ARGENTINA
Wake Up Love
Eliseo Subiela
Eliseo Subiela’s new film is a warm romantic drama full of the reflective power characteristic of his best works. Ernesto, a survivor of a generation for which political activism was its life blood, is now a 40-something journalist suffering a kind of mid-life crisis. Ricardo, on the other hand, is hell-bent on resisting the passage of time; his secret is rock ’n’ roll which he listens and dances to endlessly. Once members of an inseparable group of friends, they have not seen each for over 20 years. One day Ricardo, full of joie de vivre, decides it’s time for a reunion and attempts to recreate the music-filled get-togethers of the past. One of the reunions, however, evokes more than just nostalgia. Ernesto remeets Anna, his former girlfriend and now Ricardo’s wife. Time has not been kind to Anna and with her encounter with Ernesto comes a rush of memories, feelings and personal dramas that touches them all. Mixing romance and comedy with politics and music, Subiela provides a rich meditation on the mysterious turns of life.
(98 mins.) Print courtesy of Artear Argentina. Selected Filmography: Man Facing Southeast (86); Dark Side of the Heart (92), Don’t Die Without Telling Me Where You’re Going (95).
Showtimes: 2/13, 7 p.m. MH and 2/14, 4:45 p.m. FC.

AUSTRIA
The Unfish
Robert Dornhelm
Ricardo, a showman, tours the countryside with an enormous stuffed whale on the back of his truck. One day, in a small Austrian village, he suffers a heart attack and dies. The mayor, not knowing what to do, leaves the now homeless whale parked in the town square and searches for a relative to claim it. That turns out to be Sophie whose arrival coincides with the day of Maria and Carl’s wedding. Only Maria opts out at the last moment, leaving two lost souls in the town square. At night, driven by curiosity, Carl helps Sophie get inside the huge sculpture’s belly. Once inside the two discover this is no ordinary mammal, but a magic one. It seems any man making love inside the whale is granted fulfillment of a single wish. Carl gets his wish, but as in all fairy tales, it comes with a price. Dornhelm’s whimsical comedy snowballs into a series of events that impact the whole village while saluting the old adage, “Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it!” This year’s Austrian submission for Best Foreign Film Oscar. (98 mins.) Print courtesy of the Austrian Film Commission. Selected Filmography: The Children of Theater Street (76), She Dances Alone (71), Echo Park (85), A Further Gesture (95).
Showtimes: 2/14, 9 p.m. and 2/15,12:30 p.m. MH.

AUSTRALIA
The Well
Samantha Long
An audacious blend of lyricism, melodrama and supernatural horror, The Well marks the impressive debut of 29-year-old Samantha Long, whose haunting film explores the intense magnetism between two lonely, unfulfilled women on a bleak, yet beautiful farm. Hester hires young and free-spirited Katherine to help care for her ailing father and their property. Following the father’s death, the two become bound in an intense and repressed friendship that finally unravels in the face of a tragic accident. “In the main competition (Cannes Film Festival) is a stunner called The Well, a triumph of lean, spooky direction. Both tough and dreamlike, the film tells of a spinster living in isolation in a rugged setting that becomes a virtual map of the subconscious. Every detail, from the well of the title to the spinster’s long braid has its starkly symbolic resonance. Directed with a fierce eccentricity resembling Jane Campion, the film stars Miranda Otto and Pamela Rabe...feverish intense performances in this gothic tale.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times. (101 mins.) Print courtesy of Southern Star Film Sales.
Showtimes: 2/13, 9:30 p.m. MH and 2/15, 2:15 p.m. FC.

BELGIUM
My Life in Pink
Alain Berliner
A charming, comic fable with a tart edge, Berliner’s debut feature is a delightful exploration of gender confusion seen through the eyes of a child. Filmed in saturated ’50s Super Technicolor, the story starts with 7-year-old Ludovic and his family’s move to a manicured, middle-class Parisian suburb. Eager to befriend the new neighbors, his parents host a housewarming party which is going swimmingly until son Ludovic makes his appearance dressed as a fairy princess. Much to the disapproval of the neighbors and the dismay of his parents, Ludovic thinks he’s a girl. To him, it’s natural to assume when he grows up he’ll marry the boy next door—the son of his dad’s new boss. As his parents move from partial amusement to genuine concern, the sensitive, imaginative and too-young-to-understand Ludovic takes refuge in the candy-colored fantasy world of his favorite TV show hosted by a Barbie-like doll named Pam. Visually inventive and filled with enticing performances, Berliner’s film is a funny, visually dazzling and, most of all, intelligent take on tolerance, acceptance and childhood innocence. This year’s Belgian submission for Best Foreign Film Oscar and the Golden Globe winner for Best Foreign Language Film. (90 mins.) Print courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Showtimes: 2/13, 7 p.m. GU and 2/14, 2:15 p.m. FC.
Sponsored by the Hilton Hotel.

BOSNIA
The Perfect Circle
Ademir Kenovic
Made by Bosnians about Bosnians and filmed in Sarajevo in 1996, The Perfect Circle presents us with the Sarajevo of 1992, including the damage wrought and scars inflicted upon this once beautiful city. Within this true-to-life setting comes the fictional story of two young boys who, with their dog, have lost their entire family. Befriended by Hamza, a poet whose own family has fled, the threesome are determined to get to safety while caught in the hellish inferno of their beloved city. Filmed under incredible circumstances, Kenovic’s story is a deeply moving testimony to ordinary people caught in a war not of their own making. “I saw horror, destruction, murder and torture...My way of contending with all that was to make a film that would be warm, simple, stimulating...My intention was to make a story that would immediately be understood everywhere—because, unfortunately, horror is universal...”—Ademir Kenovic. (108 mins.) This year’s Bosnian submission for Best Foreign Film Oscar. Print courtesy of Films du Losange.
Showtimes: 2/13, 9:30 p.m. and 2/15, 2:30 p.m. GU.

BULGARIA
Belated Full Moon
Eduard Zahariev
At the center of this serious look at life in Eastern Europe during this decade is an old man contending with his age while coping with the confusing new world of post-Communist Bulgaria. His son, with whom he lives—and fights with constantly—is set upon becoming an “entrepreneur” even if he isn’t quite sure what that means or how to go about it. His grandson seems to be entering the business world too—as a gangster. Eventually, the old man is sent to a retirement home but, finding no refuge there, he takes to the streets where in a series of bizarre adventures, he encounters a society torn apart at the seams. Through this fascinating character study leavened by the director’s sharp sense of humor, Zahariev beautifully captures the trauma of individuals caught in the grip of change beyond their control. Zahariev, one of Bulgaria’s most respected directors, died of cancer shortly after finishing the editing of his film. This year’s Bulgarian submission for Best Foreign Film Oscar. (112 mins.) Print courtesy of Eduard Zahariev Films. Selected Filmography: Counting of Hares (1973), Time For Men (1977), Elegy (1982).
Showtimes: 2/23, 9:15 p.m. and 2/25, 7 p.m. MH.

CHINA
The Emperor’s Shadow
Zhou Xiaowen
Set in the Qin Dynasty, 221-214 B.C., Zhou Xiaowen’s sumptuous historical pageant is the most expensive Chinese film ever made. The story hinges on two childhood friends whose lives take very different paths: Gao becomes a celebrated and wily musician while the ruthless Ying becomes the first emperor of China. As an adult, Gao comes to Qin in chains after Ying conquers his homeland state of Yan. The emperor orders Gao released on the condition he compose music for his formal ascension to the throne of heaven, but Gao resists. The emperor tries a number of tricks—deploying his daughter Yueyang, threatening to kill other Yan prisoners—to coax him towards creation. As the battle of wills continues and court intrigue unfolds, Gao gradually falls in love with Yueyang, unaware she is already promised to one of the emperor’s generals. Winner of the International Critics Prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival, this epic yet intimate story has a timeless appeal. (116 mins.) Print courtesy of Fox Lorber. Selected Filmography: Black Mountain (90), No Regrets For Youth (91), Lie Detector (93), Ermo (95).
Showtimes: 2/22, 4:45 p.m. and 2/23, 7 p.m. MH.

DENMARK
The Island on Bird Street
Soren Kragh-Jacobsen
Based on an autobiographical novel by Polish-Jewish author Uri Orlev, The Island on Bird Street is set in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. Eleven-year-old Alex holds to his father’s parting words, “Wait for me. No matter what happens, I will come back for you.” As more Jews are led away, the resourceful Alex manages to survive by keeping one step ahead of the Nazis. Adapting lessons learned from reading Robinson Crusoe, Alex climbs to the top floor of a bombed-out building on Bird Street, literally creating an island for himself and Snow, his pet mouse. From slots in an air vent, he watches as Polish children around him live a normal life without fear. In particular he notices Stasya, a young girl with whom he develops an unlikely friendship. Beautifully filmed, this moving story of struggle, hope, friendship and survival is a singular achievement in the lexicon of works drawn from the tragedy of the Holocaust. (107 mins.) Print courtesy of Moonstone Entertainment. Selected Filmography: Rubber Tarzan (81), Emma’s Shadow (88), The Boys From St. Petri (91).
Showtimes: 2/23, 7 p.m. GU and 2/28, 2 p.m. FC.

CUBA
Vertical Love
Arturo Sott Diaz
Filmed against the backdrop of the decaying vestiges of Havana’s once impressive architecture, this daring satirical comedy tells the story of two young lovers who defy all odds—spatial, parental, political and existential—to be together. Ernesto is a nurse at a psychiatric hospital but likes to pretend he is a doctor when young women are admitted to the ward. Estella is an architecture student who is disillusioned by the dilapidated buildings and fears for the safety of the people living in them. When the program she has designed to address her concerns is rejected by the authorities, she becomes depressed. Winding up in Ernesto’s care, an unlikely love affair ensues. After endless bouts of failed lovemaking and failed privacy, the elevator stop button becomes their only source of escape. Starring Jorge Perugorria (Strawberry and Chocolate) and Silvia Aguila, Amor Vertical is an irreverent look at Cuban life that is tender, passionate and primal. (100 mins.) Print courtesy of Pandora Cinema.
Showtimes: 2/15, 12:15 p.m. and 2/18, 7 p.m. GU.

CZECH REPUBLIC
A Forgotten Light
Vladmir Michalek
The winner of five major Czech film awards, Michalek’s film is based on a 1934 novel by Czech poet, writer and Catholic priest Jakub Deml, updated to the 1980s by Czech-American screenwriter Milena Jelinek. The story revolves around Father Holy, an unconventional priest who finds spiritual asylum in a remote Czech village. Surrounded by a handful of people of similar disaffection, his fight to save the village church brings him into conflict with both the collaborationist church authorities and state bureaucracy. Though his faith is firm and his humor steeled, he is helpless in the face of powers willing to destroy both the material possessions and the spiritual hopes. His distress mounts as he can neither help the woman he loves nor admit his feelings to her. Despite enduring these defeats, personal victory emerges as he learns to survive and encourage the weak. Warm, human and oftentimes witty, The Forgotten Light is an unpretentious look at the power of the powerless caught in a totalitarian void. This year’s Czech submission for Best Foreign Film Oscar. (101 mins.) Print courtesy of Czech Television, Studio FAMA 92.
Showtimes: 2/15, 2:45 p.m. MH and 2/17, 9 p.m. FC.

An Ambiguous Report about the End of the World
Juraj Jakubisko
“The ‘end of the world’ in Jakubisko’s film is not an event but a place: the small mountain village in Central Europe that serves as the setting for this wildly visual and densely layered 20-year chronicle of a community. From the opening scenes of a voracious wolf pack descending on the village during a winter wedding and slaughtering nearly everyone, it is apparent we are in the hands of a singular talent. Verona, the bride whose wedding is torn asunder, provides the through-line in this tragic and surreal tale. Saved from the wolves by 10-year-old Goran, she promises her newly-born daughter will one day become his wife. Years later, their engagement party is interrupted by a motley collection of circus performers looking for a place to stay. When Verona wins the devious ringmaster’s harem from him in a card game, the circus people decide to stay, forever changing the fate of the community. Jakubisko ensures that all the intercine plot details are rendered with an eye for the striking image: people are literally swept away by the wind; houses are left sitting at odd angles by earthquakes; the tail of a plane sticks straight up from a crash site; military helicopters swoop down out of nowhere to raze the community’s illegal crops of hemp and poppies; the ever-present wolves hover on the periphery...Jakubisko may call it ambiguous but his ‘report,’ fusing the post-medieval with the futuristic, is one of the most striking and wonderfully eccentric films of the year.”—Vancouver Film Festival (138 mins.) Print courtesy of J&J Jakubisko Film.
Showtimes: 2/15, 7:30 p.m. GU and 2/22, 1:15 p.m. MH.

FINLAND
Gracious Curves
Kiti Luostarinen
At age 46, a point at which she
can review her mother’s life, feel herself grow older and witness the growth of her daughter, Finnish director Luostarinen philosophizes about what it means to live in a female body and what it is like to develop from a girl to a woman—to bloom, to age and eventually to die. With sufficient self-reflexive irony and a great sense of humor, she interviews 50 women from age 4 to 90. Drawing from their experiences and feelings as they develop from girl to grandmother, she explores attitudes about the sacrifices demanded in the name of youth and beauty. As Luostarinen demonstrates with a multitude of rounding tummies, “Oldness liberates you of false belief.” (52 mins.) With At Sea, by Penny-Fowler Smith (Australia, 10 mins.) and Is it the Design or the Wrapper? by Tess Sheridan (Britain, 7 mins.).
Showtimes: 2/14, noon, GU and 2/15, 2:45 p.m. FC.

FRANCE
Artemisia
Agnes Merlet
Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the few Renaissance women able to live and work as an artist. In Merlet’s masterful biographical portrait, the passion that made this daughter of renowned painter Orazio Gentileschi (Michel Serrault) triumph over the conventions of 17th century Italy as an artist and as a woman come fully alive. Turned away from the Academy in Rome because she is female, and prohibited from drawing male nudes, 17-year-old Artemisia (Valentina Cervi) is seemingly stripped of her chance to actualize her gifts. But her father, recognizing her natural talent exceeds his own, arranges for her to study under his friend, the famous muralist Agostino Tassi. Much to her father’s dismay, his lessons eventually go well beyond the art and science of perspective and on to other laws of nature. Lavishly recreating the period, Merlet skillfully suggests how the Renaissance eye saw the world and how this pioneering young artist created her own image of it. (98 mins.) Print courtesy of Miramax Films.
Showtimes: 2/21, 7 p.m. and 2/22, 5 p.m. FC.
Sponsored by American Airlines.

El Che
Maurice Dugowson
Che Guevara embodies one of
the strongest myths of the 20th century, a combination of saint and adventurer, somewhere between Don Quixote and a latter-day Jesus Christ. One-time right-hand-man to Fidel Castro, he was a Shakespearean hero of tragic dimensions. Symbol of an entire generation of rebellion, today he is both legend and martyr, condemned by many, but for others forever the symbol of passionate struggle. Dugowson’s film, based largely on Pierre Kalfon’s recent biography, traces Guevara’s life from his well-to-do Argentine family origins to his voyages of discovery through Latin America, and on to his life as revolutionary: his meeting with Castro and the guerrilla years in the Sierra Maestra, his rise at age 28 as the economic minister of the Cuban revolution, his world travels and intrigues and, ultimately, his final days in the hills of Bolivia where he died in battle at age 38 in 1967. This rewarding historical document is filled with richly woven archival footage and wide-ranging interviews that reveal much about Guevara’s life. (90 mins.) In French and Spanish with English narration. Print courtesy of Cineteve.
Showtimes: 2/18, 9 p.m. and 2/21, noon FC.
Sponsored by Powell’s Books.

Jour de Fete
Jacques Tati
“This ingenious and unprecedented color restoration of the incomparable Jacques Tati’s Jour de Fete is cause for celebration indeed. Tati’s first feature, the film was shot in 1947 on still experimental and now extinct Thomsoncolor film stock, with adjacent backup cameras shooting in black and white. Although the color original was successfully developed, techies could never figure out how to strike color prints—until now. Jour de Fete emerges as an even better film in color. The color itself couldn’t be less like Hollywood’s—it’s more like hand-tinted old photos—and it reveals Tati conceived the story as much in color as comic timing. Tati stars as Francoise, an idiosyncratic rural postman on a bicycle who, egged on by his fellow citizens, is unduly influenced by a newsreel depicting the super-efficient U.S. mail service. Tati adjusted the surroundings with color in mind, repairing doorways and dressing the locals in somber garb, the better to emphasize the arrival of color when a carnival comes to town. It’s all glorious fun, but the real thrill is getting to see what Tati wanted us to see: the most carefully crafted offerings of his sublime imagination.”—Lisa Nesselson, Variety. (79 mins.) Print courtesy of Miramax Films. Selected Filmography: Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (53), Mon Oncle (56), Playtime (70), Traffic (72).
Showtimes: 2/14, 4:30 p.m. MH and 2/16, 7 p.m. FC.
Sponsored by the Heathman Hotel.

The Life of Jesus
Bruno Dumont
Winner of the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival as well as France’s Prix Jean Vigo for Best First Film, La Vie de Jesus is set in the northern Flemish town of Bailleul. Twenty-year-old Freddy, who suffers from epileptic fits, doesn’t do much of anything. Mostly, he hangs out with his other uneducated and unemployed friends who spend their time racing their motorbikes through the town and countryside looking for something that will never be found. Freddy’s only solace is Marie, his girlfriend, with whom he makes passionless love whenever the opportunity arises. One day, Kader, the son of Arab immigrants, becomes interested in Marie, which surfaces the well of frustration and hopelessness just waiting to explode in this quiet municipality. Writer/director Dumont captures the textures of this small town with incisive clarity—a place where dreams are unrealized and violence seethes beneath its steady boredom. For mature audiences. (96 mins.) Print courtesy of Fox Lorber.
Showtimes: 2/26, 7 p.m. GU and 2/28, 9:15 p.m. FC.

The Magic of Méliès
Jacques Meny
“Jacques Meney’s long awaited documentary is a biography of George Méliès, the 19th century magician who became the cinema’s first great artist. Best known for his films of fairy tales, magic and science fiction, Méliès pioneered practically every genre of cinema, from recreated ‘newsreels’ to commercials. All of them maintain their fascinating charm after almost a century. Through interviews with the filmmaker’s relatives and eminent historians, Meney tells the story of Méliès’ rise to worldwide fame and subsequent fall to oblivion where he was found in the 1930s, keeping a toy kiosk in a railway station. Meney evokes the Paris of the early 1900s through old films, stills and recreations, and includes Méliès’ own films, bewitching in pristine hand-colored prints. The most magical experience though is to hear for a few moments the voice of Méliès himself, recorded just before his death in 1938, but still conveying the curiosity and enchantment of a child.”—London Film Festival (90 mins.) Print courtesy of Sodaperaga. Selected Filmography: St. Petersbourg (92), Time of the Dinosaurs (93), The Mystery of Gono (95).
Showtimes: 2/18, 7 p.m., 2/23, 9 p.m. and 2/25, 9:15 p.m. FC.
Sponsored by Trilogy Video.

Port Djema
Eric Heumann
Pierre Feldman (Jean-Yeves Dubois), a Parisian surgeon, arrives at Port Djema, a dusty remnant of the former French colony in East Africa. He knows practically nothing about either the country or the on-going civil war between Assad nomads and those in power. He has come to fulfill a promise made to his friend Antoine (Frederic Pierrot)—a colleague recently assassinated in Port Djema—although the exact nature of his quest remains mysterious until the very end. Antoine had broken ranks with the humanitarian agency that sent him to open a clinic for rebel soldiers in forbidden territory. Despite warnings from the French Embassy, Pierre makes his way into the country where he witnesses firsthand the consequences of his government’s duplicity. Beautifully crafted and stunningly photographed on location in Eritrea, Heumann’s debut feature, exposing the legacy of colonialism, is an existential thriller that potently captures the eeriness of being a complete stranger in a hostile country. (97 mins.) Print courtesy of Orly Films and Shadow Distribution. Selected Filmography: Producer, Devil in the Flesh (85), Indochine (91), Ulysses’ Gaze (95).
Showtimes: 2/22, 3 p.m. GU and 2/25, 7 p.m. FC.

A Summer’s Tale
Eric Rohmer
Following up on his earlier A Tale of Springtime and A Winter’s Tale, the third installment of Rohmer’s “Tales of the Four Seasons” offers vivid scrutiny of French society and adolescent love. Dinard is a seaside resort in Brittany famous for its grand houses and ocean breezes. Gaspard has come to the beach to rendezvous with his girlfriend Lena, but while waiting he attracts the attention of two other young women. Though he presents himself as fate’s plaything, we watch his growing determination to master the romantic opportunities presented to him. In dividing his attention between the two women, he seeks refuge, advice and friendship from the funny, academic Margot, while flirting with the sultry, disco-diva Solene. Being neither particularly adept at the art of seduction nor sure of what he really wants, Gaspard finds himself boxed into a predicament of his own making: he has invited all three women—Lena appears without warning—on a side trip to Ouessant. A witty, timeless meditation on love, desire and soul searching, Rohmer, now in his seventies, continues his fascination with the fertile possibilities of the young. “I’m not interested in what happens to my own generation...I am interested in the future, in people who think about their future.” (113 mins.) Print courtesy of Artificial Eye. Selected Filmography: My Night at Maud’s (69), Claire’s Knee (70), Pauline at the Beach (83), Les Rendezvous de Paris (95).
Showtimes: 2/14, 7 p.m. and 2/15, 4:45 p.m. FC.

GERMANY
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Thomas Jahn
Martin and Rudi have almost nothing in common except their condition—which is terminal. Martin has brain cancer, Rudi bone cancer, and the doctors have written them both off. When their respective prognoses come in, neither is inclined to spend the duration in a hospital bed. When Martin hears that Rudi has never been to the ocean, their destination is set. Unfortunately, the baby blue Mercedes they steal belongs to some crazed gangsters who, with the police and death in tow, trail them on one last wild adventure down the road of life. In his inspired directing debut, former cab driver Jahn combines black humor, suspense and a minimum of pathos to construct a wild road movie somewhere between Pulp Fiction and Thelma and Louise, and in the process manages to celebrate both living and dying with equal comedic balance. (90 mins.) Print courtesy of Mr. Brown Entertainment.
Showtimes: 2/18, 9:30 p.m. and 2/21, 9:15 p.m. MH.

Little Dieter Learns to Fly
Werner Herzog
As a young boy Dieter Dengler dreams of becoming an American test pilot. Growing up in post-war Germany (his father was killed in the war), he moves, at age 18 and penniless, to San Francisco where, in order to be able to fly, he joins the Army and goes to Vietnam. During his first mission in 1966 he is shot down and captured by the Vietcong. In gripping fashion, Herzog tells Dengler’s life story in three episodes: “The Man’s Dream,” Dengler’s childhood story; “The Punishment,” an account of the cruel torture he experiences; and “The Redemption,” his miraculous escape and rescue. Herzog himself, while narrator and interviewer, stays in the background as film maker. Like many of his previous documentaries where he remains loyal to his creed that art contains more truth than reality, Herzog deftly blurs the distinctions between fact and fiction. (72 mins.) Print courtesy Herzog Filmproduktion. Selected Filmography: The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser (74), Stroszek (77), Fitzcarraldo (82), Lessons of Darkness (92).
Showtimes: 2/14, noon FC and 2/15, 5:15 p.m. MH.

Rossini
Helmut Dietl
Rossini, an elegant Munich restaurant, serves as the principal hangout for a variety of players involved in the film business. Uhu, a director, is trying to pin down the rights for a best-selling novel by a reclusive writer while searching for the perfect girl to play the lead. His producer Oscar fights with a trio of bankers who want to cut off his credit. And agents, gossip columnists, waiters and assorted cognoscenti keep their ears peeled between courses ready to strike. When a beautiful, aspiring actress arrives on the scene determined to get the part in Uhu’s film, the stage is set for a wickedly funny examination of floundering careers, artistic egos, high finance and unrequited love. Superb art direction, design and cinematography, coupled with an Altmanesque structure of overlapping conversations and interconnecting stories, make Dietl’s film a treat from start to finish. (110 mins.) Print courtesy of Bavarian Film. Selected Filmography: Schtonk (92).
Showtimes: 2/27, 9:30 p.m. and 3/1, 2 p.m. FC.

GREAT BRITAIN
Love and Death on Long Island
Richard Kwietniowski
Adapted from a witty novel by British essayist/film critic Gilbert Adair and, as the title suggests, a twist on Death in Venice (by way of Woody Allen), Kwietniowski’s debut film is a warm and wry tale of repression that gives way to obsession. Giles De’Ath (John Hurt) is an aging intellectual with an aversion to anything dating from the 20th century, save for an occasional screening of an E. M. Forster literary adaptation at his local movie theater. One afternoon, he inadvertently stumbles into Hotpants College II, the latest inane teen exploitation flick starring American teen heartthrob Robbie Bostock (Jason Priestley). Appalled by its vulgarity, but infatuated by Robbie, Giles graduates from feverishly amassing scrapbooks of magazine clippings of the pretty boy to invading the small Long Island town where Robbie lives and cleverly insinuating himself into the naive teen idol’s life. Romping humanely in the space between high and low art, youth and maturity, old world and new, gay and straight, Kwietniowski’s film is a beguiling look at love and culture clash. (93 mins.) Print courtesy of Cinepix Film Properties.
Showtimes: 2/14, 7 p.m. GUand 2/17, 7 p.m. FC.

Mrs. Dalloway
Marleen Gorris
Marleen Gorris, the Academy Award-winning director of Antonia’s Line (Opening Night Film, PIFF 19), has adapted Virginia Woolf’s classic novel with a stellar performance from Vanessa Redgrave. The story unfolds on a single, fateful June day in London, 1923. The elegant Clarissa Dalloway (Redgrave) is married to Richard, a decent, but uninspiring Member of Parliament. Thirty years earlier, she chose him over other suitors, including the adventurous and passionate Peter Walsh (Alan Cox) who upon her rejection left for India never to been seen again. While preparing to host a dazzling party, she suffers a day of “what-might-have-been” reflections when Peter, suddenly on this of all days, appears. Her flashbacks, full of emotion and despair, strangely intertwine with the news that Septimius Warren Smith (Rupert Graves), a shell-shocked war veteran she has never met, but strongly empathizes with, has committed suicide. For Clarissa, the events of the day unleash new truths which she can now embrace. Gorris and screenwriter Eileen Atkin’s adaptation provides deep psychological insight into urban English society, the sexual politics of the time, the emergence of the modern woman, and a universal reflection on the inevitable price of life’s choices. (97 mins.) Print courtesy of First Look Pictures. Selected Filmography: A Question of Silence (82), Broken Mirrors (84) Antonia’s Line (95).
Showtimes: 2/12, 7 p.m. and 2/13, 7 p.m. FC.
Opening Night Admission $20.

Shooting Fish
Stefan Schwartz
Scam, cheat and extort anyone who’s rich, stupid or vain. It’s Jez and Dylan’s m.o. But it’s all for a good cause—money for needy orphans. The needy would be, in this case, Jez and Dylan. Orphan Jez is a tongue-tied technical genius with a bad haircut. Dylan, also an orphan, is his slick, fast-talking partner. Unlikely candidates for success, together these two twenty-somethings are brilliant con artists, well on their way to building a nest egg for a real home of their own—and a stately home at that. All they need is a couple million pounds, which in London it won’t take long to get. Enter the beautiful Georgie, who similarly enamored with opportunities for quick cash, is a willing accomplice. Georgie is just as driven, just as inventive, but far more altruistic. She needs money—a lot of money—and in Jez and Dylan, she’s just struck gold. Schwartz’s fresh, wacky, caper comedy is a burst of pure escapism, complete with a happy ending and plenty of laughs along the way. (110 mins.) Print courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures. Selected Filmography: Soft Top Hard Shoulder (93).
Showtimes: 2/21, 7 p.m. GU and 2/24, 9:30 p.m. FC.
Sponsored by Voice-Tel.

Sliding Doors
Peter Howitt
“What would happen if one moment your life took two completely different paths? This is the starting point for this superb romantic drama. First time feature film maker Howitt wrote and directed this flawless stroll through the vagaries and perils of love and relationships. When Helen, a career advertising executive, is summarily dismissed from her job, the fates determine her future (and possibilities for happiness) with the speed of the sliding doors of a subway train. Making it onto the train will lead her in one direction while being left stranded on the platform will send her life in a completely different one. The parallel narratives are a delightful device, and Gwyneth Paltrow displays how wonderfully and subtly she brings characters to life. Sliding Doors is infused with ingenious twists and turns, sparkling and deliciously nasty truths and is manna from heaven for anyone who bemoans the demise of the smart and enlightened melodrama from classic film days.”—Geoffrey Gilmore, Sundance Film Festival. (105 mins.) Print courtesy of Miramax Films.
Showtimes: 2/14, 9:15 p.m. FC and 2/16, 7 p.m. MH.

TwentyFourSeven
Shane Meadows
Meadow’s quirky tragicomedy, whose title is slang for “round the clock, seven days a week,” is the story of Alan Darcy (Bob Hoskins), a working-class visionary obsessed with restoring dignity to his town’s dissolute youth. Set during the Thatcher years when any sense of community seemed to be a thing of the past, the story unfolds in a dreary Midlands community based on Meadow’s own native Nottingham. With little to do but get into trouble, most of the young boys wander the housing projects aimlessly. Darcy resurrects a boxing club, and his diaries chart its members’ at once comic and touching efforts to regain not only their fitness, but also an identity lost in the dark temptations and tragedies of modern life. Although initial training sessions border on the disastrous, a trip to Wales starts to whip the team into shape prior to its match against another boxing club. Bob Hoskins (Mona Lisa) delivers one of the great performances of his career in this celebration of an uncommon man who sees, in the trials of his reluctant disciples, an opportunity for the resurrection of all concerned. (96 mins.) Print courtesy of October Films.
Showtimes: 2/20, 7 p.m. FC and 2/21, 4:45 p.m. MH.

HONG KONG
Eighteen Springs
Ann Hui
“The late Eileen Chang’s fiction exerts a continuing fascination on Hong Kong artists of Ann Hui’s generation partly because she is rarely equaled as a prose stylist, partly because her wry tone and subtle ironies bespeak a stance that seems very modern...and partly because her tales of desire thwarted, deflected and blocked express feelings shared by many Hong Kong people. The complex, densely peopled story centers on a young man and woman who fall in love in 1930s Shanghai but find every conceivable obstacle in the way of their prospective happiness together. He tries to wriggle out of a marriage his mother has arranged for him; she asks for time to sort out problems with her sister before marrying and then finds herself pregnant after being raped by a lustful businessman. Fate puts all the characters through many changes before the light glimmers at the end of the tunnel...”—Tony Rayns, Vancouver Film Festival. (125 mins.) Print courtesy of Long Shong International Films. Selected Filmography: Boat People (82), Starry is the Night (88), My American Grandson (91), Summer Snow (94).
Showtimes: 2/19, 7 p.m. MH and 2/21, 4:15 p.m. GU.

Fallen Angels
Wong Kar-Wai
In his dazzling follow-up to Chunking Express, Wong Kar-Wai constructs his most frenetic and exhilarating portrait of honky-tonk Hong Kong yet. The film interweaves two love stories: one between Wong, a professional hit man, and “the Agent,” the glamorous woman who books his jobs; and the other between the wacky Zhiwo, a mute ex-con who breaks into stores after hours and forces his customers to buy his wares, and his hysterical girlfriend Cherry. Packed with the restless energy and pop visual set-pieces which are his trademark, Kar-Wai’s characters charge headlong through a neon-lit city of endless nights, searching for love and finding sensation at every turn. “Watching Fallen Angels feels a little like being shot out of a pinball machine and bounced around the Hong Kong equivalent of Times Square in its former heyday.”—Stephen Holden, The New York Times. (95 mins.) Print courtesy of Kino International. Selected Filmography: Ashes of Time (94), Chunking Express (95), Happy Together (96).
Showtimes: 2/14, 9:30 p.m. and 2/16, 9 p.m. GU.

HUNGARY
The Whitman Boys
Janos Szasz
Janos Szasz follows his well-received Woyzeck with this uniquely chilling tale that begins on the eve of World War I in a provincial town in Hungary. After their taxcollector father dies unexpectedly, young teenagers Janos and Erno find their lives suddenly free of rules, discipline—and love. Both fascinated and dismayed by death, the brothers capture and kill an owl that haunts the graveyard where their father is buried. Animal sacrifice soon becomes an obsession. With the attention of their mother focused on her live-in lover, the boys begin calling on a local prostitute named Irén to satisfy their own burgeoning sexual curiosities. Irén caters to their needs charitably at first, but tires of their frequent and unexpected visits and soon demands gifts in exchange for her favors. A ruby pendant belonging to the boys’ mother becomes an ideal prospect for such a gift—and the impetus for a horrible crime as well. Tibor Mathe’s cinematography evokes the haunting expressionism of silent German cinema and helps give this grim, but fascinating film its disturbing, eerie resonance. (93 mins.) This year’s Hungarian submission for Best Foreign Film Oscar. Selected Filmography: Don’t Disturb (90), Woyzeck (94).
Showtimes: 2/21, 9:30 p.m. and 2/22, 5:15 p.m. GU.

IRAN
The Children of Heaven
Majid Majidi
Ali and Zohre, two children in a poor neighborhood, are faced with a big problem. Ali has lost his little sister’s shoes on the way home from the shoemaker. They can’t tell anyone because their parents can’t afford to replace them. Now, she has no shoes to wear to school. So they hit upon a solution: Zohre will wear Ali’s shoes to attend girls’ school in the morning and will rush home in time for him to wear them to boys’ school in the afternoon. Their “solution” requires fine timing and no obstacles—and it doesn’t work for long. Told in a neorealistic style reminiscent of Jafar Panahi’s The White Balloon, Majidi’s film provides an evocative glimpse into the daily life of lower-class urban society in contemporary Iran while weaving a very simple, but arresting story about children and their somewhat perilous path through an indifferent adult world. Grand Prize Winner, Montreal World Film Festival. (90 mins.) Print courtesy of Miramax Films. Selected Filmography: Baduk (91), God Shall Come (94), The Father (96).
Showtimes: 2/19, 7 p.m. and 2/20, 9:30 p.m. GU.

IRELAND
This is the Sea
Mary McGuckian
Swept away by the pure, indescribable passion of first love, Hazel and Malachy, a young couple in war-torn Northern Ireland, find themselves at odds with their families’ and country’s religious differences. Innocent Hazel, the teenage daughter of a rigid Plymouth Brethern Protestant farmer, has experienced little of the conflict rocking her country, while Malachy must deal with the youthful angst of growing up in Catholic West Belfast. Set in 1994 during the IRA ceasefire, McGuckian’s debut film is a remarkably uplifting romantic thriller, given its tragic backdrop, that expresses faith in commitment and hope for the future. An all-star cast featuring Richard Harris, Gabriel Byrne, John Lynch, Ross McDade and Samantha Morton, along with great locations and haunting music by Mike Scott, bring alive a passionate tale of first love and tragic betrayal. (117 mins.) Print courtesy of First Look Pictures.
Showtimes: 2/25, 7 p.m. and 2/26, 9:15 p.m. GU.

ITALY
Voices through Time
Franco Piavoli
Piavoli’s lyric ode to the cycles of life charts the passages of infancy, youth, maturity and old age against the seasons of the year in the bucolic Italian village of Castellaro. The chimes of the clock in the town square punctuate the rhythm of life: first birth, then the amazements of chilhood, the emotional upheavals of adolescence, the first attempts and failures in romance, the dancing, the loving, the hallmark event of marriage. On that occasion the nostalgia for faded youth unfolds with poetic grace. Inspired by an old Italian folk saying, “Love makes time pass, and time makes love pass,” Piavoli observes the rituals of human life in much the same way Microcosmos observed the insect world’s delicate social universe. Rich in sound and glorious images, Voices through Time shows “the course of life like a river flowing, without whirlpools, without waterfalls, to let people consider the incessant flowing of things, the unstoppable course of time.”—Franco Piavoli. (85 mins.) Print courtesy of PromoFest. Selected Filmography: The Blue Planet (83).
Showtimes: 2/21, 2:15 p.m. MH and 2/22, 7:30 p.m. GU.

JAPAN
Labyrinth of Dreams
Sogo Ishii
Shot in lustrous monochrome, Labyrinth of Dreams is, like Ishii’s earlier Angel Dust, a haunting and mysterious thriller with a masterful sense of style. Updating a story by novelist Kyusaku Yumeno and set in rural Japan, the tale follows the virginal Tomiko, a bus conductor who becomes convinced Niitaka, the handsome new driver of her bus, is the man who murdered her friend Tsuyako in another town. She steels herself to work with him, testing him at every opportunity. When she hears rumors of a serial killer bus driver, she becomes even more wary, but despite her apprehensions she falls in love with him. Can she forget the murder of her best friend and will she be the killer’s next victim? This labyrinthian Freudian fable, filled with moons, rain, dark tunnels and imminent collisions, becomes, in Ishii’s hands, one ravishing nightmare. (90 mins.) Print courtesy of KSS Inc. Selected Filmography: Crazy Family (84), Angel Dust (94), August in Water (95).
Showtimes: 2/17, 7 p.m. and 2/19, 9 p.m. GU.

Moonlight Serenade
Masahiro Shinoda
The city of Kobe is in flames. As 60-year-old Keita Onda watches news of the earthquake’s terrible destruction, he remembers another occasion when he saw the city in chaos. In 1945 during the war, Keita was just a child when his family received the ashes of his brother Tadao, killed in battle. To bury the remains according to custom, his family journeyed to Miyazaki, the city where Tadao was born. More than a trip through a devastated country, it was a journey that opened the Onda family to new realities of life. For Keita, his relationship with his family and his view of the world indelibly changed. At once a story of the severe jolt that started modern Japan and a complex tale of family tension, Moonlight Serenade is a sweeping tale of familial and national change. “Fifty years ago Japan was devasted by the loss of World War II. I was torn between despair and hope. This film is to me like the geological fault which was brought to life in Kobe in 1995, one which was imprinted on my mind during my adolescence.”—Masahiro Shinoda. (110 mins.) Print courtesy of Shochiku Co. Selected Filmography: Demon Pond (79), MacArthur’s Children (84), Gonza the Spearman (86), Takeshi: Childhood Days (90), Sharaku (94).
Showtimes: 2/24, 7 p.m. and 2/28, 4:30 p.m. FC.

Supermarket Woman
Juzo Itami
Juzo Itami’s (1933-1997) final film is another biting satire about Japanese society, full of the physical humor and societal insight that marked his earlier works. Having taken on fast food, death, taxes, hospitals and gangsters in previous cinematic outings, he takes a blow here at consumerism. The film hits the ground running when Hanako, an ordinary, albeit spunky, housewife who just happens to love supermarkets, is hired by her old friend Goro to help turn his grossly mismanaged store around. The new Bargains Galore store, which actually has fresh food, low prices and good service, is taking away all of his customers. Unless he can turn his store into the best supermarket in Japan, his days are numbered. Identifying the problems is one thing, doing something about them is another in this hilarious and fast-paced tale of life, love and retail warfare. (127 mins.) Print courtesy of Itami Films. Selected Filmography: The Family Game (84), The Funeral (84), Tampopo (86), A Taxing Woman (87), Minbo (93), The Seriously Ill (95).
Showtimes: 2/20, 7 p.m. and 2/21, 1:30 p.m. GU.

Tokyo Lullaby
Juni Ichikawa
Winner of the Best Director Prize at this year’s Montreal Film Festival, Tokyo Lullaby is set in an old Tokyo neighborhood where nearly everyone knows everyone and, best of all, people generally know when to mind their own business. So when Koichi suddenly turns up on the doorstep of the wife and child he abandoned a few years previously, everyone is mystified. But the only important question at the Osawa Tea Room is whether he will pay the family debts. Koichi does, by turning his father’s money-losing electronics shop into a successful computer business. It’s when an old flame at the tea room enters his life again, and skeletons emerge from the family closet, that things start to get complicated. Ichikawa skillfully presents, in this absorbing family drama, a slice-of-life in modern-day Tokyo. (85 mins.) Print courtesy of Shochiku Co. Selected Filmography: Tugumi (90), Tokiwa: The Magna Apartments (96), Tokyo Siblings (94).
Showtimes: 2/23, 9:15 p.m. GU and 2/26, 7 p.m. MH.
Presentation of these films is made possible by the Consulate-General of Japan, Portland.

MALI
Taafe Fanga
Adama Drabo
Taafe Fanga (“Skirt Power”) is a sharply comic and insightful look at sexual politics in modern Africa seen through the guise of the 18th century Dogon. Through trickery and magic, the men of a Dogon town are made to believe their survival depends upon their exchanging gender roles with the women of the village. As the women become the hunters, drinkers, deliberators and bosses, the men are forced to become the virtual servants their wives and daughters have formerly been. While the men gain a new understanding of the burdens borne by women, they are not surprised to find the women are in no hurry to return to their former situation. Taffe Fanga takes on one of life’s enduring conflicts with a light, but pointed, touch. (95 mins.) In Kaado and Bambara with English subtitles. Print courtesy of California Newsreel. Selected Filmography: Nieba (88), Ta Dona (91).
Showtimes: 2/15, 7:30 p.m. and 2/17, 9 p.m. MH.
Co-sponsored by the Cascade Festival of African Film.

MEXICO
Who the Hell is Juliette?
Carlos Marcovich
“With a staunch disregard for
the formal distinction between narrative fiction and documentary, Marcovich’s debut film brazenly defies easy categorization. The film’s streetwise protagonist is Juliette, a Cuban teenager orphaned as a result of her father’s immigration to the U.S. and her mother’s suicide. Raised by her grandmother, Juliette satisfies her penchant for western fineries by prostituting herself to wealthy tourists. Sharp, independent and highly volatile, Juliette reviles those who judge her circumstances and morality. When a production team arrives in Cuba to shoot a music video, the director casts Juliette to play the younger incarnation of Fabiola, a successful Mexican model. Similarly preoccupied with her absent father, Fabiola instantly connects with the young woman and arranges for her to interview with a modeling agent. Soon after, the filmmaker creates one of the film’s most affecting scenes: a meeting between Juliette and her father in New Jersey. Laced with self-reflexive irony and sweeping visuals, Who the Hell is Juliette? is a provocative and intimate meditation on female identity, cultural subjectivity and sexual politics.”—Rebecca Yeldham, Sundance Film Festival. (90 mins.) Print courtesy of Kino International.
Showtimes: 2/17, 9 p.m. GU and 2/20, 7 p.m. MH.

NETHERLANDS
Blind Date
Theo Van Gogh
Blind Date is a unique, psychologically profound examination of a parent’s worst nightmare—the horror of losing a child. Pom
and Katja are in a constant state of grief over the death of their 3-year-old daughter Annabel. The couple struggles to accept the death, but are unable to express their sorrow verbally. In a strange and desperate attempt to heal, they turn to an elaborate world of role-playing games. In one, Katja plays a therapist offering counsel to Pom. In another, the couple “meets” through a personal ad
in the newspaper. But the games backfire, serving only to create more tension and alienation, all the while Annabel’s off-screen voice, now in the afterlife, reflects upon her parents’ behavior. Winner of Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress Awards
at the Netherlands Film Festival, Van Gogh’s film is an original, intensely emotional work that some have compared to Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but it stands on its own as an exquisite film about the power of grief and the compounding tragedy of personal loss. (90 mins.) Print courtesy of Egmond Film and Television. Selected Filmography: Loos (90), 06 (93), 1-900 (95).
Showtimes: 2/22, 7:30 p.m. and 2/24, 9:15 p.m. MH.

The Cherry Pick
Arno Kranenborg
Set in the remote northeast province of Drenthe in the 1960s, Kranenborg’s debut film is a poetic and moving statement on the seasons of life that draws upon the director’s adolescence. Every year Jan stays with his grandparents and helps with the cherry harvest. The year he turns 13 everything changes. His grandmother dies and his grandfather grows despondent. He also finds childhood camaraderie has blossomed into impossible love for his older cousin Marie who is now helping care for his grandfather. The discovery of a letter in his grandmother’s cookbook in which she expresses unrealized dreams leads him to try and stimulate his grandfather into belated fulfillment. Unwittingly opening up old wounds, Jan begins an emotional journey of disillusionment and discovery in which he learns that love is far more complicated than it once seemed. Moving beyond a solely loss-of-innocence tale, The Cherry Pick’s evocative and dreamlike mood perfectly captures the essence of yearning—for love, romance and a life where things are as simple as picking cherries. (95 mins.) Print courtesy of Holland Film Promotion and Studio Nieuwe Gronden.
Showtimes: 2/18, 7 p.m. and 2/19, 9:15 p.m. MH.

NEW ZEALAND
Topless Women Talk About Their Lives
Harry Sinclair
On a beach in Auckland, a German tourist stops two women. “Is this the beach where they filmed The Piano?” he inquires. So begins Sinclair’s witty, engaging satire that tracks the lives of a group of fumbling twenty-somethings struggling with the chaos of romantic non-commitment, the search for happiness and the turns of everyday insanity. The women on the beach are Liz, pregnant but unsure of who the father might be, and Prue, who is marking time with Geoff who is marking time waiting for Bryony. There is also Ant, a hapless, misogynist screenwriter whose documentary about topless women is so awful that his friends don’t have the heart to tell him. Shot in a spontaneous, vérité style, Sinclair’s winning debut film effectively brings to life the intertwined lives of an ensemble of quirky, but true-to-life characters with convincing humor and pathos. Propelled by a soundtrack featuring bands from the cutting-edge Flying Nun record label, this irreverent film, a favorite at festivals worldwide, will drop you into a world you may not have considered visiting before. (89 mins.) Print courtesy of the New Zealand Film Commission.
Showtimes: 2/14, 2 p.m. and 2/16, 9:30 p.m. MH.

NORWAY
Junk Mail
Pal Sletaune
Winner of the Critics’ Week Prize at Cannes, Sletaune’s debut film is the hilarious tale of a loser mailman who becomes embroiled in a world of crime and danger. Roy is a wreck of a love-starved postman, ruled by curiosity, a mean streak and a mighty ability to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. He has no respect for others’ privacy or property, and he suffers from an acute lack of professional ethics. He steals mail, reads other people’s letters, insults his few friends and lives in a dump of an apartment. Life goes in small circles for Roy and all news is old news. But one day something happens. Line, an attractive deaf woman who lives on his route, forgets her keys in her mailbox. In a heartbeat, Roy goes to her apartment and unlocks the door. As soon as he steps into her world, he has involved himself in something much more dangerous than opening other people’s missives. Junk Mail, which calls to mind the spiritual aesthetic of Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch and the Czech New Wave, is a delirious black comedy about love, living at the margins and wanting somehow to move to the center. (83 mins.) Print courtesy of Cinepix Film Properties.
Showtimes: 2/14, 7 p.m. MH and 2/15, 5 p.m GU.

The Other Side of Sunday
Ramin Niami
The year is 1959. Maria (Marie Theisen), the conservative vicar’s eldest daughter, figures by the time of her impending confirmation she will have spent 640 hours sitting in church. Maria longs for another life. She doesn’t want communion or the blood of Christ; she wants to drink Coke, smoke, have her breasts point upward, wear lipstick and hang out with her friends at the local dance hall, “the den of sin” as her father calls it. Maria’s confidant is Mrs. Tunheim, who works in the church but is experiencing a quiet rebellion of her own. Unlike the other church wives, Mrs. Tunheim is prepared to acknowledge Maria is becoming a woman and counsels her to be true to her feelings even though the cost may be more than she expects. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film last year, The Other Side of Sunday is a warm and humorous film about growing up at a time when almost everything one desired was forbidden. (103 mins.) Print courtesy of First Look Pictures. Selected Filmography: Frida—Straight from the Heart (91), Beyond the Sky (94).
Showtimes: 2/26, 9:15 p.m. and 2/28, 7 p.m. FC.

POLAND
Love Stories
Jerzy Stuhr
Love Stories, is dedicated to
the memory of Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, was written, directed by and stars one of the late director’s favorite repertory players. Love, both bitter and sweet, is explored in four comedic variations on the eternal human mystery. A different 45-year-old man (each played by Stuhr) is the protagonist in each story, all tales of last love. In one, a priest finds he is the father of a teenage girl. Will his filial obligations take precedence over his spiritual ones? In another, a student pledges her love to a teacher. More embarrassed than willing, he rejects her and unwittingly plays a part in her expulsion from school. In the third and fourth stories respectively, a soldier encounters an old love and a criminal is betrayed by his lover. Stuhr’s poetic film is a wonderfully written and performed morality play about those difficult moments when love comes to town...and when it leaves. This year’s Polish submission for Best Foreign Film Oscar and winner of the International Critics’ Prize, Venice Film Festival. (87 mins.) Print courtesy of Film Polski.
Showtimes: 2/24, 7 p.m. and 2/25, 9:30 p.m. GU.

RUSSIA
Brother
Alexei Balabanov
This slick, sardonic thriller depicts Russia’s post-Communist corruption and Americanization, showing the new Russia as a place where people carry guns, do drugs, listen to Western music and rendezvous at McDonalds. Danila (Sergei Bodrov Jr., star of his father’s Prisoner of the Mountains) has just completed two years of military service during which time he was confined to a dull desk job. He looks up his brother Viktor, a supposedly successful businessman in St. Petersburg but actually a contract killer involved in Mafia warfare. Soon, Danila joins Viktor and is assigned the task of killing a big league mobster. In between run-ins with the mob and conflicts with Viktor, Danila, who is never without his prized Discman, cruises record stores and nightclubs while romancing Sveta, a tram driver, then Kat, a druggie. Violent, nihilistic, stylish and very contemporary, Brother is a searing portrait of a deteriorating world where it is every man for himself. (96 mins.) Print courtesy of Gorky Film Studio. Selected Filmography: Happy Days (91), The Castle (94).
Showtimes: 2/20, 9:30 p.m. and 2/21, 7 p.m. MH.

SENEGAL
Tableau Ferraille
Moussa Sene Absa
Set in a fictional present-day, Tableau Ferraille realistically portrays post-colonial exploitation and corruption, and the conflicts between modernization and ingrained cultural traditions in contemporary Senegal. Daam (music superstar Ismael Lo), a young government official, European educated and politically naive, is just back from his studies and eager to help his people. He runs for election in Tableau Ferraille, a village near Dakar, and marries Gagnesiri, the village beauty. When she is unable to bear children, an indispensable need for an upwardly mobile professional, Daam takes a second wife, Kine, who delivers a child but not much loyalty. As his career takes off, Kine engineers a lucrative business deal behind Daam’s back and eventually he takes the fall. Recounted in flashback by Gagnesiri as she prepares for her departure from the village to start a new life, the bitter, often painfully sad events surrounding Daam’s rise and fall unfold. Bouyed by many light, humorous touches, the beautiful setting on the Senegalese coast and the film’s warm, rhythmic music, Tableau Ferraille offers a keen look at modern Africa. (100 mins.) Print courtesy of California Newsreel. Selected Filmography: Yall Yanna (95), Twisting Popinguine (94).
Showtimes: 2/16, 7 p.m. and 2/18, 9 p.m. GU.
Co-sponsored by the Cascade Festival of African Films.

SPAIN
Live Flesh
Pedro Almodovar
Following the success of The Flower of My Secret (Closing Night Film, PIFF 19), Almodovar has adapted a Ruth Rendell novel into a story of deadly treachery in Madrid. After opening in 1970 during the dark days of the Franco regime, we flash forward to a vibrant present—still haunted by the past. Here Almodovar sets his most glittering drama, a noir involving the tangled relationships of two policemen (Javier Bardem and Pepe Sancho), a philandering wife (Angela Molina), an Italian diplomat’s daughter (Francesca Neri) and Almodovar’s obsessed, wide-eyed protagonist (Liberto Rabal). While the surface sparkles with sexy humor and visual panache, underneath we sense Almodovar’s attraction to the Buñuelian issues of death, destiny and guilt. “This is the most disquieting film I have made. It is not a thriller, nor a cop film, though there are policemen and guilty men who are innocent. It is not a twilight Western either. It isn’t an erotic film either though there is some sex, and the story takes place in the field bare of carnal desire.”—Pedro Almodovar. (100 mins.) Print courtesy of Goldwyn Films and MGM/UA. Selected Filmography: Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (88), High Heels (91), Kika (93), Flower of My Secret (96).
Showtime: 2/12, 9:30 p.m. FC.
Opening Night Admission: $20.

SWEDEN
Christmas Oratorio
Kjelle-Ake Andersson
A gripping family saga that begins in the 1930s and ripples through three generations, Christmas Oratorio is a triumphant celebration of the heart. Solveig’s dream is to play Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio” at her small church in the heart of Varmland. On a gorgeous summer day, Solveig bicycles off to rehearsal, has an accident on the way and dies. For the moment, the music dies with her. Her husband Aron and her son Sidner are disconsolate. As time passes, Aron finds unusual salvation with Tessa who lives half a world away in New Zealand and Sidner, after years lost in grief, finally finds peace with Fanny with whom he has a son, Victor. The years continue until one beautiful autumn day Victor manages to carry out his grandmother’s dream. Winner of the Swedish Film Critics’ Film of the Year Award, Andersson’s film, adapted from a novel by Goran Tunstrom, celebrates life’s perpetual cycle of tragedy and happiness. (124 mins.) Print courtesy Swedish Film Institute. Selected Filmography: Friends (89), My Great Big Daddy (92).
Showtimes: 2/15, 7:30 p.m. and 2/19, 9 p.m. FC.

Private Confessions
Liv Ullmann
One of the world’s most acclaimed filmmakers and screenwriters, Ingmar Bergman resumes his dialogue with the past in this partly autobiographical, partly invented story of a marriage. Under Ullmann’s direction, five segments, or “conversations,” take place over a 25-year period. Presented in non-chronological order, these conversations gradually reveal—and redefine—Anna Bergman’s (Pernilla August) longtime friendship with priest Jacob (Max Von Sydow), her hedonistic affair with trainee priest Thomas, and the emotional consequences of this illicit affair on Anna and her husband Henrik (Samuel Froler). Ullmann, who has appeared in nine Bergman films, deftly illuminates Bergman’s incisive psychological screenplay, emerging with a worthy addition to the long tradition of works charting the dynamic frictions between men and women found in Scandinavian literature and cinema. Sven Nykvist’s cinematography captures the moral universe of 1920s and ’30s life with its own exquisite clarity. (131 mins.) Print courtesy of The Sales Company.
Showtimes: 2/22, 7:30 p.m. FC and 2/24, 9 p.m. GU.

TURKEY
Journey on a Clock Hand
Omer Kavur
“A double winner for best film
and best direction at the Istanbul Film Festival, Journey on a Clock Hand, an existential mystery tale about a clock maker who arrives in a village where time has stopped, has a jewel-like perfection. Kerem is an ordinary fellow whose job is a variation on the traveling salesman. He wanders from town to town looking for clocks to mend. When a stranger hands him a key to a mysterious clock tower, he heads off to repair it. Esra, the owner, is a dark lady who spends her time weaving cloth on a loom and mourning her dead daughter. She seduces the enamored clock maker, ignoring the brooding suspicions of her husband. Strange things start happening to Kerem and he discovers there was a previous mender who had a similar affair and mysteriously disappeared. Viewers breath a sigh of relief when Esra’s jealous husband puts Kerem on a train heading out of town, but the woman fatefully draws him back to his destiny. The plot could be a Patricia Highsmith mystery, except for Kavur’s disinterest in conventional psychology and his preoccupation with symbols and archetypes.”—Deborah Young, Variety. (119 mins.) Print courtesy of Alfa Film.
Showtimes: 2/24, 7 p.m. and 2/25, 9:15 p.m. MH.

Somersault in a Coffin
Dervis Zaim
Winner of the national award
for best film in Turkey this year, Zaim’s first feature mixes hard-edge drama with dark comedy to portray the bleak life of Mahun, an unemployed man who wanders the streets of Rumelihisar, one of Istanbul’s oldest quarters. His barren, empty life consists of stealing cars to sleep in and catching birds for food. He’d get himself arrested, but the police already know his scams and would rather just beat him up occasionally. Yet despite the impossible odds, he survives, he persists, he somersaults in the coffin that is Istanbul—a city of great beauty and equal cruelty. “This unflinching yet compassionate examination of Istanbul’s underside is directed with assurance and features a wonderful performance from Turkish stage veteran Ahment Ugurlu. Violent, funny and poignant, it manages to be both appealing and unsettling.”—Deborah Young, Variety. (76 mins.) Print courtesy IFR Istisnai Filmler.
Showtimes: 2/14, 2 p.m. GU and 2/17, 7 p.m. MH.

USA
Best Man: ‘Best Boy’ and All of Us Twenty Years Later
Ira Wohl
Twenty years ago, Ira Wohl introduced his cousin Philly to the world in Best Boy, a pioneering work of first-person cinema that went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. At that time, the 52-year-old Philly, mentally retarded and dependent on his aging parents, was making the brave transition to a group home. Now as Philly moves into his early 70s, Wohl returns to this pivotal member of his family, who has his own special way of connecting to people, and follows him through a new range of life passages as he attends classes and takes pleasure in new experiences, like his upcoming bar mitzvah. As Wohl says, Best Man “...is not just a film about family values, but a film about the value of family.” As affectionate and moving as its predecessor, Best Man is a triumphant return to a very special subject. (90 mins.) Print courtesy Only Child
Motion Pictures.
Showtimes: 2/21, 4:15 p.m. and 2/22, noon FC.

The Gold Rush
Charles Chaplin
The film for which Chaplin most wanted to be remembered deals with basic human needs: love, friendship, hunger, money and pride. Inspired by the tragic and macabre story of the Donner pioneers driven by hunger to eating shoelaces and eventually fellow men, the film provides some of the classic moments of screen history. This simple story of the tramp, the “Lone Prospector” in Alaska, trying to win the affection of the beautiful dance hall girl (Georgina Hale) while battling the cruelty of nature and man, is enriched by Chaplin’s unparalled comedy set pieces including the famous chicken transformation scene, the banquet of the boots and the “Fatty” Arbuckle-inspired dance of the fools. (1925, 82 mins.) Preceded by The Tramp (1915, 18 mins.), Chaplin’s first masterpiece made by the Chicago-based Essanay Company. Both films will be presented with live piano accompaniment by Los Angeles pianist and composer Robert Israel whose musical performance highlighted last year’s Festival screening of Richard III.
Showtime: 2/22, 2:30 p.m. FC.
Sponsored by the United States Postal Service.

Life During Wartime
Evan Dunsky
Set in contemporary Los Angeles, Dunsky’s very funny noir comedy surveys the battlefield in the home security business where the rush to capitalize on the neurotic need for security has superstar salesmen locked in frenzy. Tommy (David Arquette), a promising salesman, and his glib boss Heinrich (Stanley Tucci) are making headway in the burglar alarm business. When Tommy falls in love with one of his customers, Gale (Kate Capshaw), he’s perhaps not fully tuned into the fact that his partner has concocted a scheme—staging break-ins—to boost sales. But when a murder takes place, Tommy soon realizes things are out of control. In revealing a culture’s ironic obsession with protecting material possessions while leaving individual lives and values unsecured, Life During Wartime scores a direct hit with its alarming accuracy in portraying people who are happier locked inside their cars and houses than they are being with other people. (92 mins.) Print courtesy of Columbia TriStar.
Showtimes: 2/27, 7:15 p.m. and 3/1, 4:45 p.m. FC.

A Price above Rubies
Boaz Yakin
A story of awakening set in the world of the Hasidim, Yakin’s second feature follows Sonia (Rene Zellweger, The Whole Wide World, Jerry McGuire), a Hasidic woman who has become what she was destined to be: the inward-looking wife of a rabbinical scholar. In many ways insulated from the outside world, her life is in store for changes when offered a job running a jewelry business. The position puts her in contact not only with new people, ideas and opportunities, but also with newly found passions. As Sonia explores these new horizons, the mores, values and practices of her religion take on their own force. As the contradictions of life under orthodoxy come into focus, Sonia must come to terms with the inevitable collisions between morality, love, freedom and her desires. (120 mins.) Print courtesy of Miramax Films. Selected Filmography: Fresh (95).
Showtimes: 2/13, 9:30 p.m. FC and 2/14, 4:15 p.m. GU.

Two Girls and a Guy
James Toback
Two young women (Heather Graham and Natasha Gregson Wagner) stand in the doorway of a building in New York City. Both are waiting to surprise their boyfriend of ten months, an actor (Robert Downey, Jr.) who is flying back home from Europe. Neither knows they are waiting for the same guy until they discover it during conversation. Their shocked suprise gives way to joint wrath: they break into his loft and wait for the “lying, mugging, misogynistic, unemployable, short, loft-inheriting piece of shit fraud.” In a wonderful, sharply written comedy that attacks the troublesome trio of fidelity, sexuality and honesty, Downey and company deliver bravura performances as they come to terms with their attitudes, behaviors and, most of all, ability to be truthful with themselves and others. (92 mins.) Print courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures. Selected Filmography: Fingers (77), Love and Money (80), Exposed (83), The Big Bang (89).
Showtimes: 2/20, 9:30 p.m. and 2/21, 9:30 p.m. FC.

The Spanish Prisoner
David Mamet
Joe Ross (Campbell Scott), a young employee of a mysterious company, has developed a ground-breaking, equally mysterious technology called “The Process.” Joe’s boss, Klein (Ben Gazzara), has arranged for him to present it at an important board meeting in the Caribbean, and hints that Joe will not be forgotten financially when the profits roll in. On the island, Joe meets the smooth and intriguing Jimmy Dell (a menacing Steve Martin) with whom he develops a friendship that continues when they all return to New York. Jimmy appears to be everything Joe is not—rich, powerful and charismatic—and when Joe decides he’s never going to be paid by his company, he is all too pleased to let Jimmy become his strategist. By this time Joe is already in far deeper water than he could ever imagine and soon finds himself hurled headlong into a confusing labyrinth of deception, illusion and intrigue. Full of clever plot twists, terrific performances and dialogue only Mamet can deliver, The Spanish Prisoner recalls The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Usual Suspects as it roller coasters towards its daring conclusion. (112 mins.) Print courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Selected Filmography: House of Games (87), Things Change (88), Homicide (91), Oleanna (94). Screenwriter: The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Verdict, The Untouchables, Hoffa, The Edge, Wag the Dog.
Showtime: 3/1, 7:30 p.m. FC.
Closing Night Admission: $10.

ESPECIALLY
FOR CHILDREN
Pippi Longstocking
Clive Smith
Fresh from another high seas adventure, Pippi arrives in a small Swedish village and quickly turns everything upside down. The last of Astrid Lindgren’s classic books comes to life in vivid animation that accentuates Pippi’s bright red braids, freckles and stripped legging. (76 mins., Sweden/Canada) Recommended for ages 5 and up. In English.
Showtime: 2/14, noon MH.

Chasing the Kidneystone
Vibeke Idsoe
Magically shrunk to fit inside a human body, Simon embarks on an unusual adventure—and desperate mission—to find the source of his grandfather’s pain and the quickest way to relieve it. (92 mins., Norway) Recommended for ages 7 and up.
Showtime: 2/28, noon FC.

Dancing on the Moon
Kit Hood
A thirteenth summer is a time unlike any other. Madeline feels like she must be from another planet. Maybe it’s because her sister is leaving for college or maybe it’s the arrival of her strange aunt or maybe it’s her childhood friend Freddy. Whatever the reason, this is going to be the summer to grab life and do something magnificent. (92 mins., Canada/Czech Republic) Recommended for ages 9 and up.
Showtime: 2/21, noon MH.

SHORTS
SHORT CUTS I
Showtimes: 2/16, 9 p.m. and 2/19, 7 p.m. FC.
At Sea
Penny Fowler-Smith
A baby boy dies at sea. Many years later his mother still grieves for him, painfully and bitterly. Best Short Prize Sydney Film Festival. (Australia, 10 mins.)

Whacked!
Rolf Gibbs
Frustrated and humiliated, the ball collector at an urban driving range is constantly bombarded by anonymous golfers. (5 mins.)

Quest
Tyron Montgomery
A man of sand goes on a journey in search of the lifeblood of humanity—water. Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and numerous other international awards. (Germany, 12 mins.)

The Spirit of Christmas
Trey Parker and Matt Stone
Jesus and Santa rumble over the meaning of Christmas. Not for the easily offended. (5 mins.)

Anna in the Sky
Mark Edington
Justin turns to the dark arts to win back the fickle Anna. Music by the Pixies. (10 mins.)

Noodles & Nedd
John R. Dilworth
The story of the relationship between a man obsessed with airplanes and his irrepressible cat who insists on flying with him. (8 mins.)

The Film of Her
Bill Morrison
In this found-footage ode, a clerk discovers an ancient film in the Library of Congress. (12 mins.)

Manifestoon
Jessie Drew
Using vintage cartoons, Drew illuminates the fact the more things change the more they remain the same. (8 mins.)

Don’t Run, Johnny
Tom E. Brown
Johnny has AIDS. What to do? (7 mins.)

The Dowager’s Feast
Joan Gratz
Powerful, abstract hand-painted images set to the music of Portland’s Three Leg Torso. (6 mins.)

Never in Your Wildest Dreams
Bill Mather
An Aardman Animation rock promo spoof starring Tina Turner and Barry White. (Britain, 4 mins.)

SHORT CUTS II
Showtimes: 2/21, 2 p.m. and 2/23, 7 p.m. FC.
Canhead
Timothy Hittle
A battle of life and death in a surreal landscape. (5 mins.)

The Ring
Sammy Brunett
Fanny cleverly gets herself a new emerald ring. (Belgium, 8 mins.)

Dinner for Two
Janet Perlman
Two lizards start a tug-of-war over a fly that upsets the whole lily pond. (8 mins.)

Stage Fright
Steve Box
A former dog juggling star of the music hall, made obsolete by the coming of cinema, has to face up to change and move on. Aardman Animation. (Britain, 11 mins.)

Is it the Design on the Wrapper?
Tess Sheridan
The bubble gum lady is plugging a brand of bubble gum guaranteed to blow bubbles, but the little girl has bigger problems to worry about. Winner of the Best Short Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. (7 mins.)

The Devil Went Down to Georgia
Michael Johnson
In this clay animation battle of the bands, Johnny puts his soul on the line in a fiddle-playing contest against the Devil. (4 mins.)

Better Late
Jessica Yu
An elderly man nervously awaits the moment he can propose to his beloved. (8 mins.)

How Wings are Attached to the Backs of Angels
Craig Welch
A surreal and gothic tale of a man obsessed with control and domination who tries to strip angels of their elusive and ethereal qualities. (Canada, 11 mins.)

The Wind Subsides
Vuk Jevremovic
Eternal change from one form to another evokes an intuitive response. (Germany, 5 mins.)

Sabor a Mi
Claudia Morgado Escanilla
In a world of candle-lit shrines and sweet Latin love-songs, two women engage in a voyeuristic pas de deux as they secretly yearn for one another. (Canada/Mexico, 20 mins.)

SHORT CUTS III
Showtimes: 2/26, 7 p.m. and
3/1, noon FC.

Four Minute Festival
Adam Blaiklock
Film festival fever. (Australia, 9 mins.)

Utopia Parkway
Joanna Priestley
Inspired by the mysterious boxes of sculptor Joseph Cornell, objects transform themselves through animated alchemy. (5 mins.)

Dual Balls
Dan Zeff
Selina is a primary school teacher who, frustrated by an interfering headmistress and dominant husband at home, reluctantly agrees to the playful challenge of her best friend. (Britain, 12 mins.)

The Broken Jaw
Chris Shepherd
In an industrial city, the oasis of comfort for its elderly regulars is the Broken Jaw Pub. But even the Broken Jaw must change with the times, much to everyone’s disgust. (Britain, 6-1/2 mins.)

The Rocking Horse Winner
Michael Almereyda
A haunting adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s story about a young boy with the uncanny ability to predict the outcome of horse races. (23 mins.)

Trainspotter
Jeff Newitt and Neville Astley
Where else but in Britain would you actually find train spotters? (Britain, 5 mins.)

The Latest News
Per Carleson
He should be here any minute. She will cook him something tasty. There is a radio in the room. What! Has the news gone interactive? Winner of the Best Short Prize at the Berlin Film Festival. (Sweden, 3 mins.)

DNA
Girgio Valentini
In the quest to create a perfect creature, a genetic engineer concocts a wild and scary being that destroys the earth. History repeats itself centuries later. (Italy, 15 mins.)

Have You Seen Patsy Wayne?
Todd Korgan
Patsy knows in her bones she’s the lost love-child of John Wayne and Patsy Cline. (7 mins.)