September Advisory Meeting Candidates (as of August)

35 Shots of Rum – drama - Claire Denis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE-liDSUGsQ
Time and romantic attraction threaten to sour a family relationship in this drama from writer and director Claire Denis. Lionel (Alex Descas) is a middle-aged widower who makes his living driving a train and shares an apartment with his twenty-something daughter Josephine (Mati Diop). Lionel and Josephine have a warm and caring relationship, and while it's not Lionel's nature to say very much, his affection for his daughter is clear. Lionel's on-and-off girlfriend Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue) and their footloose friend Noe (Gregoire Colin) live in the same building, and together the four have fallen into a casual family relationship. However, when's Lionel's close friend and fellow driver Rene (Julieth Mars Toussaint) announces he's retiring, Lionel becomes painfully aware that he's not as young as he once was, and realizes how much he depends on his daughter. This knowledge sets Lionel on edge when Jospehine's friendship with Noe begins to evolve into a romantic relationship, while she is angered when she spies her father flirting with an attractive woman who runs a nearby diner.
Absurdistan comedy Veit Helmer 8/14/2009 3/26/2009 First Run Features http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP5zDckXUj8 Welcome to Absurdistan, a small village in the high desert mountains, just on the outskirts of reality, where magical visions and bizarre events fuse together, but the sexes are divided. The village is facing a water shortage, but the men are too lazy to fix a rickety pipeline and the women are getting fed up with their good-for-nothing husbands. Led by young Aya (Kristyna Malerova), the women make a simple vow: “No water, no sex.” The men’s only hope is Temelko (Maximilian Mauff), whose long-promised wedding with Aya is put on hold until he finds a solution to the water problem. From the wild imagination of the award-winning director of Tuvalu comes this perfectly pitched lyrical comedy that is romantic, surreal and boundlessly poetic.

Act of God – documentary - Jennifer Baichwal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgTpXoYTXQE
Documentarian Jennifer Baichwal helmed this reflective documentary that ponders the spiritual, emotional, and metaphysical ramifications of being struck by a lightning bolt. According to the National Weather Service, the odds of this incident befalling any given person are about one in 700,000, which makes many a survivor question why he or she fell prey to this unusual calamity; some infer a cosmic reason, some reject that possibility, but most fall somewhere in between as they feebly attempt to come to terms with it. In the film, Baichwal speaks with a number of well-known victims, including the novelist and screenwriter Paul Auster (The Music of Chance), the improv-driven prog rock guitarist Fred Frith, and others, and evaluates how the interviewees' lives forked off in new directions after a massive discharge of electricity descended from the sky and landed on them.

Adam - comedy/drama - Max Mayer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92U6OnVZG3U
A romantic character study examining the obstacles to intimacy and the compromises we make in the name of love, Adam stars Hugh Dancy as a man living with Asperger's syndrome who does his best to reach out to his pretty new upstairs neighbor. Due to his condition, Adam isn't the best when it comes to communicating. Though he frequently escapes by submersing himself in the world of space exploration, Adam senses an opportunity for a real human connection after Beth (Rose Byrne) moves into the apartment just upstairs. As Adam attempts to gain control of his off-kilter, sometimes embarrassing social skills, he discovers that with a little patience and understanding, developing a meaningful relationship might not be as hard as he previously thought. Peter Gallagher, Amy Irving, Frankie Faison, and Mark Linn-Baker co-star.

Answer Man – comedy - John Hindman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeixpYzhEGg
The reclusive author whose groundbreaking book redefined spirituality for an entire generation realizes how little he actually knows upon being approached by a single mother and a recovering addict in this drama from first time writer/director John Hindman. It's been 20 years since Arlen Faber (Jeff Daniels) penned "Me and God," and the inspirational, soul-searching book is still as popular as ever. Anyone who reads it thinks that Arlen has all the answers to life's problems, but these days the author barely ventures outside of the house. Then, one day, Arlen crosses paths with Elizabeth (Lauren Graham), a single mother struggling to raise her seven-year-old son, and Kris (Lou Taylor Pucci), a young man who has just gotten out of rehab. Both are searching for the answers that will help them to become better people while overcoming their fears of failure. Does Arlen possess the wisdom to help Elizabeth and Kris work through their current problems, or is he really as clueless as he's been feeling for the last two decades?

Art and Copy – documentary - Doug Pray
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ekD_XNLEMc
The advertising industry in America exists in a paradox -- while it's all but impossible to go a day without being exposed to the work of leading figures in the advertising business, very little is known about the people behind the ads and the process by which they're created. Filmmaker Doug Pray offers a rare look inside the business of advertising in the documentary Art & Copy, in which he profiles a number of the most respected men and women in the ad game as they talk about their work, their motivations, and their views on the creative process. Pray's interview subjects include Lee Clow, who created memorable television spots for Apple's Macintosh computer and later their iPod MP3 player; Rich Silverstein and Jeff Goodby, who gave new life to the dairy industry with the "Got Milk?" campaign; Hal Riney, who helped put Ronald Reagan in the White House with his "Morning in America" TV spot; George Lois, who remade popular culture by coining the slogan "I Want My MTV"; and Mary Wells, the first woman to run a major ad agency and the creator of the "I (heart) New York" campaign.

The Baader Meinhof Complex – action - Uli Edel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opq65hdMJHc
Director Uli Edel teams with screenwriter Bernd Eichinger to explore a dark period in German history with this drama detailing the rise and fall of the Red Army Faction, a left-wing terrorist organization that became increasingly active following World War II. Also known as the Baader-Meinhof Group, the Red Army Faction was formed by the radicalized children of the Nazi generation with the intended goal of battling Western imperialism and the West German establishment. Adapted from author Stefan Aust definitive account of the group that resorted to killing innocent civilians in the name of democracy and justice, The Baader Meinhof Complex stars Moritz Bleibtreu as Andreas Baader and Martina Gedeck as Ulrike Meinhof. Brino Ganz co-stars as Horst Herold, the head of the German police force faced with the task of bringing the Red Army Faction to justice.

Bliss – drama - Abdullah Oguz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnEMhcaLTuM
Three people meet under unlikely circumstances and change each other's lives in this Turkish drama from director Abdullah Oguz. When an unmarried teenage girl is believed by her family to have given up her virginity, she ordered to be killed out of shame. But before her relative is able to complete the task, the two encounter a college professor in the midst of an existential crisis. With each of their futures held in the balance, the trio embark on a journey together.

The Blue Tooth Virgin – comedy - Russell Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4IaxNlnIMA
One man's unguarded honesty threatens to destroy the longtime friendship between an aspiring screenwriter and a successful magazine editor in writer/director Russell Brown's blistering comedy about the high price of being truthful. Sam has written a screenplay. He believes the film he has dreamt up could be his ticket to the big time, but before anything else, he wants to get some feedback from his old friend David. David is a magazine editor who's currently at the top of his game. He doesn't think too much of Sam's screenplay, and his admission of this fact opens up a critical rift between the two longtime writers. As the tension begins spreading to other areas of both men's lives, they suddenly find themselves forced to confront their motivations for becoming writers in the first place.

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men – drama - John Krasinski
Based on the book by David Foster Wallace, BRIEF INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN is a darkly funny and disturbing exploration of men and their complex relationships with women. Sara Quinn is interviewing men as part of her graduate studies. Her intellectual endeavor has emotional consequences as the men's twisted and revealing stories are juxtaposed against the backdrop of her own experience. As she begins to listen closely to the men around her, Sara must ultimately reconcile herself to the darkness that lies below the surface of human interactions.

Burma VJ – documentary - Anders Østergaard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V08EBWQLzyU
Armed with small handy cams undercover Video Journalists in Burma keep up the flow of news from their closed country. Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, acclaimed director Anders Østergaard, brings us close to the video journalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country. The Burma VJs stop at nothing to make their reportages from the streets of Rangoon. Their material is smuggled out of the country and broadcast back into Burma via satellite and offered as free usage for international media. The whole world has witnessed single event clips made by the VJs, but for the very first time, their individual images have been carefully put together and at once, they tell a much bigger story. ”Joshua”, age 27, is one of the young video journalists, who works undercover to counter the propaganda of the military regime. Foreign TV crews are suddenly banned from the country, so it’s left to Joshua and his crew to keep the revolution alive on TV screens all over. With Joshua as the psychological lens, the Burmese condition is made tangible to a global audience so we can understand it, feel it, and smell it. The film offers a unique insight into high-risk journalism and dissidence in a police state, while at the same time providing a thorough documentation of the historical and dramatic days of September 2007, when the Buddhist monks started marching.

Burning Plain - drama/romance – Arriaga
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FvckMrGa2E
THE BURNING PLAIN, a romantic mystery about a woman on the edge who takes an emotional journey back to the defining moment of her life. Oscar-winner Charlize Theron plays Sylvia, a beautiful restaurant manager whose cool, professional demeanor masks the sexually charged storm within. When a stranger from Mexico confronts her with her mysterious past, Sylvia is launched into a journey through space and time that inextricably connects her to these disparate characters, all of whom are grappling with their own romantic destinies. In Mexico, a young motherless girl, Maria (Tessa Ia), lives happily with her father and his best friend until a tragic accident changes it all. In the New Mexico border town of Las Cruces, two teenagers, Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence) and Santiago (JD Pardo), find love in the aftermath of their parents’ sudden deaths. In an abandoned trailer, a housewife, Gina (Oscar-winner Kim Basinger), embarks on a passionate affair that will put Sylvia and the others on a collision course with the explosive power of forbidden love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF0eV9oFN34
Amélie and The Da Vinci Code star Audrey Tautou stars as legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel in this biopic penned by director Anne Fontaine and screenwriter Camille Fontaine in collaboration with Christopher Hampton. Based on the Chanel biography L'Irrégulière (The Nonconformist) by author Edmonde Charles-Roux, Coco Avant Chanel features dresses from the Chanel collection. House of Chanel art director Karl Lagerfeld also steps onboard to supervise the creation of accessories and costumes.

Cold Souls – comedy - Sophie Barthes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiPAkcsqgFo
Writer/director Sophie Barthes crafts this metaphysical tragicomedy that straddles the line between reality and fantasy set in a world where souls are extracted from humans and traded as commodity. Paul Giamatti is an anxious New Yorker who finds the answer to his deep-rooted malaise after stumbling upon an article about a high-tech company that claims to have found a solution to human suffering. By deep-freezing souls, claims the company, they can give their customers a life free from fear, doubt, and worry. Eager to free himself from the emotional burden of angst, Giamatti eagerly enlists their services. Trouble arises, however, when Giamatti's soul is swiped by a soul-trafficking "mule" who in turn gives it to a no-talent Russian soap opera actress. Now, in order to get back the soul that is rightfully his, Giamatti must make the arduous trip to St. Petersberg, along the way discovering that the true key to happiness isn't the absence of pain, but the ability to experience the entire spectrum of emotion and cherish the things that really matter.

The Country Teacher – drama - Bohdan Sláma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnH4ovseOh0
A sexually confused natural science teacher turns down a prestigious job in Prague in favor of working in a remote Czech village, in the process forming a close bond with a lonely widow and her insolent seventeen year old son. Having recently come off of a failed homosexual relationship, the troubled teacher makes the difficult decision to leave his family behind and relocate to a quaint village in the countryside where he can create a new identity from the ground up. Shortly after getting settled in and landing a job teaching at the local school, he meets pretty widow Marie (Zuzana Bydzovská) whose husband has disappeared to work on the family farm. In the process of forming a friendship with Marie, who clearly wants to take their relationship a step further, the teacher also forms a connection with her rebellious adolescent son (Ladislav Sedivý). Marie simply doesn't understand that the teacher left Prague in order to find himself in the country, and due to the rampant homophobia in the rural area it's difficult for him to express his true motivations to her. An already complicated situation intensifies tenfold when, out of nowhere, the teacher's former lover arrives in town determined to find out why their relationship was broken off so suddenly and unceremoniously.

The Cove – documentary - Louie Psihoyos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQhfw5U7Ahc
In the 1960s, Richard O'Barry enjoyed a lucrative career as a specialized animal trainer; he captured the five dolphins that were used in the popular television series Flipper, and taught them the tricks and special commands they used on the show. Four decades later, O'Barry has renounced his former life as a trainer and become an animal rights activist, speaking out against the hunting of aquatic mammals and keeping them in captivity. O'Barry is not welcome in Taiji, a town along the Japanese coast where hunting dolphins is a major part of the local economy, but he and a group of activist filmmakers made their way into the city as well as the carefully guarded harbor in hopes of documenting the abuse of dolphins by fisherman and the poisoning of the waters that has taken a toll on the marine ecology. O'Barry and his colleagues captured some beautiful underwater footage as well as shocking images of how the town's fisherman have sullied the dolphins and their habitat, and director Louie Psihoyos has used this material as the basis for the documentary The Cove, which received its world premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

Crude – documentary - joe berlinger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTnm01lWsTg
The story behind the world's largest oil-related environmental lawsuit comes to the screen as award-winning documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) investigates the facts in the case of the so-called "Amazon Chernobyl," a disaster that occurred deep in the rain forests of Ecuador.

The Damned United - sports/drama - Tom Hooper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_QiKT-6hlo
Set in 1960's and 1970's England, THE DAMNED UNITED tells the confrontational and darkly humorous story of Brian Clough's doomed 44 day tenure as manager of the reigning champions on English football, Leeds United. Previously managed by his bitter rival Don Revie, and on the back of their most successful period ever as a football club, Leeds was perceived by many to represent a new aggressive and cynical style of football - an anathema to the principled yet flamboyant Brian Clough, who had acheived astonishing success as manager of Hartlepool and Derby County building teams in his own vision with trusty lieutenant Peter Taylor. Taking the Leeds job without Taylor by his side, with a changing room full of what in his mind were still Don's boys, would lead to an unheralded examination of Clough's belligerence and brilliance over 44 days.

Dead Snow – action - Tommy Wirkola
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-KQh87_V2Q
Eight medical students on a ski trip to Norway discover that Hitler's horrors live on when they come face to face with a battalion of undead Nazi soldiers intent on devouring anyone unfortunate enough to wander into the remote mountains where they were once sent to die. It's Easter vacation, and what better way to spend the break than skiing down the isolated hills just outside of Øksfjord, Norway? After packing their cars with enough beer and ski equipment to ensure that a good time will be had by all, the students set out for their destination and prepare for a relaxing snowbound getaway. Shortly after arriving at their remote cabin, however, the students receive an unexpected visit from a rather suspicious hiker. According to their shady visitor, the Nazis occupied this territory during World War II. In the aftermath of their brutal raping and pillaging, the locals revolted, driving the few surviving Nazi soldiers -- including their iron-fisted leader, Colonol Herzog -- deep into the hills. Neither the soldiers nor their leader were ever seen again. Everyone in town assumed that they simply froze to death. But there's something stirring out there in the trees, and it won't be long until the unsuspecting students discover how the story really ends.

Downloading Nancy - drama - Johan Renck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXfz8fKt7N0
A self-destructive housewife takes what may be her final step into the abyss in this independent psychological drama. Nancy Stockwell (Maria Bello) is a woman edging into her forties who has fallen into a deep and prolonged state of depression, finding her only solace in self-inflicted pain. Nancy has grown weary of her relationship with her husband, Albert (Rufus Sewell), and one day he comes home from work to find a note in which Nancy says she's decided to visit an old friend for a few days. When Nancy doesn't call after several days, Albert begins to worry that something is wrong, and he soon learns that Nancy hasn't told him the truth. Nancy has struck up an on-line relationship with Louis Farley (Jason Patric), who has a passion for violent sex, and she has decided to meet with him in person, but she has more in mind than just a fling -- she believes that Louis is the man who can end her misery by killing her. Also featuring Amy Brenneman as Nancy's analyst, Downloading Nancy was the first English-language feature from Swedish filmmaker Johan Renck.

Earth Days – documentary - Robert Stone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsdKxew6FM8
While the publication of Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring in 1962 has been cited by many as the dawn of the environmental movement, the celebration of the first Earth Day in 1970 demonstrated to many that the concern over pollution, overpopulation, and the abuse of our natural resources was no longer the task of a handful of scientists but something that had caught the attention of people all around the world. Filmmaker Robert Stone offers a historic look at the events leading up to the initial Earth Day event (and what has and hasn't happened to protect the planet since then) in the documentary Earth Days. Stone offers a thumbnail history of the early days of the environmental movement, profiles several of the movers and shakers behind the initial Earth Day event (including Stuart Brand, Rusty Schweickart, Stewart Udall, and Paul Ehrlich), and compares what politicians have promised to do about the environment since 1970 to what has actually taken place

An Education – drama - Lone Scherfig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYkLgaQ27L8
A suburban London teen finds her traditional education replaced by something slightly more sinister when an older, more worldly suitor sweeps her off of her feet while placing her future in jeopardy. London, 1961: 16-year-old Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is smart, attractive, and eager to start her adult life. She's grown tired of the familiar adolescent routine, so when urbane newcomer David (Peter Sarsgaard) appears in town, Jenny senses a rare opportunity to shake things up a bit. Quickly falling under David's spell, the impressionable Jenny begins accompanying her newfound beau to classical concerts, art auctions, crowded pubs, and dinners that stretch into the small hours of the night. But Jenny is brighter than most kids her age, and her parents always dreamt of getting their exceptional daughter into Oxford. These days it seems like she's headed in a different direction -- will David ultimately be her undoing, or the person who helps her finally realize her true potential?

Five Minutes of Heaven – crime - Oliver Hirschbiegel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZOE7HgvI3c
Oliver Hirschbiegel, director of Das Experiment and The Invasion, takes the helm for this film about a killer who dares not seek forgiveness, and another who feels incapable of granting it. The political divide in Ireland runs as far as it does deep. Alistair (Liam Neeson) and Joe (James Nesbitt) each stand on opposing sides of that gaping chasm. Alistair killed Joe's brother, and for than man who's lost family, absolution simply isn't an option.

The Girl from Monaco – comedy - Anne Fontaine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmUCh4uqfek
A brilliant and neurotic attorney (Fabrice Luchini) goes to Monaco to defend a famous criminal. But, instead of focusing on the case, he falls for a beautiful she-devil (Louise Bourgoin), who turns him into a complete wreck. Hopefully, his zealous bodyguard (Roschdy Zem) will step in and put everything back in order... Or will he?

It Might Get Loud – documentary - Davis Guggenheim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl9iS2egnC0
Academy Award-winning An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim focuses his probing lens on a subject that's decidedly less urgent but no less fascinating with this look at the electric guitar featuring Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, U2's The Edge, and The White Stripes' Jack White. Growing up, all three guitarists realized their rebellion through music: Page was attempting to subvert the sugary sweet pop music of the 1960s, The Edge was hell-bent on making the guitar solos of the 1970s a distant memory, and White used his screeching strings to buzz out the droning bass machines of the 1980s. Later, Page makes way for Headley Grange to revisit the birthplace of "Stairway to Heaven," The Edge digs out the original four-track rehearsals for "Where the Streets Have No Names" in Dublin, and White expresses his exuberance for revered bluesman Son House -- all the while displaying their deep love for their instrument of choice by permitting the viewer a rare chance to see them refining as-yet-unreleased material. When the trio comes together for a landmark jam session, their spectacularly diverse styles and instruments become just as apparent as the shared passion that binds them all together.

Jerichow – drama - Christian Petzold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlgHdr2-SBM
The Turkish diaspora in Germany proves the catalyst for this noir-flavored drama concerning the unlikely friendship between a veteran of the Afghan-Soviet war and a middle-aged Turk in need of a helping hand. Returning home for his mother's funeral when he happens across a business associate to whom he owes a sizable debt, Thomas (Benno Fürmann) subsequently stumbles into intoxicated Turk Ali (Hilmi Sözer) while fleeing in haste. Ali has nearly driven his van into a local canal, and now he needs a driver to chauffeur him around his modest kingdom of crumbling snack bars. Recognizing the opportunity to make some quick and easy cash, Thomas agrees. But Thomas doesn't know that Ali is an intensely jealous and distrustful man, two traits that threaten to spell tragedy when Thomas enters into a passionate affair with Ali's gorgeous German bride (Nina Hoss).

Laila's Birthday – drama - Rashid Masharawi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hFLmBzGMjI
A taxi-driving judge attempts to keep his promise to return home with a birthday cake for his young daughter while contending with everyday life in occupied territory and doing his best to keep unruly passengers in check. Abu Laila is a judge, though despite being invited to practice in Palestine bureaucracy has prevented him from procuring his papers. Today is his daughter's birthday, and if he can somehow maintain his sanity amidst the chaos of the outside world he plans to buy her a cake so they can celebrate later that evening. Cigarettes are banned from Abu's cab, as are AK-47s. And while contending with the occupiers harass him at every turn is no easy task, Abu's greatest challenge is often convincing his passengers to buckle their seat belts.

Lemon Tree – drama - Eran Riklis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIoowHIpUT0
Widow and empty-nester Salma Zidane lives on the Palestinian West Bank, in a little house flanked by lemon trees planted by her great grand parents. Unfortunately, when the Israeli minister of defense builds a house adjacent to her own, her lemon trees are deemed a security risk. Salma hires a lawyer to prevent the powerful man from having her ancestral trees removed, but the odds are stacked against her and to make matters worse, she begins to fall in love with her lawyer. Things look bleak, but it looks like hope could shine in from an unexpected source, when the minister's neglected wife develops sympathy for Salma's plight.

Limits of Control - crime/drama - Jim Jarmusch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPFRaCnkVzE
A mysterious loner attempts to successfully complete his criminal mission while operating outside of the law in contemporary Spain. His objectives shrouded in secrecy, the untrusting lone wolf (Isaach de Bankolé) sets out on his latest assignment knowing that the law is never too far behind. Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, and Gael García Bernal co-star in a crime drama from acclaimed indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (Mystery Train, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai).

Lion's Den – drama - Pablo Trapero
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVxj1-a5jbQ
Writer/director Pablo Trapero crafts this tender tale of an incarcerated woman who gives birth to a baby boy and struggles to raise her son behind bars as she comes to the bleak realization that he is the only one who matters to her anymore. It all started when a pregnant Julia woke up in her apartment flanked by the bloodied bodies of her former lovers Nahuel and Romiro. Subsequently sent to a prison for mothers and pregnant convicts, Julia railed against the system by withdrawing into her own world. Upon giving birth, Julia realizes just how difficult it could be to raise a son in prison, but each day her feelings for the boy swell stronger within her. Later, when Julia pays a visit to Romiro in the men's prison, it becomes obvious that the couple's feelings for one another are just as muddled as the events of that fateful night back in Julia's apartment.

Loren Cass – drama - Chris Fuller
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX4HvrCDmPc
The debut feature by Chris Fuller, the hard-edged drama Loren Cass stars Travis Mynard as Jason, a skinhead who starts a racial conflagration after playing a prank on a Black man with the help of his friend Cale (played by the director and writer, but billed under the name Lewis Borgan). Cale asks out a young waitress (Kayle Tabish), but they end up having dinner at the diner where she works. Everyone in the film seems weighed down by hopelessness and racial tension.

Lorna's Silence – drama - Jean-Pierre Dardenne
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZN_rVSq1qg
An Albanian woman living in Belgium finds her dreams of opening a snack bar with her boyfriend leading to tragedy after she agrees to marry a Russian Mafioso in order to gain citizenship. All Lorna wanted was to start a small business with her loving boyfriend, but in order to make that happen she would first have to gain citizenship. Local mobster Fabio claims that he can make that happen if Lorna agrees to a sham marriage with a man named Claudy. After gaining Belgian citizenship, Lorna discovers that a high-profile Russian Mafioso is also seeking legal entry into Belgium, and soon. He's willing to pay a hearty sum in order to marry Lorna, but in order for that second marriage to be possible Fabio will have to have Claudy killed. Will Lorna be able to remain silent as Fabio's deadly plot unfolds, and what will become of her if Fabio finds out that she has warned Claudy of the impending danger he faces?

Misconceptions – comedy - Ron Satlof
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFIkYwDUeGU
This lighthearted comedy pokes fun at the culture wars, and the debate over same-sex parenting. Southern gal Miranda is an Evangelical Christian with all the social and political beliefs dictated by her church, but when she gets what she's sure is a message from God, she does a 180 and decides to become a surrogate mother for a married gay couple from Boston. It's a weird enough situation as it is, but things get even crazier for Miranda when one of her baby-daddies-to-be decides to come down South for a visit -- and won't leave!

No Impact Man – documentary - Laura Gabbert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9Ctt7FGFBo
Colin Beavan was a writer living in Manhattan who had the usual concerns over the future of the environment until he realized he wasn't doing much about it. Beavan decided that it was time he and his family did something to deal with the practical issues of global warming and environmental sustainability, so he set out on a grand experiment -- to see if he, his wife, Michelle Conlin, their young daughter, and their dog could live for a year in New York City without leaving any sort of carbon footprint. Michelle, a writer for Business Week with a taste for fashion, was a hard sell for the notion of spending a year without electricity, takeout, toilet paper, or motorized transportation, but in time she agreed and found that their new life was a life-changing experience. Colin, however, found his will tested by the experience and his ideals questioned when he began writing a book about his experiences and sharing his story with the news media, becoming a minor celebrity in the process. Colin and Michelle's friends Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein are filmmakers who decided to capture the family's year of environmental purity on film, and No Impact Man is a documentary that chronicles the nuts and bolts of living a carbon-neutral life as well as how the experience impacted the family.

Nollywood Babylon – documentary - Ben Addelman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRVUNYV7Mto
Hollywood and Bollywood watch out; in this documentary examining Nigeria's booming movie industry, filmmakers Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal highlight the reasons why it doesn't take a multi-million-dollar budget to produce a wildly entertaining movie. Idumota market, Lagos: amidst the hustle and bustle of the endless stalls, movie stars are born. Nigeria is a place where traditional mysticism and modern culture clash to form an atmosphere where anything seems possible. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the inventive, low-budget B-movies produced by enterprising local filmmakers with no goal other than to entertain the viewer. From the epicenter of this African metropolis emerges a new breed of cinema known as Nollywood, a brand of film that's remained a well-kept secret...until now.

O'Horten – comedy - Brent Hamer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ong76I3aJm4
A septuagenarian taking his penultimate voyage from Oslo to Bergen begins to mentally prepare for his final trip, but finds that sometimes things don't turn out as expected when he misses the last departure for the first time in 40 years.

Paper Heart – comedy - Nicholas Jasenovec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewisKyyuF78
Real-life sweethearts Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi head up this indie semi-documentary comedy, scripted by Yi, concerning the meaning of love. Fellow Judd Apatow veteran Nicholas Jasenovec makes his directorial debut with the production.

Paris – comedy/drama - Cédric Klapisch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwROhrqTyi8
Love and life pose dilemmas for a handful of friends in the City of Lights in this romantic drama from French filmmaker Cedric Klapisch. Pierre (Romain Duris) has enjoyed a successful career as a dancer performing in Parisian nightclubs, but when he's diagnosed with a serious heart condition, his doctor warns him that the strain of his work could kill him. Pierre must reinvent his life, and as he ponders his future and his mortality, he turns to his sister, Élise (Juliette Binoche), a social worker and single mother, for help. Élise is facing some life changes of her own; she's tired of being alone, and has developed an infatuation with Jean (Albert Dupontel), a grocer who sells his wares in the city's open-air market. But Jean is recently divorced and is still preoccupied with his former wife, Caroline (Julie Ferrier). Pierre also finds himself falling from afar for a lovely college student named Laetitia (Melanie Laurent), but he has a rival for her affections in Roland (Fabrice Luchini), one of her professors, who is considerably older than her.

September Issue – documentary - R. J. Cutler
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq4wo4JYy2s
Vogue has been the most powerful and best-respected fashion magazine in the world for decades, and each year the journal devotes a fall issue to the designs and designers that the editors feel will be influential in the coming year. The September 2007 issue of Vogue, that year's annual Fall Fashion issue, became the biggest single issue in the magazine's long history, and filmmaker R.J. Cutler was given unprecedented access to Vogue's creative team as the issue was being prepared. The September Issue is a documentary which focuses on Vogue editor Anna Wintour as she visits the annual Fashion Week shows, accepts or dismisses the latest creations of the biggest names in fashion, works with the models, photographers, and writers who help bring her vision to the page, and labors with her staff to determine what the world's fashionistas will be wearing for the next 12 months. The September Issue received its world premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, where it received an award for excellence in documentary cinematography.

Seraphine - bio/drama - Martin Provost
http://www.moviefone.com/movie/seraphine/36900/video/seraphine-trailer-no-1/25324780001
Séraphine is the story of Séraphine Louis aka Séraphine de Senlis (Yolande Moreau), a simple and profoundly devout housekeeper who in 1905 at age 41, self-taught and with the instigation of her guardian angel began painting brilliantly colorful canvases. In 1912 Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur), a German art critic and collector - he was one of the first collectors of Picasso and champion of naïve primitive painter Le Douanier Rousseau - discovered her paintings while she worked for him as a maid in his house in Senlis outside Paris. A moving and unexpected relationship develops between the avant-garde art dealer and the visionary cleaning lady leading to Séraphine's work being grouped with other naïve painters - the so-called "Sacred Heart Painters" - with acclaimed shows in France, elsewhere in Europe and eventually at New York's MOMA . Martin Provost's poignant portrait of this now largely forgotten painter is a testament to the mysteries of creativity and the resilience of one woman's spirit.

Shall We Kiss - comedy/romance - Emmanuel Mouret
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1YmwkwJL3o
Emmanuel Mouret's romantic comedy Shall We Kiss? begins with two strangers who end up attracted to each other, even though they both are involved in relationships with others. The woman refuses to kiss the man goodnight after a dinner together, explaining that a single kiss can alter a life. This set-up acts as a framing device for the main story, a tale she shares with him about friends who complicate their lives by becoming sexually involved.

Soul Power – documentary - Jeffrey Levy-Hint
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OprNgiOq-I
Presented in conjunction with the landmark "Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match between famed pugilists Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, Zaire '74 was a three-day music festival in Kinshasa that was organized by South African musician Hugh Masekela and American record producer Stewart Levine, and featured performances by such famed musicians as James Brown, Bill Withers, and B.B. King, among others. Many of the American musicians performing at Zaire '74 had been emboldened by the American Civil Rights movement, and saw their journey to Africa as a unique opportunity not just to perform for a new set of enthusiastic fans, but to explore their roots as well. However, while the forward-thinking promoters of Zaire '74 hired a talented team of documentary filmmakers to capture everything from the setup to the performances to everyday life in Kinshasa, the project ran into trouble when the Liberian investment group that financed the festival and film ran into some rather serious legal disputes. For the next three decades, the remarkable footage would sit untouched and unedited -- a valuable sociohistorical artifact seemingly forgotten, and left to succumb to the ravages of time. Later, in 1996, the rights were settled in order to help facilitate the completion of When We Were Kings, an Academy Award-winning documentary focusing on the very same Ali/Foreman match that took place alongside the Zaire '74 music festival. Recognizing the need to assemble the neglected Zaire '74 footage while it was still possible, When We Were Kings editor Jeffrey Levy-Hinte made it his own personal mission to see the long gestating project through to completion. The result is not simply a concert film featuring some of the most popular African and American musicians of the era, but also a pure cinéma vérité glimpse into a time when the musical crossover between the two nations was just beginning to emerge.

Still Walking – drama - Hirokazu Koreeda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2Ca0f-eY7c
Director Hirokazu Kore-eda writes and directs this family drama that unfolds over the course of a single summer day as the Yokoyama family gathers for a rare reunion held to commemorate the death of the one who was taken before his time. It was fifteen years ago that eldest Yokoyama son Junpei drowned in a tragic accident, and the only changes around the family home since that fateful day are so subtle that they're not likely to be noticed by anyone outside of the immediate family. Retired family patriarch Kyohei (Yoshio Harada) used to run a successful medical clinic out of the home, though the lights in his medical examining room haven't even been turned on in years. The tiles in the kitchen where energetic Toshiko (Kirin Kiki) cooks family meals are slowly coming loose, and as youngest son Ryota (Hiroshi Abe) arrives home he does his best to hide the fact that he's currently unemployed. His older sister Chinami has also arrived with her family, and does her best to entertain everyone despite the undeniable cloud of melancholy hanging over the home. As the festive gathering commences and Toshiko lays out a lavish meal, it gradually becomes obvious that resentment and sorrow bonds this family as powerfully as love.

Thirst - drama/horror - Chan-wook Park
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG4AV6kLrKY
Song Kang-ho, Shin Ha-kyun, and Kim Ok-bin star in Oldboy director Park Chan-wook's frightener concerning a priest whose life takes a turn for the worst after he participates in a medical experiment to find a cure for a deadly disease.

Three Monkeys – drama - Nuri Bilge Ceylan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtfTbUNRuX8
Set in the areas of Istanbul rarely visited by foreigners, director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's strange detective story traces the journey of a family that is suddenly dislocated when minor shortcomings explode into exorbitant deceptions. Now their only hope of remaining together is to cover up the truth, but can ignoring the hardships and responsibilities that would be impossible to endure ever really invalidate the existence of the truth?

Tony Manero – drama - Pablo Larrain
http://www.lorberfilms.com/tony-manero/
As Augusto Pinochet holds Chile in the grip of dictatorship, a fifty year old man obsessed with John Travolta’s character from Saturday Night Fever imitates his idol each weekend in a small bar on the outskirts of Santiago. Each weekend, Raúl Peralta and his friends – a devoted group of dancers – gather in a small bar and act out their favorite scenes from Saturday Night Fever. Raúl longs to become a showbiz superstar, and when the national television announces a Tony Manero impersonating contest it seems like he may finally have a shot at living his dreams. But as Raúl is driven to commit a series of crimes and thefts in order to reproduce his matinee idol’s persona, his dancing partners (also underground resistance fighters who rail against the regime) are persecuted by the secret police.

Unmistaken Child - documentary - Nati Baratz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy9AFwvzmok
Documentary filmmaker Nati Baratz follows the shy but devoted disciple of a deceased Tibetan master as he sets out in search of his reincarnated master under the direct orders of the Dalai Lama. In 2001, Lama Konchog passed away following 26 years of isolated meditation in a remote mountain cave. Upon Lama Konchog's death, the Dalai Lama instructed his disciple Tenzin Zopa to venture out in search of his reincarnated master. But there is an urgency to Zopa's quest, because should he fail to locate the "unmistaken child" within the span of four short years, it will be too difficult to remove the boy from his parent's care. As a seven-year-old boy, Zopa had willingly entered the service of Lama Konchog, faithfully remaining by his chosen master's side for the next 21 years. When Lama Konchog died, Zopa was devastated. But while the prospect of finding his reincarnation is indeed a foreboding one, the loyal disciple is determined to succeed. With little more than dreams and whispers to guide him, Zopa sets out across lands that seemed to have been virtually untouched by civilization for an entire century. Later, when Tenzin comes across an apparent contender, he prepares to conduct the test that will confirm or deny the reincarnation.

Vanished Empire – drama - Karen Shakhnazarov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxXGKIrWleo
Love and youthful idealism are both put to the test as the Soviet Union begins to crumble in this drama from director Karen Shakhnazarov. In the early 1970's, Sergei (Alexander Lyapin) is a Russian college student who proudly describes himself as a dissident, telling anyone who cares to listen that he wants to help bring democracy to the Soviet Union. Sergei's confident, outspoken manner had made him quite popular with the women on campus, much to the chagrin of his close friend Stepan (Egor Baranovsky), who shares his political views but not his social skills. Sergei is dating Lyuda (Lidia Milyuzina), one of the most beautiful girls at the university, but while he loves her he doesn't always appreciate how special she is. Stepan, however, is immediately smitten with Lyuda, and loves her from afar while Sergei's headstrong nature and thirst for alcohol threaten to jeopardize his opportunities. Sergei, Lyuda and Stepan are entering adulthood at a time when the Soviet Union is in a state of flux -- young people are embracing the trappings of the West, their grandparents are trying to hold on to scraps of the culture that was lost in the revolution, and their country is headed for a future far different than what either side can imagine.

A Wink and A Smile – documentary - Deirdre Allen Timmons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhPw65N8pSM
Ten burlesque newcomers shed their inhibitions, emotional hang-ups, stereotypes, and, of course, clothing as they enter the Academy of Burlesque for a personal training session with famed Seattle dancer Miss Indigo Blue. By the time this lesson is over, these ladies will have gained the confidence to strut across the stage in true style, all the while knowing that every eye in the room is completely fixed on them.

A Woman in Berlin – drama - Max Färberböc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEZxcSf9HwM
The horrors and moral compromises of war set the stage for this harrowing drama from director Max Färberböck, based on a true story. An anonymous female reporter (Nina Hoss) is living in Berlin in the spring of 1945; most of the city has been reduced to rubble by bombing, the German army has been decimated, and most of those left behind are expecting the arrival of Russian troops and fearful of what awaits them. The reporter is one of a number of women who are hiding wherever they can in the city, expecting that they will be raped and brutalized by the Russians. It doesn't take long for their worst fears to be realized as the emotionally ravaged Russian soldiers take out their anger and frustration on their new captives. But the reporter, who can speak Russian, is determined not to allow herself to be violated by the soldiers, and she decides to curry favor with a Soviet officer who will then protect her from his underlings. The reporter's plan works as she becomes the lover of Major Andrej (Yevgeni Sidikhin), an officer with decidedly mixed feelings about his work. But as the reporter trades consensual sex for the safety Andrej can give her, both are aware who is the victor and who is a captive, and elsewhere in Berlin both German survivors and the soldiers occupying Berlin show the scars of war as they bring out the worst in one another.

World's Greatest Dad – comedy - Bobcat Goldthwait
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PkGTjZccNE
A high school poetry teacher and single father discovers that the thing he covets most in life may not be what makes him truly happy in this pitch-black comedy directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, and starring Robin Williams. Lance Clayton (Williams) is a mild-mannered high school teacher from Seattle who was granted sole custody of his son, Kyle (Daryl Sabara), following a nasty divorce. As hard as Lance tries to connect with his hostile, loathsome son, all he receives for his sincere efforts are insults and scorn. The only things Kyle seems to care about are violent video games and internet porn, the latter obsession eventually serving to alienate the foul-mouthed teen from his sole friend, Andrew (Evan Martin). His books rejected by publishers and his poetry class on the verge of being canceled due to student disinterest, Lance does find a bit of happiness in his relationship with pretty art instructor Claire (Alexie Gilmore), though these days her gaze is drifting toward handsome young English teacher Mike (Henry Simmons), who recently celebrated the publication of his very first piece in The New Yorker. Then, one day, Lance discovers his son dead, the apparent victim of autoerotic asphyxiation gone horribly awry. In order to give the boy some dignity in death, Lance pens a suicide note before summoning the authorities. By chance, that note is published in Kyle's school newspaper, instantly transforming him into a misunderstood cult icon among the impressionable student body. Now, tragedy has become opportunity for Lance. Can the grieving father live with the knowledge of how he achieved such fame, or has he sacrificed his own soul in his blind quest to garner the kind of fame that has eluded him his entire life?

July Advisory Meeting Candidates

35 Shots of Rum – drama – Claire Denis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XueS02bruUU (in French)
Time and romantic attraction threaten to sour a family relationship in this drama from writer and director HYPERLINK "http://www.allmovie.com/search/artist/claire+denis"Claire Denis. Lionel (HYPERLINK "http://www.allmovie.com/search/artist/alex+descas"Alex Descas) is a middle-aged widower who makes his living driving a train and shares an apartment with his twenty-something daughter Josephine (HYPERLINK "http://www.allmovie.com/search/artist/mati+diop"Mati Diop). Lionel and Josephine have a warm and caring relationship, and while it's not Lionel's nature to say very much, his affection for his daughter is clear. Lionel's on-and-off girlfriend Gabrielle (HYPERLINK "http://www.allmovie.com/search/artist/nicole+dogue"Nicole Dogue) and their footloose friend Noe (HYPERLINK "http://www.allmovie.com/search/artist/gregoire+colin"Gregoire Colin) live in the same building, and together the four have fallen into a casual family relationship. However, when's Lionel's close friend and fellow driver Rene (HYPERLINK "http://www.allmovie.com/search/artist/julieth+mars+toussaint"Julieth Mars Toussaint) announces he's retiring, Lionel becomes painfully aware that he's not as young as he once was, and realizes how much he depends on his daughter. This knowledge sets Lionel on edge when Jospehine's friendship with Noe begins to evolve into a romantic relationship, while she is angered when she spies her father flirting with an attractive woman who runs a nearby diner.

Absurdistan – comedy - Veit Helmer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP5zDckXUj8
Welcome to Absurdistan, a small village in the high desert mountains, just on the outskirts of reality, where magical visions and bizarre events fuse together, but the sexes are divided. The village is facing a water shortage, but the men are too lazy to fix a rickety pipeline and the women are getting fed up with their good-for-nothing husbands. Led by young Aya (Kristyna Malerova), the women make a simple vow: “No water, no sex.” The men’s only hope is Temelko (Maximilian Mauff), whose long-promised wedding with Aya is put on hold until he finds a solution to the water problem. From the wild imagination of the award-winning director of Tuvalu comes this perfectly pitched lyrical comedy that is romantic, surreal and boundlessly poetic.

Adoration – drama - Atom Egoyan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLuu2Asb9RQ
Director Atom Egoyan explores the concept of cyberspace as a place for redemption in this drama about an adolescent boy named Simon (Devon Bostick) who reinvents his life on the internet. Before long, Simon's deeply personal journey provokes strong reactions from around the globe. Rachel Blanchard and Scott Speedman co-star.

America Betrayed – documentary - Leslie Cardé
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWzZBhkT0jM
America's national infrastructure was once considered one of our crowning achievements, but in this documentary narrated by Academy Award winner Richard Dreyfuss and directed by Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist Leslie Cardé, viewers learn how our country's crumbling bridges, dams, levees, and highways put millions of Americans at risk every day. Using an investigation into the little-known causes of the post-Katrina levee failures as a springboard to examine how corruption, collusion, and cronyism have infected the highest levels of government, Cardé and company reveal how the Army Corps of Engineers -- the very agency charged with insuring that our national infrastructure remains intact -- has sacrificed the needs of our nation in favor of entering into self-serving deals with corporate America. Having wasted billions of dollars in taxpayer money on rebuilding other nation's infrastructures while neglecting to ensure that our own are properly maintained, we are forced to watch our streets crumble as lobbyists and gluttonous politicians funnel money into pointless pet projects, and those sent to investigate the matter are bribed into covering up their true findings. Interviews with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, top scientists, United States senators and congressmen, and whistleblowers who risk their lives and livelihood in order to speak out, America Betrayed is a sobering wake-up call to anyone who places blind trust in government, and a challenge to Washington to hold corrupted officials accountable for their misdeeds.

The Answer Man – comedy - John Hindman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeixpYzhEGg
The reclusive author whose groundbreaking book redefined spirituality for an entire generation realizes how little he actually knows upon being approached by a single mother and a recovering addict in this drama from first time writer/director John Hindman. It's been 20 years since Arlen Faber (Jeff Daniels) penned "Me and God," and the inspirational, soul-searching book is still as popular as ever. Anyone who reads it thinks that Arlen has all the answers to life's problems, but these days the author barely ventures outside of the house. Then, one day, Arlen crosses paths with Elizabeth (Lauren Graham), a single mother struggling to raise her seven-year-old son, and Kris (Lou Taylor Pucci), a young man who has just gotten out of rehab. Both are searching for the answers that will help them to become better people while overcoming their fears of failure. Does Arlen possess the wisdom to help Elizabeth and Kris work through their current problems, or is he really as clueless as he's been feeling for the last two decades?

Away We Go – comedy - Sam Mendes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEp3NKG2U5U
When slacker thirtysomething couple Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) discover that his parents are moving overseas, the duo - who expect their first child in a few months - set off on a cross-country tour to figure out where they should lay down some roots in Sam Mendes' poignant comedy Away We Go. They visit a number of different cities, and meet with a different friend or family member's family at each stop. Their hosts include a set of emotionally detached parents (Allison Janney and Jim Gaffigan), a pair of overprotective new-age parents (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton), and old college pals (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynsky) who have adopted a number of kids. Novelist Dave Eggers wrote the script with Vendela Vida.

Beaches of Agnes – documentary – Agnes Varda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUUq1HPE6IE
A magnificent new film from Agnes Varda, director of Cleo from 5 to 7 and The Gleaners and I, The Beaches of Agnes is a richly cinematic self portrait, a reflection on art, life and the movies.

Big Man Japan – comedy - Hitoshi Matsumoto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTAoxSspBJE
Director Hitoshi Matsumoto weaves this darkly comic mockumentary about a Japanese man who continues the long-standing family tradition of facing off against Tokyo's most formidable monsters. Constantly caught in the middle of everyone's battles, Daisato finds his sincere efforts to keep the peace repeatedly belittled; he's divorced, his neighbors have covered his house in graffiti, and he gets nothing but dirty looks when he walks down the street. When we first meet Daisato, he is the subject of a television documentary. Though on the surface Daisato may seem like your average, slightly unkempt salaryman -- completely unremarkable in all respects -- it soon becomes apparent just how deceiving first impressions can be. After lamenting on camera the fact that he never gets any vacation time due to frequent calls from the Defense Department, the camera follows Daisato as he rides his motorbike to a Tokyo power plant, receives the jolt of electricity that transforms him into a hulking super-human crime fighter, and clashes with a gargantuan leviathan intent on destroying Tokyo. Daisato comes from a long line of heroic heavyweights, yet while his ancestors were once championed with parades for their noble efforts, public interest in giant invaders has waned and Daisato has become something of a joke to the citizens of Tokyo. Not only is noise generated by Daisato's battles regarded as a public nuisance, the property damages that he causes while defending the city has the citizens downright angry. Now, as Daisato attempts to balance his responsibilities to his ex-wife, his daughter, his agent, and his senile grandfather, the crushing weight of both his personal and professional obligations simply becomes too much to bear.

Burma VJ – documentary - Anders Østergaard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V08EBWQLzyU
Armed with small handy cams undercover Video Journalists in Burma keep up the flow of news from their closed country. Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, acclaimed director Anders Østergaard, brings us close to the video journalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country. The Burma VJs stop at nothing to make their reportages from the streets of Rangoon. Their material is smuggled out of the country and broadcast back into Burma via satellite and offered as free usage for international media. The whole world has witnessed single event clips made by the VJs, but for the very first time, their individual images have been carefully put together and at once, they tell a much bigger story. ”Joshua”, age 27, is one of the young video journalists, who works undercover to counter the propaganda of the military regime. Foreign TV crews are suddenly banned from the country, so it’s left to Joshua and his crew to keep the revolution alive on TV screens all over. With Joshua as the psychological lens, the Burmese condition is made tangible to a global audience so we can understand it, feel it, and smell it. The film offers a unique insight into high-risk journalism and dissidence in a police state, while at the same time providing a thorough documentation of the historical and dramatic days of September 2007, when the Buddhist monks started marching.

Cheri – romance - Stephen Frears
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gdkcdmUdyI
Stephen Frears, the director who bolstered his international reputation with his Choderlos de Laclos adaptation Dangerous Liaisons (1988), returns to the annals of period intrigue over twenty years later with this melodrama, which reunites him with Liasons scripter Christopher Hampton and star Michelle Pfeiffer. An adaptation of Colette's 1920 novel of the same name, the tale unfurls in late 19th Century Paris - La Belle Époque - where numerous courtesans (or female companions of noblemen who occupied the royal courts) have worked their ways up through the ranks of high society. Two retired courtesans, Charlotte Peloux (Kathy Bates) and Lea (Michelle Pfeiffer) meet for some routine gossip; Lea then meets Charlotte's hedonistic, playboy son, nicknamed "Cheri" (Rupert Friend) and a passionate, erotic affair blossoms for the next six years between Lea and Cheri. Eventually, Charlotte makes an aggressive attempt to interfere with the situation by setting up an arranged marriage between Cheri and the virginal, 18-year-old Emee (Felicity Jones), the daughter of another ex-courtesan, Marie-Laure (Iben Hjejle). Lea feels irritated, and responds by seeking out young male lovers during a vacation in Biarritz, but the attached Cheri is not far behind, and in seemingly no time at all the two resume their bedroom liaisons.

The Country Teacher - drama - Bohdan Sláma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnH4ovseOh0
A sexually confused natural science teacher turns down a prestigious job in Prague in favor of working in a remote Czech village, in the process forming a close bond with a lonely widow and her insolent seventeen year old son. Having recently come off of a failed homosexual relationship, the troubled teacher makes the difficult decision to leave his family behind and relocate to a quaint village in the countryside where he can create a new identity from the ground up. Shortly after getting settled in and landing a job teaching at the local school, he meets pretty widow Marie (Zuzana Bydzovská) whose husband has disappeared to work on the family farm. In the process of forming a friendship with Marie, who clearly wants to take their relationship a step further, the teacher also forms a connection with her rebellious adolescent son (Ladislav Sedivý). Marie simply doesn't understand that the teacher left Prague in order to find himself in the country, and due to the rampant homophobia in the rural area it's difficult for him to express his true motivations to her. An already complicated situation intensifies tenfold when, out of nowhere, the teacher's former lover arrives in town determined to find out why their relationship was broken off so suddenly and unceremoniously.

The Cove – documentary - Louie Psihoyos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQhfw5U7Ahc
In the 1960s, Richard O'Barry enjoyed a lucrative career as a specialized animal trainer; he captured the five dolphins that were used in the popular television series Flipper, and taught them the tricks and special commands they used on the show. Four decades later, O'Barry has renounced his former life as a trainer and become an animal rights activist, speaking out against the hunting of aquatic mammals and keeping them in captivity. O'Barry is not welcome in Taiji, a town along the Japanese coast where hunting dolphins is a major part of the local economy, but he and a group of activist filmmakers made their way into the city as well as the carefully guarded harbor in hopes of documenting the abuse of dolphins by fisherman and the poisoning of the waters that has taken a toll on the marine ecology. O'Barry and his colleagues captured some beautiful underwater footage as well as shocking images of how the town's fisherman have sullied the dolphins and their habitat, and director Louie Psihoyos has used this material as the basis for the documentary The Cove, which received its world premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

Departures – drama - Yôjirô Takita
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY70USlpIlI
Academy Award® winner for Best Foreign Language Film. Director Yojiro Takita and writer Kundo Koyama examine the rituals surrounding death in Japan with this tale of an out-of-work cellist who accepts a job as a "Nokanashi" or "encoffineer" (the Japanese equivalent of an undertaker) in order to provide for himself and his young wife. Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a talented musician, but when his orchestra is abruptly disbanded, he suddenly finds himself without a source of steady income. Making the decision to move back to his small hometown, Daigo answers a classified ad for a company called "Departures," mistakenly assuming that he will be working for a travel agency. Upon discovering that he will actually be preparing the bodies of the recently deceased for their trip to the afterlife, Daigo accepts the position as gatekeeper between life and death and gradually gains a greater appreciation for life. But while Daigo's wife and friends universally despise his new line of work, he takes a great amount of pride in the fact that he is helping to ensure that the dead receive a proper send-off from this state of being.

Downloading Nancy – drama - Johan Renck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXfz8fKt7N0
A self-destructive housewife takes what may be her final step into the abyss in this independent psychological drama. Nancy Stockwell (Maria Bello) is a woman edging into her forties who has fallen into a deep and prolonged state of depression, finding her only solace in self-inflicted pain. Nancy has grown weary of her relationship with her husband, Albert (Rufus Sewell), and one day he comes home from work to find a note in which Nancy says she's decided to visit an old friend for a few days. When Nancy doesn't call after several days, Albert begins to worry that something is wrong, and he soon learns that Nancy hasn't told him the truth. Nancy has struck up an on-line relationship with Louis Farley (Jason Patric), who has a passion for violent sex, and she has decided to meet with him in person, but she has more in mind than just a fling -- she believes that Louis is the man who can end her misery by killing her. Also featuring Amy Brenneman as Nancy's analyst, Downloading Nancy was the first English-language feature from Swedish filmmaker Johan Renck.

The Garden – documentary - Scott Hamilton Kennedy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhhfr_hIL7A
In the aftermath of the 1992 L.A. riots, something truly remarkable happened at the intersection of 41st Street and Alameda Avenue thanks to an uncharacteristically charitable move by the city government; where once existed a barren field littered with garbage and syringes, suddenly appeared a 14-acre community garden. Dubbed the South Central Farm, the produce garden soon began yielding fresh lettuce, ripe tomatoes, and sweet papayas. Now the local farmers could enjoy their own crops rather than relying on food stamps for subsistance. Not only that, but it also replaced a scene of urban blight with a scene of unusual beauty. For over a decade, the South Central Farm thrived, though in December of 2003 it appeared that the days of this inner-city oasis may be numbered. As the farmers receive eviction notices and bulldozers prepare to level the garden to make room for warehouses, filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy documents the two-and-a-half year court battle to save the South Central Farm.

The Girl from Monaco – comedy - Anne Fontaine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pvoluNhaj8
A brilliant and neurotic attorney (Fabrice Luchini) goes to Monaco to defend a famous criminal. But, instead of focusing on the case, he falls for a beautiful she-devil (Louise Bourgoin), who turns him into a complete wreck. Hopefully, his zealous bodyguard (Roschdy Zem) will step in and put everything back in order... Or will he?

The Girlfriend Experience – comedy - Steven Soderbergh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqNvnicN-PY
The high-priced world of call girls is opened up in the Steven Soderbergh-helmed indie feature, returning the director to the low-budget cross-platform release à la 2005's Bubble. Brian Koppelman and David Levien provide the script, with adult film actress Sasha Grey stepping into the lead role for the 2929 Entertainment release.

Humpday – comedy - Lynn Shelton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMQlTD89Xt0
My Effortless Brilliance writer/director Lynn Shelton takes the topic of male bonding to new extremes with this comedy about two best friends who make an unusual pact that both may soon come to regret. Back in college, Andrew and Ben were inseparable. Years later, Andrew comes knocking on Ben's door and makes the discovery that his wild former roommate has fallen into a life of depressive domestication. Of course, it doesn't take long for the two overgrown adolescents to fall into the usual pattern of ultra-macho one-upmanship, and before long Andrew has hatched a plan to save Ben from a passionless existence in suburbia. There's a party at a sex-positive commune, and the revelers are producing erotic art films for the local amateur porn film festival. Andrew is interested, but after running out of booze and ideas the pair isn't sure how to proceed. Just then, inspiration hits: Andrew and Ben should have sex on camera. Of course, it isn't a gay thing, just an artistic experiment. The following day, neither Andrew nor Ben is willing to back down from their unique proposal, and the only things preventing them from moving forward with the plan are the slight complications of heterosexuality, and Ben's disapproving wife, Anna.

In the Loop – comedy – Armando Ianucci
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-5v6ZMY4W8


Jerichow – drama - Christian Petzold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlgHdr2-SBM
The Turkish diaspora in Germany proves the catalyst for this noir-flavored drama concerning the unlikely friendship between a veteran of the Afghan-Soviet war and a middle-aged Turk in need of a helping hand. Returning home for his mother's funeral when he happens across a business associate to whom he owes a sizable debt, Thomas (Benno Fürmann) subsequently stumbles into intoxicated Turk Ali (Hilmi Sözer) while fleeing in haste. Ali has nearly driven his van into a local canal, and now he needs a driver to chauffeur him around his modest kingdom of crumbling snack bars. Recognizing the opportunity to make some quick and easy cash, Thomas agrees. But Thomas doesn't know that Ali is an intensely jealous and distrustful man, two traits that threaten to spell tragedy when Thomas enters into a passionate affair with Ali's gorgeous German bride (Nina Hoss).

Lemon Tree – drama - Eran Riklis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIoowHIpUT0
Widow and empty-nester Salma Zidane lives on the Palestinian West Bank, in a little house flanked by lemon trees planted by her great grand parents. Unfortunately, when the Israeli minister of defense builds a house adjacent to her own, her lemon trees are deemed a security risk. Salma hires a lawyer to prevent the powerful man from having her ancestral trees removed, but the odds are stacked against her and to make matters worse, she begins to fall in love with her lawyer. Things look bleak, but it looks like hope could shine in from an unexpected source, when the minister's neglected wife develops sympathy for Salma's plight.

Limits of Control - crime/drama - Jim Jarmusch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPFRaCnkVzE
A mysterious loner attempts to successfully complete his criminal mission while operating outside of the law in contemporary Spain. His objectives shrouded in secrecy, the untrusting lone wolf (Isaach de Bankolé) sets out on his latest assignment knowing that the law is never too far behind. Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, and Gael García Bernal co-star in a crime drama from acclaimed indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (Mystery Train, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai).

Lion’s Den – drama – Pablo Trapero
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVxj1-a5jbQ
Writer/director HYPERLINK "http://www.allmovie.com/search/artist/pablo+trapero"Pablo Trapero crafts this tender tale of an incarcerated woman who gives birth to a baby boy, struggling to raise her son behind bars as she comes to the bleak realization that he is the only one who matters to her anymore. It all started when a pregnant Julia woke up in her apartment flanked by the bloodied bodies of her former lovers Nahuel and Romiro. Subsequently sent to a prison for mothers and pregnant convicts, Julia railed against the system by withdrawing into her own world. Upon giving birth Julia realizes just how difficult it can be to raise a son in prison, but each day her feelings for the boy swell stronger within her. Later, when Julia pays a visit to Romiro in the men's prison, it becomes obvious that the couple's feelings for one another are just as muddled as the events of that fateful night back in Julia's apartment.

Management – comedy - Stephen Belber
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FcMpO34kG8
After a one-night fling, a motel manager (Steve Zahn) impulsively follows a small-time art dealer (Jennifer Aniston) across the country in this romantic comedy from playwright-turned-director Stephen Belber. Woody Harrelson co-stars as Aniston's wealthy boyfriend in the MGM production.

The Merry Gentleman – drama - Michael Keaton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXoJEY6ficY
Michael Keaton makes his directorial debut in this low-key story of two unlikely kindred spirits. Kate Frazier (Kelly Macdonald) is a sweet woman who has left behind an abusive husband to start her life over in Chicago. Kate lands a job as a receptionist, but one afternoon after leaving work for the day she sees a man with a rifle on the ledge of a nearby building. The man is about to jump, and Kate screams; the noise startles the man, and he falls backward to safety. As it happens, the man with the gun was Frank Logan (Michael Keaton), a hired killer who has a lingering illness and has fallen into a suicidal depression. Kate is questioned by the police about Frank, and police detective Dave Murcheson (Tom Bastounes) quickly becomes infatuated with her after their brief conversation. But Frank seeks out Kate, and they discover they have more in common than they might imagine as two lonely people dealing with a troublesome past. The Merry Gentleman received its world premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Moon - sci-fi - Duncan Jones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIexG8179K8
An astronaut miner extracting the precious moon gas that promises to reverse the Earth's energy crisis nears the end of his three-year contract, and makes an ominous discovery in this psychological sci-fi film starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey. For three long years, Sam Bell has dutifully harvested Helium 3 for Lunar, a company that claims it holds the key to solving humankind's energy crisis. As Sam's contract comes to an end, the lonely astronaut looks forward to returning to his wife and daughter down on Earth, where he will retire early and attempt to make up for lost time. His work on the Selene moon base has been enlightening -- the solitude helping him to reflect on the past and overcome some serious anger issues -- but the isolation is starting to make Sam uneasy. With only two weeks to go before he begins his journey back to Earth, Sam starts feeling strange: he's having inexplicable visions, and hearing impossible sounds. Then, when a routine extraction goes horribly awry, it becomes apparent that Lunar hasn't been entirely straightforward with Sam about their plans for replacing him. The new recruit seems strangely familiar, and before Sam returns to Earth, he will grapple with the realization that the life he has created may not be entirely his own. Up there, hundreds of thousands of miles from home, it appears that Sam's contract isn't the only thing about to expire.

Nollywood Babylon – documentary – Ben Addelman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRVUNYV7Mto
Hollywood and Bollywood watch out; in this documentary examining Nigeria's booming movie industry, filmmakers HYPERLINK "http://www.allmovie.com/artist/ben-addelman-389935"Ben Addelman and HYPERLINK "http://www.allmovie.com/artist/samir-mallal-389936"Samir Mallal highlight the reasons why it doesn't take a multi-million-dollar budget to produce a wildly entertaining movie. Idumota market, Lagos: amidst the hustle and bustle of the endless stalls, movie stars are born. Nigeria is a place where traditional mysticism and modern culture clash to form an atmosphere where anything seems possible. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the inventive, low-budget B-movies produced by enterprising local filmmakers with no goal other than to entertain the viewer. From the epicenter of this African metropolis emerges a new breed of cinema known as Nollywood, a brand of film that's remained a well-kept secret...until now.

O'Horten – comedy - Brent Hamer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ong76I3aJm4
A septuagenarian taking his penultimate voyage from Oslo to Bergen begins to mentally prepare for his final trip, but finds that sometimes things don't turn out as expected when he misses the last departure for the first time in 40 years.

Paper Heart – comedy - Nicholas Jasenovec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewisKyyuF78
Real-life sweethearts Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi head up this indie semi-documentary comedy, scripted by Yi, concerning the meaning of love. Fellow Judd Apatow veteran Nicholas Jasenovec makes his directorial debut with the production.

Perestroika – drama - Slava Tsukerman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujP0RgYFx1E
Moscow. 1992. Sasha Greenberg, (Sam Robards,) an astrophysicist, returns to the city of his birth after 17 years of exile. Formerly reviled as a traitor, he is now welcomed back as a hero. The period of "Perestroika" (restructuring) has turned everything upside down. Sasha has been invited to deliver an important paper about the structure of the universe. He's thought to have made positive gains toward making sense of the cosmos. But it's time of great chaos in his own life. His marriage, to an American scientist, (Ally Sheedy) who helped him leave, has all but failed. His relationship with a beautiful filmmaker has reached an impasse. Complicating matters, Sasha suspects that a fiery young adolescent, formerly unknown to him, might be his daughter. No one, save a few opportunists, seems prepared for this new Russia. Capitalism has undermined the communist system. Vodka is rationed. Old people can barely feed themselves. Films of polluted seas, rivers on fire, and dying forests, are seeing the light of day for the first time. People are saying things in public that formerly would have sent them to prison. Many expect revolution. Some welcome it. Sasha lives in a state of constant revelation. Old friends who denounced him as a traitor rush him with open arms. Painful memories of anti Semitism return to haunt him. A colleague and lover all but drags him back to her bed. In the midst of all this turmoil Sasha is expected to deliver a theory about the coherence of our universe. But what he's feeling is overwhelming chaos, and the suspicion that man is the bane of a world in peril. As all this swirls around him Sasha is counseled by Gross, his wily but supportive mentor, (F. Murray Abraham.) Gross defected to Russia after World War II and never looked back. Gross' patience and resolve go a long way to helping Sasha maintain his composure. But Gross helped the Soviets develop nuclear weapons. Finally Sasha must reconcile on his own. With all he knows about the world and the devil, is there any redemption for humanity?

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.

Rudo y Cursi – comedy - carlos cuaron
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5UgJEP-IRU
Carlos Cuarón, who co-wrote the script for his brother Alfonso Cuarón's breakthrough hit, Y Tu Mama Tambien, makes his feature directorial debut with Rudo y Cursi. The film also reunites the stars of the earlier film, Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, and is the first release from the production company Alfonso started with Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu, Cha Cha Chá. Rudo y Cursi depicts the changing relationship between two brothers who become soccer stars. Beto (Luna), the goaltender, is nicknamed "Rudo" because of his hardnosed style of play, while Tato (Bernal), a forward, gets the nickname "Cursi" for his flamboyant goal celebrations and his flashy lifestyle. They both start out picking bananas in remote Tlachatlán, where they share a devotion to their mother. Then Batuta (Argentinean comic Guillermo Francella), a charmingly shiftless professional scout, happens by. He can only sign one of the brothers, so they battle it out on the pitch to see who gets his break. Instead of throwing the match to his brother as plan, Tato scores a goal and is on his way to stardom. He's more interested in becoming a pop star than a soccer star, but when he meets Maya (Jessica Mas), a famous TV hostess he's dreamed about for years, he begins to enjoy the trappings of fame. Meanwhile, resentful Beto waits for his chance. When he finally gets his break, he leaves his disapproving wife Toña (Adriana Paz) and his kids to sneak off to Mexico City. The brothers' fortunes rise and fall, with Tato distracted by a demanding girlfriend and a hopeless singing career, while Beto deals with marital strife and a serious gambling problem.

Shall We Kiss - comedy/romance - Emmanuel Mouret
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1YmwkwJL3o
Emmanuel Mouret's romantic comedy Shall We Kiss? begins with two strangers who end up attracted to each other, even though they both are involved in relationships with others. The woman refuses to kiss the man goodnight after a dinner together, explaining that a single kiss can alter a life. This set-up acts as a framing device for the main story, a tale she shares with him about friends who complicate their lives by becoming sexually involved.

Shrink – drama - Jonas Pate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf_8g2lDbzg
A jaded psychiatrist takes on a pro bono case that puts his professionalism to the ultimate test in director Jonas Pate's knowing expose of the "other" Hollywood. Between sorting through the insecurities of a fading film starlet (Saffron Burrows), a struggling writer (Mark Webber), and an obsessive-compulsive talent agent (Dallas Roberts), A-list psychiatrist Henry Carter (Kevin Spacey) barely has the time to deal with his own problems. Suddenly, into the middle of Henry's malaise wanders a troubled teen who's never even set foot in the Hollywood hills. This is Henry's first pro bono client, and considering his current state, he's not sure that now is the best time to be taking on more work. While Henry is jaded by Hollywood, his newest patient is obsessed with it. Faced with the challenge of helping a young girl through a particularly difficult time in her life, Henry does his best to remain professional despite harboring some rather serious misgivings during their first few sessions.

Silent Light – drama - Carlos Reygadas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AufewteAg7g
A man of faith succumbs to a temptation he cannot resist in this drama written and directed by Carlos Reygadas. Johan (Cornelio Wall Fehr) and Esther (Miriam Toews) have been married for years, and live with their children in a Mennonite community Mexico. While Johan and Esther are both taciturn by nature, a moral dilemma is tearing Johan apart -- he's been having an affair with another woman in their circle, Marianne (Maria Pankratz), and feels he may be falling in love with her. While the tenants of his faith strictly forbid adultery, his need to be with Marianne seems stronger than the dictates of his moral compass, and while he's confessed his sins to Esther and his close friend Zacarias (Jacobo Klassen), subjecting himself to the shame of truth hasn't buffered his desires. Even worse, after Johan confesses to his father about his lust for Marianne, he's told that he may have fallen under the sway of Satan. Luz Silenciosa (aka Silent Light) received its world premiere at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.

Sita Sings the Blues - musical/animation - Nina Paley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y5_zJ1xfQs
Two women having troubles with their men, separated by several centuries, find their stories coming together in this animated comedy-drama from artist and animator Nina Paley. A female cartoonist moves from the United States when her husband gets a new job in India. While acclimating to her new life in India, the cartoonist becomes fascinated with the Hindu folk tale "the Ramayana," in which a beautiful woman named Sita, who was created spontaneously from the Earth, is adopted by King Janaka, pledged to a brave warrior named Rama, and is kidnapped by the demonic leader Ravana. Sita's story is given two visual interpretations at once -- a visually striking abstract version and another which employs a whimsical, cartoony approach and uses vintage recordings of jazz singer Annette Hanshaw for Sita's voice. As the film jumps back and forth between two adaptations of the Ramayana, the cartoonist discovers that her sojourn in India has taken a turn for the worse when her husband falls in love with another woman. Sita Sings The Blues was an official entry at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.

Song of Sparrows – drama - Majid Majidi
http://www.thesongofsparrowsmovie.com/
Fired from his job on an ostrich farm after one of the birds runs away and he is blamed for the loss, a man becomes so obsessed with collecting useless rubbish that he begins to neglect his wife and daughter while becoming completely oblivious to their familial hardships. Karim earned a decent living by working on the ostrich farm, so after he is fired he sets out on a futile attempt to locate the bird. One day, as Karim heads into town in order to have his daughter's hearing aid repaired, he offers a lift to a wandering man and decides that there is good money in the taxi business. But as his connection to the people of the city grows stronger, his personality begins to transform. Everyday, Karim returns home with a new haul of useless junk, giving his picturesque courtyard the appearance of a sprawling junkyard. When his wife offers a spare door from the courtyard to a neighbor in need, Karim completely looses his cool and sets out to retrieve the door. When Karim stumbles and breaks his foot while rummaging through his second-hand goods, the kindness of neighbors makes him realize that his priorities have taken a turn for the worse.

The Stoning of Soraya M. - crime/drama - Cyrus Nowrasteh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqdH4FkzbTM
Director Cyrus Nowrasteh teams with screenwriter Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh to illuminate the dangers of religious fundamentalism, gender apartheid, and mob rule with this fictionalized adaptation of Freidoune Sahebjam's best-selling novel centering on a true-life tragedy. The story takes place in 1986, just as Khomeini is coming into power in Iran. Undercover French journalist Freidoune Sahebjam (Jim Caviezel) is traveling though a small southwestern village when his car breaks down. Surrounded by strife but left with little choice other to wait until his car is repaired, the anxious Freidoune is soon approached by persistent local Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo), who convinces him to follow her into the courtyard behind her home. There, she reveals to him that she has just bore witness to a most heinous crime. Just the previous day, Zahra had watched the men or her town stone an innocent woman to death. That woman was Soraya (Mozhan Marnò), long-suffering wife of abusive tyrant Ali. Soraya wed Ali in an arranged marriage, never realizing the horrors that she and her children would endure under her husband's heavy hand. When Ali requested a divorce so that he would be free to marry a fourteen year old girl, Soraya boldly refused, knowing that she and the children would most certainly starve to death without a husband to support them. Ali was too poor to return Soraya's dowry as custom dictates in a divorce, but he found another way out of the marriage. Under Shariah law, adultery is a crime punishable by death of the accused is unable to prove their innocence. Scheming with the newly installed, counterfeit mullah, Ali accused his wife of adultery. In order to ensure that she had no chance of defending herself, he blackmailed several male villagers to testify on his behalf. A tribunal was quickly called, and Soraya's fate forever sealed.

Surveillance – crime - Jennifer Chambers Lynch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc3Rasp2M-Q
An FBI agent on the trail of a serial killer attempts to capture the madman with a little assistance from his would-be victims in director Jennifer Chambers Lynch's supernatural police thriller.

Tokyo Sonata – drama - Kiyoshi Kurosawa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv9WS0aouIY
TOKYO SONATA is a portrait of a seemingly ordinary Japanese family. The father who abruptly loses his job conceals the truth from his family; the eldest son in college hardly returns home; the youngest son furtively takes piano lessons without telling his parents; and the mother, who knows deep down that her role is to keep the family together, cannot find the will to do so. From the exterior, all is normal and the same. But somehow, a single, unforeseeable chasm has appeared within the family, threatening to disintegrate them. Director Kurosawa’s use of light and dark to express a sense of simultaneous hope and horror verges on awe-inspiring and the ending will leave you enthralled.

Tony Manero – drama – Pablo Larrain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBNyxSp_RSc (in Spanish)
As HYPERLINK "http://www.allmovie.com/search/artist/augusto+pinochet"Augusto Pinochet holds Chile in the grip of dictatorship, a fifty year old man obsessed with HYPERLINK "http://www.allmovie.com/search/artist/john+travolta"John Travolta's character from HYPERLINK "http://www.allmovie.com/search/work/saturday+night+fever"Saturday Night Fever imitates his idol each weekend in a small bar on the outskirts of Santiago. Each weekend, Raúl Peralta and his friends - a devoted group of dancers - gather in a small bar and act out their favorite scenes from HYPERLINK "http://www.allmovie.com/search/work/saturday+night+fever"Saturday Night Fever. Raúl longs to become a showbiz superstar, and when the national television announces a Tony Manero impersonating contest it seems like he may finally have a shot at living his dreams. But as Raúl is driven to commit a series of crimes and thefts in order to reproduce his matinee idol's persona, his dancing partners (also underground resistance fighters who rail against the regime) are persecuted by the secret police.

Treeless Mountain - drama - So Yong Kim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9ermzhKx54
The frozen space in a little girl's heart gradually begins to warm thanks to the love of her older sister in director So Yong Kim's portrait of a young innocent forced to come to terms with feelings of loss and abandonment. Six-year-old Jin (Hee Yeon Kim) and her younger sister, Bin (Song Hee Kim), live in a cramped apartment with their single mother. Though their lives are on the edge of disaster, both girls remain completely oblivious to the threats of the outside world. One morning, after Jin wets the bed, their mother packs up all their belongings and sends the girls to live with their alcoholic Big Aunt (Kim Mi-hyang). Suddenly thrust into a hostile and unfamiliar environment, the girls are given a piggy bank and a promise that their mother will return when it's finally been filled. Wrestling with feelings of abandonment despite the fact that she's not mature enough to understand why their mother has left or what may become of her and Bin in the future, Jin showers her younger sibling with affection in order to prevent her from feeling as if all hope has been lost.

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?

Whatever Works – comedy - Woody Allen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VeTEP3xoXo
Woody Allen writes and directs this "blackish comedy" about an eccentric, upper class New Yorker (Larry David) who abandons his comfortable lifestyle in favor of leading a more bohemian existence. After meeting a young Southern girl and her family, he discovers that life among the nonconformists isn't quite as carefree as he'd envisioned it to be.

A Wink and A Smile – documentary - Deirdre Allen Timmons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhPw65N8pSM
Ten burlesque newcomers shed their inhibitions, emotional hang-ups, stereotypes, and, of course, clothing as they enter the Academy of Burlesque for a personal training session with famed Seattle dancer Miss Indigo Blue. By the time this lesson is over, these ladies will have gained the confidence to strut across the stage in true style, all the while knowing that every eye in the room is completely fixed on them.

July Advisory Meeting Candidates (as of June)

Absurdistan – comedy - Veit Helmer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP5zDckXUj8
Welcome to Absurdistan, a small village in the high desert mountains, just on the outskirts of reality, where magical visions and bizarre events fuse together, but the sexes are divided. The village is facing a water shortage, but the men are too lazy to fix a rickety pipeline and the women are getting fed up with their good-for-nothing husbands. Led by young Aya (Kristyna Malerova), the women make a simple vow: “No water, no sex.” The men’s only hope is Temelko (Maximilian Mauff), whose long-promised wedding with Aya is put on hold until he finds a solution to the water problem. From the wild imagination of the award-winning director of Tuvalu comes this perfectly pitched lyrical comedy that is romantic, surreal and boundlessly poetic.

Adoration – drama - Atom Egoyan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLuu2Asb9RQ
Director Atom Egoyan explores the concept of cyberspace as a place for redemption in this drama about an adolescent boy named Simon (Devon Bostick) who reinvents his life on the internet. Before long, Simon's deeply personal journey provokes strong reactions from around the globe. Rachel Blanchard and Scott Speedman co-star.

America Betrayed – documentary - Leslie Cardé
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWzZBhkT0jM
America's national infrastructure was once considered one of our crowning achievements, but in this documentary narrated by Academy Award winner Richard Dreyfuss and directed by Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist Leslie Cardé, viewers learn how our country's crumbling bridges, dams, levees, and highways put millions of Americans at risk every day. Using an investigation into the little-known causes of the post-Katrina levee failures as a springboard to examine how corruption, collusion, and cronyism have infected the highest levels of government, Cardé and company reveal how the Army Corps of Engineers -- the very agency charged with insuring that our national infrastructure remains intact -- has sacrificed the needs of our nation in favor of entering into self-serving deals with corporate America. Having wasted billions of dollars in taxpayer money on rebuilding other nation's infrastructures while neglecting to ensure that our own are properly maintained, we are forced to watch our streets crumble as lobbyists and gluttonous politicians funnel money into pointless pet projects, and those sent to investigate the matter are bribed into covering up their true findings. Interviews with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, top scientists, United States senators and congressmen, and whistleblowers who risk their lives and livelihood in order to speak out, America Betrayed is a sobering wake-up call to anyone who places blind trust in government, and a challenge to Washington to hold corrupted officials accountable for their misdeeds.

The Answer Man – comedy - John Hindman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeixpYzhEGg
The reclusive author whose groundbreaking book redefined spirituality for an entire generation realizes how little he actually knows upon being approached by a single mother and a recovering addict in this drama from first time writer/director John Hindman. It's been 20 years since Arlen Faber (Jeff Daniels) penned "Me and God," and the inspirational, soul-searching book is still as popular as ever. Anyone who reads it thinks that Arlen has all the answers to life's problems, but these days the author barely ventures outside of the house. Then, one day, Arlen crosses paths with Elizabeth (Lauren Graham), a single mother struggling to raise her seven-year-old son, and Kris (Lou Taylor Pucci), a young man who has just gotten out of rehab. Both are searching for the answers that will help them to become better people while overcoming their fears of failure. Does Arlen possess the wisdom to help Elizabeth and Kris work through their current problems, or is he really as clueless as he's been feeling for the last two decades?

Away We Go – comedy - Sam Mendes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEp3NKG2U5U
When slacker thirtysomething couple Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) discover that his parents are moving overseas, the duo - who expect their first child in a few months - set off on a cross-country tour to figure out where they should lay down some roots in Sam Mendes' poignant comedy Away We Go. They visit a number of different cities, and meet with a different friend or family member's family at each stop. Their hosts include a set of emotionally detached parents (Allison Janney and Jim Gaffigan), a pair of overprotective new-age parents (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton), and old college pals (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynsky) who have adopted a number of kids. Novelist Dave Eggers wrote the script with Vendela Vida.

Big Man Japan – comedy - Hitoshi Matsumoto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTAoxSspBJE
Director Hitoshi Matsumoto weaves this darkly comic mockumentary about a Japanese man who continues the long-standing family tradition of facing off against Tokyo's most formidable monsters. Constantly caught in the middle of everyone's battles, Daisato finds his sincere efforts to keep the peace repeatedly belittled; he's divorced, his neighbors have covered his house in graffiti, and he gets nothing but dirty looks when he walks down the street. When we first meet Daisato, he is the subject of a television documentary. Though on the surface Daisato may seem like your average, slightly unkempt salaryman -- completely unremarkable in all respects -- it soon becomes apparent just how deceiving first impressions can be. After lamenting on camera the fact that he never gets any vacation time due to frequent calls from the Defense Department, the camera follows Daisato as he rides his motorbike to a Tokyo power plant, receives the jolt of electricity that transforms him into a hulking super-human crime fighter, and clashes with a gargantuan leviathan intent on destroying Tokyo. Daisato comes from a long line of heroic heavyweights, yet while his ancestors were once championed with parades for their noble efforts, public interest in giant invaders has waned and Daisato has become something of a joke to the citizens of Tokyo. Not only is noise generated by Daisato's battles regarded as a public nuisance, the property damages that he causes while defending the city has the citizens downright angry. Now, as Daisato attempts to balance his responsibilities to his ex-wife, his daughter, his agent, and his senile grandfather, the crushing weight of both his personal and professional obligations simply becomes too much to bear.

Burma VJ – documentary - Anders Østergaard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V08EBWQLzyU
Armed with small handy cams undercover Video Journalists in Burma keep up the flow of news from their closed country. Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, acclaimed director Anders Østergaard, brings us close to the video journalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country. The Burma VJs stop at nothing to make their reportages from the streets of Rangoon. Their material is smuggled out of the country and broadcast back into Burma via satellite and offered as free usage for international media. The whole world has witnessed single event clips made by the VJs, but for the very first time, their individual images have been carefully put together and at once, they tell a much bigger story. ”Joshua”, age 27, is one of the young video journalists, who works undercover to counter the propaganda of the military regime. Foreign TV crews are suddenly banned from the country, so it’s left to Joshua and his crew to keep the revolution alive on TV screens all over. With Joshua as the psychological lens, the Burmese condition is made tangible to a global audience so we can understand it, feel it, and smell it. The film offers a unique insight into high-risk journalism and dissidence in a police state, while at the same time providing a thorough documentation of the historical and dramatic days of September 2007, when the Buddhist monks started marching.

Cheri – romance - Stephen Frears
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gdkcdmUdyI
Stephen Frears, the director who bolstered his international reputation with his Choderlos de Laclos adaptation Dangerous Liaisons (1988), returns to the annals of period intrigue over twenty years later with this melodrama, which reunites him with Liasons scripter Christopher Hampton and star Michelle Pfeiffer. An adaptation of Colette's 1920 novel of the same name, the tale unfurls in late 19th Century Paris - La Belle Époque - where numerous courtesans (or female companions of noblemen who occupied the royal courts) have worked their ways up through the ranks of high society. Two retired courtesans, Charlotte Peloux (Kathy Bates) and Lea (Michelle Pfeiffer) meet for some routine gossip; Lea then meets Charlotte's hedonistic, playboy son, nicknamed "Cheri" (Rupert Friend) and a passionate, erotic affair blossoms for the next six years between Lea and Cheri. Eventually, Charlotte makes an aggressive attempt to interfere with the situation by setting up an arranged marriage between Cheri and the virginal, 18-year-old Emee (Felicity Jones), the daughter of another ex-courtesan, Marie-Laure (Iben Hjejle). Lea feels irritated, and responds by seeking out young male lovers during a vacation in Biarritz, but the attached Cheri is not far behind, and in seemingly no time at all the two resume their bedroom liaisons.

The Country Teacher - drama - Bohdan Sláma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnH4ovseOh0
A sexually confused natural science teacher turns down a prestigious job in Prague in favor of working in a remote Czech village, in the process forming a close bond with a lonely widow and her insolent seventeen year old son. Having recently come off of a failed homosexual relationship, the troubled teacher makes the difficult decision to leave his family behind and relocate to a quaint village in the countryside where he can create a new identity from the ground up. Shortly after getting settled in and landing a job teaching at the local school, he meets pretty widow Marie (Zuzana Bydzovská) whose husband has disappeared to work on the family farm. In the process of forming a friendship with Marie, who clearly wants to take their relationship a step further, the teacher also forms a connection with her rebellious adolescent son (Ladislav Sedivý). Marie simply doesn't understand that the teacher left Prague in order to find himself in the country, and due to the rampant homophobia in the rural area it's difficult for him to express his true motivations to her. An already complicated situation intensifies tenfold when, out of nowhere, the teacher's former lover arrives in town determined to find out why their relationship was broken off so suddenly and unceremoniously.

The Cove – documentary - Louie Psihoyos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQhfw5U7Ahc
In the 1960s, Richard O'Barry enjoyed a lucrative career as a specialized animal trainer; he captured the five dolphins that were used in the popular television series Flipper, and taught them the tricks and special commands they used on the show. Four decades later, O'Barry has renounced his former life as a trainer and become an animal rights activist, speaking out against the hunting of aquatic mammals and keeping them in captivity. O'Barry is not welcome in Taiji, a town along the Japanese coast where hunting dolphins is a major part of the local economy, but he and a group of activist filmmakers made their way into the city as well as the carefully guarded harbor in hopes of documenting the abuse of dolphins by fisherman and the poisoning of the waters that has taken a toll on the marine ecology. O'Barry and his colleagues captured some beautiful underwater footage as well as shocking images of how the town's fisherman have sullied the dolphins and their habitat, and director Louie Psihoyos has used this material as the basis for the documentary The Cove, which received its world premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

Departures – drama - Yôjirô Takita
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY70USlpIlI
Academy Award® winner for Best Foreign Language Film. Director Yojiro Takita and writer Kundo Koyama examine the rituals surrounding death in Japan with this tale of an out-of-work cellist who accepts a job as a "Nokanashi" or "encoffineer" (the Japanese equivalent of an undertaker) in order to provide for himself and his young wife. Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a talented musician, but when his orchestra is abruptly disbanded, he suddenly finds himself without a source of steady income. Making the decision to move back to his small hometown, Daigo answers a classified ad for a company called "Departures," mistakenly assuming that he will be working for a travel agency. Upon discovering that he will actually be preparing the bodies of the recently deceased for their trip to the afterlife, Daigo accepts the position as gatekeeper between life and death and gradually gains a greater appreciation for life. But while Daigo's wife and friends universally despise his new line of work, he takes a great amount of pride in the fact that he is helping to ensure that the dead receive a proper send-off from this state of being.

Downloading Nancy – drama - Johan Renck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXfz8fKt7N0
A self-destructive housewife takes what may be her final step into the abyss in this independent psychological drama. Nancy Stockwell (Maria Bello) is a woman edging into her forties who has fallen into a deep and prolonged state of depression, finding her only solace in self-inflicted pain. Nancy has grown weary of her relationship with her husband, Albert (Rufus Sewell), and one day he comes home from work to find a note in which Nancy says she's decided to visit an old friend for a few days. When Nancy doesn't call after several days, Albert begins to worry that something is wrong, and he soon learns that Nancy hasn't told him the truth. Nancy has struck up an on-line relationship with Louis Farley (Jason Patric), who has a passion for violent sex, and she has decided to meet with him in person, but she has more in mind than just a fling -- she believes that Louis is the man who can end her misery by killing her. Also featuring Amy Brenneman as Nancy's analyst, Downloading Nancy was the first English-language feature from Swedish filmmaker Johan Renck.

Every Little Step – documentary - Adam Del Deo and James Stern
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jn9qQATNRs
The central premise of the Kirkwood-Dante-Kleban-Hamlisch Broadway musical A Chorus Line is by now overly familiar, examining as it does the 17 actors auditioning for spots in a chorus line on the Great White Way. Recalling Donn Pennebaker's Moon Over Broadway and other similar efforts, documentarians Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern's film Every Little Step travels behind the scenes of the auditions for 2006 revival of A Chorus Line to investigate the goings-on and the interplay among the hopefuls. The film thus establishes a neat corollary between the events of the play itself and the offstage experiences of the aspiring tryouts. On top of this, Stern and Del Deo work in a layer that pertains to the original genesis of the show, and its evolution from an idea by Michael Bennett, who recorded an ensemble of dancers speaking confessionally and used that as the basis for everything else. Here, the filmmakers play those original tapes back, on-camera, thus resurrecting old ghosts; score composer Marvin Hamlisch also turns up and revokes the past, courtesy of a revealing and racy little nugget about the history of the tune "Dance: Ten; Looks: Three." Above all else, the film works in extensive footage of the auditions themselves, on songs such as "At the Ballet" and "I Can Do That" -- thus interweaving an aura of suspense throughout the narrative over who will eventually wind up in the production itself. The title of the documentary, of course, is a reference to the lyric of the seminal tune "One" ("One singular sensation, every little step she takes").

Food Inc. – documentary - Robert Kenner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eKYyD14d_0
Documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner uses reports by Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser and The Omnivore's Dilemma author Michael Pollan as a springboard to exploring where the food we purchase at the grocery store really comes from, and what it means for the health of future generations. By exposing the comfortable relationships between business and government, Kenner gradually shines light on the dark underbelly of the American food industry. The USDA and FDA are supposed to protect the public, so why is it that both government regulatory agencies have been complicit in allowing corporations to put profit ahead of consumer health, the American farmer, worker safety, and even the environment? As chicken breasts get bigger and tomatoes are genetically engineered not to go bad, 73,000 Americans fall ill from powerful new strains of E. coli every year, obesity levels are skyrocketing, and adult diabetes has reached epidemic proportions. Perhaps if the general public knew how corporations use exploited laws and subsidies to create powerful monopolies, the outrage would be enough to make us think more carefully about the food we put into our bodies.

The Garden – documentary - Scott Hamilton Kennedy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhhfr_hIL7A
In the aftermath of the 1992 L.A. riots, something truly remarkable happened at the intersection of 41st Street and Alameda Avenue thanks to an uncharacteristically charitable move by the city government; where once existed a barren field littered with garbage and syringes, suddenly appeared a 14-acre community garden. Dubbed the South Central Farm, the produce garden soon began yielding fresh lettuce, ripe tomatoes, and sweet papayas. Now the local farmers could enjoy their own crops rather than relying on food stamps for subsistance. Not only that, but it also replaced a scene of urban blight with a scene of unusual beauty. For over a decade, the South Central Farm thrived, though in December of 2003 it appeared that the days of this inner-city oasis may be numbered. As the farmers receive eviction notices and bulldozers prepare to level the garden to make room for warehouses, filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy documents the two-and-a-half year court battle to save the South Central Farm.

The Girl from Monaco – comedy - Anne Fontaine
A brilliant and neurotic attorney (Fabrice Luchini) goes to Monaco to defend a famous criminal. But, instead of focusing on the case, he falls for a beautiful she-devil (Louise Bourgoin), who turns him into a complete wreck. Hopefully, his zealous bodyguard (Roschdy Zem) will step in and put everything back in order... Or will he?

The Girlfriend Experience – comedy - Steven Soderbergh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqNvnicN-PY
The high-priced world of call girls is opened up in the Steven Soderbergh-helmed indie feature, returning the director to the low-budget cross-platform release à la 2005's Bubble. Brian Koppelman and David Levien provide the script, with adult film actress Sasha Grey stepping into the lead role for the 2929 Entertainment release.

Humpday – comedy - Lynn Shelton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMQlTD89Xt0
My Effortless Brilliance writer/director Lynn Shelton takes the topic of male bonding to new extremes with this comedy about two best friends who make an unusual pact that both may soon come to regret. Back in college, Andrew and Ben were inseparable. Years later, Andrew comes knocking on Ben's door and makes the discovery that his wild former roommate has fallen into a life of depressive domestication. Of course, it doesn't take long for the two overgrown adolescents to fall into the usual pattern of ultra-macho one-upmanship, and before long Andrew has hatched a plan to save Ben from a passionless existence in suburbia. There's a party at a sex-positive commune, and the revelers are producing erotic art films for the local amateur porn film festival. Andrew is interested, but after running out of booze and ideas the pair isn't sure how to proceed. Just then, inspiration hits: Andrew and Ben should have sex on camera. Of course, it isn't a gay thing, just an artistic experiment. The following day, neither Andrew nor Ben is willing to back down from their unique proposal, and the only things preventing them from moving forward with the plan are the slight complications of heterosexuality, and Ben's disapproving wife, Anna.

Jerichow – drama - Christian Petzold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlgHdr2-SBM
The Turkish diaspora in Germany proves the catalyst for this noir-flavored drama concerning the unlikely friendship between a veteran of the Afghan-Soviet war and a middle-aged Turk in need of a helping hand. Returning home for his mother's funeral when he happens across a business associate to whom he owes a sizable debt, Thomas (Benno Fürmann) subsequently stumbles into intoxicated Turk Ali (Hilmi Sözer) while fleeing in haste. Ali has nearly driven his van into a local canal, and now he needs a driver to chauffeur him around his modest kingdom of crumbling snack bars. Recognizing the opportunity to make some quick and easy cash, Thomas agrees. But Thomas doesn't know that Ali is an intensely jealous and distrustful man, two traits that threaten to spell tragedy when Thomas enters into a passionate affair with Ali's gorgeous German bride (Nina Hoss).

Lemon Tree – drama - Eran Riklis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIoowHIpUT0
Widow and empty-nester Salma Zidane lives on the Palestinian West Bank, in a little house flanked by lemon trees planted by her great grand parents. Unfortunately, when the Israeli minister of defense builds a house adjacent to her own, her lemon trees are deemed a security risk. Salma hires a lawyer to prevent the powerful man from having her ancestral trees removed, but the odds are stacked against her and to make matters worse, she begins to fall in love with her lawyer. Things look bleak, but it looks like hope could shine in from an unexpected source, when the minister's neglected wife develops sympathy for Salma's plight.

Limits of Control - crime/drama - Jim Jarmusch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPFRaCnkVzE
A mysterious loner attempts to successfully complete his criminal mission while operating outside of the law in contemporary Spain. His objectives shrouded in secrecy, the untrusting lone wolf (Isaach de Bankolé) sets out on his latest assignment knowing that the law is never too far behind. Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, and Gael García Bernal co-star in a crime drama from acclaimed indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (Mystery Train, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai).

Management – comedy - Stephen Belber
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FcMpO34kG8
After a one-night fling, a motel manager (Steve Zahn) impulsively follows a small-time art dealer (Jennifer Aniston) across the country in this romantic comedy from playwright-turned-director Stephen Belber. Woody Harrelson co-stars as Aniston's wealthy boyfriend in the MGM production.

The Merry Gentleman – drama - Michael Keaton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXoJEY6ficY
Michael Keaton makes his directorial debut in this low-key story of two unlikely kindred spirits. Kate Frazier (Kelly Macdonald) is a sweet woman who has left behind an abusive husband to start her life over in Chicago. Kate lands a job as a receptionist, but one afternoon after leaving work for the day she sees a man with a rifle on the ledge of a nearby building. The man is about to jump, and Kate screams; the noise startles the man, and he falls backward to safety. As it happens, the man with the gun was Frank Logan (Michael Keaton), a hired killer who has a lingering illness and has fallen into a suicidal depression. Kate is questioned by the police about Frank, and police detective Dave Murcheson (Tom Bastounes) quickly becomes infatuated with her after their brief conversation. But Frank seeks out Kate, and they discover they have more in common than they might imagine as two lonely people dealing with a troublesome past. The Merry Gentleman received its world premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Moon - sci-fi - Duncan Jones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIexG8179K8
An astronaut miner extracting the precious moon gas that promises to reverse the Earth's energy crisis nears the end of his three-year contract, and makes an ominous discovery in this psychological sci-fi film starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey. For three long years, Sam Bell has dutifully harvested Helium 3 for Lunar, a company that claims it holds the key to solving humankind's energy crisis. As Sam's contract comes to an end, the lonely astronaut looks forward to returning to his wife and daughter down on Earth, where he will retire early and attempt to make up for lost time. His work on the Selene moon base has been enlightening -- the solitude helping him to reflect on the past and overcome some serious anger issues -- but the isolation is starting to make Sam uneasy. With only two weeks to go before he begins his journey back to Earth, Sam starts feeling strange: he's having inexplicable visions, and hearing impossible sounds. Then, when a routine extraction goes horribly awry, it becomes apparent that Lunar hasn't been entirely straightforward with Sam about their plans for replacing him. The new recruit seems strangely familiar, and before Sam returns to Earth, he will grapple with the realization that the life he has created may not be entirely his own. Up there, hundreds of thousands of miles from home, it appears that Sam's contract isn't the only thing about to expire.

O'Horten – comedy - Brent Hamer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ong76I3aJm4
A septuagenarian taking his penultimate voyage from Oslo to Bergen begins to mentally prepare for his final trip, but finds that sometimes things don't turn out as expected when he misses the last departure for the first time in 40 years.

Paper Heart – comedy - Nicholas Jasenovec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewisKyyuF78
Real-life sweethearts Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi head up this indie semi-documentary comedy, scripted by Yi, concerning the meaning of love. Fellow Judd Apatow veteran Nicholas Jasenovec makes his directorial debut with the production.

Perestroika – drama - Slava Tsukerman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujP0RgYFx1E
Moscow. 1992. Sasha Greenberg, (Sam Robards,) an astrophysicist, returns to the city of his birth after 17 years of exile. Formerly reviled as a traitor, he is now welcomed back as a hero. The period of "Perestroika" (restructuring) has turned everything upside down. Sasha has been invited to deliver an important paper about the structure of the universe. He's thought to have made positive gains toward making sense of the cosmos. But it's time of great chaos in his own life. His marriage, to an American scientist, (Ally Sheedy) who helped him leave, has all but failed. His relationship with a beautiful filmmaker has reached an impasse. Complicating matters, Sasha suspects that a fiery young adolescent, formerly unknown to him, might be his daughter. No one, save a few opportunists, seems prepared for this new Russia. Capitalism has undermined the communist system. Vodka is rationed. Old people can barely feed themselves. Films of polluted seas, rivers on fire, and dying forests, are seeing the light of day for the first time. People are saying things in public that formerly would have sent them to prison. Many expect revolution. Some welcome it. Sasha lives in a state of constant revelation. Old friends who denounced him as a traitor rush him with open arms. Painful memories of anti Semitism return to haunt him. A colleague and lover all but drags him back to her bed. In the midst of all this turmoil Sasha is expected to deliver a theory about the coherence of our universe. But what he's feeling is overwhelming chaos, and the suspicion that man is the bane of a world in peril. As all this swirls around him Sasha is counseled by Gross, his wily but supportive mentor, (F. Murray Abraham.) Gross defected to Russia after World War II and never looked back. Gross' patience and resolve go a long way to helping Sasha maintain his composure. But Gross helped the Soviets develop nuclear weapons. Finally Sasha must reconcile on his own. With all he knows about the world and the devil, is there any redemption for humanity?

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.

Rudo y Cursi – comedy - carlos cuaron
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5UgJEP-IRU
Carlos Cuarón, who co-wrote the script for his brother Alfonso Cuarón's breakthrough hit, Y Tu Mama Tambien, makes his feature directorial debut with Rudo y Cursi. The film also reunites the stars of the earlier film, Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, and is the first release from the production company Alfonso started with Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu, Cha Cha Chá. Rudo y Cursi depicts the changing relationship between two brothers who become soccer stars. Beto (Luna), the goaltender, is nicknamed "Rudo" because of his hardnosed style of play, while Tato (Bernal), a forward, gets the nickname "Cursi" for his flamboyant goal celebrations and his flashy lifestyle. They both start out picking bananas in remote Tlachatlán, where they share a devotion to their mother. Then Batuta (Argentinean comic Guillermo Francella), a charmingly shiftless professional scout, happens by. He can only sign one of the brothers, so they battle it out on the pitch to see who gets his break. Instead of throwing the match to his brother as plan, Tato scores a goal and is on his way to stardom. He's more interested in becoming a pop star than a soccer star, but when he meets Maya (Jessica Mas), a famous TV hostess he's dreamed about for years, he begins to enjoy the trappings of fame. Meanwhile, resentful Beto waits for his chance. When he finally gets his break, he leaves his disapproving wife Toña (Adriana Paz) and his kids to sneak off to Mexico City. The brothers' fortunes rise and fall, with Tato distracted by a demanding girlfriend and a hopeless singing career, while Beto deals with marital strife and a serious gambling problem.

Shall We Kiss - comedy/romance - Emmanuel Mouret
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1YmwkwJL3o
Emmanuel Mouret's romantic comedy Shall We Kiss? begins with two strangers who end up attracted to each other, even though they both are involved in relationships with others. The woman refuses to kiss the man goodnight after a dinner together, explaining that a single kiss can alter a life. This set-up acts as a framing device for the main story, a tale she shares with him about friends who complicate their lives by becoming sexually involved.

Shrink – drama - Jonas Pate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf_8g2lDbzg
A jaded psychiatrist takes on a pro bono case that puts his professionalism to the ultimate test in director Jonas Pate's knowing expose of the "other" Hollywood. Between sorting through the insecurities of a fading film starlet (Saffron Burrows), a struggling writer (Mark Webber), and an obsessive-compulsive talent agent (Dallas Roberts), A-list psychiatrist Henry Carter (Kevin Spacey) barely has the time to deal with his own problems. Suddenly, into the middle of Henry's malaise wanders a troubled teen who's never even set foot in the Hollywood hills. This is Henry's first pro bono client, and considering his current state, he's not sure that now is the best time to be taking on more work. While Henry is jaded by Hollywood, his newest patient is obsessed with it. Faced with the challenge of helping a young girl through a particularly difficult time in her life, Henry does his best to remain professional despite harboring some rather serious misgivings during their first few sessions.

Silent Light – drama - Carlos Reygadas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AufewteAg7g
A man of faith succumbs to a temptation he cannot resist in this drama written and directed by Carlos Reygadas. Johan (Cornelio Wall Fehr) and Esther (Miriam Toews) have been married for years, and live with their children in a Mennonite community Mexico. While Johan and Esther are both taciturn by nature, a moral dilemma is tearing Johan apart -- he's been having an affair with another woman in their circle, Marianne (Maria Pankratz), and feels he may be falling in love with her. While the tenants of his faith strictly forbid adultery, his need to be with Marianne seems stronger than the dictates of his moral compass, and while he's confessed his sins to Esther and his close friend Zacarias (Jacobo Klassen), subjecting himself to the shame of truth hasn't buffered his desires. Even worse, after Johan confesses to his father about his lust for Marianne, he's told that he may have fallen under the sway of Satan. Luz Silenciosa (aka Silent Light) received its world premiere at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.

Sita Sings the Blues - musical/animation - Nina Paley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y5_zJ1xfQs
Two women having troubles with their men, separated by several centuries, find their stories coming together in this animated comedy-drama from artist and animator Nina Paley. A female cartoonist moves from the United States when her husband gets a new job in India. While acclimating to her new life in India, the cartoonist becomes fascinated with the Hindu folk tale "the Ramayana," in which a beautiful woman named Sita, who was created spontaneously from the Earth, is adopted by King Janaka, pledged to a brave warrior named Rama, and is kidnapped by the demonic leader Ravana. Sita's story is given two visual interpretations at once -- a visually striking abstract version and another which employs a whimsical, cartoony approach and uses vintage recordings of jazz singer Annette Hanshaw for Sita's voice. As the film jumps back and forth between two adaptations of the Ramayana, the cartoonist discovers that her sojourn in India has taken a turn for the worse when her husband falls in love with another woman. Sita Sings The Blues was an official entry at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.

Song of Sparrows – drama - Majid Majidi
http://www.thesongofsparrowsmovie.com/
Fired from his job on an ostrich farm after one of the birds runs away and he is blamed for the loss, a man becomes so obsessed with collecting useless rubbish that he begins to neglect his wife and daughter while becoming completely oblivious to their familial hardships. Karim earned a decent living by working on the ostrich farm, so after he is fired he sets out on a futile attempt to locate the bird. One day, as Karim heads into town in order to have his daughter's hearing aid repaired, he offers a lift to a wandering man and decides that there is good money in the taxi business. But as his connection to the people of the city grows stronger, his personality begins to transform. Everyday, Karim returns home with a new haul of useless junk, giving his picturesque courtyard the appearance of a sprawling junkyard. When his wife offers a spare door from the courtyard to a neighbor in need, Karim completely looses his cool and sets out to retrieve the door. When Karim stumbles and breaks his foot while rummaging through his second-hand goods, the kindness of neighbors makes him realize that his priorities have taken a turn for the worse.

The Stoning of Soraya M. - crime/drama - Cyrus Nowrasteh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqdH4FkzbTM
Director Cyrus Nowrasteh teams with screenwriter Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh to illuminate the dangers of religious fundamentalism, gender apartheid, and mob rule with this fictionalized adaptation of Freidoune Sahebjam's best-selling novel centering on a true-life tragedy. The story takes place in 1986, just as Khomeini is coming into power in Iran. Undercover French journalist Freidoune Sahebjam (Jim Caviezel) is traveling though a small southwestern village when his car breaks down. Surrounded by strife but left with little choice other to wait until his car is repaired, the anxious Freidoune is soon approached by persistent local Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo), who convinces him to follow her into the courtyard behind her home. There, she reveals to him that she has just bore witness to a most heinous crime. Just the previous day, Zahra had watched the men or her town stone an innocent woman to death. That woman was Soraya (Mozhan Marnò), long-suffering wife of abusive tyrant Ali. Soraya wed Ali in an arranged marriage, never realizing the horrors that she and her children would endure under her husband's heavy hand. When Ali requested a divorce so that he would be free to marry a fourteen year old girl, Soraya boldly refused, knowing that she and the children would most certainly starve to death without a husband to support them. Ali was too poor to return Soraya's dowry as custom dictates in a divorce, but he found another way out of the marriage. Under Shariah law, adultery is a crime punishable by death of the accused is unable to prove their innocence. Scheming with the newly installed, counterfeit mullah, Ali accused his wife of adultery. In order to ensure that she had no chance of defending herself, he blackmailed several male villagers to testify on his behalf. A tribunal was quickly called, and Soraya's fate forever sealed.

Surveillance – crime - Jennifer Chambers Lynch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc3Rasp2M-Q
An FBI agent on the trail of a serial killer attempts to capture the madman with a little assistance from his would-be victims in director Jennifer Chambers Lynch's supernatural police thriller.

Tokyo Sonata – drama - Kiyoshi Kurosawa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv9WS0aouIY
TOKYO SONATA is a portrait of a seemingly ordinary Japanese family. The father who abruptly loses his job conceals the truth from his family; the eldest son in college hardly returns home; the youngest son furtively takes piano lessons without telling his parents; and the mother, who knows deep down that her role is to keep the family together, cannot find the will to do so. From the exterior, all is normal and the same. But somehow, a single, unforeseeable chasm has appeared within the family, threatening to disintegrate them. Director Kurosawa’s use of light and dark to express a sense of simultaneous hope and horror verges on awe-inspiring and the ending will leave you enthralled.

Treeless Mountain - drama - So Yong Kim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9ermzhKx54
The frozen space in a little girl's heart gradually begins to warm thanks to the love of her older sister in director So Yong Kim's portrait of a young innocent forced to come to terms with feelings of loss and abandonment. Six-year-old Jin (Hee Yeon Kim) and her younger sister, Bin (Song Hee Kim), live in a cramped apartment with their single mother. Though their lives are on the edge of disaster, both girls remain completely oblivious to the threats of the outside world. One morning, after Jin wets the bed, their mother packs up all their belongings and sends the girls to live with their alcoholic Big Aunt (Kim Mi-hyang). Suddenly thrust into a hostile and unfamiliar environment, the girls are given a piggy bank and a promise that their mother will return when it's finally been filled. Wrestling with feelings of abandonment despite the fact that she's not mature enough to understand why their mother has left or what may become of her and Bin in the future, Jin showers her younger sibling with affection in order to prevent her from feeling as if all hope has been lost.

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?

Whatever Works – comedy - Woody Allen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VeTEP3xoXo
Woody Allen writes and directs this "blackish comedy" about an eccentric, upper class New Yorker (Larry David) who abandons his comfortable lifestyle in favor of leading a more bohemian existence. After meeting a young Southern girl and her family, he discovers that life among the nonconformists isn't quite as carefree as he'd envisioned it to be.

A Wink and A Smile – documentary - Deirdre Allen Timmons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhPw65N8pSM
Ten burlesque newcomers shed their inhibitions, emotional hang-ups, stereotypes, and, of course, clothing as they enter the Academy of Burlesque for a personal training session with famed Seattle dancer Miss Indigo Blue. By the time this lesson is over, these ladies will have gained the confidence to strut across the stage in true style, all the while knowing that every eye in the room is completely fixed on them.