March Advisory Meeting Candidates

2007 Academy Award Nominated Shorts - Package of nominated live action and animated shorts

Air I Breathe, The - crime/drama - Jieho Le
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJoGY20nNhI
Four stories, representing the emotional principles of Love, Pleasure, Sorrow and Happiness, come together in this episodic drama from first-time director Jieho Lee. A powerful crime boss, Fingers (Andy Garcia), subtly controls the destinies of four people whose circumstances have brought them to a crossroads in their lives. A quiet business executive (Forest Whitaker) is told an upcoming horse race has been rigged and bets everything he has on his belief the story is true. A noted pop singer (Sarah Michelle Gellar) discovers her career is hanging in the balance when she's forced to sever ties with her manager. A doctor (Kevin Bacon) must set aside a physician's traditional guidelines when circumstances demand he treat the woman he loves after a serious accident. And a criminal (Brendan Fraser) has a powerful vision of the future, but can't decide if his premonitions are to be trusted. The Air I Breathe received its world premiere at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.

Beaufort – Action - joseph cedar
http://www.bavaria-filminternational.de/htmls/bfi/index.php?site=program_trailer&id=224
The title of Joseph Cedar's war drama Beaufort refers to the name of a fortress held by Israeli troops, during that country's contentious occupation of Lebanon from 1982-2000 - an effort that Israel roundly lost. The film itself opens at the tail end of that occupation. It follows Liraz Liberti, the then 22-year old leader of troops occupying Beaufort, as he and his subordinates come face to face with the necessity of withdrawal. As enemy fire bombards the fortress, Liraz recognizes that it will be necessary to evacuate, obliterating the structure that his men have spent two decades defending. Oshri Cohen, Itay Tiran, Eli Eltonyo and Ohad Knoller co-star.

Bonneville - comedy/drama - Christopher Rowley
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_BVjyPmSfwY
A woman looking to fulfill her late husband's final wish sets out on a transformative cross-country road trip in director Christopher N. Rowley's warmhearted tale of friendship, self-discovery, and the memories that make life worth living even after the ones we love have gone. Arvilla (Jessica Lange)'s husband Joe has recently died during a trip to Borneo, and his ashes have just arrived at her home in Pocatello, ID. Though Joe had previously specified in his will that he would like his ashes scattered by his beloved wife, the well-intending Arvilla soon becomes locked in a heated battle of wills with Francine (Christine Baranski) -- Joe's well-to-do daughter from a previous marriage. Francine is determined to see her father laid to rest next to her mother in Santa Barbara, and she's threatened to sell the house that her father and Arvilla have lived in since marrying to ensure that she gets her way. Now Arvilla has lost Joe's will, leaving no way to confirm either what he wanted done with his remains or what Arvilla is to receive upon her husband's death. Defeated, Arvilla sets her sights on Santa Barbara to surrender the ashes to Francine and attempt to come to terms with the loss of her husband. When Arvilla's sassy best-friend Margene (Kathy Bates) and uptight pal Carol (Joan Allen) agree to join their recently-widowed friend on her journey and offer some much-needed moral support, the trio soon sets out in Arvilla's vintage '66 Pontiac Bonneville for a journey of a lifetime.

Caramel – comedy - Nadine Labaki
http://youtube.com/watch?v=aPg_rNV_nVo
A Beirut beauty salon serves as a microcosm of modern society in director Labaki Nadine's look at liberated conversation in a conflicted society. Over the course of their day it becomes readily apparent that women are truly the same all over, regardless of the society they live in. While single Layale struggles with her growing attraction to a married man, Muslim bride-to-be Nisrine fears that her husband will find out that she has already lost her virginity, and Rima wages a futile war against her lesbian instructs. As with many women who frequent the salon, Jamale does everything within her power to reverse the visible effects of ageing. As Rose laments the fact that she had sacrificed her own happiness in order to care for her older sister, the intimate conversations shared over the course of a typical day reveals just how universal how the lives, loves, and concerns of contemporary women truly are.

Chicago 10 – documentary - Brett Morgan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqdM87_Lmv4
The Kid Stays in the Picture director Brett Morgen turns his unique eye toward the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in this 2006 documentary. Using a star-studded voice cast along with a blend of archival footage and animation, Morgen tells the story of the eight demonstrators who were arrested and tried for conspiracy in the wake of the violent anti-war protests. Featuring the voices of Nick Nolte and Mark Ruffalo among others, Chicago 10 premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

Chop Shop – drama - Ramin Bahrani
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fUjusA87QI
CHOP SHOP is the story of Alejandro (Alejandro Polanco), a twelve-year-old Latino street orphan in Willet’s Point, also known as the "Iron Triangle," a vibrant, sprawling, industrial neighborhood teeming with auto-body repair shops, scrap yards, and garbage dumps on the outskirts of Queens, New York. Alejandro, like many young boys in the area, works at one of the many auto body repair shops that line the street. Alejandro spends his days in an adult world, running errands, convincing customers to come to his boss's garage instead of a competitor's, and learning how to paint and repair cars. Although conditions are harsh, his life is sprinkled with moments of happiness as he carves out a life for himself in the wasteland of the Iron Triangle. The brightest of these moments is the arrival of his sister Isamar (Isamar Gonzales), who moves in with him in the tiny room that he has found for them perched in the back of the shop where he works. Knowing that creating a better life for the two of them is their best bet at staying together, Alejandro finds her a job in a food van cooking and selling meals to the workers in the Iron Triangle. With a mixture of childlike naiveté and adult ambition, Alejandro begins obsessively saving his money to buy a mobile-food van as the two dream about owning and running a small business of their own. But when their dream, and their loving relationship, is threatened by the hard truths of life, work, and one another, the children find themselves forced to make the kinds of difficult decisions that most adults never have to face.

City of Men - drama - Paulo Morelli
http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/cityofmen/
In CITY OF MEN, producer Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardner) returns to the Brazilian favelas of his Academy Award-nominated film, City of God. Growing up in a culture dictated by violence and run by street gangs, teenagers Acerola (Douglas Silva) and Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha) have become close as brothers. With their eighteenth birthdays fast approaching, Laranjinha sets out to find the father he never met, while Acerola struggles to raise his own young son. But when they suddenly find themselves on opposite sides of a gang war, the lifelong friends are forced to confront a shocking secret from their shared past.

CJ7 - comedy/scifi - Stephen Chow
http://www.sonyclassics.com/cj7/
Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle director Stephen Chow returns to the helm for this sci-fi comedy about a single father who thinks he has bought his son the perfect toy, and soon discovers that the truth about this "toy" is out of this world. Chinese newcomer Kitty Zhang Yuqi co-stars in a comedy produced by China Film Group and Stars Overseas, and released stateside by Sony Pictures Classics.

Constantine's Sword – documentary - Oren Jacoby
http://constantinessword.com/?page_id=7
Constantine's Sword, the latest film by Oscar-nominated documentarian Oren Jacoby, is an astonishing exploration of the dark side of Christianity, following acclaimed author and former priest James Carroll on a journey of remembrance and reckoning. Carroll, a National Book Award winner and columnist for the Boston Globe, is a practicing Catholic whose search for the truth leads him to confront persecution and violence in the name of God - today and in the Church's past. He discovers a terrible legacy that reverberates across the centuries- from the Emperor Constantine's vision of the cross as a sword and symbol of power, to the rise of genocidal antisemitism, to modern-day wars and conflicts sparked by religious extremism. At its heart, Constantine's Sword is a detective story, as Carroll journeys both into his own past - where he comes to terms with his father's role as a three-star General in the U.S. Air Force preparing for nuclear war - and into the wider world, where he uncovers evidence of church-sanctioned violence against Jews, Muslims, and others. Visiting the Air Force Academy, he and Jacoby expose how some evangelical Christians are proselytizing inside our country's armed forces and reveal the dangerous consequences of religious influence on American foreign policy. Warning of what happens when military power and religious fervor are joined, Constantine's Sword asks the timely question: Is the fanaticism that threatens the world today fueled by our own deeply held beliefs?

Counterfeiters, the - crime/drama - Stefan Ruzowitzky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch49HBf_aM8
Writer/director Stefan Ruzowitzky explores the moral corrosion of Nazi complicity with this tightly wound adaptation of Adolf Burger's fact-based book The Devil's Workshop. Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) may be a talented artist at heart, but his desire for wealth has driven him to use his creativity for more nefarious means. Arrested by the police inspector Herzog (Devid Striesow) at the onset of World War II, Sorowitsch is sent to the notorious Mauthausen concentration camp. It's not long before Salomon's thinly veiled opportunism earns him a relatively comfortable position as the camp's resident sketch artist, and five years later he is mysteriously swept away to Sachsenhausen. Upon arriving at the camp, Sorowitsch discovers that Herzog, now a commandant, is attempting to destabilize the economies of the Allies while simultaneously funding the Nazi war machine by assembling a special team of counterfeit artists to create millions in fraudulent pounds and dollars. As the operation gets under way, Sorowitsch finds the efforts of the team continually undermined by unyieldingly idealistic collotype specialist Adolf Burger (August Diehl). In the months that follow, the team wrestles with their consciences as Axis forces are gradually overwhelmed by Allied might. The Counterfeiters won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

The Duchess of Langeais – drama - Jacques Rivette
http://ifcfilms.com/viewFilm.htm?filmId=516
Antoinette is the Duchess of Langeais, a married coquette who frequents the most extravagant balls in 1820's Paris during The Restoration, where hypocrisy and vanity reign. Upon the handsome general, Armand de Montriveau's first meeting with her, he realized it was true love from that moment on. Flattered by his attentions, the alluring Antoinette orchestrates a calculating game of seduction, but she repeatedly refuses Montriveau. Despite his sincere romantic declarations, Montriveau's passion remains unfulfilled. When the humiliated Montriveau eventually seeks his revenge, Antoinette's love awakens. But it may well be too late for the star-crossed lovers.

Flawless – crime - Michael Radford
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0kMPJvjars
From director Michael Radford (THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, IL POSTINO) comes FLAWLESS, a clever diamond-heist thriller set in swinging 1960s London. Demi Moore plays Laura Quinn, a bright, driven and beautiful executive at the London Diamond Corporation who finds herself frustrated by a glass ceiling after years of faithful employment, as man after man is promoted ahead of her despite her greater experience. Michael Caine is Hobbs, the nighttime janitor at London Diamond who is virtually invisible to the executives that work there, but over the years has amassed a startling amount of knowledge about how the company runs. Hobbs has his own bone to pick with London Diamond. Observing Laura’s frustration, he convinces her to help him execute an ingenious plan to steal a hefty sum in diamonds. But unbeknownst to Laura, Hobbs plans go even farther than he’s let on, and together they set in motion a thrilling heist of dizzying proportions, the likes of which London has never seen.

Flight of the Red Balloon – drama - Hsiao-hsien Hou
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXcL4L6Nubo
A mysterious red balloon affectionately follows seven-year-old Simon around Paris. His mother Suzanne is a puppeteer who uses her vocal talents to bring life to the shows she writes. Completely absorbed in her new show, Suzanne becomes overwhelmed by the complications of modern daily life. She decides to hire Song Fang, a Taiwanese film student, to help her care for Simon.

Funny Games – horror - Michael Haneke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWOrMTKHLo0
Notoriously nihilistic filmmaker Michael Haneke revisits one of his most controversial works in this remake of 1997's Funny Games starring Naomi Watts and Tim Roth. When a family of three arrives at their remote summer cabin for a quiet getaway, the sudden arrival of two psychotic men sets the stage for a harrowing life-or-death struggle that offers savage commentary on the use of violence in entertainment.

Honeydripper - drama/musical - John Sayles
http://honeydripper-movie.com//trailer/
Iconoclastic filmmaker John Sayles, in his 16th feature film, continues his extraordinary examination of the complexities and shifting identities of American sub-cultures in the new film “Honeydripper.” With his usual understated intelligence, Sayles uses the rhythms of the citizens of Harmony, Alabama to immerse the audience into the world of the Jim Crow south. It’s a fable about the birth of rock n’ roll-a quintessentially American subject, but with a fidelity to time and temperament that is unusual in an American director.

How to Rob a Bank - comedy/crime - Andrews Jenkins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8dEmX9CuP4
Half of the fun of writer-director Andrew Jenkins' feature debut "a heist film that gets everything right about a crime that goes all too wrong" is keeping track of who is doing what to whom and why. Who is robbing the bank? What are they after? These are the simple elements that keep rearranging themselves as Jinx (Nick Stahl) and Jessica (Erika Christensen) find themselves trapped inside a vault, with bank-robber Simon (Gavin Rossdale), stuck on the other side of the vault door, and the police stuck outside the bank. A fresh, freewheeling take on a genre perennial, Jenkins' film playfully hits the reset button every time things seem to settle into place.

In Bruges – comedy - Martin McDonagh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G6W5CTaULw
Having just carried out a particularly difficult hit in London, two hit men seek shelter in Bruges, Belgium only find their views on life and death permanently altered by their interactions with the locals, the tourists, and a film crew. Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Finnes star in a action comedy from director Martin McDonagh.

Irina Palm – drama - Sam Garbarski
http://www.videodetective.com/titledetails.aspx?publishedid=109230
Legendary rocker Marianne Faithfull (of "As Tears Go By" and Broken English fame) stars in director Sam Garbarski's gently observed comedy-drama Irina Palm (2007). She portrays Maggie, a working-class quinquagenarian increasingly desperate to cover the cost of her ailing grandson's (Corey Burke) operation. When denied one loan and prospective job after another, a hopeless Maggie plunges headfirst into the underground skin trade of Soho London and prostitutes herself, under the aegis of new boss Mikky (Miki Manojlovic). Equipped with a new name, Irina Palm, Maggie begins working customers with a stimulatory technique so popular that patrons are soon lining up around the corner to be "serviced" by her.

Love For Sale – drama - Karim Ainouz
http://movies.go.com/trailer?cid=902761&vid=902762
After two years of living in São Paulo, Hermila returns to her village in northeastern Brazil with her newborn son, anxiously awaiting the arrival of her husband. Time passes slowly and the wait becomes an even heavier burden as she begins to realize that she`s been abandoned. Her distress increases as she renews a relationship with an old boyfriend before deciding that she doesn`t want to relive the past. Determined to raise enough money to escape her stifling hometown, she comes up with an unlikely prize to raffle off - one conceived during her chats with newfound friend and local prostitute, Georgina. Hermila adopts the name Suely, an act that distances her from her family and her past and signals the beginning of her journey toward new, open horizons.

Love Songs – musical - Christophe Honore
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s54vpKAFmS0
Christophe Honore further makes a case as one of the most exciting filmmakers of our generation with the exuberant and tender LOVE SONGS (LES CHANSONS D'AMOUR). A modern day musical told through unforgettable songs sung entirely by the cast and scored by Alex Beaupain, the film has overjoyed audiences at the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals while earning recognition in its native Country with four French Cesar nominations. In the hope of sparking their stalled relationship, Ismael (Louis Garrel of DANS PARIS, THE DREAMERS) and Julie (Ludivine Sagnier of SWIMMING POOL) enter a playful yet emotionally laced threesome with Alice (Clotilde Hesme of REGULAR LOVERS). When tragedy strikes, these young Parisians are forced to deal with the fragility of life and love. For Ismael, this means negotiating through the advances of Julie's sister (Chara Mastroianni of PERSEPOLIS) and a young college student (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet of STRAYED); one of which may offer him redemption.

Married Life - crime/drama - Ira Sachs
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z3CUH3826qA
After entering into a passionate affair with a much younger woman, an unhappily married man resorts to murder as a means of sparing his frigid wife the humiliation of divorce in director Ira Sachs' suspenseful film noir. Set in the 1940s, Marriage tells the tale of Harry (Chris Cooper) -- a man whose faithful but emotionally distant wife (Patricia Clarkson) has become all but impossible to love. Smitten by the beautiful Kay (Rachel McAdams) but ultra-sensitive to the shame associated with divorce, Harry opts to poison his wife as a means of allowing the marriage to end with her pride still intact. Harry's scheme soon goes horribly awry, however, when after revealing the plan to his best friend, Richard (Pierce Brosnan), Richard too falls in love with the ethereal young beauty and sets into motion a cunning plan all his own. A serpentine tale of murderous deception, Marriage was co-scripted by director Sachs and screenwriter Oren Moverman.

Miss Prettigrew Lives For a Day – comedy - Bharat Nalluri
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UsfT_NJdiA
A late-1930s era London governess hired to work in the home of a high-profile nightclub chanteuse gets a taste of the good life when she is assigned the task of sorting out the singer's many unseemly affairs in a period comedy starring Frances McDormand and adapted from the novel by Winifred Watson. Simon Beaufoy and David Magee co-author a screenplay directed by Bahrat Nalluri.

My Brother is an only Child – comedy - Daniele Luchetti
http://youtube.com/watch?v=DTERZXDwzOw
Growing up in small-town Italy during the '60s and '70s, brothers Accio (Elio Germano) and Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio) embody and celebrate opposing political stances, but share an impassioned love of the same woman that threatens to drive them to blows. Director Daniele Luchetti's political comedyMio fratello è figlio unico (AKA My Brother is an Only Child, 2007) observes the brothers over the course of fifteen years, against the ever-shifting backdrop of tumultuous Italian sociopolitical history. During that time span, the siblings' loyalties will fluctuate; they will endure arguments and quarrels, and find themselves separated by the ravages of time and circumstance and reunited magnetically by the wisdom of age. And in time, they will come to a firmer and clearer understanding of not only the differences but the similarities that they harbor.

Penelope - drama/comedy/fantasy - Mark Palansky
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472160/trailers
A magical story of a young woman, Penelope Wilhern (Christina Ricci) born to wealthy socialites but afflicted by a secret family curse in which the first-born girl will have a pig face. Believing that the only way to break the curse is to marry one of her own kind, she meets a number of suitors, but all reject her. Two devious men, one with a grudge against the family, hire a man to pose as a suitor, but complications arise when he begins to fall in love with Penelope, and she makes a bid for her freedom.

Praying with Lior – documentary - Ilana Trachtman
http://firstrunfeatures.com/trailers_lior.html
Ilana Trachtman's coming-of-age documentary is an engaging and deeply human portrait of young Lior Liebling, a child with Down syndrome who is as loving and playful as any boy you are likely to meet. His devotion to davening (prayer) and singing saturates his world with a love that is his manna--it multiplies and nourishes everyone. Lior cajoles his way into the hearts of his family, while we, too, are drawn closer to him as he navigates his daily life towards the bar mitzvah he has long anticipated and get to witness firsthand how the family and spiritual community he loves so much affirms the essence of the man Lior is becoming.

Romulus, My Father – drama - Richard Roxburgh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a7MoQVy41I
Longtime Australian actor Richard Roxburgh makes his directorial debut with this adaptation of Raimond Gaita's acclaimed memoir, adapted for the screen by poet Nick Drake and starring Eric Bana, Franka Potente, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Despite their hardships in life, Romulus (Bana) and his beautiful wife Christina (Potente) struggle to raise their son Raimond (Smit-McPhee) to the best of their abilities as father and son build an unbreakable bond that is only strengthened with the passing of time.

Run, Fat Boy, Run – comedy - David Schwimmer
http://www.runfatboyrunmovie.com/
A chunky, clueless guy leaves his fiancée on their wedding day only to discover -- some 10 years later -- that she is his one true love. But in order to win back her heart, he looks to finish his first marathon while making her realize her new man is the wrong guy for her.

Smart People – comedy - Noam Murro
http://www.smartpeople-themovie.com/
An unexpected romance with a charming former student (Sarah Jessica Parker) and a surprise visit from his wild adopted brother (Thomas Haden Church) conspire to turn the life of surly widowed professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) upside down. But after nursing his bitterness for so many years, is the self-absorbed academic ready for change? Ellen Page and Ashton Holmes co-star in this witty dramedy from director Noam Murro.

Snow Angels – drama - David Gordon Green
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luOsqLX5feY Director/screenwriter David Gordon Green adapts Stewart O'Nan's popular novel to the screen in this feature that tells the parallel tales of a teenager named Arthur, and his one-time babysitter Annie (Kate Beckinsale) - whose turbulent relationship with her estranged husband (Sam Rockwell) leads the small-town waitress down a troubled path.

Standard Operating Procedure – documentary - Errol Morris
Filmmaker Errol Morris (Gates of Heaven, The Thin Blue Line) takes an unflinching look at the Abu Ghraib prison scandal while meditating on the frightening side effects of the War on Terror in a thought-provoking documentary from Participant Productions (An Inconvenient Truth).

Sunflower – drama - Yang Zhang
The tumultuous relationship between a father returning home after years in a labor camp and the nine-year-old son who doesn't quite know what to make of this new man in his life lies at the heart of director Zhang Yang's heartfelt drama addressing the nature of change and the importance of family in Chinese culture. Chairman Mao has died and the Gang of Four have fallen, leaving former painter Gengnian (Sun Haiying) to return home to his wife, Xiuqing (Joan Chen), and the pair's nine-year-old son Xiangyang (Zhang Fan). His hands permanently damaged by the ravages of hard labor, Gengnian cannot return to painting, though his young son has shown an abundance of artistic promise. Troubled by the sudden presence of a father he has never known and rebelling against the path laid before him, Xiangyang ignites a firecracker in his hand in hopes that it may derail his artistic career. In the years that follow, Xiangyang's reputation as a talented artist grows while his relationship with his father remains forever troubled.

Taxidermia – drama - György Pálfi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV646KK9UVU&feature=related
A strange young man takes his family's long tradition of bizarre behavior to new heights (or depths) in this wildly perverse and explicit horror comedy from director Gyorgi Palfi. Kalman Balatony (Gergo Trocsanyi) is a grotesquely fat gentleman who was fathered by an angry hospital orderly getting revenge on his boss by having sex with his wife. While the embittered husband killed the orderly when he was caught in the act, Kalman was born as a result of the wife's indiscretion, and when he grows to adulthood he earns a modest fame as a competitive eating champion. At an eating contest, Kalman meets a female competitor, the freakish Gizi (Adel Stanczel), and the two fall in love. Kalman and Gizi marry, and she gives birth to a son, Lajos (Marc Bischoff), who grows up to be just as skinny as his parents are fat. Lajos studies taxidermy and takes up preserving animals as a career when he isn't busy taking care of his elderly and increasingly massive father. Lajos also raises a handful of unusually large house cats, and when they begin to turn on their master, Lajos uses his talents to keep them around the house without the danger of their bothering anyone. Taxidermia received its North American premier at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival.

Teeth – comedy - Mitchell Lichtenstein
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH8yuld4DUE
A high school student struggling to suppress her budding sexuality makes a startling discovery about her womanhood after becoming the victim of sexual violence in director Michael Lichtentenstein's semi-surreal exploration of the vagina dentate myth. Dawn (Jess Weixler) is a proud virgin and the most active member of her local chastity group. Though she struggles with every ounce of her willpower to resist the pleasures of the flesh, Dawn finds her noble efforts to remain chaste repeatedly challenged by her disturbed step-brother Brad - whose provocative advances are becoming increasingly difficult to resist. When Dawn is sexually assaulted and discovers that her vagina actually has teeth, she struggles to comprehend her anatomical anomaly while experiencing both the benefits and drawbacks of this strange new revelation.

Then She Found Me – drama - Helen Hunt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipjBhR7WEA
Adapted from Elinor Lipman's novel of the same name, Helen Hunt makes fer feature directing debut with THEN SHE FOUND ME, a touching story of schoolteacher April Epner (Hunt) and her very unlikely path towards personal fulfillment. Following the separation from her husband (Matthew Broderick) and the death of her adopted mother, April is contacted by her apparent birth mother (Bette Midler), who turns out to be a local talk show host Bernice Graves. As Bernice tries to become the mother to April that she was never able to be, April seems to find solace in the arms of the parent of one of her students (Colin Firth), only to find that the mystery to life's questions cannot be solved by a simple revelation.

Under the Same Moon – Drama - Patricia Riggen
http://www.foxsearchlight.com/underthesamemoon/
In her feature debut, Patricia Riggen offers a touching tale of the way the love between a mother and child can thrive and endure despite physical separation. In La Misma Luna (The Same Moon), Riggen gives us the parallel stories of nine-year-old Carlitos and his mother, Rosario. In the hopes of providing a better life for her son, Rosario works illegally in the U.S. while her mother cares for Carlitos back in Mexico

Unforeseen, The – documentary - Laura Dunn
http://theunforeseenfilm.com/blog/trailer/
An ambitious west Texas farm boy with grandiose plans tires of living at the mercy of nature and sets out to find a life with more control. He heads to Austin where he becomes a real estate developer and skillfully capitalizes on the growth of this 1970s boomtown. At the peak of his powers, he transforms 4,000 acres of pristine Hill Country into one of the state’s largest and fastest selling subdivisions. When the development threatens a local treasure, a fragile limestone aquifer and a naturally spring-fed swimming hole, the community fights back. In the conflict that ensues, we see in miniature a struggle that today plays out in communities across the country.

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden – documentary - Morgan Spurlock
http://whereisobl.com/
In his directorial follow-up to the breakthrough hit Super Size Me, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock gamely tries to one-up the U.S. government by finding Osama Bin Laden. The wry documentarian reportedly shot more than 800 hours of footage while scouring every nook and cranny of Afghanistan and the Middle East in pursuit of the infamous leader. The film had its much-anticipated world premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

year my parents went on vacation, the – drama - Cao Hamburger
http://www.oano.com.br/english/index.php
A twelve-year old Brazilian boy who longs to see his team win out over Italy in the 1970 World Cup match finds his entire world turned upside down as his left-wing parents are forced into hiding and he is sent to live with his grandfather in Sao Paulo's Bom Retiro district. Though his country is being held in the grip of a military dictatorship and the war in Vietnam is raging abroad, young Mauro can't seem to think about anything else but the upcoming World Cup match between Brazil and Italy. If Jairzinho, Pele, and company can just win their third World Cup title, team Brazil will earn their third star on the strip - a feat that no other team in the history of the sport has ever managed to accomplish. When his Catholic mother and Jewish father are suddenly forced to go "on holiday," young Mauro is swept out of his middle class existence in Minas Gerais and taken to stay with his paternal grandfather in bustling Bom Retiro. A multi-ethnic district in which Jews, Arabs, and Greeks all live side-by-side, Bom Retiro begins to heat up with World Cup fever as things both at home and abroad all seem to be spiraling towards disaster.

Young@Heart - documentary - Stephen Walker
http://www.foxsearchlight.com/index.php
The Young@Heart Chorus is a vocal group from Northampton, Massachusetts who have earned an international reputation for their unique interpretations of songs by Sonic Youth, the Ramones and the Clash. However, this isn't a teenage garage band attacking the classic punk rock songbook -- the Young@Heart Chorus is comprised of twenty-two senior citizens whose average age is eighty, and under director Bob Cilian they've gained a degree of fame for their enthusiastic a capella renditions of well-known rock and roll tunes. Filmmaker Stephen Walker spent several weeks with the members of the Young@Heart Chorus as they rehearsed for their annual concert in Northampton, and Young@Heart is a documentary which offers a look at their rigorous rehearsal process, the background of several members, and their efforts to stay active and think positive, even as their friends succumb to old age. Produced for British television, Young@Heart was screened in competition at the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival.