A Screaming Man

A Screaming Man(2010)
Director: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Country: France, Belgium, Chad
Runtime: 90 Min

Present-day Chad. Adam, sixty something, a former swimming champion, is pool attendant at a smart N'Djamena hotel. When the hotel gets taken over by new Chinese owners, he is forced to give up his job to his son Abdel. Terribly resentful, he feels socially humiliated. The country is in the throes of a civil war. Rebel forces are attacking the government. The authorities demand that the population contribute to the "war effort", giving money or volunteers old enough to fight off the assailants. The District Chief constantly harasses Adam for his contribution. But Adam is penniless; he only has his son...

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.

Bibliothèque Pascal

Bibliothèque Pascal (2010)
Director: Szabolcs Hajdu
Country: Germany | Hungary | UK | Romania
Runtime: 111min


In order to regain custody of her daughter, whom she left in the care of her fortune-telling aunt, Mona must tell a social worker her story. The tale she spins---and the movie we watch---is a wild, surreal adventure in which people are able to project and enter each other's dreams, and our heroine is sold into slavery and lands in a swank, debauched Liverpool brothel where the patrons enact their literary/sexual fantasies with Lolita, St. Joan, and Desdemona. Rendered with dazzling tracking shots, striking CGI effects and a pulsing soundtrack, Hungarian director Szabolcs Hajdu's risk-taking fantasia has style to spare. But under the seductive surface lurks the very human story of a woman who uses fantasy to cushion the pain of life.

Somewhere

Somewhere(2010)
Director:Sofia Coppola
Country:USA

Runtime: 97 min





Hollywood actor Johnny Marco, nested in his luxury hotel of choice, is a stimulated man. Drinking, parties and women keep a creeping boredom under wraps in between jobs. He is the occasional father of a bright girl, Cleo, who may be spoiled but doesn't act it. When Cleo's mother drops her off and leaves town, Johnny brings her along for the ride, but can he fit an 11-year-old girl into his privileged lifestyle? Written by Peter Brandt Nielsen

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
Dir:Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Country: Thailand
Runtime: 113

Uncle Boonmee is suffering from kidney failure. As an avid practitioner of Yoga, he is well aware of his body. He knows that he will die in 48 hours. He feels his illness must be related with his bad karma. He has killed too many communists, he says. Boonmee calls his distant relatives to take him back from hospital to die at home, a longan farm. There, they are greeted by the ghost of his deceased wife who has re-appeared to take care of him. His lost son also returns from the jungle in an ape-like form. The son has mated with a creature known as a ‘monkey ghost’ and has lived in the trees with her for the past 15 years. On the first night, Boonmee talks about his past lives that he remembers. On a second night, while the ghost wife is doing his kidney dialysis, Boonmee has a sudden urge to visit a place she has mentioned. So the group takes a journey into the jungle at night. It is full of animals and spirits. They finally reach a cave on top of the hill. Boonmee realizes that this is the cave in which he was born in the first life that he can remember. Then he passes away, taking with him tales that span hundreds of years. (The Match Factory)