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Very Hot Topic (More than 25 Replies) 2011 Festival Releases (Read 52,688 times)
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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #15 - 10. Sep 2011 at 05:09
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Now back to the films!

Tonight we review the Toronto International Film Fest Sprockets Festival.

Adventures of Owen   (Canada)

Young Owen escapes a pestering sister, demanding mother, deadly games of gym class dodgeball and the pain of an unrequited crush by entering the fantastic animated world of Spaceman X, an intrepid galactic traveller whose adventures Owen has drafted in his sketchbook.

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Mack is an adventuresome eight-year-old with a need for speed: he won his first motorcross race at age three, and his room is now filled with trophies. But the obstacles he faces on the track are nothing compared to what he’s already overcome: Mack was born with his heart on the opposite side of his chest, and from the day he was born he’s been defying the doctors who claim that it’s impossible for him to live another day.

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When seven-year-old country boy Oskari travels to the city with his mother, he gets the chance to meet his favourite superhero -- however, this longed-for meeting is not quite as Oskari had imagined it, and he is soon faced with a difficult choice.

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Six year old Bent is waiting in anticipation for his fathers return from a business trip, but discovers through the behaviour of his mother that something is wrong. Dare he ask the question that scares him the most?

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When eleven-year-old Eva runs away from her quarrelling parents and hides out with her best friends Jackie and Thomas, she discovers a secret letter that reveals her neighbour to be the mastermind of a gang of crooks. Eva and her friends realize that they’re the only ones who can stop the bad guys.

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Ten-year-old Billy Kirkfield is convinced that he is going to die after a recent battle with cancer, and, while he has come to accept this, he is scared of being forgotten. Billy decides to team up with his friends and do something so big the whole world will remember him: set a world record. But when an unexpected revelation upsets his plan, Billy must rethink his goal. A story about friendship, courage and the importance of being a good person every day, Snowmen teaches us that it’s not what you do in life but how you do it.

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Raised by his mother, Luuk has grown up hearing stories about the father he has never met, reputed to be “the strongest man in the world.” At his new school, Luuk fears being teased for being smaller than his classmates but finds an unlikely friend in Minke, the tallest girl in school. The two of them begin a search for Luuk’s father, which leads them to strongman “Powerhouse René,” who agrees to coach Luuk in weight training. As Luuk builds his confidence and discovers more secrets about his family past, he comes to realize that strength comes in many different forms.

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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #16 - 10. Sep 2011 at 05:31
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From the Tribeca Film Festival in New York



Precocious doesn't even begin to describe Henry James Hermin, a petri dish child who writes rabble-rousing manifestos on the nature of truth… at age 10. This boy-genius misfit's world turns upside down when—to the dismay of the doting single mother who raised him—he embarks on a search for his biological father. Toni Collette and Michael Sheen star alongside bright newcomers Jason Spevack and Samantha Weinstein in this charming comedy that beams with off-the-wall humor and visual flair.

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Gemma Atwal’s fascinating and dynamic epic follows Budhia, a four-year-old boy plucked from the slums of India and trained as a marathon prodigy by Biranchi Das, a larger-than-life judo coach who runs an orphanage in the eastern state of Orissa. But over the next five years and dozens of marathons, Budhia’s roller-coaster journey turns from an uplifting story of promise and opportunity to one of greed, corruption, and broken dreams.

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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #17 - 10. Sep 2011 at 23:06
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Screening in the San Francisco International Film Festival

Mistérios de Lisboa   (Portugal)
Mysteries of Lisbon

The noble and the damned are interchangeable and identical in Raúl Ruiz’s magisterial new gambit on the art of storytelling, based on Camilo Castelo Branco’s 19th-century Portuguese novel yet more mind-bending and radical than any contemporary tale. A young boy in a Lisbon orphanage wonders who he is, but soon each and every identity comes into question, especially as flashbacks, flash-forwards and tales within tales begin to spiral forth. A priest may be a fighter, a wealthy man a highway robber and a noblewoman a nun. “But who are you?” asks someone. It all may depend on the story you’re in, and who is telling the tale. What remains constant is the sumptuous setting: a decadent Old World Portugal of crumbling estates, extravagant ballrooms and fog-bound dueling fields. No stranger to epic novel adaptations, Ruiz treats his material with consummate respect and a baroque, Borgesian grandeur, constantly framing shots within shots and actions within actions. A tale of tales, of orphans, counts and duels, this costume meta-drama is Dickens filtered through a surrealist’s gaze, and a fitting summation of Ruiz’s artistry. Originally made as a miniseries for Portuguese television (this four-hour theatrical version was cut from the six-hour original), Mysteries of Lisbon is said by the director to be his final film.

That last statement could very well be true. Mr. Ruiz passed away in August.

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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #18 - 10. Sep 2011 at 23:34
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With not many new films being discovered at the American fests, it's time to head back to Europe and Zlin, Czech Republic for the offerings at their festival.

7 oder warum ich auf der Welt bin   (Germany)
7 or Why I Exist

This is a film in which children introduce us to their world and show us what they really care about, what they like, what's important to them, what makes them laugh, and what makes them cry. Seven children from around the world tell their stories about what it means to be a child today. This film about childhood and the world of children is authentic and genuine, and is full of fantasy, humor and tenderness. It shows a world that adults often don't know about. And this view of the world can act as a mirror, or as a way back our own childhood. Let's look at the way children think.

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7X - Lika barn leka bäst   (Sweden)
7X - Seven bullets

When you feel powerless, what do you do? How far would you stretch to retrieve some human dignity? 7X is a movie about the feeling of hopelessness seen through the eyes of children. It's a story about what happens when a gun find its way into some vulnerable children's hands. It's a story that based on the harsh reality of life tainted by violence, and where the search for dignity takes explosive turns…

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All Good Children   (Ireland)

All Good Children tells the story of Dara, a young Irish boy who moves to rural France with his brother Eoin after the death of their mother. There, the boys befriend a local English family and the vulnerable Dara falls under the spell of their young daughter Bella. But when she begins to pull away, Dara's feelings for her start to get out of hand…

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Anděl   (Czech Republic)
Angel

The main hero of this story is nine-year-old Hugo, a great rascal who cannot be bothered to watch out for himself. Since birth Hugo has been confident that nothing can happen to him. But he's been unaware that a guardian angel has been protecting him from every danger and that the constant saving of Hugo almost always ends in his own harm. During one of Hugo's particularly dangerous stunts, the angel intervenes and injures a wing. This is the moment in which the angel decides he has had enough and leaves Hugo. Hugo doesn't realize at first what can now happen. Very soon he discovers that losing a guardian angel is a big deal. It doesn't take long for his actions to catch up with him and Hugo gets just one chance to find his angel and compel him to return. But the angel doesn't want to come back and Hugo must expend all his energy to get him to return.

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Bindu   (Sri Lanka)

9-year-old Muthu (boy), and 7 year old Malee (girl) are good friends in a remote village threatened by elephants. They befriend a baby wild elephant who comes to eat the crops. The friendship between children and the baby elephant develops into a strong bond, but it must be kept a secret - the villagers regard elephants as enemies. A businessman exploits this friendship to attract tourists. Muthu's father is against the idea, but Malee's father agrees. Soon the village becomes a tourists spot and the culture and the natural beauty of the village begins to change. One day, a group of tourists upsets the elephants, which leads to tragedy. The baby elephant is taken to the elephant orphanage.

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Das schwimmende Klassenzimmer   (Germany)
The Classroom at Sea

On a sailing ship across the Atlantic! For six months, 30 Bavarian 10th graders sail halfway around the world. It is both an adventure and educational, as these teenagers turn more and more into real seamen and women. Leaving Tenerife also means instruction begins. But school is under sails, of course, hardly comparable to school back home. In addition to math, physics and German lessons, the young sailors have to learn a lot about navigation: after all, they should soon be able to sail the ship to the Caribbean on their own.

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Osmdesát dopisů   (Czech Republic)
80 Letters

Young Vašek wakes up to a typical day in socialist Czechoslovakia. It's March 29, 1987 and his mother is again running around to various offices in order to put together the necessary documents to visit her husband in Great Britain. Wading through the bureaucratic apparatus just to have a family reunion is extremely annoying. Before authorities finally "bless her" with their seals of approval, his mother writes exactly eighty letters in which she describes the unceasing obstructions of the communist regime. The film was based on the author's personal recollections and accurately portrays the atmosphere of a period full of the impotence and absurdity.

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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #19 - 11. Sep 2011 at 04:38
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Kapi   (Thailand)

Tong is an 11-year-old boy who lives with his Uncle Ming, who trains pig-tailed monkeys to fetch coconuts. Among the monkeys, Kapi is the fastest and the brightest. When a big storm hits the village, the village leader decides to bring in a windmill project to revive the area - but it turns out that Tong´s land is the best place to set up the windmills. When uncle Ming suddenly passes away, Tong is left with Kapi. He doesn't want to give up his land, so the village leader challenges Tong to a Monkey Competition to settle the deal. If Tong wins, they will not put the windmill in this land. But if Tong wants to train Kapi, he's first going to have to make friends with him…

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The story of a remote Siberian village whose main treasure is beautiful horses. According to a local legend, many years ago some beautiful horses appeared in the village by miracle. Since that time, the herd has been protected by the villagers and were saved even in the times of war and hunger. The chairman of the village council has lost public funds on an unsuccessful business venture and has decided to make up on the losses by selling the herd to a slaughterhouse. Everybody is either afraid to argue or too lazy to speak out. The 10-year-old son of a local shepherd, nicknamed Sparrow, secretly borrows his grandfather's rifle, meets the truck with the horses, holds up his rifle and shouts: Stop or I'll shoot! The chairman cannot stand the challenge and turns back.

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My tři a pes z Pětipes   (Czechoslovakia - 1971)
We three and a dog from Petipsy

Holidays, a river and a bunch of good friends. All of this provides a suspenseful tale about Tonda, a boy from Prague, and a group of kids from Pětipsy, a village near Prague. Tonda comes to the village to stay with relatives in the countryside over the summer break. He's captivated by a flowing river and immediately gathers together some fishing equipment. All the local boys talk about the living legend, a large eel that lives in the creek near the sunken river boat. When Tonda overcomes all the obstacles prepared by the unfriendly Ruda Drábek and wins the friendship of the local boys, together they experience a great and unforgettable adventure during a nighttime hunt for the giant eel. And the envious Ruda stands empty-handed...

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Třináctá komnata   (Czechoslovakia - 1968)
The 13th Chamber

Twelve-year-old Kosťa, a boy with an overactive imagination, befriends the equally perceptive eleven-year-old Blanka. Together they discover the uninhabited attic space in the house of Blanka's parents. They pretend to be in the "forbidden thirteenth chamber". Kosťa, for example, "transforms" an ordinary old vase into a magic ball, with which he can apparently affect destiny. The children don't realize that the gears of fate have truly started turning around them, even though they don't have much in common with it. Kosťa and Blanka sense that something is wrong in the girl's family. Her mom isn't happy with her father, the doctor, and reminisces on her former suitor Petr, who left to work in India. Petr appears one day and meets Blanka's mother. At that moment Kosťa begins predicting disaster through his magic vase...

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Simone, an 11-year-old boy, is forced to stay home all summer under his angry father's supervision. Outside there's sweet adventure. Inside there's just boredom. That is, until 13-year-old Lorenza arrives: a green-eyed girl from the city. For Simone it's the beginning of the most unforgettable summer of his life. And while looking for The Thin Match-Man, Simone introduces Lorenza to his strange crazy world made up of his friends PatTheFAT, Appear-Daisy, Mark theDARK, Uncle Disk and Big Hands. But Rubin, Simone's number one enemy, is on their trail...

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'The Runway' is inspired by the true story of a South American pilot who crashed his plane near Mallow, Co. Cork in 1983. Against all odds, the people of the town came together to build a runway to get him home and briefly caught the imagination of the nation. It is the story of Paco, a young boy without a father who adopts the pilot and convinces the town to build a runway to get him home.

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Based on a true story, Morgan Roberts is in the fight for his life as he battles a personal crisis. Returning to the summer camp of his youth, Morgan reunites with his childhood best friend and now camp director "Sunny", and finds himself as the camp counselor of a ragtag group of 10-year-olds. On an unforgettable journey of a desperate man in search of a miracle, this oddball group will have you laughing and crying as they find their way to having the best summer of their lives.

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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #20 - 11. Sep 2011 at 05:15
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Last stop tonight is Krakow, Poland.

12 1/2   (Poland)

Kuba and Jędrek are neighbours and have been friends since they can remember. Although they are only 12, when one of them is moving to a different neighbourhood, they start to recall and re‑examine the past. They also begin to make plans for the future.

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The Birthday Circle   (UK)

Mick’s brother is preparing a birthday cake as a gift for his brother’s birthday. Soon after the candles are blown out, the first unexpected guests arrive. A short conversion is followed by a heated exchange of opinions as the close ones try to convince the brothers that by living alone they cannot fully cope with all everyday duties. The birthday circle becomes the room for conflict and clash between opposing arguments, made even more interesting by an ingenious change of roles between adults and children.

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Koniec lata   (Poland)
The Last Day of Summer

Piotr Stasik’s documentary is an observation of contemporary Russia through the everyday life of the cadet school students in Penza, 700 km away from Moscow. The director focuses on selected characters showing how their stay at school affects their lives, how they change, what desires they have. The school appears to be a serious institution, which, in a way, puts an end to carefree childhood.

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Vakha i Magomed   (Poland)

Vakha and his 10-year-old son Magomed emigrated from Chechnya to the Polish, to escape a terrible past. The documentary shows their daily efforts for a normal, peaceful life without the memories, away from the hustle and bustle of the refugee center in which they live.

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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #21 - 29. Oct 2011 at 22:36
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Today, a few new ones from the Busan film festival in South Korea.



Based on the personal experiences of director Wang Xiaoshuai. In 1975, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, 11 year old Wang Han’s biggest worry is the new shirt he is going to wear during a gymnastics presentation. He pesters his mother to buy a new one, but a wounded murderer hiding on the village’s outskirts steals it. The film focuses on Han’s struggle to retrieve the shirt and also depicts the unsettling atmosphere engulfing the village from his perspective. With the history-making events only talked about by adults, and though difficult to understand, the grown-ups' world holds a fascination for Han, as does the back of the teenage village girl, leading to early sexual fantasies and adolescent physical discovery. After many complications he gets the shirt back, but by then he cannot bear to look the girl in the eye. Is he becoming an adult? The unpredictable moods of this turbulent period in China's history combine with wild-eyed youthful passion observed by a curious boy in the throes of growing up.

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In a village where it rains ash from an active volcano in the Kyushu region, brothers Koichi and Ryu, living apart as a result of their parents’ divorce, spend everyday on the phone. Unlike the laid-back younger brother Ryu living with their musician father, Koichi lives only for the day his family is reunited. One day, Koichi discovers a clever scheme to make his dream come true, and he and six friends go on a short journey to witness the miracle. An erupting volcano, crumbs from a snack, a thermometer indicating 40.1°C, a sprouting seed, a dropped coin, a dead dog in a backpack, a grandfather’s rice cake, a bicycle ring, acacia flowers, a picture of the brothers, a flag inscribed with the children’s wishes…
These are among the seemingly random images from the film’s second half that melt into the narrative and bring a smile to one’s face. This is another great work by Kore-eda Hirokazu, who once again draws fantastic performances from the young cast as he did in Nobody Knows.


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Raj dlja mamy  (Kazakhstan)
Mother's Paradise

A tragic but lyrical social drama by Kyrgyzstan’s preeminent filmmaker, Aktan ArymKubat, sees Iranian master director Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s scenario transplanted to Kazakhstan. Polina is a single mother with two sons, Amir and Serikbai. Her husband, who left for Russia to find work, can’t be reached and her two sons are always getting in trouble. To make a living, Polina resorts to selling her body. But after her children discover her secret, and Amir is caught stealing their neighbor’s accordion, Polina makes a drastic choice. The director questions the standard for morality by wondering whether Polina is a fallen woman or a martyr. Young Serikbai believes that his mother went to heaven, a notion Amir doesn’t believe in at all. Though the two boys are still innocent, they have begun to realize that there is a standard morality is often held to. Perhaps human tragedy begins the moment we realize the concept of morality.

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Nono  (Philippines)

Residing in a slum, Toto is nonetheless a special boy. He was born with a disability—a cleft lip—so he can’t even pronounce his own name properly. Regardless, he insists on participating in a speech contest. He is not happy about his mother working at the bar and bringing home a man who doesn’t even speak the same language. He’s also displeased with his teacher, who feels pity for him and is visibly uncomfortable with him. But with a purity of passion and goodness of spirit, as well as the support of his uneducated, poor, but fundamentally loving mother, Toto tries to realize his humble yet ambitious dream of being treated equally to those around him.


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More than 12 million children in India work in manual labor. Stanley’s Tiffin Box tells the story of this desolate reality with a dispassionate eye.
Stanley never brings lunch to school. Obsessive about children having a lunch, his teacher Verna forbids him from coming to school without a packed meal. Though the move costs Verna his job, Stanley’s hidden problem remains that way until the film’s conclusion. At the core of the problem is a social reality that exploits children for physical labor.
Director Amol Gupte, who also stars as Verna, does not directly address the darker realities of India. Instead, the story is centered on the subtle conflict between the ill tempered Verna and Stanley, only to reveal in the end what the director really wanted to say. In other words, the film aims for a middle ground between a children’s film and a socialist film, making it a unique piece of cinematic work.


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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #22 - 29. Oct 2011 at 23:01
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Elementary school student Amek suffers from a cleft lip, but secretly hopes to become a jockey. People hang bottles filled with their dreams on hilltop tree in the village, but Amek doesn’t bother. With his father out of reach in Malaysia earning for the family, Amek’s mother painstakingly raises him and his older sister, Minun, on her own. As the star pupil in her school and the winner of a recent competition, Minun is adored by all of her teachers. Meanwhile, exams loom. In Indonesia, all students must take a national placement test that will determine whether they can move on to the next grade, and in recent years Amek’s school has scored miserably. All the teachers are working extra hard to raise the scores. The Beetle Soldiers is based on the fable of a little boy who prayed to save his mother and became a ground beetle. It is a beautiful portrayal of a family enduring hardship but continuing to love one another, and of a boy who cultivates his dreams.

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Mourning is a road movie about the events that swirl around a deaf and mute couple, Kamran and Sharareh, which takes their sister’s son home. After a terrible quarrel with her husband at their sister’s house, Nahid and Masoud depart for Tehran without their son Arshia. The next day, Kamran and Sharareh start off to return Arshia to his parents. But they already know that Arshia’s parents were killed in a car accident.
Though the movie focuses mostly on Kamran and Sharareh’s sign language conversations, it alludes to the estrangement and shock Arshia feels under the circumstances. He was left out while his parents fought and he is left out once again while his aunt and uncle talk. He only recovers his smile when talking with strangers during the trip.
Because Mourning pivots on the conversation between Kamran and Sharareh, we must rely on subtitles to understand its content. The result is frequent long shots, a method of development that will allow the audience to experience something different from the traditional movies.


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Dekh Indian Circus  (India)
Watch Indian Circus

A poor family’s simple dream is to go to the circus. Though it may be seem a simple story on the surface, Indian Circus stirs gentle emotions—and much more.
Kajaro is an ordinary housewife in a poor but happy family. Her husband, hearing impaired Jethu, is a day-to-day laborer. They have a 7 year old son, Ghumroo, and five-year-old daughter, Panni. One day Jethu receives money from a political candidate
running for office, but soon sees it taken away when he is misunderstood to be supporting a rival candidate. In the end, Kajaro struggles to come up with some money herself, as she’s on her way to watch the circus with her children.
Director Magesh Hadawale refers to two kinds of tickets. One is the ticket—the vote—that candidates beg for from citizens. The other is the circus entrance ticket that Kajaro’s family wants so desperately. The two tickets represent the great gap between the simple dreams of ordinary people and the corruption of politicians. Watch Indian Circus is at once a family drama and a bitter satire.



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Lautaro lives in a small farming village in Guerrero, Mexico, where a feudal society, complete with peasants and a lord, still exists. When his parents die, he leaves his younger siblings behind and goes to live with his aunt, but later decides to return to his home. Within the landscape of traditional Mexico, the film brings a fantasy characteristic of Central American movies. By making small countryside towns the background setting, it allows us to feel the natural life and traditions of peasants. The visions we see through the eyes of the main character bring a certain ambience to the movie, as well as reflect on the Central American view of death and the dead – life and death coexist, and spirits are still our partners in life. The donkeys in the title represent the peasants. Their resistance is the main theme surrounding the movie. This resistance and fantasy coexist in Lautaro’s journey back home in the latter half of the movie. The film sparkles with the Best Director Award from the Guadalajara Film Festival as a feature debut.

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Bafiokadie and Tene, a brother and sister, begin a journey to find a blue bird that has suddenly disappeared in the garden. The siblings encounter their deceased grandparents, engage in a battle with spiritual beings of the forest and learn the secret of love and pleasure. They finally go back home after discovering the secret of birth in the kingdom of future.
This brilliantly hued reinterpretation of the classic fairy tale is the director’s second feature that was introduced during the Directors’ Fortnight at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Painting the continent of Africa with blue and thus escaping the reality, the film runs toward fantasy with the children looking for the blue bird.


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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #23 - 29. Oct 2011 at 23:14
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Ryang-kang-do a-i-deul  (South Korea)
Ryang-kang-do: Merry Christmas, North!

The title itself bespeaks for this movie. This is a human drama for the family, and a postideological drama that took 7 years to complete. Various episodes about boys and girls living in Bochunbori, a small village in Ryang Gang Do, North Korea, unfold in this touching drama. It presents us with better entertainment than expected, with heart wrenching emotions and life lessons hard to ignore.
Fourth grader Jong-soo has a dream: to visit the capital Pyongyang, where the great Chairman Kim Jong-il resides. One day his dream to Pyongyang is shattered. Several children whose appearances were not up to par, including Jong-soo, were forbidden by
the school principal to go to Pyongyang in the school bus. Jong-soo decides to go on his own anyway, and is met with unexpected luck.
The role of Jong-soo is played by Kim Young-hwan, now a college freshman. His and other children’s performances are top class. It’s fun to just enjoy their performances. But this movie is by no means just for children. In fact, it is better suited for adults. The
post-ideology depicted is also very much commendable.


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Le Havre” means “port” in French. A ship where immigrant refugees sneaked in arrives at a port, and immigrant officials are busy tracking town illegal immigrants. Among these immigrant refugees is an African boy who is going to the United Kingdom to find his parents. Marcel accidentally sees him, and starts helping him by secretly providing him with food. Marcel is a shoeblack at the central station. He is so poor that he can’t afford bread, and his wife hospitalized. However, he demonstrates his goodwill toward humanity without hesitation. His goodwill affects his neighbors, and even immigrant officials end up helping the boy go back to Africa. While Robert Bresson who deeply influenced Kaurismaki is known for depicting the dark side of the condition in his famous film, L'argent (Money), Kaurismaki humorously shows circulation of ‘goodwill’ at a port in Le Havre. This Finnish master has, in essence, made a warmer style of Bresson.

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The setting is an isolated beach in the South Pacific where mangroves grow. A European woman returns to this Mexican beach with her son after years of life abroad. Will she be able to make peace with the ghosts of the past?
This wonderful piece is set off by the mysterious aura formed by the intertwining of reality and dream, and was entered in the Locarno competition. It has the power to draw the audience into its peculiar journey. The detailed and powerful production brings to life the theme of the movie –reconciliation with the past and forgiveness. The dancing waves coexist with the great mangrove jungle. This jungle is intimidating to foreigners, but they can find within it a fantastic yet hopeless world. The plot is a maze of riddles that finally comes to its climax when the woman’s story is revealed at the end. Except for the leading role, all the actors in the film were local residents in this low budget movie.


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« Last Edit: 28. Sep 2014 at 23:31 by Zabladowski »  
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Zabladowski
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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #24 - 30. Oct 2011 at 13:57
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Found in Moscow



The Other Family is the story of Hendrix, a 7-year-orld child that’s been abandoned by his crack-addict mother Nina. Ivana, her best friend rescues him, however she can’t take care of him because of an ongoing trip to Houston. Jean Paul and Chema, an adult, stable, gay couple, and friends of Ivana, are given the task of taking care of Hendrix while his mother spends some time in rehab. Patrick, Nina’s lover and dealer is been chased by drug warlord because of a huge debt. In an attempt to get the money he tries to sell Hendrix to a young couple, who just lost a baby. While Nina tries to escape rehab in search of her son, Hendrix slowly adapts to his new life with Jean Paul and Chema. Patrick’s running out of time and urges Nina to find her son.

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Kar beyaz  (Turkey)
White as Snow

Hasan is a twelve-year-old boy living with his two younger siblings in a mountain village in Turkey’s Eastern Black Sea region, struggling to survive. The family has been in dire poverty since Hasan’s father’s imprisonment. Hasan’s mother has had to take up work in town as a caretaker and Hasan has to sell ayran, the salty yogurt drink, to feed his siblings. One cold winter day, Hasan goes to the teahouse by the road to sell ayran to travellers. The man who runs the place, Recep, is waiting to hear from his beloved Fatma whose family forced the two lovers apart. An old man, Kadir, is trying to sell his winter pears. A passenger in the approaching bus is on his way to his new post, a place he doesn’t want to go to... 

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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #25 - 30. Oct 2011 at 23:03
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Great work Zab, most of these I have never heard of - so many thanks to you for bringing them to our attention Smiley

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Cap`tkirk
  
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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #26 - 02. Nov 2011 at 16:51
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A great job well jobbed, Zabladowski.  Smiley
Certainly some interesting looking films. Problem is how many will make it to DVD here in the UK?
  
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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #27 - 19. Nov 2011 at 20:39
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Thanks gentlemen for the encouragement. I have been incredibly busy this year and haven't had the time to update this thread as I would like.
Cinefan, cinema is a global marketplace almost all of the features will be released in some market or another. Some are worth seeking out, some aren't.
A lot of the shorts are ending up on sites like vimeo or youtube. Googling the title can bring some of these rarities to you via the internet.

With the year almost done, I am committed to looking over the selections at the Toronto film fest today.
  
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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #28 - 19. Nov 2011 at 21:13
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Afternoon Tea  (Canada)

An elderly Indian man is questioned by a young boy who shows up at his doorstep to use his phone, revealing that we're quick to jump to assumptions that can have serious consequences.

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A feast for the heart and mind alike, filled with tender moments of daily teenage life turned upside-down by clumsy desire and hormonal hiccups, Amy George tells the story of Jesse, the 13 year old only child of Riverdale intellectuals.

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Ambition — that thirst that can never be slaked — is used to potent effect in Cédric Kahn’s timely drama A Better Life. Yann trained as a chef and walks with the attendant swagger. It’s as easy for him to boast about his future plans as it is for him to pick up a woman in a bar — in this case, the beautiful Nadia. What he can’t seem to do is find the right job in Paris’ cutthroat restaurant world.
As Yann falls into a passionate romance with Nadia, his dreams get bigger. He finds a grand old place in the woods that he wants to renovate and open for fine dining. He’s even ready to start a family with Nadia and her young son Slimane. What these two lovers lack is business sense. To finance ren­ovations, Yann takes out a series of revolving loans that drag him into a spiral of debt. He and Nadia begin to squabble. Restless and impatient to find work of her own, she leaves France for a job in Montreal, promis­ing to send for her son soon. Of course, soon stretches out indefinitely.


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Two brothers — Alex, 11, and Chaz, 14 — are sitting on a park bench, each immersed in their cell phones. They receive a call from their mother, asking them to come home for a family meeting. Curious and nervous about what it could be for, Alex and Chaz candidly discuss the possibilities on the walk back to their house. Hidden Driveway is a simple, generous film about brotherhood and the distance and dynamics between parents and children.

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In My Mother's Arms  (Iraq)

Husham works tirelessly to build the hopes, dreams and prospects of the 32 damaged children of war, under his care at a small orphanage in Baghdad’s most dangerous district. When the landlord gives Husham and the boys just two weeks to vacate a desperate search ensues.

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Play  (Sweden)

An insightful and troubling film about race, ethics and manipulation, Ruben Östlund’s Play is based on an actual incident in Gothenburg, Sweden in which a group of black kids manipulated white and Asian teenagers into surrendering their valuables.
In Play, Yannick and his friends target a trio of younger, pre­sumably wealthier kids, two of them from “traditional” Swedish backgrounds and one whose family emigrated from Asia. Yannick and his pals claim that one of the boys stole a friend’s phone. (It’s the kind of claim only a teenager would put any credence in.) Eventually, they lure their targets outside the city, where they construct an elaborate ruse to relieve them of their belongings.
Filmed entirely in long shot, Play is chill­ing in its ambiguity. The distance between the viewer and the action happening in the image invests the film with an ominous impenetrability, exacerbated by inchoate assumptions and suspicions about race. The atmosphere suggests violence (which does come eventually, though not in the way you’d expect), but the kids’ behaviour, taken on its own, does no such thing. In fact, there’s nothing to suggest that Yannick and his pals mean the other kids any harm. Their ostensible victims have numerous opportu­nities to run, but never take them. (Are they staying out of fear? Boredom? The desire to hang out with older kids?) Moreover, there’s the distinct possibility that Yannick and his friends have no intention of ripping them off, but on some level are effectively goaded into it by the trio’s fear and gullibility. The proceedings have the feel of a sociology experiment gone horribly awry.


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A beach holiday in Tuscany draws families and their children together. The youngsters soon join up into a little gang and engage in fun and games in a nearby abandoned shack. The two eldest find themselves attracted to each other despite their family problems.

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Sunday  (UK)

UK director Duane Hopkins’ full-scale installation project, Sunday, is both an extension of his previous films and a haunting, elegiac projection-based work in its own right. Consisting of a series of subtly looped diptychs and triptychs, Sunday focuses on the West Midlands youth of his much-celebrated feature-film debut Better Things (2008) and his early shorts Field and Love Me or Leave Me Alone. Hopkins captures the ennui, sadness and beauty of isolated adolescence in painterly tones and colours that recall the British Romantics, while twinning and reconceptualizing his landscapes to evoke the brooding, twitchy surrealism of the ever-encroaching contemporary world. Sunday builds to a climax of poignant helplessness, a politics of alienation that presages the violence and turmoil that engulfed England this summer.

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Re: 2011 Festival Releases
Reply #29 - 19. Nov 2011 at 23:44
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Zabladowski wrote on 19. Nov 2011 at 21:13:
Hidden Driveway   (Canada)

Two brothers — Alex, 11, and Chaz, 14 — are sitting on a park bench, each immersed in their cell phones. They receive a call from their mother, asking them to come home for a family meeting. Curious and nervous about what it could be for, Alex and Chaz candidly discuss the possibilities on the walk back to their house. Hidden Driveway is a simple, generous film about brotherhood and the distance and dynamics between parents and children.


sound like a good movie to watch anywhere in the world
  
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