Festival films

This is the first episode of 10 Ans/10 Films. Laurent Bouhnik sees the series as both a portrait of our times through ten different characters and as a personal diary to record his impression of this anticipated decade. Madeleine is alone and confused, burdened by her work, her daily routine and the people who surround her. Obsessed with cleanliness, weighed down by a body about which she doesn't know what to do, Madeleine sets out to find her soulmate, a husband to whom she can open her heart. Men begin entering her life. Thomas, a draughtsman, confesses his wrenching desire to have children. She cannot have them. She fantasizes about seducing a cute traveling salesman; he leaves without her uttering more than a few sounds. She resolves to become more proactive, and begins to pursue the salesman, following him to a judo class and to his home, where she has an excruciating dinner with his wife and child. Yet, when all seems lost, Bouhnik suggests an opening for hope.

This Portuguese drama examines the daily life minutiae and intrigues of two scions of society in the rural village where they live. One is a wealthy landowner, the other a widowed aristocrat who lives in a world of her own. "Starting off from a fine novel by Carlos de Oliveira, Fernando Lopes doesn't so mush reconstitute a story, but rather defines an atmosphere parallel to that which exists in the literary work. The erosion of time, the crumbling of an epoch, the decline of a stately home, the disintegration of emotions: the film version of A Bee in the Rain talks about all these things, using a language that is sparse and unpolished, fascinating and at the same time repulsive in its disturbing silence" (Lauro Antonio).

Unified Yugoslavia in the late eighties: Kossovo is a province where nationalist conflict between the Serbs and the Albanians is the order of the day. Two lovers, Nadira, a young Albanian woman, and Miloljub, a Serb worker, will come face to face with fanaticism and nationalist hate. Their love affair will be broken off violently, and very tragically for Miloljub. While the story of the two star-crossed lovers is the focal point of everybody's attention, a filmmaker watches and records the sequence of events. The developments of his own love life and the pressure by his producers to have a film made about Nadira and Miloljub, will lead the filmmaker-character to make some important decisions.

Albert Cohen, a famous Israeli Byzantine scholar, flies to Bulgaria for a symposium, where he runs into Araxi Vartanian, an Armenian piano teacher who was his childhood sweetheart in the days when Bulgarians, Armenians, Turks, Jews, Greeks and Romanis all lived peacefully side by side, in a poor district of the southern Bulgarian city of Plovdiv, near the Turkish border. In those days, the Orthodox priest Isai, the rabbi Ben David and the mullah Ibrahim Hodja all knew that, ultimately, they prayed to the same God. Their idyllic existence, however, came to an abrupt end with the advent of Communism. The Turks and Gypsies were resettled, the Jews emigrated to Israel, and Araxi's family was arrested while trying to get to Paris. In spite of decades of separation, Albert and Araxi have maintained a small flame for each other, a flame which is rekindled by Albert's visit. But the world of their childhood is long gone; the end of Communism has not brought back the good old days.

1972-73. Things in Portugal weren't what they are now. The story of this film is the story of bygone days, when Portugal was hidden away from the rest of the world; when men were obliged to go to countries many Portuguese people could not even point to on a map. Men changed or died in these lands. Alex was only ten years old, but he remembers, so it is better for him to tell the story. He was orphaned in the seventies. Voice: "Do you remember your father?" Alex: "No". Voice: "Do you remember your mother?" Alex: "No". This is a lie. Today he remembers everything, he remembers the faces very clearly. He misses them, which is probably why he is telling this story.

A young Russian hitman undertakes a job in Greece. He carries it out, but during a routine police check, he's arrested. A female singer, also from Russia, has seen Aliosha leaving the murdered man's office, and she is the main witness against him. However, when she is brought in to identify him, for reasons unknown, she protects him, saying he looks nothing like the hitman. Aliosha's employers become afraid and decide to kill him, while the police, who have never stopped suspecting him, start following him. Will Aliosha manage to elude all the traps set by his employers and the police? And why did this woman he had never met choose not to turn him in? Who will unlock the secret that these two keep?

Direction : Pedro Almodüvar. Screenplay : Pedro Almodüvar. Cinematography : Affonso Beato. Editing : Jose Salcedo.Sound : Miguel Rejas. Sets : Antxon Gomez. Costumes : Jose Marta de Cossio, Bina Daigeler. Music : Alberto Iglesias. Cast: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Pena, Penelope Cruz, Antonia San Juan, Rosa Maria Sarda, Fernando Fernðn Gümez, Toni Canto, Eloy Azorin. Production : El Deseo S.A., Renn Productions, France 2 Cinema, Canal+. 35mm Colouro 100' Manuela lives with her 17-year-old son, Esteban, in Madrid, without ever having told him about his father. At a staging of A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Uma Rojo, Manuela confesses to Esteban that, years ago, his father had played Stanley to her Stella. After the show, Esteban tries to get an autograph from Uma Rojo, but is killed by a passing cab. Manuela donates her son's organs and leaves for Barcelona, in search of Esteban's father. There, she meets Agrado, a prostitute who has had a sex-change operation, as indeed has Esteban's father, who now goes by the name of Lola...

He sat on his favorite bamboo chair, in order to read the last chapters of the novel...

Lester Burnham decides to make a few changes in his rut of a life, changes that are less midlife crisis than adolescence reborn. The freer he gets, the happier he gets, which is even more maddening to his wife, Carolyn, and daughter, Jane, especially when he turns his lustful gaze toward Jane's friend, the sultry Angela. Carolyn responds by focusing her attention on real estate colleague Buddy Kane. Compounding the chaos on Robin Hood Trail is the arrival next door of an equally turbulent family: strict Marine Colonel Fitts, his vacant wife, Barbara, and his distant son, Ricky, who soon develops a fascination with Jane.

Tony is a Greek immigrant who arrives in San Francisco chasing the "other" American dream

An actor decides to put together a theater company, in order to realize his dream of playing Oberon in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. The audition takes place, the actors are selected, and rehearsals begin. Soon, the stage and reality will begin to merge for the young actors. The only one who is indeed living in a dream is the director and protagonist of the play. He will be the last to wake up.

A tender Christmas story about two lonely people, inhabitants of our city...Olga, an elderly woman, has recently lost her spouse and along with him her interest in life. She lives alone, cut off from the rest of her family. Martha, the young granddaughter of Olga's foreign housemaid, is forced by her family to beg at traffic lights. Martha's love and care will give Olga the courage to go on living.

July 1914. The ocean liner "Gloria N." is about to sail from the port of Naples. It will be carrying the ashes of a famous opera singer, to be scattered at sea, according to her wishes. The ship is filled with opera singers, orchestra conductors and musicians who wish to accompany their idol on her final journey. The stench of a rhinoceros, that is travelling in the ship's hold, wafts up on deck. Later on, the animal will be lifted up by ropes onto the bridge, where it will be washed. The ship will pick up Serb refugees from Sarajevo, and when one of them throws a bomb at an Austrian battleship, the "Gloria N." will be bombarded and sunk.

Structured round interviews of the two lovers shot in mock-documentary fashion, we are introduced to the history of their relationship. Both were interested in developing an anonymous, highly sexual rapport, that they describe as being pornographic. They first meet through an ad taken out in a newspaper. We are then taken through the various stages of their love affair: their first, nervous encounter in a cafe, when fantasy is turned into reality; their second meeting, which leads to the sex they were so eagerly anticipating; and on through a variety of subsequent developments. What makes this film special, is the choice Fonteyne has made to concentrate on emotion, thought, reflection and analysis. Initially only interested in the physical, they soon discover what a potent emotional force sex is, and must learn to negotiate its demands and expectations..

Portuguese Africa, 1973. A land mine exploding on the pathway; a patrol lost in the jungle; the death of a soldier; shots ringing out in the night. Involved in a war in which the enemy is never seen, the mud-splattered soldiers methodically carry out their duty, without bitterness or glory, bidding the gentle farewell of a generation to five centuries of Portuguese presence in Africa: a story of war. Portugal, 1985. Raul and Piedade, small farmers from the region of Minho, travel to Lisbon. They meet Alexandre, their second son, and visit Laura, the widow of their first-born killed twelve years before in the war in Africa. The family is reunited, but is merely a shadow of what it once was. That's life, they say. They are not bitter, but accept things as they are and smile. Raul and Piedade return to their home in the north, but Laura and Alexandre have nowhere to go back to: a story of peace.

While directing a film in Montreal, Andrea Richler meets a woman who could have been the central character of the story she is telling. The filmmaker is fascinated by the woman's presence, and she immediately opens her film to the new vision of things that has been offered to her through the chance of this encounter. As for "the woman in the hotel", she spends her days in the city, fleeing from the image of herself she has left behind, fleeing from the image of herself that is being made, perhaps attempting to flee from her own image of herself, and, who knows, from her own life.

A platoon from the Foreign Legion, abandoned and forgotten, somewhere in the gulf of Djibouti. Remnants of a ghost army, playing at war and repairing roads. In Marseilles, the ex-lance-corporal reminisces about happier times: the well-orchestrated life, his men, his beloved troop. But what he misses most of all is his commander: the commander he refused to share with a younger legionnaire.

Jaume is an aging literature professor who discovers he is sick. Confronting death, he decides to leave a will in the form of an essay, based on Llull's The Book of the Friend and the Beloved. His closest friend, Pere, who is also a professor, has a strong aversion to even contemplating death and no interest in reading Jaume's essay. Besides, he has his own problems: his daughter, Alba, informs him and Fanny (his wife), that she is pregnant. Things get complicated when Pere finds out that the father is a brilliant and shady former student of his. Jaume has also given a copy of his essay to David, to whom he is attracted. Pere finds out about their relationship and attempts to save his best friend from David's predatory claws, but meanwhile his own relationship with Fanny is in trouble...

"In a world where everything is bought and sold, all that's left is for one to... disappear off the face of the earth!" Alekos, a young author suffering from writer's block, can find no relief in reality, as he knocks about, amidst exciting love affairs and dangerous friendships. His only salvation lies in a secret gift: Alekos is capable of disappearing and teleporting himself through space and time, returning to his childhood and trying to follow and redefine his life from the beginning; to forge his independence amidst lost faces that he will rediscover, and birthplaces where he will once again be made welcome. However, his abrupt return to reality will result in all kinds of surprises...

Two brothers: Vicente, 17 years old, Nino, 10. A little town on the bank of the Tagus. It's Christmas. It's New Year's Eve. A secret they keep: why is Father gone? Where to? Vicente knows. Clara, the girl he is seeing, she also knows. Trying so hard to keep their secret, they break apart. They're lost. You're mine. I'm yours, we're alike. A story about childhood's darkest night.

The two sons of a wealthy landowner of the Valley of Thessaly fall in love with and come into conflict over the same woman, while all around them the peasant uprising of Kileler is brewing. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.