must Die (1957)

Dir: Jules Dassin
Country: France
Runtime: 122 min 

Synopsis

In the 1920s, with Greece is under Turkish occupation, the inhabitants of a small town are making preparations for the annual Passion play.  Manolios, a shepherd with a crippling stammer is cast as Jesus, whilst a prostitute is given the role of Mary Magdalene.  The town is visited by a convoy of refugees from a neighbouring village which was sacked by the Turks.  Fearing that any show of kindness towards these refugees will upset the delicate peace with the Turks, the town’s patriarch has them driven away.  The idealistic Manolios manages to convince some of the townspeople to have pity on the refugees, and one man, Michelis, allows them to stay on land inherited from his father.  Furious, the patriarch persuades his Turkish masters to deal with Manolios and his misguided followers…


 Celui qui doit mourir was the second film that director Jules Dassin made in France – after the influential noir masterpiece Du rififi chez les homes (1955).  At the time, Dassin was effectively forced into exile in Europe to escape anti-Communist persecution that was rampant across the United States in the 1950s.  Despite being one of his lesser known films, Celui qui doit mourir stands as one of Dassin’s most ambitious and humanist works – a powerful, intensely ironic retelling of the Gospel in 1920s Greece, based on novel “Christ Recrucified” by Nikos Kazantzakis.

The film features some notable actors of the period, including Jean Servais, Maurice Ronet and Gert Fröbe, as well as Dassin’s wife-to-be, Melina Mercouri.  However, it is Pierre Vaneck who is most memorable, as the sympathetic hero destined for the (metaphorical) crucifix.  Dassin combines his own natural film noir style with some shades of neo-realism, making this a pretty hard-edged, unsentimental morality drama (with a few suggestions of black comedy along the way).   The moral of the film is that human beings never learn and are destined to repeat the errors of the past, but there is also more than a hint of anti-Church mockery.  The film’s central irony – which Dassin draws out so well – is that it is those who are most familiar with the teachings of Christ who end up rejecting and then executing a second Christ.

The Monk (2011) Le moine

The Monk (2011) Le moine

Director: Dominik Moll
Country: Spain | France
Runtime: 1 hour, 36 minutes



 A well respected monk, Capucino Ambrosio compromises himself with his carnal lust for a pupil, a woman disguised as a monk, she tempts the monk to transgress and he is soon found desiring another, the innocent Antonia. Matilda uses magic spells to help the monk in his pursuit of Antonia, whom he later rapes and kills. It later emerges that Matilda is an instrument of Satan in female form. Focus also is also shone on Antonia's previous relationship with Lorenzo, whose sister is tortured by hyprocritical nuns for her own relationship. Returning to Ambrosio, he is delivered to the Inquisition; escaping only by selling his soul to the devil. The devil prevents Ambrosio's final repentance, and informs Ambrosio that Antonia is the monk's sister.

Black Butterflies (2011)

Black Butterflies (2011)

Director: Paula van der Oest
Country: Germany | Netherlands | South Africa
Runtime: 1 hour, 35 minutes



Ingrid Jonker lived an impossible contradiction, writing heart-rending poetry about being a woman of privilege living under apartheid rule, all the while dealing with pressure from the head of the censorship board, a man who also happened to be her father. “Black Butterflies” is the story of how Jonker, a woman with unending sexual cravings and a noted mental imbalance, managed to cope with this dichotomy. In the opening, the least poetic of a number of unconvincing metaphors writ large, Jonker is saved from drowning by handsome publisher Jack Cope, an older gentleman who immediately falls for the leggy writer. What he doesn’t know is that her self-abuse, due to living under the rule of her oppressive, emotionally-abusive father, has fractured her personality. She is not the creator she becomes when she puts pen to paper, but rather a little girl seeking stimulation (which she chases in a number of unavailable men) and hoping for the approval of her father (an impossibility).