A sensitive touch to a sensitive story

Love for Sale: Suely in the Sky is the story of a young woman who has returned to her small hometown after having spent many years in São Paulo. Arriving by bus with only her baby boy and a couple of travel bags in hand, Hermila settles into her grandmother’s home, and awaits the arrival of her husband. Some time passes, and after numerous phone calls to São Paulo, a few odd jobs, several nights drinking and dancing to pass the time, and a couple of trips to the bus depot, Hermila comes to realize the difficult truth that her husband is not coming. Left with few options, she begins to feel very lonely and isolated. Desperate to make a change for herself and for her baby, Hermila decides to start a raffle in hopes to make some quick money. The hook – she’s the prize. Hermila takes on the name ‘Suely’ for her raffle, and with a few tickets sold and word out on the street, Suely has all the men in town trailing after her for “one night in paradise.” Wondering if she has gotten herself in too deep to get out, Hermila has some serious thinking to do.

Although this film presents a harsh reality to viewers, it manages to transcend the uncomfortable feeling one might experience in light of its gritty content and themes, to arrive at a place of hopefulness and optimism. It does so through its true-to-life characters, poignant performances, and its aesthetically pleasing cinematic beauty. Directed by Karim Aïnouz, produced by Walter Salles, and with cinematography by Walter Carvalho, this film is bound exceed expectations with such a masterful team. Together they provide a sensitive touch to a sensitive story.  

Kelsey Jonhson

(Intermedias reviewer at 1st Brazilian Film Festival of Vancouver)

 

 

Love for Sale: Suely in the Sky
(O Céu de Suely, Brazil, 2006)

Couscous and Exile

With his exceptional latest film, The Secret of the Grain, Abdellatif Kechiche, provides viewers with a rare glimpse into the kind of raw family life we seldom see depicted onscreen. The film revolves around Slimane, an aging, divorced North-African immigrant in France and his divided, diasporic family. After being made redundant at work, Slimane makes an odd choice, deciding to use his severance money to create a restaurant on a boat, featuring his ex-wife’s famous fish couscous, and in the process ends up creating the sense of unity that his family was missing.

Rym (Hafsia Herzi) and Slimane (Habib Boufares)

The unpolished (and at times almost crude) camera work draws us in with its voyeuristic, documentary feel.  We witness loud, incessant talking and bickering, and intergenerational conflict, but it is the relationship between Slimane and his girlfriend’s daughter, Rym that is most interesting. Rym becomes the driving force behind the restaurant, and comes to understand Slimane in a way his “legitimate” children never do. This seemingly simple plot is deceptively complex, as we realize this restaurant is less about Slimane’s goals and more about leaving some sort of legacy for his children. We come to understand Slimane’s experience as an immigrant. As his friend tells Rym, after experiencing the feelings of exile and solitude that go along with leaving your homeland in the name of a better life, there comes a time when you look to your children and ask yourself if it was really worth it. Both insightful and jarring, The Secret of the Grain is a film of surprising depth, well worth the abundance of critical acclaim it has received. 

Meg Allan 
(Intermedias reviewer at VIFF 2008)

The secret of the grain (La graine et le mulet, France 2007)

Dir. Abdellatif Kechiche

End of an Era

Though more than capable of standing on its own, Modern Life is Raymond Depardon’s final instalment in his three-part documentary series depicting the changing face of French rural life. While the prospect of following the antics of aging, French farmers may seem less than enthralling to the average movie-goer, what Depardon offers is an honest and straight-forward portrait of those people “of another age” caught in the midst of a changing world that is in the process of rendering them obsolete.

 

Depardon's documentary Modern Life

 

The patient camera work reveals just as much about the filmmaker and his respect for his subjects as it does about the subjects themselves.  Tightly-framed, long-shots linger just long enough for us to realize the contrast between what is being said verbally and what the tired, uneasy bodies of these farmers are trying to tell us. When one farmer, tells us, “It’s the end,” we know it is not just the end of his own life that he is referring to, but the end of a way of life. Whether the problem of modernity is indeed a problem or not, Modern Life is a testament to these people, standing fields apart from everything else this year.

Meg Allan 
(Intermedias reviewer at VIFF 2008) 

Modern Life (La vie moderne, France, 2008)

Directed by Raymond Depardon

Son of a Lion: an insightful experience

 

Son of a lion (dir. Benjamin Gilmour)

Benjamin Gilmour’s insightful film, Son of a Lion, gives viewers a glimpse into the life of Sher Alam Afridi and his young son Niaz, who live in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, and earn their livelihood by manufacturing and selling weapons. Having to deal with the burden of his wife’s death and having to raise his son in such a volatile time, Sher Alam Afridi is very hard on his son. Niaz, a very sensitive and smart boy, is not at all interested in the family trade. With few friends, Niaz is lonely, and wants nothing more than to go to school and leave the guns behind him. He is especially desperate to be enrolled in school this year, being that he is already eleven years old and it may just be his last chance. He thus turns to his open-minded Uncle, who tries his best to persuade his stubborn and traditional brother to allow the child to get an education.

 

With mention of 9/11 and the hold that America has on the world, this film becomes somewhat of a testament to the true realities and mentalities of these people. It is as if Gilmour is trying to displace the Western unforgiving perceptions of Muslims by taking a closer look. His characters are sensitive, engaging, and complex – and they invite us to feel a connection with them, and the world they live in. This in itself is an opportunity we should feel privileged to experience.

Kelsey Johnson
(Intermedias reviewer at VIFF 2008)

Son of a Lion (Australia/Pakistan, 2007)
Directed By: Benjamin Gilmour

Dance With A Dream

Ari Folman’s animated documentary, Waltz With Bashir serves as a personal investigation of Folman’s own deeply troubled relationship with the role he played in the first Lebanon war. Where the horrific images of war continue to haunt the men he served with, Folman is left with no concrete memory of the acts he committed. Instead he is plagued only with fragmented, dream-like pictures that he can’t quite make sense of. While the act of interviewing other soldiers serves to illuminate the disturbing portrait of what has taken place, no one truth comes to the surface and we are ultimately left with a reminder of both the selectiveness and the inconsistency of memory.

 

Waltz with Bashir

Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of Waltz With Bashir is that for such a personal film, Folman maintains an eerie distance from his subject-matter. Though the notion of living with the horrible acts committed and witnessed in wartime is difficult enough, Folman’s role as ex-soldier is further complicated by the fact that in assuming the position of the oppressor, he has taken on a role that he associates with those who persecuted his own family in Auschwitz. Waltz With Bashir is not only a document of the traumas humans endure, but the traumas that are passed down to us from others. Though Folman clearly gains some insight from his self-examination, it is clear that there are gaps in his consciousness that will never fully be revealed. 

 

Meg Allan

(Intermedias reviewer at VIFF 2008)

Waltz with Bashir (Vals im Bashir, Israel, 2008)

Directed by Ari Folman

‘Addicted to Plastic is frightening and enlightening’

Ian Connacher’s personally funded crusade to find answers and solutions to our unconscious and destructive plastic obsession is rightly documented in his first and successfully engaging film, Addicted to Plastic!  Waking up one day with a real concern about his seemingly ‘plasticized world’, Connacher decides to embark on a significant journey. Roughly 2 years on the road, more than a dozen countries visited, and countless alarming encounters with plastic products in any and every shape or form, Ian makes a worthy effort to bring to light the ‘plastic hell’ that we have created for ourselves. Making use of witty educational cartoons, ‘what if?’ satirical experiments, exciting live footage, and informative interviews, this documentary successfully maintains the attention of its eager viewers.

From oceans to landfills, recycling depots to chemistry labs, and India to Ontario — this film covers some serious ground and answers some critical questions. Impossible to leave this film unaffected, viewers will hopefully think twice about their everyday plastic use, and look towards creative alternatives and solutions. Thankfully this film leaves us with some insightful and innovative solutions in the face of a truly frightening reality. In my opinion, this film is one product that should be consumed by all.

Kelsey Johnson
(Intermedias reviewer at VIFF 2008)

Addicted to Plastic! The Rise and Demise of a Modern Miracle (Canada, 2008)

Directed By: Ian Connacher 

‘Happy-Go-Lucky a go see’

Mike Leigh’s contagiously comedic film, ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’, follows the everyday life of the innately bubbly Poppy, a primary school teacher from London. A young woman so endearing and intriguing, at times it is difficult to take your eyes off her – even after 2 hours of her fun loving optimism. When Poppy’s bike is stolen, she of course looks to the bright side and decides to take up driving lessons. The story positions itself here, as Poppy’s ‘happy-go-lucky’ attitude clashes with her new driving teacher’s uptightness. Scott continues to puzzle Poppy during their weekly lessons. Unsure of how she should to respond to his strict ‘no fun’ teaching style, she reacts only with the usual chatter and quick wit. These entertaining encounters ‘drive’ the film’s drama, with other lighthearted moments finding their way into the plot.

 

Sally Hawkins (Poppy)

Sally Hawkins’ performance as Poppy is simply brilliant and deserving of the Best Actress prize she received at the Berlin Film Festival. Her energy seems to fuel the other performances which are also noteworthy, with some of the richest dialogue coming from Scott in his many spit-spat rants. If nothing else, this film will leave you with some great quotable lines, a smile, and a rejuvenated appetite for life.  

Kelsey Johnson
(Intermedias reviewer at VIFF 2008)

Happy-Go-Lucky (United Kingdom, 2008)

Directed By: Mike Leigh

Growing Op Far From Ordinary

Michael Melski’s film Growing Op is a not your typical suburban family tale. Quinn Dawson, the film’s self-doubting protagonist, feels anything but normal in his neighbourhood. While other teenagers his age are going to public school, hanging out with friends, or going to parties, Quinn is either being home schooled by his loveable mom, played by Rosanna Arquette, tending to weeds outside to make some extra cash with his local gardening business, or at home trying to deal with some other types of weeds – marijuana plants that is. Although his home looks picture perfect from the outside, you just have to step through the front door, which is safeguarded by numerous locks and deadbolts, to realize that this family is far from ordinary. You guessed it – Quinn lives in a family-run, grow-op.

Steven Yaffe and Rachel Blanchard

Feeling left out of the real world, Quinn is eager to make a change in his life. Fortunately for him, an opportunity appears right in front of him in the form of a beautiful blond who has just moved in across the street. This might sound cliché, but fortunately for the modern movie-goer who is looking for something a little smarter, Melski pulls out a few tricks from his sleeves and manages to go beyond the cookie cutter ‘coming-of-age, girl-next-door, suburban teen drama’ we’ve all seen before. With great performances from virtually the entire cast, and a satirical sensibility that anyone could appreciate, this film is definitely worth your time.  

Kelsey Johnson

(Intermedias reviewer at VIFF 2008)

Growing Op (Canada, 2008)

Directed By: Michael Melski

The things we go through for love

Jacques Doillon’s film, Just Anybody, follows the four day journey of a somewhat emotionally lost young woman named Camille, who is committed to finding something meaningful in her relationship with Costa, a man who has apparently just sexually assaulted her. Camille travels from Paris, where we assume they met, to a small seaside town where Costa is staying with his aging and seemingly unstable father. Upon arrival, Camille meets a local cop who is immediately attracted to her, and vice versa. Cyril has known Costa since childhood, and is worried about Camille’s interest in him, as he is a well-known criminal in town. Camille, however, has no interest Cyril’s warnings, and proceeds to dig deeper into Costa’s life, hoping and believing that he is the love that she has been looking for. It seems, however, as if her attraction stems only from her personal need to save him from the destructive life that he has created from himself. This conquest leads her down a bumpy road, as the three find themselves caught up in an array of reckless situations.

For the most part, it is difficult to understand these characters and their motives, but at the same time you might find yourself feeling sorry for them. They seem so completely misguided and even childish, that at times it is difficult to sit back and watch them mess things up again and again. Although frustrating, the film nonetheless boasts some noteworthy dialogue and acting, and Doillon’s thematic philosophy relating to the difficulties of love is candid. His film is a testimony to the peculiar things that love will make us go through—and the things we will go through for love.

Kelsey Johnson
(Intermedias reviewer at VIFF 2008)

 

Just Anybody (Le Premier venu, France-Belgium, 2008)
Directed by Jacques Doillon 

Every Step

 

Kore-eda Hirokazu’s “home drama” Still Walking contains much of the tension, humour, and subtle (or not-so-subtle) admissions of regret you might expect to find in any depiction of a close family reunion. However, this premise is complicated by the fact that the gathering serves as an annual commemoration of the untimely death of the Yokoyama family’s oldest (and perhaps best-loved) son. At times, humorous and heartfelt, and at others quietly devastating, Hirokazu skilfully captures the complexity of a family out of synch, but ultimately bound together.

While we experience this story through the eyes of the youngest son, Ryota, it is Harada Yoshio’s portrayal as the angst-ridden elderly patriarch that truly stands out. As a retired doctor, now reserved to the domestic sphere, we see him almost out of his element in his own home, unable to adjust to an identity that is separate from his career, while his wife (who is teased for having never worked) thrives as domestic ruler. The long, ponderous shots that linger on Yoshio’s every step, as he slowly but surely climbs the massive staircase leading to his home allow us to carefully consider the less obvious complexities of his character. Stunningly simple, Still Walking is a finely-crafted example of near-perfect understatement.

 

Meg Allan

(Intermedias reviewer at VIFF 2008)

 

Still Walking (Japan, 2008)

Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda

Tulpan: a truly poetic depiction

 

Sergey Dvortsevoy’s first fiction feature film, Tulpan, gives viewers a glimpse into the life of a young Kazakh man named Asa, recently returned from his obligatory naval service to join his sister and brother-in-law in a traditional nomadic life as sheepherders in the arid Kazakh steppe. Before Asa can have a flock of his own, he must find a wife, and is set on marrying the only available local woman, Tulpan, the mysterious daughter of a neigbouring family, whose face is never revealed. However, as a result of her stubborn parents and her dislike of his large ears, Asa is rejected by Tulpan and is completely disheartened. Suddenly, his worldly dreams seem out of reach and Asa is left to grapple with life and his decisions.

Heartwarming and perceptive, Tulpan is worthy of the Prix d’Un Certain Regard it won at this year’s Cannes film festival. Dvortsevoy’s first fiction film after a string of noted documentaries, he uses his naturalist techniques and aesthetics to portray this story in a realistic light. It is almost as if he is a viewer himself, only filming what unfolds in front of him. With plenty of intriguing and quirky characters (and animals), his camera captures the lighthearted moments that play out across this harsh landscape – a truly poetic depiction.

Kelsey Johnson
(Intermedias reviewer at VIFF 2008)

 

Tulpan (Kazakhstan, 2008)
Directed By: Sergey Dvortsevoy

Blinded by the light

 

Blindness begins with an unknown city, where life carries on as usual. Frumpy doctors’ wives go unappreciated, anonymous sexual encounters take place in expensive hotel rooms, and much of the everyday circumstances of common people remain utterly invisible. But when an inexplicable, whitening blindness begins to affect the population, things change fast. An undiscriminating sense of fear takes over, and those afflicted are quarantined and left to suffer the miserable conditions of a food-rationed internment camp. Among them, one woman (Julianne Moore) still sees, concealing her vision to avoid separation from her blind husband, ultimately serving as both surrogate mother and saviour to those within her quarters. 

Fernando Meirelles’ representation of a city devastated by blindness is a film that you will feel with your entire body. Through the washed-out, obscured images we see from the perspectives of the increasing blind population; we not only witness the descent of any form of social order, but physically feel the effects of this breakdown, as our own senses are enhanced in the absence of direct images. 

Meg Allan 
(Intermedias reviewer at VIFF 2008)    

Blindness (Brazil/Canada, 2008) 
Directed by Fernando Meirelles 

Chico Teixeira Alice’s House director: Delicately filming brutal lives

Director Chico Teixeira and actress Carla Ribas (Alice)

What is the story that you wanted to tell with Alice’s House?

I’ve always wanted to tell a story that was simple, without death, without heroes, nothing, except ordinary people, like you and I. The film is basically about a woman’s everyday life in which she alludes herself and makes the same mistakes repeatedly. It’s a film with small actions, intimate internal movements, with daily frustrations, nothing is safe, and nobody knows where they go in that house, it’s an enormous emptiness. I would also like to talk about the pettiness in relationships, about very fragile family ties, which deteriorate and break up at any moment.

Emily Tang’s “Perfect Life” wins the VIFF’s Dragons & Tigers award

 

Perfect Life (2007)

Sweet Food City (2008)

Perfect Life (Wanmei Shenghuo) directed by Emily Tang from China was considered the best picture by the VIFF’s jury “for the way it captures the harshness of Chinese reality through its fictional protagonist, and for the subtlety of its wonderfully free storytelling.”Perfect Life, produced by Chow Kuang and Jia Zhangke, depicts an unexpected and brief encounter between two women: a repressed 21-year-old from a broken home and a divorced mother-of-two, also from China but living in Hong Kong and fighting for alimony from her ex-husband. Across these two counterpointed lives, Tang constructs a thoughtful panorama of desires and hopes.

Each year, VIFF gives the Dragons & Tigers award to the best first or second feature-length film by an emerging Asian director.

Dragons and Tigers awarded a special mention for German + Rain directed by Yokohama Satoko from Japan. The jury considered the main character disturbing but unexpectedly fascinating. The film has taken with naturalistic performances from the entire cast, composed a strangely moving film. Another special mention was for the “incredible location, and the very clever way” Sweet Food City (photo) directed by Gao Wendong from China, combines elements of documentary with fiction.

Highlights of the 27th Vancouver Film Festival 2008

 

Blindness (Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Yoshino Kimura and Alice Braga)

Vancouver International Film Festival is starting today with an amazing selection of films coming from all over the world that will be screened during the next two weeks. Vancouver became one of the most celebrated North American film festivals for East Asian (Dragons & Tigers) and Canadian films. The Festival will be opened by Brazilian director Fernando Meirelle’s Blindness, a film based on a novel by Portuguese Nobel Prize-winner José Saramago.

The closing gala screening will be The Class (France) directed by Laurent Cantet winner of the French prestigious Palme d’Or. Also acclaimed earlier this year at Cannes were Three Monkeys (Turkey), by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (best director), Il Divo (Italy), by Paolo Sorrentino, A Christmas Tale (France) by Arnaud Desplechin, Tulpan (Russia/Kazakhstan), by Sergey Dvortsevoy, Cloud 9 (Germany) by Andreas Dresen, Hunger(UK), by Steve McQueen, and Next Floor (Canada), a short by Quebec’s Denis Villeneuve, which won top prize for shorts at Cannes. Sundance prize winners include Captain Abu Raed(Jordan/USA), by Amin Matalqa, and Ballast (USA), by Lance Hammer. Winners from the Tribeca Film Festival include Let The Right One In (Sweden), by Tomas Alfredson, My Marlon And Brando (Turkey), by Hüseyin Karabey, and Old Man Bebo(Spain), by Carlos Carcas. Berlin Film Festival winners include The Song Of Sparrows (Iran), by Majid Majidi, Happy-Go-Lucky (UK), by Mike Leigh, I’ve Loved You So Long (France), by Philippe Claudel, Corridor #8 (Bulgaria), by Boris Despodov, Revanche (Austria), by Götz Spielmann, Be Like Others (Iran/Canada), by Tanaz Eshaghian, and Sita Sings The Blues (USA), by Nina Paley.

Check out below some of VIFF’s highlights this year:

24 City (Er Shi si cheng ji, China, 2008, 107 mins)
Directed By: Zhanke Jia
24 City tells a number of stories about the deep-rooted social revolution going on in China today. It is set in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, in a luxury apartment complex called 24 City being built on the site of Factory 420, a former airplane engine plant. Jia’s cameras capture the last days of the factory by zeroing in on the people who used to work there and the people who will move into the new apartments. In a series of five strikingly photographed interviews with retired workers from the factory’s early days 60 years ago to its present, what unfolds is a series of personally inflected vignettes of China as it moves past the Korean War through the political campaigns of Communist Party rule right up to the full-throated capitalist present. Jia’s film asks what gets us closer to truth: documentary or fiction?

Blindness (Brazil, Canada, Japan, 2008, 118 mins)
Directed By: Fernando Meirelles
What would happen if you woke up one morning and couldn’t see anything? This is the premise of Blindness, directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God), and adapted from Nobel prize-winner José Saramago’s masterful novel by Don McKellar. When a mysterious pandemic descends upon an unnamed city (the megalopolis 18 mi people – São Paulo) without warning or reason, the entire population is plunged, not into darkness, but its opposite. The “white sickness” (so-called because its victims see only a milky blankness) institutes a state of virtual martial law. Under armed guard, those afflicted by the pandemic are rounded up and warehoused in bleak concentration camps. When a doctor (Mark Ruffalo) contracts the disease, his wife (Julianne Moore) accompanies him to the internment camp, despite the fact that she’s the only one that still can see.

Adoration (Dir. Atom Egoyan)

Adoration (Canada, 2008, 100 mins) Directed By: Atom Egoyan
When a high school student named Simon (Devon Bostick) casts himself as the surviving child of a would-be terrorist in a class assignment, he begins a dizzying journey into his own family’s mysterious past. Atom Egoyan’s 12th feature employs a fractured chronology that interweaves multiple narratives and characters into a web of connection, as fraught and delicate as the web of a spider. After his French teacher Sabine (played by Arsinée Khanjian) convinces Simon to present his essay as a true story, his decision to continue the deception online creates a virtual firestorm. Soon the clamour of competing voices and opinions has reached near bedlam. Everyone has an opinion, and the need to voice it as loudly as possible. But is this merely democracy (facilitated by the internet) in action, or something more insidious?

C’est pas moi, je le jure! (Canada, 2008, 110 mins)
Directed By: Philippe Falardeau
Philippe Falardeau delivers a highly sophisticated, often hysterically funny work that may also be his most accessible to date. Set in 1968, the film focuses on ten-year-old Léon (Antoine L’Écuyer, in a phenomenal debut), a dedicated hellion whose pastimes include failed suicide attempts, vandalism, theft, running away and breaking and entering. The film is a touching and amusing meditation on changing mores and family structures. Léon’s best friend Lea is being raised by her alcoholic uncle, and may be as troubled a child as he is. Like Léon, she is in search of an absent parent.

Café de los Maestros (Argentina, Brazil, USA, 2007, 90 mins)
Directed By: Miguel Kohan
Argentina is undergoing a resurgence in their national music form, the tango. Nowadays it is even “cool” for kids in their late teens and early 20s to spend a night in Buenos Aires’ cavernous La Catedral practicing their tango moves instead of dancing to the latest cumbia or hip-hop or electronica styles. In this documentary, director Miguel Kohan and Brazilian producer Walter Salles choose to focus on the other end of the age spectrum – Café de los Maestros chronicles the gathering in Buenos Aires of the greatest living legends of this formidable musical genre. These extraordinary men and women, ranging from 70 to 95 years old, reveal the mysteries and essence of this deliciously melancholy and sexy music.

The Class (Entre les murs, France, 2008, 128 mins) Directed By: Laurent Cantet
Welcome to another year of French class; my name is François, and you are all skanks. Laurent Cantet’s latest feature is based on a simple concept: go inside the walls of a tough, racially mixed Parisian high school in the 20th arrondissement, enter one contentious classroom for a year, and watch the fireworks. Based on the novel Entre les murs, a fictionalized version of the life of its author, teacher François Bégaudeau, The Class developed out of months of workshops and rehearsals. Shot on HD without a script, using three cameras at once – like filming a tennis match – this is a docudrama that feels completely real. Palm d’Or at Cannes 2008.

The Desert Within (Desierto adentro, Mexico, 2008, 112 mins) Directed By: Rodrigo Plá
Religious madness and protective love that turns to hatred combine for an intense mixture in Rodrigo Plá’s The Desert Within. The film, which nearly swept the awards at the Guadalajara fest [traces] the logical downward spiral of a guilt-ridden father’s attempts to make amends with God. The premise is a parent, tempting fate out of the desire to get his newborn baptized, would conclude that God wants him to take his family deep into the desert to build a church.

Hunger (United Kingdom, 2008, 100 mins) Directed By: Steve McQueen
A film of uncommon power and artistry, Hunger is a staggering look at life in Northern Ireland’s infamous Maze Prison, focusing on the six-week-long hunger strike by IRA leader Bobby Sands. In his feature debut – winner of the Camera d’Or at Cannes – Turner-prize winning artist Steve McQueen envisions the body as a site of political warfare, casting Sands’ last days as a Passion Play starring German actor Michael Fassbender as the perfect Jesus. Though the story of the IRA has been told before, McQueen’s version is uniquely personal and completely unforgettable.

Maman est chez le coiffeur (Mommy Is at the Hairdresser, Canada, 2008, 97 mins) Directed By: Léa Pool
In her new feature, a sumptuous 60s period piece, veteran Québec filmmaker Léa Pool (Emporte Moi, The Blue Butterfly) continues to tackle the intricate space in which children start to make sense of people’s positions and responsibilities (including their own) within a community. Suffocating and incapable of dealing with her family and her increasingly distanced husband (Laurent Lucas) – whom she suspects is having an affair with another man – a mother (Céline Bonnier) leaves her family to restart her life as a television anchor in London, England. We follow her three children as they try to cope with the abandonment in different ways. Much in this small community remains repressed or unspoken, yet everyone paradoxically puts their noses in everyone else’s business.

The Secret of the Grain (La graine et le mulet, France, 2007, 151 mins) Directed By:Abdellatif Kechiche
Winner of the César (the French Oscar) for Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Most Promising Actress, Tunisian-born Abdellatif Kechiche’s (L’esquive) multi-layered and hugely absorbing new film also captured the Special Jury Prize and the International Critics’ Prize at the Venice Film Festival. North African immigrants in Sète, a crumbling port town in southern France. Its protagonist is a weary, divorced, impoverished 60-year-old shipyard worker whose fractured family comes together around his dream of opening a floating restaurant based on his former wife’s culinary specialty, fish couscous. The film, which explores generational differences and psychological baggage within this extended family of émigrés, is an extraordinarily rich and human ensemble piece filmed in a rough documentary style.

Serbis (France, Philippines, 2008, 94 mins) Directed By: Brillante Mendoza
Brillante Mendoza follows last year’s Foster Child and Slingshot with the story of an epically dysfunctional family inspired, he says, by a real one. The Pineda family operates a decrepit cinema (called “Family”) in a provincial Filipino town, screening tenth-run double bills of softcore sex movies. They also live on the premises. The matriarch Nanay Flor (Gina Pareno, The Bet Collector) is suing her bigamous husband for support and expecting the court’s decision any time now. She’s helped with the running of the cinema by five younger people: her daughter and son-in-law, her adopted daughter, and two nephews, one of whom is shirking his responsibilities to a pregnant girlfriend. Meanwhile the cinema itself attracts few but men looking for male and transvestite hookers, who ply their trade in the lobby and on the stairs.

Suivre Catherine (Canada, 2007, 93 mins) Directed By: Jeanne Crépeau
Who wouldn’t like to live in Paris for a whole year? That’s the simple plan director Jeanne Crépeau launches at the age of 40, invited by Catherine, a Parisian filmmaker she meets in Montréal. In this witty film diary, Crépeau shares her somehow hilarious walks along the Seine, her astonishment at the maze of red tape, her ill-concealed terror behind the wheel in Paris traffic and her joy at entering a new community. She also undertakes an academic dissertation on the 1996 Jacques Doillon film Ponette and its extraordinary 4-year-old star, Victoire Thivisol, which is a lot more fun than it sounds. Crépeau’s travels take her to Normandy, Venice and Lisbon, and in each location she perceives something new about things big and small, imaginary and real.