Films & Schedules - L

A revelatory documentary exploring the vision of I.M. Pei, the distinguished 90-year-old Chinese-American architect as he works on his latest commission, the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, one of the most complex building projects of his long career.

One of the most distinguished architects of our time, I.M. Pei has spent his storied career creating designs for some of the world’s most treasured structures, including Paris’s Pyramide du Louvre and The National Gallery in Washington D.C. Learning From Light chronicles Pei’s adventure through a recent and historically monumental challenge: his commission to design the Museum of Islamic Art for Doha, Qatar. Traveling the Islamic world from Spain to Cairo, the 90-year-old modernist architect embarked on a journey of discovery to research the culture, history, and landscape that would inform the project. Pei searched for inspiration in the ancient origins of desert architecture and translated his findings into one of the most complex building projects of his career.

Filmography: Alan and Namoi (92), The Haunted Desert (01), The Work and the Glory (06).

Sponsored by The Nines.

84 Minutes     Digital    

Interests: Documentary Views, Global Classroom.

The Letter for the King follows the medieval quest of sixteen-year old Tiuri, who risks his future as a knight to fulfill a promise, and in so doing discovers adventure, honor, valor, and love.

Based on the story by Tonke Dragt, The Letter for the King brings one of the most popular young-adult books in Dutch history vividly to life in this knights-on-horseback adventure. Sixteen-year-old Tiuri sets out on a dangerous journey marked by sword-clanging battles and unexpected help from a beautiful princess. On the eve of becoming a knight, he must sacrifice his own dreams when he promises a dying messenger that he will deliver an extremely important letter to the King. Join Tuiri on his perilous, life-changing journey through mountain, forest, and valley where not only lives but also kingdoms hang in the balance.

Selected Filmography: Mark of the Beast (80), The Dream (85), Nynke (01).

Ages nine and up.

Sponsored by French American International School.

108 Minutes    

Interests: Narrative Feature, Family Fare, Literature.

When Leila is pardoned after serving 12 years of a life sentence, she agrees to work as an assistant to Father Jacob, answering the letters of those who write asking for his help. Although she regards the pastor’s correspondence as pointless, the letters ultimately play a role in her redemption.

A simple but transcendent story about faith and human frailty, Letters to Father Jacob achieves a state of grace. Surprised when she is pardoned 12 years into a life sentence, hard-bitten killer Leila (Kaarina Hazard) takes the prison warden’s suggestion and winds up at the ramshackle rural parsonage of Father Jacob. The blind elderly man needs an assistant to pursue his main joy in life: answering the letters of those who write to ask for his help. Although Leila regards the pastor’s correspondence as pointless, it ultimately plays a role in her own redemption and heart-rending self-forgiveness.

Filmography: As If I Didn’t Exist (02), Mother of Mine (05), The New Man (07).

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

85 Minutes    

Interests: Oscar Submissions, Narrative Feature.

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.

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.

Christine, a crippled skeptic, joins a pilgrimage to Lourdes in an effort to reconnect with society. When she is apparently healed and the media gets hold of the story, Hausner's film becomes a sensitive, satirical look at faith and doubt.

Christine (Sylvie Testud), confined to a wheelchair, is isolated and socially awkward. Desperate to engage with the world around her, she joins a religious group journeying to Lourdes, the iconic Christian shrine in the Pyrenees mountains. Skeptic though she is, Christine needs companionship, and, like the others, hopes for a miraculous cure from the grotto’s healing waters. When she wakes up one morning seemingly cured by a miracle, surprising attention comes her way. “Always treading a fine line between sorrow and satire, Hausner’s cool depiction wavers between a critique of religion and a story of redemption. Christine’s pilgrimage is perplexing and wonderful in its misguided search. She will discover that the most important part of the journey is to believe in something, whether basic human kindness or divine intervention.”—Cinematheque Ontario.

Filmography: Lovely Rita (01), Hotel (04).

In French with English subtitles.

Sponsored by Austrian Consulate General, Los Angeles.

99 Minutes    

Interests: Narrative Feature, French Language.