Drama

The story of 50-something Pavlos unfolds in an unspecified modern-day Greek city, portraying the man’s midlife crisis with a light and gently ironic tone. Pavlos takes over custodial duties from his aging mother and immediately has to deal with a disaster involving a sewage pipe. The fix-it job becomes complicated and creates an apt parallel to Pavlos’s increasingly complicated personal circumstances. At heart Pavlos is gracious and kind, and he tries to be a good husband, son, and building manager. But the ensuing state of affairs turns him into a morose and angry man whose nerves sometimes snap. Will Pavlos succeed in fixing the broken sewage pipe before he can fix his own “broken” life? Director and screenwriter Periklis Hoursoglou, who plays the lead role, has shot a drama with comic touches and gentle socio-critical accents. Hoursoglou succeeds in creating a faithful, entertaining, and even touching portrait of “ordinary” interpersonal relations.Read More »

Quote:
Belgium short filmmaker and visual artist Nicolas Provost brings his compelling and assured 2011 debut The Invader (L’envahisseur) to the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Acting as a refreshingly unbiased examination of illegal immigration and asylum seekers, Provost’s film is a surreal and demanding drama build around a sublime central performance by Issaka Sawadogo.Read More »

Synopsis:
‘A dangerous prison escapee, a young Jutland woman and a bank clerk, who has just deprived his employer of some cash and is now headed abroad, meet on a lyntog (literally “lightning train”) from Arhus to Copenhagen. The prison escaper tries to deprive the bank clerk of what he’s carrying.’
– penseurRead More »

A poignant and poetic piece exploring the nature of memory, longing, loss, and the people and places that make us who we are. Shot entirely from the vantage point of Maryam, the invisible heroine in search of her father, the film recalls the visual sophistication of Vertov or Farsi’s compatriot Kiarostami. However, in the end, a unique voice rises to the top befitting this intimate and personal journey through the neighborhoods, alleyways, and people of Tehran.Read More »

Monique Mélinand portrays a woman in the late stages of terminal illness. Her son Philippe (Philippe Léotard), Philippe’s wife Nathalie (Nathalie Baye), and her husband Roger (Hubert Deschamps) attempt to comfort her as she navigates through her ordeal. However, those two closest men in her personal life begin to get more involved in their relationships with multiple mistresses. Her husband flirts with customers in their clothing and haberdashery store while her son flirts with her nurses. The film incorporates elements of Mozart’s opera Così fan tutte to poetic effect, relating to these scenes. In the end scenes, she goes through several final, deeply emotional moments as the disease claims her life. (Wikipedia)Read More »

Synopsis:
‘Told in flashback, the film recounts the events leading up to the killing of good-for-nothing Curt Jurgens. Warned by her friends and relatives that Jurgens is a bad job, impulsive Ina Kahr marries him anyway. His ceaseless philandering and abuse wears away at Ina to the point that she contemplates poisoning her husband…’
– MRQERead More »

Quote:
Kiss Me” is the story of Laura, a woman who provokes intense desire and jealous and obsessive passions, fascinating every man that approaches her.
In the late fifties, Laura decides to grab destiny in her hands. She leaves a troubled past and a son behind and moves to Tavira , in the South of Portugal, to live with a strange aunt who makes her dream of America. Fascinated by the figure of Marilyn Monroe in the movies, she transforms herself into the Marilyn Monroe of the town. Years later, her son recreates her story.Read More »

Quote:
In keeping with his previous film Il generale Della Rovere, filmmaker Roberto Rossellini pursues a wartime theme in this “personal epic” Era notte a Roma.
The film is set in Rome during the German occupation after the armistice on 8 September 1943.
The story concerns three Allied POWS, who escape from their camp and hide out in Rome. The trio is given shelter and aid by a beautiful young woman who deals with black market disguised as a nun, her partisan boyfriend and several other people.
The three prisoners (one is Russian, one English, one American) display a genuine warmth towards each other that probably is meant to reflect the three countries’ joint effort against Nazi Germany.
Just as the variety of Italians involved in their protection as well as in their pursuit seems to be meant to reflect the chaos and mistrust reigning in those dark days. Acts of courage alternate with acts of treachery.
For reasons that remain obscure, Era Notte a Roma was never initially given a widespread American release.Read More »

Quote:
Like Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s other films, Tropical Malady is a mechanism to channel thoughts and feelings that are hard to express in words – which means that trying to write about it is at best reckless and at worst stupid. As mechanisms go, it’s beautiful and seductive, and has many working parts. But we shouldn’t forget that the name of Khun Apichatpong’s production company is “Kick the Machine”.Read More »