January Advisory Meeting Candidates

Ashes of Time Redux – action - Wong Kar Wai
http://www.sonyclassics.com/ashesoftimeredux/trailer.html
Wong Kar Wai works his magic in this long planned "reworking" of his legendary, romantic and one and only martial arts film, previously unreleased in North America. Set in ancient China, Ouran Feng (Leslie Cheung) is a fallen swordsman who is afraid of love after having his heart broken. But the bounty hunters that work for him, like "Blind Swordsman" (Tony Leung Chio Wai) and Hung Chi (Jacky Cheung), discover the intangible secret of true love while Ouyang retains his attitude towards his fighters and the precious lessons that they have taught.

Ballerina – documentary - Bertrand Norman
http://firstrunfeatures.com/trailers_ballerina.html
In the grand tradition of the Ballets Russes comes Bertrand Normand's portrait of five Russian ballerinas from the Mariinski Theatre, formerly known as the Kirov. Behind any great ballerina lies the discipline and rigour that comes from decades of training and practice; and Russia's pre-eminent dancers - superstars such as Nijinsky, Baryshnikov and Pavlova - established the reputation of Russian dancers as the best in the world. The dancers profiled in Ballerina are uniquely individual - tough, insightful and exceptionally talented; onstage they reveal no hint of the sweat, pain and hard work of the rehearsal studio. From Swan Lake to Romeo and Juliet, from the backstage studio to performing on stages around the world, Ballerina captures the sublime beauty of ballet, in all its resplendent glory.

The Betrayal – documentary - Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath http://cinemaguild.com/betrayaltlink.html
In this documentary, filmmaker Thavisouk Phrasavath details the painful story of how he and his family faced hardship and poverty as Laotian refugees during the Vietnam War. Combining interviews and archival footage, Phrasavath explores not only the experience of betrayal that his family endured when they were forced to flee their homeland, but the larger scheme of geopolitics that put the events into play.

The Class – drama - Laurent Cantet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE8rfOJVUtk
François is a tough but fair teacher working in one of France's toughest schools, and his honest demeanor in the classroom has made him a great success with the students. But this year things are different, because when the students begin to challenge his methods François will find his classroom ethics put to the ultimate test. François Bégaudeau stars in director Laurent Cantet's entry into the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

Dark Streets - drama/thriller - Rachel Samuels
http://www.darkstreetsmovie.com/
A naïve playboy investigating the suspicious death of his wealthy father finds his charmed life as owner of the hottest nightclub in town suddenly spiraling into disaster in this shadowy film noir fever dream from director Rachel Samuels. Gabriel Mann, Bijou Phillips, Izabella Miko, and Elias Koteas headline a film featuring music by Aaron Neville, Etta James, Dr. John, Natalie Cole, Chaka Khan, and more.

Doubt – drama - John Patrick Shanley
http://www.doubt-themovie.com/
When the principal (Meryl Streep) of a Bronx Catholic High School accuses a popular priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) of pedophilia, a young nun caught in between the feuding pair become hopelessly swept up in the ensuing controversy. John Patrick Shanley adapts his own play for the screen under the guidance of producer Scott Rudin (The Queen, Notes on a Scandal).

Examined Life – documentary - Astra Taylor
http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/examinedlife/
In Examined Life, filmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today’s most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas. Peter Singer’s thoughts on the ethics of consumption are amplified against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue’s posh boutiques. Slavoj Zizek questions current beliefs about the environment while sifting through a garbage dump. Michael Hardt ponders the nature of revolution while surrounded by symbols of wealth and leisure. Judith Butler and a friend stroll through San Francisco’s Mission District questioning our culture’s fixation and individualism. And while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West—perhaps America’s best-known public intellectual—compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be. Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, Examined Life reveals philosophy’s power to transform the way we see the world around us and imagine our place in it. Featuring Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwarne Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor.

Fear(s) of the Dark - animation/mystery - Blutch/Marie Caillou
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=70oVIphkXcw
IFC Films Presents A Film by : BLUTCH, CHARLES BURNS, MARIE CAILLOU, PIERRE DI SCIULLO, LORENZO MATTOTTI, RICHARD MCGUIRE, ROMAIN SLOCOMBE, JERRY KRAMSKY, MICHEL PIRUS, ETIENNE ROBIAL. Fear(s) of the Dark is a unique collection of fearful tales by the world's most cutting-edge, acclaimed graphic artists. Their intertwined stories make up an unprecedented epic where phobias, disgust and nightmares come to life and reveal Fear at its most naked and intense.

Gomorrah - crime/drama - Matteo Garrone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hky53gXyjX0
Power, money and blood: these are the values that the residents of the province of Naples and Caserta confront every day. They have practically no choice, and are forced to obey the rules of the "System," the Camorra. Only a lucky few can even think of leading a normal life. Five stories are woven together in this violent scenario, set in a cruel and ostensibly invented world, but one that is deeply rooted in reality. OFFICIAL ENTRY, ITALY - BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM - ACADEMY AWARDS(r) 2008

House of Sleeping Beauties – drama - Vadim Glowna
http://www.houseofthesleepingbeauties.com/trailer/quicktime7/trailer_sub.html
Director Vadim Glowna explores such complicated issues as loneliness, guilt, remembrance, mourning, sex, death, and dying in this adaptation of Yasunari Kawabata's novel concerning a most unusual bordello catering to a most unlikely clientele. Edmond is a lonely man in his late sixties. On the advice of his older friend Kogi, Edmond visits a bordello that allows elderly men the rare opportunity to lie down beside beautiful, youthful women. The girls are narcotized before each session, ensuring that they never awaken to actually meet the clients. Presiding over this mysterious establishment is the 60-year-old Madame, a woman who assumes the caring role of mother to both the girls and the men who come to be with them. Each time Edmond lies down next to one of the girls, memories of his previous life come flooding back. Edmond wants nothing more than to disappear silently into death while basking in the glorious perfection of youth. One night, by chance, Edmond observes Madame and her helpers disposing of a corpse. But while Edmond becomes morally conflicted about what he has seen, he cannot stop himself from returning to the bordello. When Edmond begins questioning Madame about the incident, the mystery only seems to deepen.

I've Loved You So Long – drama - Philipe Claudel
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=1vxB-g9PmXE&feature=related
Their relationship fractured when older sister Juliette is sentenced to 15 years in prison, two siblings wage an emotional battle to rebuild their relationship, overcome the secrets that keep them apart, and finally express the thoughts that have lain dormant for well over a decade. The moment Juliette was convicted, her parents declared that they wanted nothing to do with her. Now, after 15 years behind bars, Juliette is a free woman and in desperate need of a human connection. When Juliette's younger sister, Léa, is approached by a prison social worker and asked if she would be willing to provide her recently paroled sibling with a place to live, she doesn't hesitate to open her doors and share her home. But Léa is happily married with two adopted daughters, and her husband, Luc, is uneasy with the arrangement. Still, the house is large, the couple is used to having company, and the two young girls are thrilled to have a new aunt. As Juliette gets settled, Léa does her best to make her feel welcome. Likewise, Léa's colleague Michel and emigrant couple Samir and Kaïsha also offer to help Juliette readjust to life on the outside. Along the way, Juliette slowly begins to emerge from her shell and Léa realizes just how much she missed her sister. Perhaps if she can put aside her feelings of guilt long enough to truly understand her sister's plight, these two strangers can finally remember what it means to be family.

Revanche - crime/drama/thriller - Götz Spielmann
http://www.revanche.at/TRAILER.63.0.html?&L=9
A happily married couple becomes unlikely friends with a man whose life has been marked by chaos and violence in this drama from Austria. Alex (Johannes Krisch) is a small-time criminal who after a stretch in prison finds himself working for Konecny (Hanno Poeschi), who run a grimy house of prostitution; unknown to Konecny, Alex is also involved with Tamara (Irina Potapenko), one of his whores. Wanting to raise some quick cash, Alex robs a bank in a nearby small town and hides out on a farm owned by his grandfather (Hannes Thanheiser) while he waits for the heat to cool down. Alex tries to keep a low profile while waiting for Tamara to join him in the country, and he's troubled by boredom and despair, but his mood brightens when he strikes up a friendship with Susanne (Ursula Strauss), a cheerful and generous woman who lives nearby. But Alex's new friend happens to be married to Robert (Andreas Lust), a member of the local police force. Revanche was screened as an official entry at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival.

Special - drama/fantasy - Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore HYPERLINK http://www.magnetreleasing.com/special/
An unremarkable parking-enforcement officer living a low-key existence of solitary lunches in the park, lonely dinners at home, and superhero comics that at least afford him the quiet release of fantasy enrolls into a clinical trial for antidepressant pills, only to find that it has some decidedly unexpected side effects, in directors Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore's quirky comic-book superhero comedy. Les Franken (Michael Rappaport) leads an unassuming life that rarely deviates from a strict regiment of working, eating, sleeping, and comic book reading. His only two friends are a pair of stoners who own a local comic shop, so Les determines to shake things up a bit by volunteering as a test subject for an experimental drug designed to curb depression. When the drug appears to give Les special powers, the doctor in charge of the clinical controlled test insists that Les is simply experiencing an unanticipated psychological reaction to the medication. But Les is convinced that his powers are genuine, and as he ditches his work uniform in favor of more superhero-appropriate threads, he is about to find out once and for all whether he truly is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, or his depression, combined with the strange side-effects of the drug, has somehow propelled his superhero fantasies to the forefront of his damaged psyche.

Timecrimes - sci-fi/crime - Nacho Vigalondo
http://www.timecrimesmovie.com/
Lauded short film director Nacho Vigalondo makes his feature debut with this tense, unstoppable vision of science and natural law gone awry. Hector (Karra Elejalde) is relaxing on a lawn chair outside of his new country home, surveying the nearby hillside through a pair of binoculars, when he catches sight of what appears to be a nude woman amidst the trees. Hiking up to investigate, he is attacked by a sinister figure whose head is wrapped in a grotesque, pink bandage. Fleeing in terror, he takes refuge in a laboratory atop the hill, where a lone attendant (director Nacho Vigalondo) ushers him in to a peculiar scientific contraption. He emerges what seems to be moments later, only to find that he has traveled back hours in time, setting in motion a brain-twisting, horrifying chain of events when he inadvertently runs into himself. Drawing from the best traditions of classic science fiction and crime fiction, TIMECRIMES plays games with the genre and the audience, giving the protaganist a Russian-doll like shell of identities that are shed so often that Hector can be playing one of any number of whodunit archetypes at any given moment as he becomes increasingly more complicit in the complicated mess that he’s trying to fix. Says director Vigalondo: "TIMECRIMES comes from my love of classic science fiction and crime stories. Writers like James Cain, Philip K. Dick, or directors like Fritz Lang. The idea of building a tragic paradox with such few elements is my attempt to going back to the classics and trying to bring back something new."

Tulpan – comedy - Sergey Dvortsevoy
http://www.myfilm.gr/article3862.html#video
Having just completed his naval service, a young man travels back to the Kazakh steppe to take a bride and begin his new life as a shepherd. Asa is eager to go back to the countryside, where he plans on living a nomadic life along with his sister and her husband. His sister's husband is a shepherd, a career that Asa, too, hopes to someday undertake. But before that happens, Asa will have to find a bride -- not an easy task on the deserted steppe. Young Tulpan is the daughter of another shepherd family and the most obvious choice, yet she isn't attracted to Tulpan due to his big ears. Will Tulpan ever be able to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a shepherd, or is he forever condemned to lead the life of a lonely bachelor?

Waltz With Bashir - animation/drama - Ari Folman
http://www.sonyclassics.com/waltzwithbashir/
One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there’s a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised that he can’t remember a thing anymore about that period of his life. Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images …

Wendy and Lucy – drama - Kelly Reichardt
http://www.wendyandlucy.com/n_trailer.html
Old Joy director Kelly Reichardt crafts this intimate tale of Wendy, an alienated Indiana woman who packs up her car and sets her sights on Alaska, but finds herself stranded in a small Oregon town with no money and only her faithful dog, Lucy, to keep her company. When Wendy realizes that there's nothing keeping her in her home state of Indiana, she makes the decision to relocate to Alaska and seek out work at the local fish cannery. With her four-legged friend Lucy in the passenger seat next to her, Wendy stops off to get some rest in a small Oregon town. The following morning, when Wendy attempts to start her car, the engine fails to respond. But this is only the first in a series of snowballing events, because as Wendy waits for the local garage to open she heads to the supermarket to pick up some dog food for Lucy. Opting to shoplift the puppy chow since she doesn't have much cash to speak of, Wendy subsequently finds herself in the local jail thanks to an overzealous employee. By the time Wendy pays her fine and gets back to the supermarket, Lucy is gone. Unfortunately the dog pound doesn't open until the following morning, and after receiving some help from a kindly local, Wendy gets some particularly bad news about her car.

Yonkers Joe – drama - Robert Celestino
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN4xHwgjRk4
Tired of working cons in and around the casinos of Las Vegas and Atlantic City, slippery swindler Yonkers Joe (Chazz Palminteri) and girlfriend Janice (Christine Lahti) decide to quit the game -- as soon as they pull a final lucrative but dangerous job. But when Joe is forced to take custody of his mentally challenged son (Tom Guiry), he must reconsider the wisdom of the scam and the direction of his life. Robert Celestino directs.