Films & Schedules - Thursday, February 25, 2010

Eugenio Polgovsky’s remarkable documentary is a day-by-day study of the lives of several groups of child laborers in rural Mexico.

Polgovsky’s poetic The Inheritors, which he wrote, directed, and edited, immerses us in the daily lives of children who, along with their families, survive only by their unrelenting labor. Polgovsky (Tropic of Cancer, PIFF 29) documents reality in rural Northern Mexico in a way that captures the people’s dignity and humanity as they work long hours, in often hazardous conditions, picking tomatoes, peppers, corn, and beans. The film observes them in other labor routines, such as producing earthen bricks, cutting cane, gathering firewood, ox-plowing fields, and planting by hand, as well as in their artistic endeavors, such as carving wooden figures and weaving baskets to sell. The indelible impression: from the frailest elders to the smallest of toddlers, the cycle of poverty continues.

Filmography: Tropic of Cancer (04).

Best Documentary, Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences.

Sponsored by the Consulate of Mexico.

90 Minutes     Digital    

Interests: Documentary Views, Global Classroom, Spanish Language, Latino.

A program of experimental films presented by Cinema Project and the Northwest Film Center.

A program of experimental films presented by Cinema Project and the Northwest Film Center.

80 Minutes    

Interests: Short Cuts.

---

LUMPHINI 2552

DIRECTOR: Tomonari Nishikawa - (United States/Japan)

Black-and-white images of plants and trees taken with a 35mm still camera at Bangkok’s Lumphini Park construct an emotional rhythm and illusion of movement of beautiful defamiliarization.

3 Minutes    

---

SHINONOME OMOGO ISHIZUCHI

DIRECTOR: Shiho Kano - (Japan)

A travelogue of images inspired by filmmaker Mansaku Itami, including visits to Shinonome Shrine, Omogo Valley, and Ishizuchi Mountain in Ehime, Japan.

15 Minutes    

---

BLOCK B

DIRECTOR: Chris Chong Chan Fui - (Malaysia)

A stationary camera looks from one apartment block in a Kuala Lumpur neighborhood directly onto another. As a modernist interchange of private and public space, Block B attempts to grasp the scope and use of monolithic architecture.

20 Minutes    

---

TREES OF SYNTAX, LEAVES OF AXIS

DIRECTOR: Daïchi Saïto - (Canada/Japan)

Accompanied by the contrapuntal violin of Malcolm Goldstein, Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis examines the natural language of a familiar landscape: the formations of maple trees and the spaces they inhabit as poetic expressions of visual and aural patterns.

10 Minutes    

---

EMPIRE BORDERS

DIRECTOR: Chen Chieh Jen - (Taiwan)

Chen Chieh Jen explores the various and sundry checks that Taiwanese citizens must endure when applying for a U.S. visa and how the “empire” employs every means to maintain an imperialist control.

27 Minutes    

Father and son gangsters freshly released from prison must keep their criminal enterprise afloat while trying to figure out who ratted them out. Was it Bill's wife or their despised family "friend"? Anyone is a suspect in this blackly comic piece of criminal realism.

Ken Loach meets “The Sopranos” might characterize this darkly comic and sometimes disturbing slice of social surrealism in which a family of dysfunctional crooks tries to keep their criminal enterprise from falling apart. As soon as Bill (Bob Hill) and his son Karl (Rob Hill) are released from jail, they try to figure out who ratted them out to the police. Bill’s partner (Julia Deakin) seems like your average housewife, but there’s something about her that suggests she may have had a hand in it. It soon becomes evident that this ordinary terraced house is packed to the rafters with gangsters. Among others, we meet a despised family “friend” (Tony Way), a hit man (Michael Smiley) who takes his toddler along on jobs, Karl’s pregnant girlfriend (Kali Peacock), and a nasty piece of work named Eric (David Schaal). Paranoia reigns supreme in this house, where everyone is suspicious of everyone else.

First Feature Film.

Winner of the Best Feature Prize at Fantastic Fest.

89 Minutes     Digital    

Interests: New Directors, Narrative Feature, Comedy.

This quirky tale pits a scamming hustler and his wrestler sidekick against the inhabitants of a small Uruguayan town.

A combination of quirky dark drama and deadpan satire plays out in this stylish tale of a washed-up wrestler and a smooth conman in a sleepy village in South America. “Prince” Orsini, an impresario, arrives in a small town with his protégé, a one-time German wrestling champion named Jacob Van Oppen. Orsini’s scheme is to use Jacob’s status to lure locals into duels with him, promising a large cash sum to anybody who can pin him in three minutes. In reality, the matches are fixed to protect Jacob’s reputation—and Orsini’s income. The pair’s plan is threatened when an opponent is too drunk to wrestle, and femme fatale Adriana, eying the non-existent $1,000 prize, offers up her muscular husband as the replacement opponent. Jacob, nursing sore muscles, a nasty cough, and an even nastier alcohol habit, is in trouble. “Brechner’s ambitious debut is something like a retro The Wrestler by way of the Coen brothers.”—Variety.

First Feature Film.

This year’s Uruguayan submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

110 Minutes    

Interests: New Directors, Oscar Submissions, Narrative Feature, Spanish Language, Latino.

The life and career of opera star Mei Lenfeng is the subject of Chen Kaige's opulent period drama which traces Mei from childhood through his career-threatening refusal to perform during the occupation.

Chen Kaige’s opulent period drama tells the story of Mei Lanfang (1894–1961), a Peking opera singer of such virtuosity that his fame spread worldwide and his admirers included Charlie Chaplin and Sergei Eisenstein, who filmed him. Descended from an acting family, Mei was so popular he soon became a rival to veteran actor Swallow 13, and the two faced off in a musical “duel” from which Mei emerged the victor. His fame spread and in the late 1920s he even performed on Broadway. But when disaster struck with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, Mei’s refusal to sing in public under the occupation proved career threatening. Neatly conveying the fragile social position of opera performers of the early part of the last century, when they were regarded as little better than prostitutes, Chen offers an engaging portrait of Mei’s amazing talent.

Selected Filmography: King of the Children (87), Farewell My Concubine (93), Temptress Moon (96), The Promise (05).

Sponsored by Hotel deLuxe.

147 Minutes    

Interests: Oscar Submissions, Narrative Feature, Asian, History.

Ward No. 6 is the modern update of Chekhov’s tale of a psych-ward doctor turned patient in his own asylum.

A major box office and critical hit in Russia, and this year’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, Ward No. 6 is a bold, modern update of Chekhov’s tale of a psych-ward doctor turned patient in his own asylum. Filming in an actual mental hospital, the directors interview real patients with actors only incidentally wandering in and out of the frame. Used by Chekhov as a metaphor for a man’s disappointment with the promises of science, the story now reconsiders that disappointment as a loss of faith in the nation’s future.

Gornovsky Filmography: Son (04), 20 Cigarettes (07).

Shakhnazarov Filmography: Jazzmen (83), Dreams (93), The Rider Named Death (04).

In May the Film Center will be presenting “Celebrating Chekhov on the Russian Screen."

83 Minutes    

Interests: Oscar Submissions, Narrative Feature.

Heiran and Mahi are in love. He is Afghan, she is Iranian. Her father forbids her to see him, and thus begins a tale of love and prejudice, a modern-day, Middle Eastern Romeo and Juliet.

During the post-Soviet period of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, almost three million Afghans fled across the border into Iran, triggering prejudice and strife among their hosts. Heiran is one such refugee. Mahi, a successful 17-year-old student from a poor family herself, falls in love with Heiran. Her father, however, flies into a violent rage when he learns of their relationship and forbids Mahi to see Heiran. And that is only the beginning of the couple’s problems. When they flee to Tehran together, their hard-won bliss is soon threatened again. Heiran is a timeless tale of star-crossed lovers thrown into turmoil by family differences and cultural circumstances—a modern-day, Middle Eastern Romeo and Juliet.

First Feature Film.

88 Minutes     Digital    

Interests: Narrative Feature, Global Classroom, Middle Eastern.

Strongman is a moving story of determination and heart in the face of the hard facts of life.

South Brunswick, New Jersey, is home to Stanley “Stanless Steel” Pleskun, the self-proclaimed “Strongest Man in the World at Bending Steel and Metal.” He can leg-press two-ton trucks, bend pennies with his fingers, and perform many other homemade acts of extreme strength, concentration, and focus. But Stan, now middle-aged, needs a plan, for as Levy’s affectionate portrait reveals, success—in both his professional and personal life—takes another kind of strength and savvy. Filmed over the course of several years as Stan struggles to be taken more seriously than a kids’ birthday party attraction, maintain his rocky relationship with his girlfriend, and stay on the bright side, the one thing that can’t weaken is attitude. The winner of the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature at the Slamdance Film Festival, Strongman is a moving story of determination and heart in the face of the hard facts of life.

First Feature Film.

Sponsored by Bingo Lewis.

113 Minutes    

Interests: Documentary Views.