SFIFF53: Michael Hawley's Review Capsules

After weeks of anticipation, the 53rd edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) is finally set to launch this Thursday, April 22. I'm looking to catch 30 or so films during the next two weeks and hope to file a wrap-up report when it's all over and done with. Meanwhile, here's a fistful of capsule write-ups of films I've had the chance to preview on DVD screener (except where noted). These 14 films represent only a fraction of what's on offer, so pick up a festival mini-guide, browse the entire roster of films on the festival's website, or check out my previews of the line-up here, here and here. Also, if you're interested in knowing which films are screening in 35mm and which ones will be digitally projected, be sure to have a look at the Film on Film Foundation's indispensable Bay Area Film Calendar.

Air Doll (Japan dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)
A blow-up sex doll comes to life and discovers that having a heart is heartbreaking in this perhaps destined-to-disappoint follow-up to 2008's masterful Still Walking. Kore-eda laboriously overworks his premise here to deliver a gnarly parable about loneliness. Still, the film looks great and is a choice vehicle for Korean actress Bae Doo-na (Linda Linda Linda, The Host), whose gifts for pathos and physical comedy are put to sublime use in the title role. (Seen at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival.)

A Brand New Life (South Korea/France dir. Ounie Lecomte)
Based on the director's own childhood spent in a South Korean Catholic orphanage, this powerful and affecting film is a testament to the adaptability of youth. In 1975, nine-year-old Jin-hee (adorably resolute Kim Sae-ron) is brought to an orphanage by a father who can no longer care for her. Over the course of the film, we witness her disbelief and anger painfully transform into resignation, and finally acceptance. Realizing her father will never return, Jin-hee intuits that her best bet is to play the system and present herself in a way that will facilitate a foreign adoption. Remarkably unmanipulative considering its subject matter and engaging throughout, the film should be a strong contender for the festival's New Directors prize. (Seen at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival.)

Cairo Time (Canada dir. Ruba Nadda)
The talents of Patricia Clarkson aren't nearly enough to save this hokey tale of a Western woman's reawakening amidst an exotic culture. Magazine editor Juliette gets waylaid in Cairo while waiting to be joined by her U.N. relief worker husband, meanwhile vaguely falling for the handsome Egyptian assigned to watch over her. Clunky dialogue, an overwrought score, and lack of chemistry are among its chief problems. The only winner is Cairo itself, which is beautifully photographed. (Seen at a festival press screening.)

Father of My Children (France/Germany dir. Mia Hansen-Løve)
A beloved art-film producer commits suicide after becoming financially overextended, leaving family and business associates to deal with his legacy in this splendid Special Jury Prize winner from Cannes (Un Certain Regard). The film kicks off with a bravura sequence detailing a day in the life of producer Grégoire Canvel, as he chain smokes, juggles multiple cell phones, irons out production snafus, evades creditors and smoothes the ruffled feathers of temperamental actors and directors. He has a loving, if exasperating relationship with his wife and three daughters, which renders the suicide at the film's exact mid-point all the more tragic. The second half almost seems like an anti-climax in comparison, as Canvel's wife tries to salvage the production company and a family secret is discovered by his eldest daughter. The film was inspired by the life and death of Hubert Balsan, whose list of productions includes films by Claire Denis, Youssef Chahine and Lars von Trier. I found it a big step up from Hansen-Løve's debut film All is Forgiven, which certainly had its ardent admirers. Father of My Children will be of special appeal to those interested in the economics of contemporary art film production. (Seen at a festival press screening.)

The Invention of Dr. NakaMats (Denmark dir. Kaspar Astrup Schröder)
Yoshiro Nakamatsu holds the world's record for patents–3,357 and counting–as compared to Edison's paltry 1,093. This snappy and entertaining bio-doc follows Nakamatsu in the months leading up to his 80th birthday and the debut of his latest invention, the B-Bust Bra for small breast enhancement. Brilliant and eccentric, the good doctor also comes off a sardonic self-promoter and pompous ham. He's best known for inventing the floppy disk, an idea that came to him, like many others, while swimming underwater (he takes notes on his waterproof notepad, which of course, he invented). Among his other creations are spray-on aphrodisiac Love Jet and a vehicle that runs on water. A dapper dresser who does all this "out of love" for humanity, the doctor gets by on four hours sleep and one meal per day (he won a Nobel Prize in nutrition after photographing and analyzing every single meal he ate for 34 years). "I think that nothing is impossible" is his credo and this film will convince you he sincerely believes it. With a fun music score by Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo, Pee-wee's Playhouse).

Marwencol (USA dir. Jeff Malmberg)
In 1993, Mark Hogencamp was viciously attacked outside a Kingston, NY bar and consequently spent nine days in a coma. His face had to be rebuilt and all his motor skills had to be relearned. Hogencamp's mental recovery from this trauma has been precipitated by Marwencol, a miniature, doll-populated WWII-era Belgian village he's built outside his trailer home. Marwencol and its inhabitants are the subject of a captivating and poignant film that recently won the jury prize for best documentary at SXSW. Hogencamp works through emotional issues by staging and photographing elaborate dramas with dolls, many of whom represent people he knows in "real" life. One day there might be staged catfights at "The Ruined Stocking" bar, and the next day might find Hogencamp's avatar doll being stripped and tortured by sadistic SS officers. Eventually the Art World comes calling–Hogencamp's photos are compiled into a nifty volume and a NYC gallery stages a one-man show. It's then we learn of a "twist" in his story; one that explains a lot about Marwencol and the "reason" for the 1993 attack. Director Malmberg lays all this out in a compelling way, using judicious stop-motion animation and period music to bring Hogencamp's extraordinary creation to life.

My Queen Karo (Belgium dir. Dorothée Berghe)
The ups and downs of communal living are explored in this bittersweet, autobiographical flashback to 1974. Ten-year-old Karo and her Belgian parents help establish a squatters artist commune in an abandoned Amsterdam building. Trouble invades paradise when Karo's father invites another woman to move in and share his bed, sending Karo's less liberated mother into an emotional tailspin. Ideological differences involving money start to strain the couple's relationship as well. A confused and conflicted Karo, who observes the adults having sex in the commune's un-partitioned living space, does her childlike best to navigate a way through it all, with metaphorical swimming lessons providing some needed structure and discipline.

Northless (Mexico/Spain dir. Rigoberto Perezcano)
After being abandoned in the desert by his coyote, Oaxacan Andrés is captured by U.S. immigration authorities and sent back to Tijuana. He falls into work doing odd jobs at a bodega, where a sexual tension develops between himself, the store's female owner and a female helper. Despite having a wife and two kids back home, crossing the border becomes less of an imperative, at least temporarily. The two women are in no hurry to see him go either, each having lost a man to the allure of El Norte. When they finally do help him emigrate, it's in a wonderfully surprising way that, of all things, is scored to Debussy's "Claire de lune." Handsomely photographed and finely acted, this observational and melancholic (but not humorless) film about the toll of economic disparity is the antithesis of last year's heart-pounding immigration melodrama Sin Nombre.

The Peddler (Argentina dir. Lucas Marcheggiano, Adriana Yurkovich, Eduardo de la Serna)
Sixty-seven-year-old Daniel Burmeister rolls into the Argentine Pampas village of Gould driving a beat-up red sedan. For the 58th time in his filmmaking career, he'll make a complete narrative feature using local talent in exchange for lodging, food and the right to sell tickets to a premiere. This sweet documentary takes us through the gregarious and self-effacing Burmeister's entire DIY process–from casting to location scouting, from shoot to showtime–improvising as circumstance dictates. A white sheet doubles as his movie screen and a cemetery ghost costume. A tracking shot is accomplished by having Burmeister dragged across the floor atop a blanket. This is the only Argentine film in this year's festival, which is unusual. Fortunately, this charming and respectful portrait of small town life and one man's passion is worthy of standing alone.

The Portuguese Nun (France/Portugal dir. Eugène Green)
"I never see French films. They're only for intellectuals." So states a minor character in this formalist work that will strike many as overly mannered and pretentious. I was pretty darned transfixed by it, and believe me, I ain't no intellectual. Leonor Baldaque plays a malaise-afflicted French actress who's in Lisbon to make a film about a 17th century nun and her affair with a military officer. She wanders the city like a doe-eyed somnambulist and has a series of life-changing encounters with a suicidal man, a genuine Portuguese nun and a six-year-old waif–not to mention a one-night stand with her co-star. Among director Green's cinematic tactics are 360° pans, emotionally flat dialogue delivery, two-shot conversations spoken directly to the camera, focal shifts within single shots and a fascination with legs and feet. Green also portrays the director of the film within the film, one Denis Verde. All this will drive some people bonkers and I predict walk-outs. What might keep them in their seats are several live music interludes and the fact that Lisbon has never looked more ravishing on film than it does here.

Presumed Guilty (Mexico dir. Roberto Hernández, Geoffrey Smith)
The SFIFF staff was so impressed by this look at the horrors of Mexico's criminal justice system that they pre-awarded it the festival's Golden Gate Award for Best Bay Area Documentary. It's easy to see why. This powerful and moving film follows the trials of one José Antonio Zuñiga-Rodriguez, a thoughtful young man wrongly arrested and convicted for a 2005 homicide despite a myriad of judicial injustices–not the least of which is several dozen witnesses putting him miles from the crime scene. When it's discovered that his original lawyer was practicing with a forged license, "Toño" is granted a retrial that the filmmakers are miraculously permitted to record–and what an eye-opener that is. The "courtroom" is merely one section of a large, open and chaotic office space and his judge is the same guy who convicted him in the first place. Of particular interest is the trial's cara a cara, in which the accused is permitted to question and confront, literally face-to-face, his accusers. It's shocking, but not unsurprising when the retrial results in a second conviction. The case then goes to a court of appeals, where the retrial film footage is submitted as evidence. You'll have to see the film yourself to learn their ruling. During the end credits it's revealed that 95% of Mexican verdicts are convictions, and 92% of those are not based on any physical evidence.

To Die Like a Man (Portugal/France João Pedro Rodrigues)
Middle-aged transvestite performer Tonia has problems. Her infected breast implants are killing her, her junkie boyfriend is ripping her off, her AWOL solider son has committed murder and her once-adoring public is no longer interested. In this hyper-stylized melodrama, Portuguese provocateur Rodrigues (O Fantasma, Two Drifters aka Odete) precariously walks the fine line between hooty camp and deeply affecting emotionalism–and largely succeeds. Since the film premiered in Un Certain Regard at last year's Cannes, it's accumulated an equal share of haters and defenders. Chances are if you disliked his two previous films, you're not gonna like this one either–and vice versa. I can't wait to see it again. After you've seen it, be sure and check out The Evening Class' Michael Guillén's interview with Rodrigues from the Toronto Film Festival. (Seen at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival.)

The Wind Journeys (Colombia dir. Ciro Guerra)
Following the death of his wife, taciturn accordion maestro Ignacio sets off on a mission to return his accursed instrument to its original owner. He begrudgingly tolerates the company of aspiring teen musician Fermin, and their episodic misadventures en route shape this dazzling, roadless road movie that was Colombia's 2009 Oscar submission. The journey takes them through a variety of landscapes–desert, mountain, plains and seaside–all breathtakingly filmed in wide screen. They also come into contact with various cultures and their music. A frenetic battle-of-the-accordion-players at a village music festival is one of the most joyous and thrilling things I've seen at the movies this year. Visually, The Wind Journeys is a stunner, with meticulously framed compositions and intricate camera choreography that at times borders on show-off-y. I regret not being able to fit a big-screen experience of this into my festival schedule.

You Think You're the Prettiest, But You Are the Sluttiest (Chile dir. Ché Sandoval)
While this film isn't anything we haven't seen before in such vignette-structured youthful gab-fests like Slackers and 25 Watts, it is genuinely funny and an accomplished achievement for its 25-year-old director and largely non-pro cast. Protagonist Javier (a revelatory Martín Castillo) is a pesky, motor-mouthed overthinker whose bravado masks a pathetic vulnerability. It's not really his fault that best friend Nicolás is way cooler and hotter and keeps stealing his girlfriends without trying. In addition to romantic advances and retreats, the film tracks Javier through a series of prickly social encounters. He allows a frustrated friend to punch him in the face for nine dollars, and then pays a gay guy at a bus stop to quit bugging him. Most memorable is a tender interaction between Javier and an aging prostitute who's waiting for a taxi after a hard night's work. I was sure the film couldn't possibly live up to its fabulous title. I was wrong. This will be another solid contender for the festival's New Directors prize.

Cross-published on film-415 and Twitch.

TIFF09—MASTERS

With the full list of films officially announced for the 34th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), it's now time to muse, stew, brew and brood. For starters—as Dave Hudson phrased it at The Auteurs Daily—all of the organizational heavy lifting has been done by Darren Hughes at 1st Thursday. I'd also like to shout out to the fine work and incredibly helpful search engines of TOfilmfest-ca. and the anticipatory announcements from my Twitch teammates. Now with the sidebars and their programs in place comes the Byzantine craft of selecting approximately 30-40 movies from hundreds of attractive titles; is anything more nervewracking? Out of sheer deference, I always start out with the Masters.

Air Doll / Kûki ningyô (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan). Official website (Japanese). This compelling tale of a blow-up doll that becomes a real person and abandons her status of mere sex object comes to life with the superb performance of Korean actress Bae Doo-na.

Cannes synopsis: Hideo, who lives alone, owns a life-size "air doll", which suddenly finds herself with a heart. Everything is new to her in the world outside Hideo's house. She meets all kinds of people. The world is filled with so many beautiful things, but everyone seems to have some kind of hollowness, just as she has. In the morning, she pumps herself up, and takes a walk. One afternoon, she meets Junichi who works at a rental video store, and instantly falls in love with him. A first date. New words she learns from him. She starts working with him at the store, enjoys talking and being with him. Everything seems to be going perfect, until something unexpected happens to the doll. A sad yet happy fantasy. This is a story about a new form of love.

At The Daily @ IFC, David Hudson gathered the reviews from Cannes, where Air Doll had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard competition. Not included in Dave's illustrious aggregate is James Quandt's Cannes dispatch to The Japan Times, wherein Quandt assesses straight off that Air Doll is "vastly inferior" to Still Walking, which was shut out of Cannes last year. Quandt opines that Kore-eda has departed "into territory seemingly unsuited to [his] fine, poetic sensibility." Leave it to James: Where others compare Air Doll to Pinnochio, he summons up the ballet Coppelia and the opera Rusalka. And in one particularly lovely passage, he observes: "The words 'heart' (kokoro) and 'substitute' play against each other throughout the film, reflecting Kore-eda's concern with humanity's preference for artificial, undemanding, and surrogate experience: DVDs instead of cinemas, video games instead of poetry, sex dolls instead of a real-life mate." In gist, Quandt finds Air Doll "overlong and sententious."

Guest critic Moko reviewed the film for Twitch: "Nozomi comes across a cavalcade of shattered people, doing their best to pretend like nothing is wrong—people who are 'empty' emotionally in the same way that Nozomi is empty physically." Which is pretty much how Kore-eda responded to my sole question at The Evening Class about the film's theme. At Midnight Eye, Tom Mes' informed review situates Air Doll in the context of contemporary Japan, not only in its freeform adaptation of a popular manga, but resemblances to the work of literary great Junichiro Tanizaki, and the film's Tokyo-specific shitamachi setpieces. Wikipedia. IMDb. YouTube trailer. North American Premiere.

Antichrist (Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden/ France/Italy). Official website. This is a groundbreaking, deeply disturbing and graphic nightmare vision about gender relations from one of the most important and influential directors of the last 30 years. The film is a break from von Trier's previous work in terms of aesthetics, resembling a Japanese horror movie reimagined by Andrei Tarkovsky. Antichrist features unforgettable and courageous performances by Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe. Gainsbourg won Canne's Best Actress award for her performance. Dave Hudson monitored the critical wake from Cannes at The Daily @ IFC. In his Cannes dispatch to The Japan Times, James Quandt wrote: "Danish director Lars von Trier, ever the provocateur, worked his way out of personal depression by making Antichrist, an intense and ultimately preposterous account of a marriage strained by the death of a child. The troubled couple retreat to an isolated cabin, none too subtly called Eden, to work out their problems, which soon escalate into macabre, and then gruesome, violence, the impaling and self-maiming enough to make fans of the Saw franchise flinch." At Film Comment, Amy Taubin complained that von Trier's "trick of putting the audience in a vise and then ridiculing it for wriggling has worn thin, and since Antichrist is an 'intimate' two-hander, the frayed seams are all too evident. Which may be the desired effect, or may not be, ad infinitum, but frankly, it just bored me." Wikipedia. IMDb. North American Premiere.

Carmel (Amos Gitaï, Israel/France/Italy). History in the Middle East is a complex mix of the present and the past. Then, there is also the personal and Gitaï is uniquely placed to reflect on his own past as a soldier and as the father of a young man caught up in the present conflicts that engulf the region. IMDb. World Premiere.

La Donation / The Legacy (Bernard Émond, Canada). Official website (French). Dr. Rainville, an aging country doctor with a deep attachment to his patients, is about to retire and is looking for a successor. Jeanne Dion, an emergency room doctor from Montreal, agrees to go to Normétal to replace him for a few weeks, with no plans for an extended stay. When Dr. Rainville suddenly dies, Jeanne must decide if she'll take over the job, and its inherent responsibilities, for the long-term. The main themes of the film are faith and dehumanization of the public health care system. The Legacy received the Special Grand Prize of Youth Jury and the Don Quixote Award of the Locarno International Film Festival. IMDb. YouTube trailer. North American Premiere.

Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl / Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loira (Manoel de Oliveira, France/Portugal/Spain). Famed filmmaker Oliveira, who celebrates his 101st birthday this year, tells the tale of Macario's obsession with the enticing blond he spies from his window. Little does he know that she will end up stealing much more than his heart. Daniel Kasman reviewed the film for The Auteurs when it screened at this year's Berlinale ("Adapted from a short story by Eça de Queirós—whose caricature is humorously honored when Trêpa visits an exclusive literary club—Oliveira's Blond Hair Girl is a simple and precise 64 minutes, as pure as rain water and just as lacking in pretension. …The simplicity on display is a relief, and the mastery effortless."); Jay Weissberg for Variety ("Those familiar with the master's airtight tableaux and controlled line-delivery won't find much has changed in the switch to Zola-like territory, updated to the present and told as a flashback by an earnest man discovering his love didn't deserve his adulation."); Damon Smith for The Hands of Bresson ("[C]ertainly the best feature I caught in Berlin, and the leanest, clocking in at a mere 64 minutes. …Terse and forlorn, but etched with wry humor, the film presents characters who exist in a world of fusty Edwardian decorum where the possibility of love is constrained by one's financial means and class position, or in the case of Macario, the consent of an uncle."). To be shown with Working on the Douro River. IMDb. YouTube trailer. North American Premiere.

Les Herbes Folles / Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, France). From modernist master Alain Resnais comes a romantic adventure based around the simple act of losing a wallet. Based on French writer Christian Gailly's 1996 novel L'incident, Resnais' first adaptation of a novel into film is about a lost wallet and how it changes the lives of its principal characters. As IMDb synopsizes: "A wallet lost and found opens the door to romantic adventure for Georges and Marguerite. After examining the ID papers of its owner, it is not a simple matter for Georges to turn the red wallet he found in to the police. Nor is it that Marguerite can recuperate her wallet without being piqued with curiosity about whom it was who found it. As they navigate the social protocols of giving and acknowledging thanks, turbulence enters their otherwise quotidian lives."

Cannes awarded Resnais a lifetime achievement award for his work and exceptional contribution to the history of cinema. David Hudson has gathered the Cannes reviews at The Daily @ IFC. I might add Amy Taubin's evaluation for Film Comment: "The film is at once buoyant and melancholy, heady and erotic—a delirium of contradictory desires. Eric Gautier's crane-mounted camera performs remarkable aerial twists and turns. Resnais, a master choreographer of camera movement, has never been this inventive or this free. Wild Grass seems both precision-wound and made up on the spot. It might be his greatest film since Muriel." Wild Grass has likewise been tagged to open this year's upcoming New York Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics has acquired the film. At The Auteurs, Adrian Curry encourages Sony to retain the film's original theatrical poster. Wikipedia. IMDb. YouTube excerpt. North American Premiere.

Honeymoons / Medeni Mesec (Goran Paskaljevic, Serbia/Albania/Italy). Two young married couples take off and travel abroad to the promised lands of better opportunities, but hope collapses when their expectations disappear into thin air and their dreams turn into nightmares. As Dimitri Eipides details in his program capsule: "Veteran director Goran Paskaljevic, who fled Serbia for France during the rule of late president Slobodan Miloševic, is not just interested in knocking on heaven's door. He wants to reach those pearly gates hand in hand with his neighbor—hence the first Albanian-Serbian co-production in cinema history. Despite undiminished tensions over breakaway Kosovo, Honeymoons beautifully reconciles the two nations by pointing out their similarities rather than their differences. Though Paskaljevic insists he wasn't trying to make any political point with this work, before he even started filming, Serbian nationalists had already accused him of being a traitor, while Albanians in Tirana and Kosovo didn't exactly warm to the idea. If a simple love story has such powerful repercussions, imagine what would happen if this film was really about politics! Then again, maybe it is." IMDb. North American Premiere.

Hotel Atlântico (Suzana Amaral, Brazil). Official Website. Enigmatic and perturbing, Suzana Amaral's Hotel Atlântico takes us on a mysterious journey through Brazil's southern landscapes. The film follows an unnamed actor as he wanders into new experiences, living life in the moment. IMDb. YouTube trailer. World Premiere.

Melody for a Street Organ / Melodiya dlya sharmanki (Kira Muratova, Ukraine). Two young orphan siblings travel to Moscow in search of their missing father. Scared of being separated and sent to orphanages, they hope to reunite with the last link of their shattered family. As Dimitri Eipides evokes in his program capsule: "Kira Muratova spins her majestic web slowly and purposefully, weaving together alternating vignettes of her beloved duo. This fairy-tale world is not conjured out of thin air, but rather gives us a different take on what's already there: a train station haunted with the memory of a long-lost father; a department store doubling as Ali Baba's cave and the nine circles of hell; a clandestine street that refuses to be found." IMDb. North American Premiere.

Le Refuge (François Ozon, France). The French master returns with this unsettling tale of a rich, beautiful young woman who finds herself pregnant after her boyfriend dies of an overdose. Retreating to a seaside home, she is joined by his brother. As Cameron Bailey offers in his program capsule: "A character study that builds its tension in measured scenes, Le Refuge carries the stamp of its auteur in its pursuit of uneasy situations and its focus on the absolute enigma of the protagonist." World Premiere.

Vincere (Marco Bellocchio, Italy). Official website (Italian). This fictionalized portrait of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini concentrates on his youthful years before he rose to power in Italy. It uncovers the details of his first marriage and the child he had with a passionate woman whom he later totally disowned and abandoned. In his program capsule, Piers Handling crowns Vincere "serious, intelligent filmmaking of the highest order" and states: "Mussolini's early life provides the grist for a major examination of the dictator in Marco Bellocchio's tough-edged but brilliantly directed film. With decades of cinematic experience behind him, as well as a filmography that includes some of the most important post-war Italian films ever made, Bellocchio is well prepared for this challenge. Vincere stands as a model for anyone setting out to capture the flavor and essence of a famed historical figure." Dave Hudson monitored the critical wake from Cannes at The Daily @ IFC. Wikipedia. IMDb. YouTube trailer. North American Premiere.

Vision / Vision—Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen (Margarethe von Trotta, Germany). One of the major auteurs to emerge from the New German Cinema, Margarethe von Trotta returns to the Festival with Vision, a study of the remarkable Hildegard von Bingen, the Benedictine nun who emerged as a Renaissance woman before there was a Renaissance. IMDb. YouTube trailer. Canadian Premiere.

White Material / Matériel Blanc (Claire Denis, France). A family of French expatriates living in an African country where they own a coffee plantation find that their livelihood is threatened by the outbreak of civil war. They struggle to keep their lives together in the face of rival factions fighting for power and gun-toting child soldiers who have no sympathy for their plight. Piers Handling synopsizes: "Denis, always the visual magician, creates a world of beautiful but troubling images. In her hands, the camera is an expressive force that she employs to intervene, reveal and interpret. She immerses the viewer in her chosen reality, making us feel, see and hear everything she puts in front of us, opening our senses to what she is showing. As their way of life disintegrates around them, each character makes choices, none of which is predictable. With White Material, Denis explores the highly charged, divided and intensely emotional post-colonial world that is Africa." White Material was nominated for the Golden Lion at the 2009 Venice International. IMDb. North American Premiere.

The White Ribbon / Das Weisse Band (Michael Haneke, Germany/Austria/ France/Italy). In Protestant Northern Germany on the eve of World War I, strange incidents begin to occur in a village community and increasingly take the form of a ritual of punishment. This latest work from Michael Haneke won the Palme d'Or for best film at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Piers Handling concludes in his program capsule: "Though an analysis of the roots of Nazism can be read into the narrative, the film has a more universal reach. Haneke maintains that the work is as much an investigation of terrorism as it is of fascism. Both provocative and elegantly executed, this is essential viewing—an examination of how violence can perhaps unwittingly take root in a society that ostensibly believes in other values."

Dave Hudson monitored the critical wake from Cannes for The Daily @ IFC. Having already complained about the "gore galore" at this year's Cannes Film Festival, James Quandt wrote in his dispatch to The Japan Times: "It took erstwhile shock-meister Michael Haneke to trump all this horror with a Strindbergian exchange between a bitter doctor and his mistress in The White Ribbon, the verbal sadism far more appalling than any neighboring carnage." At Film Comment, Gavin Smith added: "[T]his story of sinister misdeeds in a hamlet in Northern Germany just before World War I is a horror movie of sorts—the obvious reference point was Village of the Damned—although its true roots are in the postwar German Heimatfilm genre, which it comprehensively subverts. With its slow, deliberate pace, exactingly framed black-and-white compositions, novelistic array of characters, and mounting sense of unease, it's a completely absorbing experience. … Schematic perhaps, but convincing and authoritative." Wikipedia. IMDb. YouTube trailer. North American Premiere.

The Window / Janala (Buddhadeb Dasgupta, India). When Bimal decides to give something back to his alma mater, he chooses to replace the broken window of his favorite classroom. Plans to pay for this gesture go awry and he cannot bear to tell his fiancée. Hailed as "both searing social comment and pure poetry" by Cameron Bailey in his program capsule, Bailey qualifies that the "delicate balance" poised in The Window "transforms the complexities of today's India into a song of many harmonies." IMDb. World Premiere.