Films & Schedules - P

In this quirky road movie about two bickering brothers traveling to Los Angeles, various encounters with local flora, fauna, and inevitable oddballs contribute to the tender, hilarious panorama of these men and their lives.

The setting of this quirky, comic road movie is the greater county of Los Angeles, from the city to the surrounding desert. Along for the ride are two estranged siblings: overbearing older brother Michael (Adam Scott), a failed novelist, and Tobey (Joel Bissonnette), an actor, whom Michael has reluctantly agreed to ferry to various destinations and errands. But it’s Michael’s birthday and this isn’t exactly how he’d planned to celebrate. As events unfold, it becomes clear that the agenda of the trip isn’t what it seemed and issues of trust resurface just when the brothers are forging a new bond. Various mysterious encounters with off-the-radar oddballs prove, in the film’s final moments, to be tightly woven threads in the real, underlying story.

Filmography: Looking For Leonard (02), Who Loves the Sun (06).

Sponsored by Ace Hotel.

85 Minutes    

Interests: Narrative Feature.

Police, Adjective follows a morally conflicted, undercover cop as he stakes out a young boy accused of selling drugs.

Winner of the Jury Prize (Un Certain Regard) and Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the latest film from Porumboiu (12:08 East of Bucharest, PIFF 31) starts out with an absurdly comic police sting operation—one designed to catch a lone high school student in the act of selling drugs. Cristi, the cop assigned to the case, realizes the futility of the mission, but his attempts to convince his bureaucratic superiors are met with contempt, derision, and the reminder that it is not his place to question the letter of the law. But letters and laws are very much on Porumboiu’s mind, as the observational style of the film’s first part gives way to an exhilarating verbal joust between cop and police chief about conscience, personal morality, and the true meaning of the things one sees and how one chooses to describe them. “The truth of my character lies in the small things, in his daily routine and in a certain time of being and reacting.”—Corneliu Porumboiu.

Filmography: 12:08 East of Bucharest (06).

Sponsored by Romanian American Society Portland Iasi Sister City Association.

115 Minutes    

Interests: Oscar Submissions, Narrative Feature, Comedy.

Sentenced to prison at age 19, A Prophet is the story of a seemingly shy and weak boy who slowly rises in the ranks of the prison’s reigning Corsican gang, all the while secretly devising his own plans.

Frenchman Malik El Djebena, part Arab, part Corsican, is condemned to six years in prison. Arriving at the jail entirely alone, he appears younger and more fragile than the other convicts. He is 19 years old and cannot read or write. Cornered by the leader of the Corsican gang currently ruling the prison, he is given a number of “missions” to carry out, which toughen him up and gain the gang leader’s confidence in the process. Malik is a fast learner and rises up the prison ranks, all the while secretly devising his own plans. “Audiard’s rich thriller is elegantly structured, arresting in its detailing of a little-known subculture, filled with fascinating characters, and gripping from beginning to end.”—Film Comment.

Selected Filmography: A Self-Made Hero (96), The Beat That My Heart Skipped (04).

Winner, Grand Jury Prize, Cannes Film Festival, and this year’s French submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Co-sponsored by Alliance Française de Portland and TV5MONDE, and with support from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

150 Minutes    

Interests: Oscar Submissions, Narrative Feature, French Language.

Set in Nazi-occupied Prague, Protector focuses on the fraying marriage of a radio personality and his Jewish wife. The film asks many questions about love and morality, most importantly, "Who would you betray to save the one you love?"

Set in Nazi-occupied Prague in the late 1930s, Protector is a stylish drama focusing on the marriage of radio journalist Emil (Marek Daniel) and his Jewish wife Hana (Jana Plodková), a famous film star forced to give up her career. While she must lay low, Emil seizes a chance for his own advancement and becomes the official mouthpiece of the Reich. While his position offers a measure of protection to Hana in an increasingly dangerous anti-semitic environment, there is a price to be paid. Their fraying relationship reaches a crisis point after the famed assassination of SS Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, for which Emil becomes a suspect. In Protector, writer/director Najbrt observes a couple suddenly divided along wartime lines to pose the question, “Who would you betray to save the one you love?”

Filmography: Champions (84), Invention of Beauty (94).

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

98 Minutes    

Interests: Oscar Submissions, Narrative Feature, Jewish.