Films & Schedules - Saturday, February 27, 2010

The Misfortunates examines the unconventional adolescence of thirteen year old Gunther and his dysfunctional family. A bawdy film full of pathos and humor that ponders what it takes to raise a child.

Thirteen-year-old Gunther represents the youngest generation of a line of proud, hard-drinking Strobbe men. Told in flashback from Gunther’s perspective as an unsuccessful writer in his early thirties, van Groeningen’s black comedy ruminates over Gunther’s ribald, chaotic adolescence under the “guidance” of three bawdy uncles, an ever-boozing dad, one put-upon grandmother, and unbounded collective dysfunction. Adapted from an acclaimed novel by Dimitri Verhulst and directed with deftness and verve by van Groeningen, The Misfortunates combines equal amounts of heart, soul, and pathos as it ponders whether, in the absence of other virtues, love is enough to raise a child. “Blackout drinking, compulsive gambling, non-stop whoring, and chronic fighting. Not exactly solid citizen types.”—Hollywood Reporter.

Filmography: Steve + Sky (04), With Friends Like These (07).

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

108 Minutes    

Interests: Oscar Submissions, Narrative Feature, Comedy.

Urszula Antoniak's Nothing Personal is the intensely personal and engrossing tale of a ferociously independent young woman's involvement with a kind widower in a remote part of Ireland.

Antoniak’s Nothing Personal is an intense, engrossing tale centering on a ferociously independent young Dutch woman’s relationship with a kindly widower in rural Ireland. A vagabond by choice, Anne (Lotte Verbeek) walks the country enjoying her solitude in the austerely beautiful landscape of Connemara. Martin (Stephen Rea) is a man in his prime, living a solitary life in a remote house on a beautiful island. She is radical and uncompromising. He is wise and ironic. What connects them is the exile they both see as freedom. He proposes she work for him in exchange for food. She agrees on one condition: that there will be no personal contact between them. Who will be the first one to break the vow?

First Feature Film.

Antoniak won the award for Best First Film, and Verbeek the Silver Leopard for Best Actress, at the Locarno International Film Festival.

Sponsored by Higgins.

85 Minutes    

92 Minutes    

Interests: Short Cuts.

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WHATEVER TURNS YOU ON

DIRECTOR: Declan Cassidy - (Ireland)

The well-ordered running of an electronics store is disrupted when a homeless man arrives to make a purchase.

4 Minutes    

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TEN FOR GRANDPA

DIRECTOR: Doug Karr - (Canada/United States)

Was Grandpa a manipulative antihero or simply a victim of the McCarthy-era witch hunt?

7 Minutes    

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THIS IS HER

DIRECTOR: Katie Wolfe - (New Zealand)

“This is me. This is my husband. And this is the bitch who will one day steal him and ruin my life.”

12 Minutes    

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THIS WAY UP

DIRECTOR: Adam Foulkes - (Great Britain)

Laying the dead to rest has never been so much trouble.

9 Minutes    

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NETHERLAND DWARF

DIRECTOR: David Michôd - (Australia)

Harry really wants a rabbit; Harry’s dad really wants his wife back. They’ve both forgotten that they already have each other.

15 Minutes    

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SHORT TERM 12

DIRECTOR: Destin Daniel Cretton - (United States)

Denim, the supervisor for a residential facility housing 15 kids affected by child abuse, begins to realize that, in a lot of ways, he is no different from the children he tries to help.

22 Minutes    

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THE DINNER

DIRECTOR: Karchi Perlmann - (Hungary)

A day in the life of a small rural Hungarian family during the riots of September 2006. “A stewed-up existential, cultural and political pot of goulash.”

23 Minutes    

Videocracy offers a look at the media empire of Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and how his reality TV shows beguiled a nation.

A jolly, Mussolini-loving agent, an aspiring martial artist/singer, a paparazzi wrangler-cum-outlaw, and Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister of Italy, are just a few of the outlandish personalities in this documentary that explores the mad world of Italian television. In a country obsessed with game shows and reality television, whose leader owns a controlling stake in much of its media, what sort of life is worth living and what sort of example is worth following? Videocracy quietly asks these questions while casually observing its subjects go to auditions, attend lavish parties, and get thrown into jail, yielding jaw-dropping answers.

Filmography: Sacrifiico: Who Betrayed Che Guevara? (01), Gitmo—The New Rules of War (05).

In English and Italian.

Sponsored by Nel Centro.

80 Minutes     Digital    

Interests: Documentary Views.

Love, identity, and role-playing games all come together in this meshing of myth and reality. A man enters a LARP (Live Action Role Playing) game to find his girlfriend, who has left him for the game. His refusal to role-play angers the dedicated players and sets fantasy and reality on a collision course, capturing the potentially dangerous intersection of actual and made-up worlds.

In a dark forest, a battle is brewing between the power-hungry Celts, the rampaging Vikings, the secretive wood elves, and a mysterious shaman who is about to unleash his latest fiendish scheme. Clever, funny, and intense, The Wild Hunt is set in the fantasy-reality of a large role-playing game, and the plot mirrors the legend behind the game. Erik goes looking for his girlfriend, Evelyn, who has left him for the game. He will need the help of his brother Bjorn, who happens to be the Viking leader and owner of Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir. Erik’s entry into the game angers the dedicated players when he refuses to role-play, setting fantasy and reality on a collision course. Capturing the potentially dangerous intersection of actual and made-up worlds, Franchi’s film is a timely, potent comment on the modern yearning for ritual and the consuming nature of adopting another identity.

First Feature Film.

Best Canadian First Feature Film, Toronto International Film Festival.

96 Minutes    

Interests: New Directors, Narrative Feature.

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.

Hong Sang-soo's latest wry, comic bulletin from the sex-war centers on a middle-aged man who encounters two married women—and has two very different experiences.

Celebrated art film director Ku Kyung-Nam, invited to a small Korean film festival, runs into old colleague Bu. Invited to dinner, Ku gets drunk, carries on with Bu’s wife, and enrages his friend. A couple of weeks later, Ku meets one of his ex-students, now a famous artist who is surprisingly married to a woman Ku once dated and rejected—a small fact unrevealed to his former student. Ku’s two very different encounters with two very different married women provide a wry, wincing examination of sexual confusion as the oblivious Ku propels himself from one embarrassing situation to another. In true Woody Allen fashion, Sang-soo’s alter-ego offers a comedic take on the pretensions of the world of indy film and filmmakers while deconstructing the paradoxes, ironies, and existential angst of male vanity and insecurity.

Selected Filmography: The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (96), Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (00), Woman Is the Future of Man (04), Woman on the Beach (06).

Sponsored by Oregon Korea Foundation.

126 Minutes    

Interests: Narrative Feature, Asian, Comedy.

A shocking crime brings together a frightened girl and a battle-hardened cop in this drama from writer and director Ryoichi Kimizuka.

When two children are found murdered, an 18-year-old high school student becomes the prime suspect and the case quickly becomes a media sensation. As both the press and an angry public descend on the home of the accused, the family finds itself at the mercy of strangers. A veteran police detective is assigned to look after Saori, the 15-year-old sister of the accused. While he initially regards the assignment as frivolous, it isn’t long before he sees what kind of toll the attention has taken on the family. When the detective feels Saori is no longer safe in Tokyo, he takes her to the country to escape, but they soon discover that no place is safe from the prying eyes of the tabloid press and the people who read it.

Filmography: The Suspect: Muroi Shinji (05).

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

118 Minutes    

Interests: Oscar Submissions, Narrative Feature.

Oskar is a devoted family man who, on a whim, decides to cheat on his wife. Thus begins a downward spiral of comedic tragedy that finds him out of a job and in a series of loveless, problematic affairs.

Oskar (Jirí Machácek) is a devoted father, beloved husband, and popular television weatherman. He seems to have it all, but decides that he has fallen out of love with wife Zuzana—mainly because her nose is too big. Oskar cheats on her with the family’s dim Hungarian nanny, his first step on a downward spiral that finds him out of a job and in a series of loveless, problematic affairs. Whatever mid-life quest Oskar is on is not yielding any satisfaction. In the meantime, Zuzana has no problem finding a new partner in divorced single father Matej, aided in no small part by Oskar’s parents. Matej likes her nose just fine. Full of fine details and subtle wit, Hrebejk’s “unromantic” ensemble comedy film skirts tragedy for farce as it explores the mysteries of the male psyche and the tensions between change and stability in a society that manifests both at the same time.

Selected Filmography: Divided We Fall (00), Pupendo (03), Up and Down (04), Beauty in Trouble (06), Teddy Bear (07).

88 Minutes    

Interests: Narrative Feature, Comedy.

Loach makes an unexpected leap into romantic comedy in this tale of a lovelorn mailman who receives some unexpected life coaching from Manchester United star Eric Cardona.

Loach and longtime screenwriter/collaborator Paul Laverty shift from their more despondent social-realist meditations to this fanciful romantic comedy, a whimsical, life-affirming nod to the possibility of second chances. Postman Eric Bishop has hit a true low: his two lazy stepsons ignore him, his second marriage is in ruins, a car accident lands him in the hospital—and that’s just the start of his troubles. The lovelorn Eric meanwhile pines for former wife Lily but lacks the confidence to reconnect. While his friends contrive to help him out, often to hilarious effect, the person who finally comes through is another Eric: Manchester United soccer icon Eric Cantona (playing himself), who appears rather unexpectedly in Bishop’s bedroom, offering the sage advice on life and love that Eric needs to turn his life around.

Selected Filmography: Kes (69), Riff-Raff (80), Raining Stones (93), My Name Is Joe (98), The Wind That Shakes the Barley (06).

116 Minutes    

Interests: Narrative Feature, French Language, Comedy.

The true story of 17-year-old Sicilian Rita Atria who confessed all she knew about the inner workings of the Palermo Mafia after her father and brother were murdered.

Recounting a major turning point in Sicily’s war against organized crime, The Sicilian Girl is an eloquent, gripping crime drama, inspired by the true story of a young girl who broke ranks to testify against the Mafia. On a November morning in 1991, 17-year-old Rita Atria (Veronica D’Agostino) approached the chief prosecutor of Palermo (Gerard Jugnot), intent on vindicating her father and brother’s mafia-related deaths, and ready to tell all. It was the first time that a daughter of a mafia family openly rebelled against the traditionally male-dominated organization. Repudiated and threatened by her boyfriend, her hometown, and even her mother (Lucia Sardo), Rita is forced to leave Sicily and move to Rome—but she knows that her betrayal must be avenged.

Filmography: One Girl Against the Mafia (04).

Cultural Partner: Italian Cultural Institute, San Francisco.

110 Minutes    

Interests: Narrative Feature.

Woman Without Piano is a quietly comic look at a Madrid housewife's attempt to escape from her mundane and tedious existence.

Plain, middle-aged Rosa is a married woman with no friends and no social life. She has devoted her life to her family and doesn’t seem to think much of herself. But when night falls, she enters a fun, dark, and absurd new world. With her husband Francisco tucked in bed, Rosa (Spanish TV superstar Carmen Machi, recently seen in Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces) sneaks out to meet a young Polish construction worker at the bus station, instigating a provocative tour of nocturnal Madrid: neon-lit hotels, all-night bars, and dingy launderettes. Rebollo creates a fascinating, disquieting work in which “anything might happen, and the film—winner of the San Sebastian Film Festival’s Best Director award—holds the viewer in thrall by a chain of extraordinarily staged sequences fueled by a visual command and wit that honors the cinema of Jacques Tati, Otar Iosseliani, and Fellini.”—AFI Fest.

Filmography: Lola (06).

Sponsored by Blue Heron Paper.

95 Minutes    

Interests: Narrative Feature, Spanish Language, Comedy.