Drama

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There are no spirits or snakes tonight and the forest around the village is quiet. Fifteen-year old Ihjãc has had nightmares since he lost his father. He is an indigenous Krahô from the north of Brazil. Ihjãc walks into darkness, his sweaty body moves with fright. A distant chant comes through the palm trees. His father’s voice calls him to the waterfall: it´s time for Ihjãc to organize his father’s funerary feast so that his spirit can depart to the village of the dead. The mourning must cease. Denying his duty and in order to escape the process of becoming a shaman, Ihjãc runs away to the city, where he must face the reality of being an indigenous person in contemporary Brazil.Read More »

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Stairway to the Distant Past is the second film in the Mike Hama Private Investigator Trilogy. If you’ve seen part one The Most Terrible Time in My Life you must seek this out to find out how all your favourite characters are getting on. The films themes are age and family as Mikes mother “Dynamite Sexy Lilly” returns to Yokohama with her strip act many years after deserting Mike and his sister Akane. She reveals who Mikes father is and he sets out to find him. This films DoP deserves an Oscar as the picture is stunningly shot – it reminded me most of the Cinema du Look of Luc Besson and Leos Carax.Read More »

Once upon a time there was a war In the darkness of the night, a young soldier goes AWOL. Tonia, a veteran transsexual in Lisbons drag shows, watches the world around her crumble. The competition from younger artists threatens her star status. Under pressure from her young boyfriend Rosário to assume her female identity, the sex change operation that will transform her into a woman, Tonia struggles against her deeply-held religious convictions. If, on the one hand, she wants to be the woman that Rosário so desires, on the other, she knows that before God she can never be that woman. And her son, whom she abandoned when he was a child, now a deserter, comes looking for her. Read More »

In the turbulent aftermath of the Tunisian revolution, young Samia (Sarra Hannachi) flees her homeland. She braves hostile seas in the crossing to France, but once there she finds that her struggles have only just begun. With no friends, no family, and – most crucially – no immigration papers, Samia has to figure out how to make a life and a living in a foreign land.

She meets a young man, Imed (Salim Kechiouche, Blue is the Warmest Color), and soon finds work in the employ of the elegant Leila (the inimitable Hiam Abbass, subject of an In Conversation With event at the Festival this year). But her presence in Leila’s middle-class household triggers a shift in its dynamics, and soon Samia is enmeshed in a web of sexual tension.Read More »

Synopsis:
For some, the Korean War was a clear example of American imperialism. For others, it was a valiant effort on the part of the UN and the Koreans to quash the spread of communism. For all Koreans, it was a tragedy. The country was not just divided; it was devastated. The death toll was astronomical, and the destruction profound. Many engage in assigning blame for the war according to their political beliefs, but this is a useless exercise. The point is that the human rights situation in North Korea today is catastrophic. KIMJONGILIA is the first film to let North Korean refugees tell their stories in their own words.Read More »

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The wonderfully suspenseful psychological drama Spiral Staircase is the prototype of the “old dark house, lady in distress” thriller, full of dark corners, flickering candles and featuring a mysterious, menacing killer whose true identity remains hidden until the end. Helen Capel (Dorothy McGuire), mute because of a childhood trauma, cares for the owner of the house, the wealthy Mrs. Warren (Ethel Barrymore), a demanding, widowed invalid. Helen has quietly fallen in love with one of Mrs. Warren’s sons, Dr. Parry (Kent Smith), who she believes to be a gentle and understanding man. Helen’s peaceful life is changed forever when three local women, all with physical handicaps, are found murdered. Read More »

Synopsis:
Seibei Iguchi, a low-ranking samurai, leads a life without glory as a bureaucrat in the mid-XIX century Japan. A widower, he has charge of two daughters (whom he adores) and a senile mother; he must therefore work in the fields and accept piecework to make ends meet. New prospects seem to open up when Tomoe, his long-time love, divorces a brutal husband. However, even as the Japanese feudal system is unraveling, Seibei remains bound by the code of honour of the samurai and by his own sense of social precedences. The consequences are cruel.Read More »

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Deep fractures within a family dynamic begin to surface during a getaway to the Isles of Scilly.

…As much as a downbeat comedy of bourgeois mores, Archipelago is a sort of claustrophobic horror story, set in a place of no easy escape. This is Hogg’s Shutter Island, if you like, although the madness is more discreet, in the English style…Read More »

Synopsis:
Vengeance Is Mine is the come-back feature of master Shohei Imamura after a 10 year hiatus. The film is based on a real-life serial killer who went on a killing spree across Japan in the 60s.Read More »