Alexandra
drama
Aleksandr Sokurov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lb9yAwrxmE&feature=related
Though Russian director Alexander Sokurov's feature Alexandra unfolds against the backdrop of military life, it constitutes a stark and deliberate chamber drama in lieu of a war picture. Alexandra Nikolaevna (Galina Vishnevskaya) is an elderly woman with a grandson, Denis (Vasily Shevtsov), conscripted into the army of the Chechen Republic. When she makes the arduous journey to visit him, the startling nature of military life as it unfolds before her eyes -- the absence of women, the blind acceptance of amenities that so many take for granted, the emotional inexpressiveness -- completely bewilders her and introduces her to a world infinitely more alien than any she has ever experienced.
Bigger Stronger Faster*
documentary
Chris Bell
In the hopes of exploring American culture's increased obsession with winning, documentary filmmaker Christopher Bell examines the anabolic steroid use of his two brothers. After setting the stage with a look at the cultural backdrop of the 1980s -- in which hulky stars like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger were the ideal -- Bell illustrates how he and his brothers became involved in the bodybuilding subculture, eventually discovering the brutal truth that success in the lifestyle of pumping iron demanded the use of steroids.
Brick Lane
drama
Sarah Gavron
http://www.sonyclassics.com/bricklane/
“Brick Lane” is the story of a beautiful young Bangladeshi woman, Nazneen (Chatterjee), who arrives in 1980s London, leaving behind her beloved sister and home, for an arranged marriage and a new life. Trapped within the four walls of her flat in East London, and in a loveless marriage with the middle aged Chanu (Kaushik), she fears her soul is quietly dying. Her sister Hasina (Zafreen), meanwhile, continues to live a carefree life back in Bangladesh, stumbling from one adventure to the next. Nazneen struggles to accept her lifestyle, and keeps her head down in spite of life's blows, but she soon discovers that life cannot be avoided - and is forced to confront it the day that the hotheaded young Karim (Simpson) comes knocking at her door.
Children of Huang Shi
drama/history
Roger Spottiswoode
http://www.sonyclassics.com/thechildrenofhuangshi/trailer.html
As China is ravaged by war in the late '30s, a young Englishman named George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) leads 60 orphans over the Liu Pan Shan mountains and into the safety of the Mongolian desert in this drama scripted by Jane Hawksley and directed by Roger Spotiswoode. Based on actual events, this Chinese/Australian/German co-production also stars Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, and Radha Mitchell.
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?
Encounters at the End of the World
documentary
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog, director of such acclaimed documentaries as Grizzly Man and Little Dieter Needs to Fly, offers his unique perspective on the South Pole in this film profiling the Antarctic community of McMurdo Station. Located on Ross Island, McMurto Station is the headquarters of the National Science Foundation. Whether offering a detailed study of the unique survival training regiment that newcomers to McMurdo are obligated to endure or pondering the majestic beauty of a landscape where the discovery of three new species in a single day is nothing to get excited about, Herzog boldly offers viewers the opportunity to visit a one of the most inaccessible and awe-inspiring landscapes on the planet.
The Fall
adventure/fantasy
Tarsem Singh
http://www.roadsideattractions.com/Catalog/Trailer.asp?BusinessUnitID={3134273E-EA18-4451-AC2B-40C0CC73ED2D}&ProjectID={03422108-6027-4F09-B74A-4EFA02F1C2EF}
Visually minded filmmaker Tarsem Singh returns to the director's chair for the first time since 2000's The Cell with this psychologically complex tale of a hospitalized paraplegic with a curious knack for storytelling. Unable to free himself from his sterile confines, the immobile patient's deepest fears form the basis of a dark story that he shares with his young companion. As the eerie story unfolds, reality and fantasy gradually merge to form a strange world in which anything is possible.
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.
Fugitive Pieces
drama
Jeremy Podeswa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slRbiet9jR4
Author Anne Michaels's poetic novel comes to the screen courtesy of director Jeremy Podeswa in this period drama concerning a Holocaust survivor who remains eternally haunted by the uncertain fate of his beloved sister. Athos (Rade Sherbedgia) is an archeologist conducting a dig in Nazi-occupied Poland. When Athos discovers a seven-year-old boy named Jakob (Robbie Kay) hiding near the work site, he smuggles the frightened boy back to Greece and promises to shelter him when the Nazis come knocking there as well. Having previously witnessed the brutal massacre of his family at the hands of Hitler's henchmen, Jakob longs to find out what fate befell his sister, Bella (Nina Dobrev) -- who wasn't executed with the majority of his other relatives but subsequently disappeared without a trace. After the war, Athos and Jakob emigrate to Toronto in hopes of starting a new life. But even after all these years, Jakob (Stephen Dillane) can't seem to shake the grief of losing his family and not knowing what ever became of Bella. Later, when Jakob marries the radiant Alex (Rosamund Pike), the bright-eyed beauty does her best to illuminate the dark corners within her husband's soul. To maintain one's connection to ghosts requires a certain shunning of the living, however, and only when Jakob discovers the strength to let go of his painful past will he finally be able to move forward into the future.
A Jihad for Love
documentary
Parvez Sharma
This is the first feature-length film to explore the complex global intersections of Islam and homosexuality. Filmed in 12 countries and 9 languages, this daring documentary by Muslim gay filmmaker Paarvez Sharma brings to life the hidden and joften dangerous paths many gay and lesbian Muslims must follow in countried hwere laws based on Quranic interpretations are enforced by authorities to monitor, entrap, imprison, torture and even execute homosexuals.
Last Mistress
drama
Catherine Breillat
Catherine Breillat's adaptation of An Old Mistress stars Fu'ad Ait Aatou as Ryno de Marigny, and Asia Argento as Vellini, two lovers in 19th century Paris. The two have been passionately involved for nearly a decade, but de Marigny attempts to end their relationship now that he is engaged to Hermangarde (Roxane Mesquida), a respectable young woman. As the bride-to-be's grandmother forces de Marigny to confront his past as a notorious womanizer, the film flashes back to reveal the intense decade the lovers shared. Although de Marigny appears to want to shut Vellini out forever, her passions may be far too much for him to deny.
Mister Foe
drama/comedy
David MacKenzie
http://misterfoemovie.com/
With Hallam Foe, British director Peter MacKenzie and scripter Ed Whitmore adapt the 2002 roman of the same name, a quirky, bittersweet, coming-of-age psychodrama by Peter Jinks. The character of the title is the 17-year-old son (Jamie Bell) of a wealthy Scotch businessman father (Ciaran Hinds). Still rattled by the death of his mom (who drowned in a nearby loch), Hallam retreats into a deep-seated fantasy world. He harbors amorous feelings for his new stepmother Verity (Claire Forlani) until he gradually concludes that she murdered his biological mother. Hallam nonetheless lets himself be seduced into an affair with Verity, and is so repulsed by this transpiration that he flees to Edinburgh. His life turns a corner, however, when he spots - and instantly becomes infatuated with - Kate (Sophia Myles), a local girl who bears an uncanny resemblance to his mother. After he talks her into giving him a routine job in the kitchen of the hotel that she manages, they become romantically involved, ever so gradually, which spells trouble for Hallam's emotional state by thoroughly overwhelming and confusing him -- and deeper trouble still still when Kate's married lover (Jamie Sives) discovers that Hallam has been spying diligently on Kate from his perch in a nearby belltower. Ewen Bremner co-stars as the bellhop supervisor at the hotel.
Mister Lonely
comedy/drama
Harmony Korine
When a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) living in Paris falls for a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) during a performance at a retirement home, the lovestruck pair retreats to a seaside castle in the Scottish highlands populated by a commune of reclusive impersonators. Earning a living can be a difficult endeavor in the City of Lights, and in order to make ends meet one man has turned to mimicking the King of Pop. One day, while doing the moonwalk in an old folks home, Michael meets a beautiful Marilyn Monroe look-alike. When Marilyn suggests that Michael joins her in traveling to the Scottish Highlands and moving into a castle populated entirely by celebrity doppelgangers, the would-be gloved one readily accepts her invitation. Shortly after arriving at the castle, Michael and Marilyn find the commune preparing for their first-ever gala - a lavish affair featuring appearances by Abe Lincoln, The Three Stooges, Buckwheat, Shirley Temple, Madonna, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Charlie Chaplin.
Mongol
drama/history
Sergei Bodrov
http://www.mongolmovie.com/trailer.html
Based on the controversial writings of Russian historian Lev Gumilyov, director Sergei Bodrov's look at the early years in the life of the Mongol conqueror stars Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano as Temudgin (as he was then known), Honglei Sun as Mongol chieftain Jamukha, who was both Temudgin's close friend and mortal enemy, and newcomer Khulan Chuluun as his wife, Borte. Born in the year 1162, Temudgen's childhood was marred by tragedy and peril. But a great battle would seal Temudgen's fate forever, and though history often paints him as a brute, the truth is much more complex. Few historians make mention of the role Temudgen's wife, Borte, played in advising her husband and elevating him to greatness. With Borte by his side, Temudgen would rise to become a fearless visionary whose legacy would still prove potent enough to stir controversy centuries after his death.
My Brother is an only Child
comedy
Daniele Luchetti
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.
My Winnipeg
drama
Guy Maddin
Visionary Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin pays tribute to his beloved hometown with this goodbye letter and self-described "docu-fantasia" that is equal parts transcendental rumination, historical chronicle, and personal portrait. In the first segment, Maddin's camera drifts dreamlike through crowded trains as a floating kielbasa hangs from the ceiling and the director/narrator ponders just why the city boasts the most sleepwalkers per capita of any major international city. Later, the viewer is treated to images of numerous historical monuments in the city as they learn about such key historical events as the Winnipeg General Strike, the defeat of the Winnipeg Jets, and even the Golden Boy pageant scandal and a racetrack tragedy that found numerous horses sent to an icy death. As the third and final segment gets underway, the director draws inspiration from filmmaker William Castle to present pivotal -- and often traumatic -- events from his childhood that left an indelible mark while simultaneously serving to mold his unique vision of his beloved Winnipeg.
Noise
comedy/drama
Henry Bean
http://www.worstpreviews.com/trailer.php?id=983&item=0
Tim Robbins, Bridget Moynahan, and William Hurt star in The Believer writer/director Harry Bean's topical urban comedy following one man's quest for a little peace and quiet in the big city. The noise was bothersome when David Owen (Robbins) first moved to New York City, but back in those early days it was almost endearing in an odd sort of way; a forgivable manifestation of urban vitality, or so he had led himself to believe. These days the incessant barking of car alarms, traffic, and frustrated commuters seems to be driving David insane, never allowing him the opportunity to concentrate or focus on the task at hand. While this distraction is at first only bothersome on a superficial level, however, the thing that really riles David is that he is completely powerless to remedy the problem. As the days go on and the noise on the street seems to amplify in David's ears, he makes the decision to take up arms against the unseen intruder. Initially, David is satisfied simply letting the air out of tires or leaving notes on windshields when the owners of cars fail to turn off the alarms. When this approach fails to yield acceptable results, David's subversive urban sabotage techniques quickly evolve into full-blown acts of vandalism. Eventually, David is caught in the act and arrested by the police. After spending a night in jail, David confesses to his wife that he is in fact the urban folk hero who has come to be known by the public as "The Rectifier" for his repeated attempts to hold those responsible for urban noise pollution accountable for their auditory transgressions. When his wife voices concern about such extreme and irrational behavior, David dutifully agrees to give up his career as a noise-fighting vigilante. But try as he might, David simply cannot repress his lingering urge to strike back against such a formidable enemy.
padre nuestro
drama
Christopher Zalla
Writer/director Christopher Zalla authored and helmed the drama Padre Nuestro. The film concerns Juan, a former career criminal who tries to escape his past by hopping a truck transporting illegal immigrants from Mexico to the Big Apple. Over the course of his journey, Juan meets and befriends Pedro, a young man estranged from his father -- with whom he longs to reconcile. Pedro and Juan then gradually forge the bonds of friendship.
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.
Poisoned By Polonium: The Litvinenko File
documentary
Andrei Nekrasov
http://www.hautetcourt.com/ba.php?pkfilms=136
The dark secret of the Kremlin unravel in this story of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko poisoned lat November in London told in his own words and in never seen before footage and interviews with his widow, his friends and his alleged killers.
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.
Redbelt
action/drama
David Mamer
http://www.sonyclassics.com/redbelt/
Tim Allen and Chiwetel Ejiofor star in writer/director David Mamet's martial arts drama concerning a jujitsu master who becomes corrupted by the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. When a respected jujitsu master (Ejiofor) eschews a lucrative prizefighting career in favor of opening a self-defense dojo, it appears that he has chosen a peaceful path in life. The dedicated martial artist's fate takes an unanticipated turn, however, when he is manipulated into participating in ultimate fighting championships by a group of unscrupulous actors and fight promoters. Later, as the master is being relentlessly beaten in a dirty street fight, he connects with a high-profile action star (Allen) with serious marital problems. Realizing that the only way to regain his honor is to step into the ring, the jujitsu master reluctantly prepares for the fight of his life
Reprise
drama
Joachim Trier
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6xhnSp5Gdw
Two buddies are taken down different paths in life when one becomes a success and the other fails to grab the brass ring in this comedy-drama. Erik (Espen Klouman-Hoiner) and Phillip (Anders Danielsen Lie) are close friends who have known each other since they were children. Erik and Phillip grew up sharing a passion for literature, particularly the work of novelist Sten Egil Dahl (Sigmund Saeverud) and they each dreamed of becoming writers themselves someday. Both Erik and Phillip completed their first novels in their early 20's, but while Phillip's book was accepted by a major publisher and became a best seller, Erik's book instead earned a sheaf of rejection slips. The harsh glare of the celebrity lifestyle and his obsessive relationship with his girlfriend Kari (Viktoria Winge) cause Phillip to suffer a nervous breakdown, and after a stay in a treatment facility he tries to resume his relationship with Kari and his friendship with Erik. Erik, meanwhile, is still struggling to join the ranks of the published, and his romance with Lillian (Silje Hagen) begins to fray as the frustrated would-be author spends more time with Phillip and his pretentious compatriots. Reprise received its North American premiere at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival.
Roman De Gare
drama
Claude Lelouch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzq_53tvhEw
Claude Lelouch's Roman de Gare (aka Crossed Tracks) features a number of characters and a timeline that skips back and forth, keeping the audience guessing as to how these characters all relate to each other. Fanny Ardant plays a novelist named Judith whose famous works might have been ghost-written by a serial killer dubbed "The Magician" for his habit of performing acts of prestidigitation in front of his victims. Early in the film, the police quiz her about her relationship with the criminal. Other characters include a hairdresser (Audrey Dana) who offers to give a ride to a stranger who may be the killer.
Savage Grace
drama
Tom Kalin
http://ifcfilms.com/viewFilm.htm?filmId=559
Adapted from the nonfiction book by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson, Tom Kalin's Savage Grace recounts the true crime tale of the death of Barbara Baekeland. Stephen Dillane stars as Brooks Baekeland, the son of the man who invented Bakelite, one of the early forms of plastic. As the family fortune begins to decrease after years of wealth, Brooks marries Barbara (Julianne Moore), who desires to mingle in the highest social circles. They have a child, Antony, who is homosexual. Antony grows up to kill Barbara, in part because Barbara takes a personal interest in "curing" her son of his orientation. This was Kalin's first film since 1991's Swoon, a film about the infamous Leopold and Loeb murders.
Son of Rambow
comedy
Garth Jennings
http://www.sonoframbow.com/
Forbidden to watch TV or go to the movies by his ultrareligious parents, young Will (Bill Milner) gets a hold of a camera, and his mind blossoms in this nostalgic comedy from the team behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Set in 1980s Britain, the film tells the tale of the friendship that blossoms between Will and class bully Lee (Will Poulter) when the latter recruits Will to help him make a home movie inspired by Rambo: First Blood.
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).
Stuck
horror
Stuart Gordon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeqPvj8ozqM
Re-Animator director Stuart Gordon takes the helm for this disturbing tale of a compassionate retirement-home caregiver whose life is turned upside down after a gruesome hit-and-run accident leaves a severely injured homeless man lodged helplessly in her shattered windshield. Despite her promise to take her ailing victim to the hospital, the realization that the accident could destroy both her career and her future finds her uncharacteristically deciding to let the man die a slow death in her garage before conspiring with her boyfriend to dispose of the body. A fictionalized account of actual events, Stuck was co-scripted by director Gordon and frequent Tales from the Darkside contributor John Strysik.
Surfwise
documentary
Doug Pray
http://www.surfwisefilm.com/
As far as raw eccentricity is concerned, few American families could top the Paskowitzes. The patriarch, Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, began life on a commendable, even enviable course, with an M.D. under his arm, rippling sandy-haired good looks and experience almost singlehandedly teaching the country of Israel how to surf. But in the years to follow, bitterness and inveterate disappointment ensued as Dr. Paskowitz tried to settle into a conventional existence; two broken marriages and a medical career that Dorian would later describe as "miserable" left him clawing his way out, desperate for an "alternative" lifestyle. He soon met, courted, and married his third wife, a ravishing, sexy young woman named Juliette; these two free spirits jointly decided that they would live life, budding family in-tow, on the open road, in a series of low-budget trailers. As one child after another cropped up over the course of a decade, the family toured the country winning one surfing competition after another, and Dr. Paskowitz accepted low-rent medical jobs for the poor that reeled in little to no income. In theory, this all seemed idealistic, even utopian; in reality, Dorian Paskowitz was reportedly a severe disciplinarian who denied his children the benefits of school and financial security, forced everyone to stick to an almost unbearable diet of a gruel-like substance, and - even more alarmingly - felt comfortable having open and noisy sex with his wife, with the children only a few feet away. In time, as one child after another grew up, left the clan and attempted to survive, they found it difficult, if not impossible to function in the day-to-day world without the education, social skills and monetary know-how that so many young adults take for granted. With his documentary Surfwise, filmmaker Doug Pray tells the Paskowitzes' strange, bewildering and ultimately heartbreaking story via incisive interviews with family members, still photographs and telling archival footage.
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.
The Tracey Fragments
drama
Bruce McDonald
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0jEN2_REy4
A 15-year-old girl navigates a dangerous urban landscape in search of the brother whom she has hypnotized into believing he is a dog in director Bruce McDonald's pop-infused, 21st century variation on The Catcher in the Rye. When the viewer first meets Tracey (Juno's Ellen Page), she is sitting naked in the back of a bus with only a flimsy shower curtain to guard her from the elements. Tracey is the broken product of an unstable home; her father (Ari Cohen) regards his children as "accidents," and her catatonic mother (Erin McMurtry) only pauses from watching television long enough to light up another cigarette. Upon discovering that a botched hypnosis experiment between Tracey and her younger brother, Sonny, has left the young boy emotionally transformed into a canine, the decision is made to send Tracey to a psychiatrist. Tormented by her classmates and lost in fantasies about her boyfriend and rock & roll savior Billy Zero (Slim Twig), the emotionally complex young woman has become enamored with a new student at school who doesn't even realize she exists. Later, when Sonny disappears, Tracey takes it upon herself to locate her missing sibling and make sure that he finds his way back home. While at first it appears that benevolent rent boy Lance (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) may be her guiding light through the darkened city streets, Tracey quickly learns that to trust is to place your life in the hands of someone who may sell you out at a moment's notice. Now naked and desperate in the middle of a labyrinthine metropolitan nightmare, Tracey makes it her mission to find Sonny no matter how harrowing her quest may become.
Up the Yangtze
documentary
Yung Chang
http://www.uptheyangtze.com/trailer.php
Director Yung Chang uses the construction of China's massive Three Gorges Dam as a springboard to better understanding the social hierarchies and changing times in his homeland in this documentary focusing on the luxury cruise ship that carries predominately Western tourists down the Yangtze River. Constructed as a symbol of modern progress in China, the Three Gorges Dam has forced millions of common people out of their ancestral homes, and will soon swallow up numerous nearby towns and villages. Despite the fact that the government has funded alterative housing for the dislocated families, however, many citizens make their way to higher ground feeling as if they have been duped by the powers that be. In order to truly understand how this affects the people, Chang focuses on telling the stories of middle-class scion Chen Bo Yu (renamed "Jerry" by the cruise line) and Yu Shui (who answers to the call of "Cindy" while on duty). As the ship sets sail, this hard-working pair do their best to familiarize themselves with Western social cues, striving to perform to the best of their abilities, and ponder the prospects of a brighter future.
The Visitor
comedy/drama
Thomas McCarthy
http://www.thevisitorfilm.com/
A lonesome widower and college economics professor finds his mundane existence suddenly shaken up when he befriends a pair of illegal immigrants, one of whom has recently been threatened with deportation by U.S. immigration authorities, in the sophomore feature from The Station Agent director Tom McCarthy. Years after losing his wife, sixty-two year old Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) has also lost his passion for writing and teaching. In an effort to fill the empty void that his life has become, Walter makes a half-hearted attempt to learn to play classical piano. Later, when Walter's college sends him to a conference in Manhattan, he is surprised to discover that a young couple has moved into his seldom-used apartment in the city. Tarek (Haaz Sleiman and his Senegalese girlfriend Zainab (Danai Gurira) have fallen victims to an elaborate real estate scam, and as a result they have no longer have a place to call home. When Walter reluctantly allows the couple to remain in his apartment, talented musician Tarek insists on repaying his host's kindness by teaching him to play the African drum. Over the course of Walter's lessons, the ageing academic finds his spirits revitalized while gaining a newfound appreciation for New York jazz clubs and Central Park drum circles. Later, Tarek is arrested in the subway and threatened with deportation after police learn that he is an undocumented citizen. Suddenly, in his attempt to help his newfound friend, Walter's passion for life is unexpectedly awakened. When Tarek's radiant mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass) arrives in the city in search of her son, that passion turns to romance - something that Walter had previously thought he would never experience again.
When Did You Last See Your Father?
biography/drama
Anand Tucker
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whendidyoulastseeyourfather/trailer.html
Adapted from poet Blake Morrison's bestselling memoir by screenwriter David Nicholls and directed for the screen by Anand Tucker, And When Did You Last See Your Father explores - like its source material - the complex, manifold emotional layers of a father-and-son relationship as it shifts and evolves over the passing decades. At the film's center is Blake Morrison himself, who for as long as he can remember has lived in the overarching shadow of his physician father Arthur (Jim Broadbent) - falling prey to feelings of embarrassment from the old man, as well as occasional awe. In the 1950s, when Blake (Bradley Johnson) was a child, the boy watched as Arthur partook in socially uncouth behavior such as wheedling his way into clubs to which he didn't belong, and carrying on an extramarital affair with the full knowledge of his wife, Kim (Juliet Stevenson). As the years passed, teenage Blake's (Matthew Beard) discomfort around his father hardened into resentment - particularly when the adolescent boy expressed interest in a girl, Rachel (Carey Mulligan) who clearly preferred his father; compounding the situation, Blake then had to suffer through Arthur's decision to publicly humiliate his son in front of everyone. The central dynamic has changed for the two, however, by the late 1980s, when Blake - now married to Kathy (Gina McKee) and freshly established as a successful novelist and poet - learns that Arthur has contracted terminal cancer. Now, the junior Morrison takes a headfirst plunge into the memories and recollections of his youth - and grapples with the dynamic of his relationship with Arthur for the first time in his life as he comes face-to-face with the need to provide loving care for the old man.
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
January Advisory Meeting Candidates
Below you will find the summaries for our candidates for our upcoming meeting. Please select up to five films as your recommendations for the meeting on January 15th. Also, it is helpful to be familiar with all the films on the list, as we will do a second round of voting that will enable films to get enough votes to be put on the final list.
Some of you have been sending in additional suggestions. I appreciate it! I will send out a supplemental list closer to our meeting date that includes any of those recommendations that meet our criteria.
The following films received the committee’s endorsement at the last meeting, but were not made available to us yet by their distributors:
No Country for Old Men
Atonement
Persepolis
The Orphanage
Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The Savages
Grace is Gone
We’re continuing to work on booking these (several of them should be available for March/April).
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – drama - Cristian Mungiu http://ifcfilms.com/viewFilm.htm?filmId=496
Director Cristian Mungiu's drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days unfolds in Romania in the late '80s, during the last waning days of Communist rule. Anamaria Marinca and Laura Vasiliu play, respectively, Otilia and Gabita, two female friends and students who share a Bucharest flat. They soon find themselves saddled with an overwhelming problem: Gabita is expecting. With abortion illegal in Romania at that time, the women seek an illicit termination at the hands of one Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov) in a seedy Romanian hotel - but Bebe refuses to accept money in return for his services and demands a certain "alternate" commodity instead.
The Air I Breathe - crime/drama - Jieho Lee 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.
Arranged - comedy/drama - Diane Crespo http://www.filmmovement.com/trailers/videoplayer.asp?CLIP=122 Two women whose peoples are often at odds find they're more alike than anyone expects in this drama from directors Stefan C. Schaefer and Diane Crespo. Rochel (Zoe Lister-Jones) and Nasira (Francis Benhamou) are two young women who have began teaching at a public grade school in Brooklyn, New York. Rochel is an Orthodox Jew and Nasira is a Muslim of Pakistani descent, and the students and the administrators at the school are concerned there might be friction between the two teachers. However, over the course of their first year of teaching, Rochel and Nasira discover they have far more in common than they imagined -- both sometimes find themselves culturally out-of-place in 21st Century New York, and both are trying to live within the traditions of their faith while struggling with their own feelings. In particular, Rochel and Nasira bond over the fact both are expected to enter into arranged marriages, Nasira with a wary optimism and Rochel with a great deal of trepidation. Arranged was screened in competition at the 2007 South by Southwest Film Festival.
The Band's Visit – comedy - Eran Kolirin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPJSB7pjKd4
When the Ceremonial Police Band of Alexandria, Egypt journeys to a gig in Israel, they can hardly anticipate getting stuck in a rut. But upon arrival at the Israeli airport, their hosts and transportation fail to show. So begins first-time director Elan Kolirin's fish-out-of-water comedy The Band's Visit (AKA Bikur hatzimoret, 2007). Trapped in a middle-of-nowhere desert town, the group members try to figure out what to do and where to go. In desperation. two of the musicians - conductor Tawfiq (Sasson Gabai) and playboy Khaled (Saleh Bakri) - accept an invitation from sexy café owner Dina (Ronit Elkabetz) to bunk at her residence, and seemingly within no time, the unlikeliest of interracial (Israeli-Palestinian) romances begin to blossom - not only between Tawfiq and Dina, but between Khaled and local wallflower Papi (Shlomi Avraham), whose night together at a roller disco turns into a veritable comedy of errors. Meanwhile, the remainder of the band members room with local resident Itzik's (Rubi Moscovich) family, which produces overwhelming conflict and innumerable tensions. As the days roll on, the co-mingling of Egyptian band members and Israeli residents imparts each individual with insights into his cultural identity and that of the others.
Be Kind Rewind – comedy - Michel Gondry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IugKepxOyY
When a bumbling movie lover becomes magnetized while attempting to sabotage a local power plant and accidentally erases all of the videotapes in the small video store where his best friend works, the pair attempt to keep the store's loyal customer base by remaking as many as the top-renting movies as possible. Mike (Mos Def) is an employee at Be Kind Rewind, a modest mom and pop video store that is owned by Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover). Mike's best friend Jerry (Jack Black) works in an auto garage/junkyard directly adjacent to a local power plant. Lately Jerry has become increasingly paranoid about the effects that the power plant is having on his health. Convinced that he has developed a brain tumor from working in such close proximity to the power plant, Jerry attempts to sabotage the plant. Unfortunately for Jerry, his brain is magnetized in the process. The next time Jerry goes to visit Mike at Be Kind Rewind, the powerful magnetization emanating from his brain erases every videotape in the store. Now the only way for Mike and Jerry to be sure that Be Kind Rewind stays in business is to remake every film on the shelves before the customers notice. But when word gets out that Mike and Jerry have remade such Hollywood classics as Back to the Future, Robocop, The Lion King, and Rush Hour without permission, the store is threatened with copyright violations and forced to close its doors. In the aftermath of the closing, Mr. Fletcher and his employees discover just how loyal their customers really are when the entire neighborhood pools their resources to transform the junkyard into a legitimate movie studio and produce an entirely original film detailing the incredible adventures of a local jazz legend.
Beaufort – Action - joseph cedar
http://www.bavaria-film-international.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.
Billy The Kid – documentary - Jennifer Venditti
http://billythekiddocumentary.com/
Filmmaker Jennifer Venditti crafts a cinema verite-style coming of age story with this portrait of a small-town teen from Maine who struggles to embrace his outsider status while still being shaped by the tragic events of his childhood. It was while casting the Carter Smith film Bugcrush that Venditti first encountered the boy named Billy- his eccentric wisdom leaving an immediate and lasting impression on the filmmaker. Later, after casting Billy in the film and preparing to craft a documentary about everyday heroes, Venditti and her crew returned to Maine to spend some five days with the troubled young boy who had commanded her attention. Shunned by his classmates and categorized as a "special needs" student by his teachers, Billy boldly refuses to be victimized by his individuality in an environment obsessed with labels and conformity.
Caramel – comedy - Nadine Labaki
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.
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.
The Earrings of Madame de... - classic/drama - Max Ophuls
Bound via marriage to the cold General André (Charles Boyer), the Comtesse Louise de... (Danielle Darrieux) pawns a pair of diamond earrings given to her by her husband in order to pay off a large debt. Discovering his wife’s act, the General buys back the earrings as a gift for his mistress, and as the jewelry moves from owner to owner throughout upper-class Europe – ending in the hands of the Baron (Vittorio De Sica), the Comtesse’s new lover – director Max Ophüls’s constantly moving camera reveals the poignant loneliness and doomed romanticism that lie under the elegant façades of his characters. A sharp and graceful examination of love and loss, The Earrings of Madame de… is widely regarded as one of the finest romantic dramas of all time.
Half Moon – drama - Bahman Ghobadi
HALF MOON is the moving and beautiful new film from Kurdish director Ghobadi (A TIME FOR DRUNKEN HORSES, TURTLES CAN FLY). Mamo, an iconic Kurdish musician in the twilight of his life and in failing health, must lead a dozen of his sons to Iraq for a concert - "a cry of freedom" - to celebrate the fall of Saddam Hussein and the end of his repression of Kurdish music. Their plan is to drive across the border between Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan, but the road will be long and winding and the local wise man has predicted calamity. On their quest, the men will encounter the most sublime visions alongside the most horrendous brutality - primarily meted out by border guards. But first they must pick up Hesho, Mamo`s exiled singer and muse. The "celestial voice" she represents takes on a divine, transformative power, and Mamo is left in a state of grace no one could ever have anticipated.
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.
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.
Juno – comedy - jason reitman
http://youtube.com/watch?v=K0SKf0K3bxg
When a teenage girl is faced with an unexpected pregnancy, she enlists the aid of her best friend in finding the unborn child a suitable home in this coming-of-age comedy drama from Thank You for Smoking director Jason Reitman. Juno (Ellen Page) may seem wise beyond her years, but after sleeping with classmate Bleeker (Michael Cera), the pregnant teen quickly realizes how little she really knows about life. Thankfully, Juno has been blessed with parents (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney) who trust their daughter's judgment, and a best friend named Leah (Olivia Thirlby), who's always willing to help out in a pinch. With a little help from Leah, Juno soon comes into contact with Mark (Jason Bateman) and Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) -- an affluent suburban couple who have been unable to conceive a child of their own. Mark and Vanessa seem like they would make great parents, and are eager to adopt Juno's unborn child. Now, as adolescent Juno is faced with a series of very adult decisions, she will draw on the support of her family and friends in order to discover who she truly is, and discover that one bad choice can have a lifetime of consequences.
Killing of John Lennon – drama - Andrew Piddington
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm_Ze81jfq8
What sort of man kills one of the most beloved musicians in the world, and what prompts him to pull the trigger? Filmmaker Andrew Piddington explores these questions in this fact-based drama which examines several weeks in the life of Mark David Chapman, the man who murdered John Lennon. Chapman (played by Jonas Ball) is a self-obsessed young man who has an emotionally distant relationship with his parents and a failing marriage to Gloria (Mie Omori). Unable to hold down a job, Chapman spends a lot of time at the public library, where he re-reads J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye and browses though a photo book on John Lennon, and the two begin to fuse in his imagination, as he links Holden Caulfield's grousing about "phonies" with the fame and wealth of one-time activist Lennon. Chapman hops a flight to New York City and visits the sights Caulfield talked about in the novel when not busy standing vigil outside the Dakota, the luxury apartment building Lennon calls home, with a gun in his possession. The first time Chapman crosses paths with Lennon as he's leaving the Dakota, he asks the former Beatle to sign a copy of Double Fantasy, Lennon's new album; several hours, Lennon returns home and Chapman approaches him with a very different intent. The Killing of John Lennon was primarily filmed in the locations where the real-life events took place, and all of Chapman's dialogue in the film was taken from his diaries or interviews he's given since his arrest and imprisonment.
King Corn – documentary - Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis
http://www.kingcorn.net
America’s fast-food empire is fueled by a secret ingredient: corn. High fructose corn syrup makes the sodas sweet, corn-fed beef makes the burgers fat, and corn oil crisps the fries. As college buddies Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis find out, their junk food generation has grown up eating so much corn that if you test their hair– it’s actually made of the stuff. King Corn follows Ian and Curt to a tiny town in the middle of Iowa, where they plant and grow an acre of America’s most powerful crop, and attempt to follow its fate as food. What they find is alternately hilarious and horrifying: genetically modified seeds and home- brewed corn syrup, a bumper crop of obesity and diabetes, and a government paying farmers to grow what’smaking us sick. You’ll never enjoy a soda again.
The Kite Runner – drama - Marc Forster
http://www.kiterunnermovie.com/main.html?deeplink=media Finding Neverland director Marc Forster adapts author Khaled Hosseini's critically acclaimed novel about two childhood best friends forever torn apart as their country is ravaged by endless war and bitter strife. As children, Amir (Khalid Abdalla) and Hassan were inseparable; their long days under azure Kabul skies often spent getting into innocent mischief or preparing for the highly anticipated kite-fighting tournament. When the day of the tournament arrives, however, a glorious victory is quickly offset by a timorous act of betrayal that ultimately serves as the catalyst for catastrophe. Not long after that fateful day, Amir moves away to America, leaving his old friend behind just as the ominous specter of war turns tragically tangible. Two decades later, Amir returns to Afghanistan to find his beloved homeland has now fallen under the iron-fisted rule of the Taliban. Still, all hope for redemption hasn't been lost just yet, because now that Amir stands face to face with the irrepressible secrets that he struggled so vigilantly to bury, he will receive one last chance to make peace with the past, and lay the groundwork for a brighter future.
Look – drama - Adam Rifkin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEMyObf59jI
At times, it seems video surveillance is omnipresent in America, and Adam Rifkin (Underdog) spends the better part of two hours asserting just that in his fiction feature Look. This motion picture gains a historical footnote as the first U.S. mainstream movie to depict events solely through the "eyes" of surveillance video cameras. The preponderance of action unfurls in San Fernando Valley offices, stores, and shopping malls, where we witness security-camera footage of character interactions and events that would likely never occur if the perpetrators knew they were being "watched." In one subplot, Marty (Ben Weber), a beleaguered insurance salesman alienated by his co-workers, makes brazenly sexual passes at his female colleagues, secretly hatching a darker plan of his own on the side. Meanwhile, in another locale -- that of a department store at the Northridge Fashion Center shopping mall -- a chauvinistic floor manager named Tony takes full-scale sexual advantage of each of his female co-workers, letting all his inhibitions fly out the window in the "secrecy" of the back room. And in the same store, two minors, Holly (Heather Hogan) and Sherri (Spencer Redford), shop for seductive apparel in a twisted plot to seduce and presumably blackmail a high-school instructor. On a darker note, Rifkin follows convenience-store employees attempting to "bring down" a cadre of serial murderers tagged as "The Candid Camera Killers," whose doings attract the attention of police cameras. Other perspectives included in the film include those of ATM cameras, robot security cameras, and all sorts of other surveillance devices of varying ingenuity, all of which catch shocking behavior and are used to follow a myriad of substories.
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.
My Blueberry Nights – drama - Kar Wai Wong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86kckraMXtI
In Wong Kar Wai’s debut English language feature, the internationally acclaimed director takes his audience on a dramatic across the distance between heartbreak and a new beginning. After a rough break-up, Elizabeth (Norah Jones) sets out on a journey across America, leaving behind a life of memories, a dream and a soulful new friend; a café owner (Jude Law) – all while in search of something to mend her broken heart. Waitressing her way through the country, Elizabeth befriends others whose yearnings are greater than hers, including a troubled cop (David Strathairn) and his estranged wife (Rachel Weisz) and a down-on-her luck gambler (Natalie Portman) with a score to settle. Through these individuals, Elizabeth witnesses the true depths of loneliness and emptiness, and begins to understand that her own journey is part of a greater exploration within herself.
Pierrot Le Fou - classic/drama - Jean-Luc Godard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycg2yb3qiUo
After abandoning his wife at a Parisian party, bored Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) flees his bourgeois existence with his babysitter and ex-lover, Marianne (Anna Karina). Taking it on the lam to the south of France, the couple becomes an existential Bonnie and Clyde, battling gunrunners, gas station attendants, and American tourists as they come face to face with their own roles as characters in a pop-cultural landscape. A profound turning point in Godard’s cinema, Pierrot le fou recalls the gangster cool of Breathless and Band of Outsiders while also pointing towards the increasingly essayistic, apocalyptic visions of Two or Three Things I Know About Her and Weekend. Janus Films is proud to present this landmark work in a new 35mm print.
Punk's Not Dead - documentary - Susan Dynner
http://www.punksnotdeadthemovie.com/trailer/
Punk's Not Dead takes you into the sweaty underground clubs, backyard parties, recording studios, and yes, shopping malls and stadium shows where punk rock music and culture continue to thrive. Thirty years after bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols infamously shocked the system with their hard, fast, status-quo-killing rock, the longest-running punk band in history is drawing bigger crowds than ever, “pop-punk” bands have found success on MTV, and kids too young to drive are forming bands that carry the torch for punk's raw, immediate sound. Meanwhile, “punk” has become a marketing concept to sell everything from cars to vodka, and dyed hair and piercings mark a rite of passage for thousands of kids. Can the true, nonconformist punk spirit still exist in today's corporatized culture? Featuring interviews, performances, and behind-the-scenes journeys with the bands, labels, fans, and press who keep punk alive, Punk's Not Dead dares to juxtapose pop-punk's music and lifestyle against the roots in
Sharkwater – documentary - Rob Stewart
http://www.sharkwater.com/downloads.htm
For filmmaker Rob Stewart, exploring sharks began as an underwater adventure. What it turned into was a beautiful and dangerous life journey into the balance of life on earth. Driven by passion fed from a lifelong fascination with sharks, Stewart debunks historical stereotypes and media depictions of sharks as bloodthirsty, man-eating monsters and reveals the reality of sharks as pillars in the evolution of the seas. Filmed in visually stunning, high definition video, Sharkwater takes you into the most shark rich waters of the world, exposing the exploitation and corruption surrounding the world's shark populations in the marine reserves of Cocos Island, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.
Shrooms – horror - Paddy Breathnach
http://www.shroomsthemovie.com/
When five American college students arrive in Ireland to go on camping trip with their old college buddy Jake, they are in high spirits. Jake has promised them the ‘trip’ of a lifetime’ because he claims Ireland has the best magic mushrooms in the world. It sounded like it would be great fun. Now that they are tripping things don’t seem so funny. BLUTO, one of the gang is missing. TARA thinks he’s dead because she feels she has seen his death before but nobody believes her they think she is just out of it. They’re out of it too. That was the whole point of coming here, but there is something out there, something watching them, something that will kill them if they don’t get out of the forest and get help.
Singing Revolution – documentary - James Tusty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA9PmZo-2jo
After enduring WWII-era brutalization by Hitler's Nazi Party and decades of repressive Soviet dictatorship, the tiny Eastern European nation of Estonia began to declare its independence from Communist rule in the late 1980s. Over a five year period, beginning in 1986, hundreds of thousands of Estonians began to systematically and repeatedly gather in public venues to collectively sing illegal patriotic songs, declaring their desire for national independence but never resorting to violence amid their protests. Uncoincidentally, Estonia was indeed one of the first nations to break away from the Soviet Union in the events leading up to the fall of the Iron Curtain. The documentary The Singing Revolution chronicles this extraordinary yet seldom told chain of events.
Southland Tales - comedy/drama - Richard Kelly
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/southlandtales/trailer/ California is at the epicenter of a political and environmental disaster that threatens to destroy the world in this ambitious fusion of comedy, drama, dystopian science fiction, and music from writer and director Richard Kelly, his first film after gaining a cult following with Donnie Darko. In the year 2005, a nuclear attack wipes out part of the state of Texas, and three years later America is a virtual police state, with the government taking control of nearly every part of people's lives, supposedly for their own good. A German firm has found a way to generate energy using seawater, but both public and private concerns are desperate to prevent the new technology from being introduced in the gasoline-starved United States. A Marxist underground based on the West Coast is determined to bring down the federal government through violent revolution. In this midst of this chaos, we follow a number of stories that continually return to three principle characters. Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock) is an actor famous for his role in action films; he's trying to secure financing for a new project, but reality keeps mirroring the events in his script and he struggles to hold on to his identity following a bout with amnesia. Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is a porn star who is reinventing herself as a television pundit offering her views on politics, contemporary culture, and teenage sex. And Roland Taverner (Seann William Scott) is an L.A. police officer whose identity has mysteriously split in two and he struggles to track down his other half. Featuring a massive supporting cast which includes Mandy Moore, Miranda Richardson, Wallace Shawn, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Smith, Amy Poehler, and Justin Timberlake, Southland Tales received its world premiere at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival; director Kelly also created an accompanying series of three graphic novels which chart these events and characters prior to this story.
Starting Out In The Evening – drama - Andrew Wagner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NmF2Dx46RY
Frank Langella (Dracula, Good Night, and Good Luck.) stars in Andrew Wagner's independent drama Starting Out in the Evening, an adaptation of the acclaimed 1999 best-seller by Brian Morton. Langella plays Leonard Schiller, a once-celebrated author whose first four novels inspired Heather Wolf (Lauren Ambrose) to pursue a career as a writer. These days, Leonard is still working toward completion of the novel that has occupied his life for nearly a decade. On the surface, Leonard has removed himself completely from the deep-seated need for success that characterized his life at an earlier point in time; but on a more buried level, he still longs for his fiction to be rediscovered and reacclaimed. Now an eager graduate student in the throes of her thesis, Heather is writing her dissertation on Schiller, and promptly convinces him that she can use the thesis to regenerate popularity and discovery of his work. Heather also projects personal interest in Leonard, however, which cuts straight through to the core of his loneliness and brings him in touch with his need for a meaningful relationship even as it leaves him feeling shaken and increasingly uncertain. Meanwhile, Leonard finds that his relationship with his daughter, Ariel (Lili Taylor) is challenged, both by Heather's presence and by Ariel's decision to begin dating her former boyfriend Casey (Adrian Lester) once again -- a fact that Leonard finds most upsetting thanks to his disapproval of Casey. Suddenly, Leonard feels his entire world turned upside down, from his familial relationships to the security of his writing to his own physical vitality -- but he is also taking risks and plunging headfirst into the core of life for the first time, thus living out the principles long celebrated and upheld in his fiction and giving himself the capacity to grow.
Steep – documentary - Mark Obenhaus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr7_4LrF8As
In this documentary about the sport of mountain skiing, director Mark Obenhaus explores the motivation behind the athletes who risk life and limb for the adrenaline high of their high-altitude sport, and the challenge that it offers their sense of athleticism and sportsmanship. Full of lush images of white slopes and mountain landscapes, Steep offers the chance to experience the atmosphere that mountain skiers experience when they're engaged in their sport.
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.
Taxi to the Dark Side – documentary - Alex Gibney
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rZFkoptik8k
From the producer of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Who Killed the Electric Car? comes a documentary that takes a critical look at the Bush administration's policy on torture by investigating the death of an Afghan taxi driver at Bagram Air Force base whose suffered fatal injuries at the hands of U.S. soldiers.
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.
There Will Be Blood – drama - Paul Thomas Anderson
http://www.therewillbeblood.com/index.php?section=media
There Will Be Blood is a movie " loosely " adapted by Paul Thomas Anderson from the 1927 novel OIL! by Upton Sinclair. The movie centers on a character Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, who starts out as a simple silver miner, that happens upon oil in his silver efforts. Fast forward a few years and he's made himself a pretty rich man, a wise and shrewd business/oil man, that gets to the point to where he'll step over anyone to get what he wants. You see, Daniel Plainview is not a very decent person, who constantly wrestles with his demons. He is a borderline nihilist, who doesn't like people and thinks most humans are lazy and ignorant. You understand the only reason that he has people in his life is because he couldn't benefit financially if he didn't. Otherwise he could care less. It's all about finding new oil spots with him, and nothing will get in his way and derail his goals. He may not be a good man, but you cannot deny his desire and work ethic. He risks his life more than once setting up oil derricks. But, he almost meets his match in the form of a young man of the word of God in Eli Sunday, played by Paul Dano.
The Witnesses – drama - André Téchiné
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfKy64h6TH0
The early days of the AIDS crisis in France provides the backdrop for this powerful, life-affirming drama from writer and director André Téchiné. It's 1984, and Mehdi (Sami Bouajila) is a police detective who, unbeknownst to his wife Sarah (Emmanuelle Béart), is a bisexual who has occasional trysts with men. Mehdi and Sarah are proud parents of a new baby, but to Mehdi's chagrin, Sarah doesn't seem the least bit concerned about her responsibilities as a mom. Manu (Johan Libereau) is a handsome young man who shares a flat with his sister Julie (Julie Depardieu), who is struggling to make a career as an opera singer. And Adrien (Michel Blanc) is a middle-aged doctor and close friend of Sarah who occasionally picks up younger men in the park, and nearly seduces Manu one evening. Adrien joins Sarah and Mehdi for an idyllic weekend at the beach, where Manu once again crosses his path; however, Manu also meets Mehdi when he saves the detective from drowning, and the two soon become lovers. Several months later, Manu has discovered he's contracted a strange and deadly new disease doctors are calling AIDS, which has a dramatic impact on many of the people he knows. Mehdi has confessed his infidelity to Sarah, and they wait to find out if they also have AIDS, while Adrien is devoting most of his days to treating Manu and other young men who are wasting away under the effects of the illness, and Julie helps to care for her dying brother. The Witnesses (aka Les Témoins) received its premiere at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival.
The Year My Parents Went on Vacation – 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.
Youth Without Youth – drama - Francis Ford Coppola
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn0XGlwTKCI
Legendary director Francis Ford Coppola returns to the director's chair after a ten-year hiatus with this adaptation of Romanian author Mircea Eliade's tome detailing the arduous journey of a professor whose life is thrown into chaos as World War II looms ominously on the horizon. When the seventy year-old scholar is stricken by lightning, his age begins to reverse as his mind grows infinitely more brilliant. Now determined to understand the origins of language and consciousness, the fugitive professor leads authorities on a wild chase through Romania, Switzerland, Malta, and India. Tim Roth, Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, and Marcel Iures star in an ambitious low-budget drama trumpeted by Zoetrope as a "return to personal filmmaking" for the revered Godfather director.
Nanking - Documentary - Bill Guttentag/Dan Sturman
http://movies.aol.com/movie/nanking/27490/video/trailer-no-1/2041513
Nanking is a powerful reminder of the heartbreaking toll that war takes on the innocent, and a testament to the courage and conviction of a few individuals determined to act in the face of evil. The film tells the story of the Japanese invasion of Nanking, China in the early days of World War II and focuses on the efforts of a small group of unarmed Westerners who established a Safety Zone where over 200,000 Chinese found refuge. The events of the film are told through deeply moving interviews with Chinese survivors, archival footage, and chilling testimonies of Japanese soldiers, interwoven with staged readings of the Westerners’ letters and diaries as performed by Jurgen Prochnow, Woody Harrelson, Stephen Dorff, and Mariel Hemingway, among others.
Up The Yangtze - Documentary - Yung Chang
http://www.uptheyangtze.com/trailer.php
A luxury cruise boat motors up the Yangtze - navigating the mythic waterway known in China simply as "The River." The Yangtze is about to be transformed by the biggest hydroelectric dam in history. At the river's edge - a young woman says goodbye to her family as the floodwaters rise towards their small homestead. The Three Gorges Dam - contested symbol of the Chinese economic miracle - provides the epic backdrop for Up the Yangtze, a dramatic feature documentary on life inside modern China.
Last Year at Marienbad - classic - Alain Resnais
http://www.filmforum.org/films/marienbadtrailer.html
A cinematic puzzle, Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad is a radical exploration of the formal possibilities of film. Beautifully shot in Cinemascope by Sacha Vierny, the movie is a riddle of seduction, a mercurial enigma darting between a present and past which may not even exist, let alone converge. The film stars Giorgio Albertazzi as an unnamed sophisticate attempting to convince a similarly nameless woman (Delphine Seyrig) that they met and were romantically involved a year ago in the same enormous, baroque European hotel. In the end, it hardly matters -- they're not characters so much as pawns anyway. Hypnotically dreamlike, Last Year at Marienbad is a surrealist parody of Hollywood melodrama, a high-fashion romance with a dark, alien underbelly. According to screenwriter Alain Robbe-Grillet, the movie is a pure construction, without a frame of reference outside of its own existence -- the lives of its characters begin when the lights go down, and conclude when they come back up.
Some of you have been sending in additional suggestions. I appreciate it! I will send out a supplemental list closer to our meeting date that includes any of those recommendations that meet our criteria.
The following films received the committee’s endorsement at the last meeting, but were not made available to us yet by their distributors:
No Country for Old Men
Atonement
Persepolis
The Orphanage
Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The Savages
Grace is Gone
We’re continuing to work on booking these (several of them should be available for March/April).
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – drama - Cristian Mungiu http://ifcfilms.com/viewFilm.htm?filmId=496
Director Cristian Mungiu's drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days unfolds in Romania in the late '80s, during the last waning days of Communist rule. Anamaria Marinca and Laura Vasiliu play, respectively, Otilia and Gabita, two female friends and students who share a Bucharest flat. They soon find themselves saddled with an overwhelming problem: Gabita is expecting. With abortion illegal in Romania at that time, the women seek an illicit termination at the hands of one Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov) in a seedy Romanian hotel - but Bebe refuses to accept money in return for his services and demands a certain "alternate" commodity instead.
The Air I Breathe - crime/drama - Jieho Lee 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.
Arranged - comedy/drama - Diane Crespo http://www.filmmovement.com/trailers/videoplayer.asp?CLIP=122 Two women whose peoples are often at odds find they're more alike than anyone expects in this drama from directors Stefan C. Schaefer and Diane Crespo. Rochel (Zoe Lister-Jones) and Nasira (Francis Benhamou) are two young women who have began teaching at a public grade school in Brooklyn, New York. Rochel is an Orthodox Jew and Nasira is a Muslim of Pakistani descent, and the students and the administrators at the school are concerned there might be friction between the two teachers. However, over the course of their first year of teaching, Rochel and Nasira discover they have far more in common than they imagined -- both sometimes find themselves culturally out-of-place in 21st Century New York, and both are trying to live within the traditions of their faith while struggling with their own feelings. In particular, Rochel and Nasira bond over the fact both are expected to enter into arranged marriages, Nasira with a wary optimism and Rochel with a great deal of trepidation. Arranged was screened in competition at the 2007 South by Southwest Film Festival.
The Band's Visit – comedy - Eran Kolirin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPJSB7pjKd4
When the Ceremonial Police Band of Alexandria, Egypt journeys to a gig in Israel, they can hardly anticipate getting stuck in a rut. But upon arrival at the Israeli airport, their hosts and transportation fail to show. So begins first-time director Elan Kolirin's fish-out-of-water comedy The Band's Visit (AKA Bikur hatzimoret, 2007). Trapped in a middle-of-nowhere desert town, the group members try to figure out what to do and where to go. In desperation. two of the musicians - conductor Tawfiq (Sasson Gabai) and playboy Khaled (Saleh Bakri) - accept an invitation from sexy café owner Dina (Ronit Elkabetz) to bunk at her residence, and seemingly within no time, the unlikeliest of interracial (Israeli-Palestinian) romances begin to blossom - not only between Tawfiq and Dina, but between Khaled and local wallflower Papi (Shlomi Avraham), whose night together at a roller disco turns into a veritable comedy of errors. Meanwhile, the remainder of the band members room with local resident Itzik's (Rubi Moscovich) family, which produces overwhelming conflict and innumerable tensions. As the days roll on, the co-mingling of Egyptian band members and Israeli residents imparts each individual with insights into his cultural identity and that of the others.
Be Kind Rewind – comedy - Michel Gondry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IugKepxOyY
When a bumbling movie lover becomes magnetized while attempting to sabotage a local power plant and accidentally erases all of the videotapes in the small video store where his best friend works, the pair attempt to keep the store's loyal customer base by remaking as many as the top-renting movies as possible. Mike (Mos Def) is an employee at Be Kind Rewind, a modest mom and pop video store that is owned by Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover). Mike's best friend Jerry (Jack Black) works in an auto garage/junkyard directly adjacent to a local power plant. Lately Jerry has become increasingly paranoid about the effects that the power plant is having on his health. Convinced that he has developed a brain tumor from working in such close proximity to the power plant, Jerry attempts to sabotage the plant. Unfortunately for Jerry, his brain is magnetized in the process. The next time Jerry goes to visit Mike at Be Kind Rewind, the powerful magnetization emanating from his brain erases every videotape in the store. Now the only way for Mike and Jerry to be sure that Be Kind Rewind stays in business is to remake every film on the shelves before the customers notice. But when word gets out that Mike and Jerry have remade such Hollywood classics as Back to the Future, Robocop, The Lion King, and Rush Hour without permission, the store is threatened with copyright violations and forced to close its doors. In the aftermath of the closing, Mr. Fletcher and his employees discover just how loyal their customers really are when the entire neighborhood pools their resources to transform the junkyard into a legitimate movie studio and produce an entirely original film detailing the incredible adventures of a local jazz legend.
Beaufort – Action - joseph cedar
http://www.bavaria-film-international.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.
Billy The Kid – documentary - Jennifer Venditti
http://billythekiddocumentary.com/
Filmmaker Jennifer Venditti crafts a cinema verite-style coming of age story with this portrait of a small-town teen from Maine who struggles to embrace his outsider status while still being shaped by the tragic events of his childhood. It was while casting the Carter Smith film Bugcrush that Venditti first encountered the boy named Billy- his eccentric wisdom leaving an immediate and lasting impression on the filmmaker. Later, after casting Billy in the film and preparing to craft a documentary about everyday heroes, Venditti and her crew returned to Maine to spend some five days with the troubled young boy who had commanded her attention. Shunned by his classmates and categorized as a "special needs" student by his teachers, Billy boldly refuses to be victimized by his individuality in an environment obsessed with labels and conformity.
Caramel – comedy - Nadine Labaki
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.
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.
The Earrings of Madame de... - classic/drama - Max Ophuls
Bound via marriage to the cold General André (Charles Boyer), the Comtesse Louise de... (Danielle Darrieux) pawns a pair of diamond earrings given to her by her husband in order to pay off a large debt. Discovering his wife’s act, the General buys back the earrings as a gift for his mistress, and as the jewelry moves from owner to owner throughout upper-class Europe – ending in the hands of the Baron (Vittorio De Sica), the Comtesse’s new lover – director Max Ophüls’s constantly moving camera reveals the poignant loneliness and doomed romanticism that lie under the elegant façades of his characters. A sharp and graceful examination of love and loss, The Earrings of Madame de… is widely regarded as one of the finest romantic dramas of all time.
Half Moon – drama - Bahman Ghobadi
HALF MOON is the moving and beautiful new film from Kurdish director Ghobadi (A TIME FOR DRUNKEN HORSES, TURTLES CAN FLY). Mamo, an iconic Kurdish musician in the twilight of his life and in failing health, must lead a dozen of his sons to Iraq for a concert - "a cry of freedom" - to celebrate the fall of Saddam Hussein and the end of his repression of Kurdish music. Their plan is to drive across the border between Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan, but the road will be long and winding and the local wise man has predicted calamity. On their quest, the men will encounter the most sublime visions alongside the most horrendous brutality - primarily meted out by border guards. But first they must pick up Hesho, Mamo`s exiled singer and muse. The "celestial voice" she represents takes on a divine, transformative power, and Mamo is left in a state of grace no one could ever have anticipated.
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.
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.
Juno – comedy - jason reitman
http://youtube.com/watch?v=K0SKf0K3bxg
When a teenage girl is faced with an unexpected pregnancy, she enlists the aid of her best friend in finding the unborn child a suitable home in this coming-of-age comedy drama from Thank You for Smoking director Jason Reitman. Juno (Ellen Page) may seem wise beyond her years, but after sleeping with classmate Bleeker (Michael Cera), the pregnant teen quickly realizes how little she really knows about life. Thankfully, Juno has been blessed with parents (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney) who trust their daughter's judgment, and a best friend named Leah (Olivia Thirlby), who's always willing to help out in a pinch. With a little help from Leah, Juno soon comes into contact with Mark (Jason Bateman) and Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) -- an affluent suburban couple who have been unable to conceive a child of their own. Mark and Vanessa seem like they would make great parents, and are eager to adopt Juno's unborn child. Now, as adolescent Juno is faced with a series of very adult decisions, she will draw on the support of her family and friends in order to discover who she truly is, and discover that one bad choice can have a lifetime of consequences.
Killing of John Lennon – drama - Andrew Piddington
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm_Ze81jfq8
What sort of man kills one of the most beloved musicians in the world, and what prompts him to pull the trigger? Filmmaker Andrew Piddington explores these questions in this fact-based drama which examines several weeks in the life of Mark David Chapman, the man who murdered John Lennon. Chapman (played by Jonas Ball) is a self-obsessed young man who has an emotionally distant relationship with his parents and a failing marriage to Gloria (Mie Omori). Unable to hold down a job, Chapman spends a lot of time at the public library, where he re-reads J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye and browses though a photo book on John Lennon, and the two begin to fuse in his imagination, as he links Holden Caulfield's grousing about "phonies" with the fame and wealth of one-time activist Lennon. Chapman hops a flight to New York City and visits the sights Caulfield talked about in the novel when not busy standing vigil outside the Dakota, the luxury apartment building Lennon calls home, with a gun in his possession. The first time Chapman crosses paths with Lennon as he's leaving the Dakota, he asks the former Beatle to sign a copy of Double Fantasy, Lennon's new album; several hours, Lennon returns home and Chapman approaches him with a very different intent. The Killing of John Lennon was primarily filmed in the locations where the real-life events took place, and all of Chapman's dialogue in the film was taken from his diaries or interviews he's given since his arrest and imprisonment.
King Corn – documentary - Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis
http://www.kingcorn.net
America’s fast-food empire is fueled by a secret ingredient: corn. High fructose corn syrup makes the sodas sweet, corn-fed beef makes the burgers fat, and corn oil crisps the fries. As college buddies Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis find out, their junk food generation has grown up eating so much corn that if you test their hair– it’s actually made of the stuff. King Corn follows Ian and Curt to a tiny town in the middle of Iowa, where they plant and grow an acre of America’s most powerful crop, and attempt to follow its fate as food. What they find is alternately hilarious and horrifying: genetically modified seeds and home- brewed corn syrup, a bumper crop of obesity and diabetes, and a government paying farmers to grow what’smaking us sick. You’ll never enjoy a soda again.
The Kite Runner – drama - Marc Forster
http://www.kiterunnermovie.com/main.html?deeplink=media Finding Neverland director Marc Forster adapts author Khaled Hosseini's critically acclaimed novel about two childhood best friends forever torn apart as their country is ravaged by endless war and bitter strife. As children, Amir (Khalid Abdalla) and Hassan were inseparable; their long days under azure Kabul skies often spent getting into innocent mischief or preparing for the highly anticipated kite-fighting tournament. When the day of the tournament arrives, however, a glorious victory is quickly offset by a timorous act of betrayal that ultimately serves as the catalyst for catastrophe. Not long after that fateful day, Amir moves away to America, leaving his old friend behind just as the ominous specter of war turns tragically tangible. Two decades later, Amir returns to Afghanistan to find his beloved homeland has now fallen under the iron-fisted rule of the Taliban. Still, all hope for redemption hasn't been lost just yet, because now that Amir stands face to face with the irrepressible secrets that he struggled so vigilantly to bury, he will receive one last chance to make peace with the past, and lay the groundwork for a brighter future.
Look – drama - Adam Rifkin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEMyObf59jI
At times, it seems video surveillance is omnipresent in America, and Adam Rifkin (Underdog) spends the better part of two hours asserting just that in his fiction feature Look. This motion picture gains a historical footnote as the first U.S. mainstream movie to depict events solely through the "eyes" of surveillance video cameras. The preponderance of action unfurls in San Fernando Valley offices, stores, and shopping malls, where we witness security-camera footage of character interactions and events that would likely never occur if the perpetrators knew they were being "watched." In one subplot, Marty (Ben Weber), a beleaguered insurance salesman alienated by his co-workers, makes brazenly sexual passes at his female colleagues, secretly hatching a darker plan of his own on the side. Meanwhile, in another locale -- that of a department store at the Northridge Fashion Center shopping mall -- a chauvinistic floor manager named Tony takes full-scale sexual advantage of each of his female co-workers, letting all his inhibitions fly out the window in the "secrecy" of the back room. And in the same store, two minors, Holly (Heather Hogan) and Sherri (Spencer Redford), shop for seductive apparel in a twisted plot to seduce and presumably blackmail a high-school instructor. On a darker note, Rifkin follows convenience-store employees attempting to "bring down" a cadre of serial murderers tagged as "The Candid Camera Killers," whose doings attract the attention of police cameras. Other perspectives included in the film include those of ATM cameras, robot security cameras, and all sorts of other surveillance devices of varying ingenuity, all of which catch shocking behavior and are used to follow a myriad of substories.
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.
My Blueberry Nights – drama - Kar Wai Wong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86kckraMXtI
In Wong Kar Wai’s debut English language feature, the internationally acclaimed director takes his audience on a dramatic across the distance between heartbreak and a new beginning. After a rough break-up, Elizabeth (Norah Jones) sets out on a journey across America, leaving behind a life of memories, a dream and a soulful new friend; a café owner (Jude Law) – all while in search of something to mend her broken heart. Waitressing her way through the country, Elizabeth befriends others whose yearnings are greater than hers, including a troubled cop (David Strathairn) and his estranged wife (Rachel Weisz) and a down-on-her luck gambler (Natalie Portman) with a score to settle. Through these individuals, Elizabeth witnesses the true depths of loneliness and emptiness, and begins to understand that her own journey is part of a greater exploration within herself.
Pierrot Le Fou - classic/drama - Jean-Luc Godard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycg2yb3qiUo
After abandoning his wife at a Parisian party, bored Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) flees his bourgeois existence with his babysitter and ex-lover, Marianne (Anna Karina). Taking it on the lam to the south of France, the couple becomes an existential Bonnie and Clyde, battling gunrunners, gas station attendants, and American tourists as they come face to face with their own roles as characters in a pop-cultural landscape. A profound turning point in Godard’s cinema, Pierrot le fou recalls the gangster cool of Breathless and Band of Outsiders while also pointing towards the increasingly essayistic, apocalyptic visions of Two or Three Things I Know About Her and Weekend. Janus Films is proud to present this landmark work in a new 35mm print.
Punk's Not Dead - documentary - Susan Dynner
http://www.punksnotdeadthemovie.com/trailer/
Punk's Not Dead takes you into the sweaty underground clubs, backyard parties, recording studios, and yes, shopping malls and stadium shows where punk rock music and culture continue to thrive. Thirty years after bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols infamously shocked the system with their hard, fast, status-quo-killing rock, the longest-running punk band in history is drawing bigger crowds than ever, “pop-punk” bands have found success on MTV, and kids too young to drive are forming bands that carry the torch for punk's raw, immediate sound. Meanwhile, “punk” has become a marketing concept to sell everything from cars to vodka, and dyed hair and piercings mark a rite of passage for thousands of kids. Can the true, nonconformist punk spirit still exist in today's corporatized culture? Featuring interviews, performances, and behind-the-scenes journeys with the bands, labels, fans, and press who keep punk alive, Punk's Not Dead dares to juxtapose pop-punk's music and lifestyle against the roots in
Sharkwater – documentary - Rob Stewart
http://www.sharkwater.com/downloads.htm
For filmmaker Rob Stewart, exploring sharks began as an underwater adventure. What it turned into was a beautiful and dangerous life journey into the balance of life on earth. Driven by passion fed from a lifelong fascination with sharks, Stewart debunks historical stereotypes and media depictions of sharks as bloodthirsty, man-eating monsters and reveals the reality of sharks as pillars in the evolution of the seas. Filmed in visually stunning, high definition video, Sharkwater takes you into the most shark rich waters of the world, exposing the exploitation and corruption surrounding the world's shark populations in the marine reserves of Cocos Island, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.
Shrooms – horror - Paddy Breathnach
http://www.shroomsthemovie.com/
When five American college students arrive in Ireland to go on camping trip with their old college buddy Jake, they are in high spirits. Jake has promised them the ‘trip’ of a lifetime’ because he claims Ireland has the best magic mushrooms in the world. It sounded like it would be great fun. Now that they are tripping things don’t seem so funny. BLUTO, one of the gang is missing. TARA thinks he’s dead because she feels she has seen his death before but nobody believes her they think she is just out of it. They’re out of it too. That was the whole point of coming here, but there is something out there, something watching them, something that will kill them if they don’t get out of the forest and get help.
Singing Revolution – documentary - James Tusty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA9PmZo-2jo
After enduring WWII-era brutalization by Hitler's Nazi Party and decades of repressive Soviet dictatorship, the tiny Eastern European nation of Estonia began to declare its independence from Communist rule in the late 1980s. Over a five year period, beginning in 1986, hundreds of thousands of Estonians began to systematically and repeatedly gather in public venues to collectively sing illegal patriotic songs, declaring their desire for national independence but never resorting to violence amid their protests. Uncoincidentally, Estonia was indeed one of the first nations to break away from the Soviet Union in the events leading up to the fall of the Iron Curtain. The documentary The Singing Revolution chronicles this extraordinary yet seldom told chain of events.
Southland Tales - comedy/drama - Richard Kelly
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/southlandtales/trailer/ California is at the epicenter of a political and environmental disaster that threatens to destroy the world in this ambitious fusion of comedy, drama, dystopian science fiction, and music from writer and director Richard Kelly, his first film after gaining a cult following with Donnie Darko. In the year 2005, a nuclear attack wipes out part of the state of Texas, and three years later America is a virtual police state, with the government taking control of nearly every part of people's lives, supposedly for their own good. A German firm has found a way to generate energy using seawater, but both public and private concerns are desperate to prevent the new technology from being introduced in the gasoline-starved United States. A Marxist underground based on the West Coast is determined to bring down the federal government through violent revolution. In this midst of this chaos, we follow a number of stories that continually return to three principle characters. Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock) is an actor famous for his role in action films; he's trying to secure financing for a new project, but reality keeps mirroring the events in his script and he struggles to hold on to his identity following a bout with amnesia. Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is a porn star who is reinventing herself as a television pundit offering her views on politics, contemporary culture, and teenage sex. And Roland Taverner (Seann William Scott) is an L.A. police officer whose identity has mysteriously split in two and he struggles to track down his other half. Featuring a massive supporting cast which includes Mandy Moore, Miranda Richardson, Wallace Shawn, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Smith, Amy Poehler, and Justin Timberlake, Southland Tales received its world premiere at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival; director Kelly also created an accompanying series of three graphic novels which chart these events and characters prior to this story.
Starting Out In The Evening – drama - Andrew Wagner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NmF2Dx46RY
Frank Langella (Dracula, Good Night, and Good Luck.) stars in Andrew Wagner's independent drama Starting Out in the Evening, an adaptation of the acclaimed 1999 best-seller by Brian Morton. Langella plays Leonard Schiller, a once-celebrated author whose first four novels inspired Heather Wolf (Lauren Ambrose) to pursue a career as a writer. These days, Leonard is still working toward completion of the novel that has occupied his life for nearly a decade. On the surface, Leonard has removed himself completely from the deep-seated need for success that characterized his life at an earlier point in time; but on a more buried level, he still longs for his fiction to be rediscovered and reacclaimed. Now an eager graduate student in the throes of her thesis, Heather is writing her dissertation on Schiller, and promptly convinces him that she can use the thesis to regenerate popularity and discovery of his work. Heather also projects personal interest in Leonard, however, which cuts straight through to the core of his loneliness and brings him in touch with his need for a meaningful relationship even as it leaves him feeling shaken and increasingly uncertain. Meanwhile, Leonard finds that his relationship with his daughter, Ariel (Lili Taylor) is challenged, both by Heather's presence and by Ariel's decision to begin dating her former boyfriend Casey (Adrian Lester) once again -- a fact that Leonard finds most upsetting thanks to his disapproval of Casey. Suddenly, Leonard feels his entire world turned upside down, from his familial relationships to the security of his writing to his own physical vitality -- but he is also taking risks and plunging headfirst into the core of life for the first time, thus living out the principles long celebrated and upheld in his fiction and giving himself the capacity to grow.
Steep – documentary - Mark Obenhaus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr7_4LrF8As
In this documentary about the sport of mountain skiing, director Mark Obenhaus explores the motivation behind the athletes who risk life and limb for the adrenaline high of their high-altitude sport, and the challenge that it offers their sense of athleticism and sportsmanship. Full of lush images of white slopes and mountain landscapes, Steep offers the chance to experience the atmosphere that mountain skiers experience when they're engaged in their sport.
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.
Taxi to the Dark Side – documentary - Alex Gibney
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rZFkoptik8k
From the producer of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Who Killed the Electric Car? comes a documentary that takes a critical look at the Bush administration's policy on torture by investigating the death of an Afghan taxi driver at Bagram Air Force base whose suffered fatal injuries at the hands of U.S. soldiers.
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.
There Will Be Blood – drama - Paul Thomas Anderson
http://www.therewillbeblood.com/index.php?section=media
There Will Be Blood is a movie " loosely " adapted by Paul Thomas Anderson from the 1927 novel OIL! by Upton Sinclair. The movie centers on a character Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, who starts out as a simple silver miner, that happens upon oil in his silver efforts. Fast forward a few years and he's made himself a pretty rich man, a wise and shrewd business/oil man, that gets to the point to where he'll step over anyone to get what he wants. You see, Daniel Plainview is not a very decent person, who constantly wrestles with his demons. He is a borderline nihilist, who doesn't like people and thinks most humans are lazy and ignorant. You understand the only reason that he has people in his life is because he couldn't benefit financially if he didn't. Otherwise he could care less. It's all about finding new oil spots with him, and nothing will get in his way and derail his goals. He may not be a good man, but you cannot deny his desire and work ethic. He risks his life more than once setting up oil derricks. But, he almost meets his match in the form of a young man of the word of God in Eli Sunday, played by Paul Dano.
The Witnesses – drama - André Téchiné
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfKy64h6TH0
The early days of the AIDS crisis in France provides the backdrop for this powerful, life-affirming drama from writer and director André Téchiné. It's 1984, and Mehdi (Sami Bouajila) is a police detective who, unbeknownst to his wife Sarah (Emmanuelle Béart), is a bisexual who has occasional trysts with men. Mehdi and Sarah are proud parents of a new baby, but to Mehdi's chagrin, Sarah doesn't seem the least bit concerned about her responsibilities as a mom. Manu (Johan Libereau) is a handsome young man who shares a flat with his sister Julie (Julie Depardieu), who is struggling to make a career as an opera singer. And Adrien (Michel Blanc) is a middle-aged doctor and close friend of Sarah who occasionally picks up younger men in the park, and nearly seduces Manu one evening. Adrien joins Sarah and Mehdi for an idyllic weekend at the beach, where Manu once again crosses his path; however, Manu also meets Mehdi when he saves the detective from drowning, and the two soon become lovers. Several months later, Manu has discovered he's contracted a strange and deadly new disease doctors are calling AIDS, which has a dramatic impact on many of the people he knows. Mehdi has confessed his infidelity to Sarah, and they wait to find out if they also have AIDS, while Adrien is devoting most of his days to treating Manu and other young men who are wasting away under the effects of the illness, and Julie helps to care for her dying brother. The Witnesses (aka Les Témoins) received its premiere at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival.
The Year My Parents Went on Vacation – 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.
Youth Without Youth – drama - Francis Ford Coppola
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn0XGlwTKCI
Legendary director Francis Ford Coppola returns to the director's chair after a ten-year hiatus with this adaptation of Romanian author Mircea Eliade's tome detailing the arduous journey of a professor whose life is thrown into chaos as World War II looms ominously on the horizon. When the seventy year-old scholar is stricken by lightning, his age begins to reverse as his mind grows infinitely more brilliant. Now determined to understand the origins of language and consciousness, the fugitive professor leads authorities on a wild chase through Romania, Switzerland, Malta, and India. Tim Roth, Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, and Marcel Iures star in an ambitious low-budget drama trumpeted by Zoetrope as a "return to personal filmmaking" for the revered Godfather director.
Nanking - Documentary - Bill Guttentag/Dan Sturman
http://movies.aol.com/movie/nanking/27490/video/trailer-no-1/2041513
Nanking is a powerful reminder of the heartbreaking toll that war takes on the innocent, and a testament to the courage and conviction of a few individuals determined to act in the face of evil. The film tells the story of the Japanese invasion of Nanking, China in the early days of World War II and focuses on the efforts of a small group of unarmed Westerners who established a Safety Zone where over 200,000 Chinese found refuge. The events of the film are told through deeply moving interviews with Chinese survivors, archival footage, and chilling testimonies of Japanese soldiers, interwoven with staged readings of the Westerners’ letters and diaries as performed by Jurgen Prochnow, Woody Harrelson, Stephen Dorff, and Mariel Hemingway, among others.
Up The Yangtze - Documentary - Yung Chang
http://www.uptheyangtze.com/trailer.php
A luxury cruise boat motors up the Yangtze - navigating the mythic waterway known in China simply as "The River." The Yangtze is about to be transformed by the biggest hydroelectric dam in history. At the river's edge - a young woman says goodbye to her family as the floodwaters rise towards their small homestead. The Three Gorges Dam - contested symbol of the Chinese economic miracle - provides the epic backdrop for Up the Yangtze, a dramatic feature documentary on life inside modern China.
Last Year at Marienbad - classic - Alain Resnais
http://www.filmforum.org/films/marienbadtrailer.html
A cinematic puzzle, Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad is a radical exploration of the formal possibilities of film. Beautifully shot in Cinemascope by Sacha Vierny, the movie is a riddle of seduction, a mercurial enigma darting between a present and past which may not even exist, let alone converge. The film stars Giorgio Albertazzi as an unnamed sophisticate attempting to convince a similarly nameless woman (Delphine Seyrig) that they met and were romantically involved a year ago in the same enormous, baroque European hotel. In the end, it hardly matters -- they're not characters so much as pawns anyway. Hypnotically dreamlike, Last Year at Marienbad is a surrealist parody of Hollywood melodrama, a high-fashion romance with a dark, alien underbelly. According to screenwriter Alain Robbe-Grillet, the movie is a pure construction, without a frame of reference outside of its own existence -- the lives of its characters begin when the lights go down, and conclude when they come back up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)