Festival films

Kiarostami mounted two digital cameras on the dashboard of a car: one turned towards the wealthy young woman driver, and the other towards the person in the passenger seat. In 10 separate sequences, hardly intervening at all, he films the people in the car and reveals their inner world. In the first sequence we watch the driver’s young son accusing her: he hasn’t forgiven her for divorcing his father and remarrying. This is followed by nine other conversations with women both known and unknown to the driver. The digital camera captures their raw emotions with a rare frankness. What gradually emerges from the film is not simply the portrait of one woman, but of a society where women are trying to find a voice of their own.

A lesson by Kiarostami on his art could well be a documentary. But again, it wouldn’t be what one would expect. The film consists of an 83-minute soliloquy in front of a camera mounted on his dashboard as he drives through the countryside. Using his film "Ten" as an example, he analyses his theory about cinema in 10 chapters, going from his preference in cameras and the shaping of characters to directing. He is addressing himself to us exclusively, in a very personal tone, as if he’s talking to himself. And that is the beauty of this film: Kiarostami, the camera, and a little free time.

He was a writer. He thought he was writing about the future but it was actually the past. In his novel, every once in a while a mysterious train left for 2046. Everyone who went there had the same intention: to recapture their lost memories. It was said that in 2046 nothing ever changed. Nobody knew for sure if it was true, because nobody who went there had ever come back ?except for him. He was there; he chose to leave; he wanted to change...

Tae-suk drifts around on his motorcycle to find empty houses to stay in. He goes from door to door and puts up ad flyers on the keyholes of each house. He later breaks into the house where the flyer is not removed, assuming that the owner is away. Tae-suk lives there till the owners return, but never steals or does any damage. In fact, he repairs things, does the laundry, and puts everything back in its place when he leaves. One day, he breaks into the house of Sun-hwa, a woman trapped in an abusive marriage. Tae-suk doesn’t realize that Sun-hwa is at home when he breaks in. She hides in the dark and watches him silently...

First the civil war and then AIDS have made Uganada the country with the most orphans in the world. UWESO (Uganda Women’s Effort to Save Orphans) asks Kiarostami to make a film about the situation in Uganda. Together with Seyfollah Samadian and carrying two digital cameras, Kiarostami arrives in Uganda to make a documentary about a country which, despite its grave problems, is full of the joy of life, about the birth control campaign and the campaign to fight AIDS and, finally, about the hope that shines in these children’s faces.

At a way station, somewhere between heaven and earth, the newly dead are greeted by guides. Over the next three days, they will help the dead sift through their memories to find the one defining moment of their lives. The chosen moment will be recreated on film and taken with them when the dead pass on to heaven. This grave, beautifully-crafted film reveals the surprising and ambiguous consequences of human recollection.

A stranger on a bicycle is roaming the empty countryside. He is trying to find a solitary house - his family inheritance. The locals are suspicious of each other and every stranger who enters their world. They ostracise anybody who defies their unwritten laws. This is what happens to a fifteen-year-old girl who is brutally murdered on that day. In this film, which he describes as being about the "psychology of sin", Janisch creates a frightening atmosphere, like a waking dream, in which he evokes feelings and images from diverse works, such as Bram Stoker’s "Dracula" and Stanley Kubrick’s "The Shining".

1960. Greek community of Ethiopia. Isavella grows up like a princess in a closed, but prosperous society. When she is eighteen, Dimitris falls passionately in love with her. Her domineering father rejects the idea of his beloved daughter carrying on an affair with Dimitris. The latter proposes they elope and go to lake Alemaya; Isavella is hesitant. Eventually the plan is called off and Isavella is sent to Athens where she marries and has two sons. Thirty-five years later. Dimitris, who is suffering from advanced diabetes, shows up and rents an apartment overlooking Isavella’s old and faded house. He follows her every move, without her knowing. A secret haunts his passion.

At various times, the "Paraskinio" television programme filmed the filmmaker Alexis Damianos at home, singing. Ecclesiastical hymns, folk songs, popular songs from the inter-war years, rebel songs and rare rebetika. He also recalls satirical songs and melodies he sang on stage, as in the famous performance in Lorca's Blood Wedding, staged at the Theatro Technis by Karolos Koun, to music by Manos Hadjidakis and sets and costumes by Yannis Tsarouchis. In that play, Alexis damianos played the moon and Elli Lambeti played the bride.

The film recalls various periods of Greece's history. Sfikas studies and interprets the artistic movements of his time, influenced by eighties Post-Modernism. Starting in antiquity, he passes through the Byzantine and feudal eras and ends up in capitalism, without proposing this as a final end. Following the spire of this development, Sfikas resorts to poetic allegory. His cinematic oratorio, where angels are crushed in the abyss of civilizations, is something more than the transformation of a philosophical idea into a film; it becomes the very soul of the poet who wonders about its perpetual evolution.

The portrait of the great Greek actor Thanassis Vengos.

Three days after a disastrous earthquake in northern Iran, a father and son set out to go to a village in the stricken area, to find out about the well-being of Ahmad and Babak, the two young protagonists of "Where Is the Friend’s Home?". Along the way they meet many who witnessed the disaster, even some who had appeared in the film, but still there is no sign of Ahmad and Babak... This strange road movie, an authentic piece of the truth filmed with great simplicity, is a reminder of the hope that suddenly appears even in a disaster.

A love story about a gay couple. Todd Verow’s film tells the story of two men who have broken each other’s hearts. This is a film about what heartbreak does to someone and where it leads them: anonymous sex in public, chasing lost dreams and finding out what constitutes a gay male relationship - or any relationship, for that matter. "This is the kind of film that anyone -gay, straight, male or female_can relate to, if they are willing to take a long honest look at themselves in the mirror." "Todd Verow"

The film's title refers to the brightest star in Scorpio - the astrological sign associated with passion, sexuality, jealousy and force. Appropriately, the film is about the extremes of joy and anguish to which love can lead. Alex and Nicole are divorced, but Alex cannot let go of what is past; Sonja is facing tough times because of her pregnancy and becoming wildly jealous of her husband Marco; while Eva, a loyal wife and mother, has her life turned upside down by a fling with Tomasz. In telling the stories of three couples, Spielmann explores the forces beyond sexual attraction that bring people together.

Bangor, Maine, 1984. The eighties erupt in a quiet northern town in this new-wave fairy tale centred on a group of reckless teenagers and the single event that haunts all of their lives. Scott tries to understand his mother -aging punk rock star Margo-Go-Go- and the self-destructive thrill world he and his friends have created; a world defined by a tragic past and an uncertain future.

On the occasion of her daughter’s wedding, a mother takes her son to the tailor to have a new suit made for him. Fifteen-year-old Ali works as an assistant in the tailor’s shop. Two friends of Ali’s, who work in neighbouring shops, ask Ali to borrow the boy’s suit before it is picked up by its owner. The suit is borrowed again and again and, despite all the events that intervene, it ends up hanging in its place, as good as new, when the customer comes to pick it up. The delicate relations among the characters and the tight, dramatic plot make for an absolutely believable story.

1989: Willingly ignoring contemporary turmoil, Anne is absorbed in her reading and writing, tackling the world from a position defined by love and death. 2003: Maria, returning from urban guerrilla activities, is on the run in a country in the grip of a collective anti-terrorist hysteria. 1996: Daphne must confront an unbearable decision: she has to make a life or death choice concerning her twin brother, whom doctors were using as a guinea pig in appalling scientific experiments. BEFORE THE NIGHT? tells the story of three women living in different places and times but all strongly committed to opposing society in one way or another (through poetry, politics and particularly love). Their fates become intertwined in a large modern city, sometimes in the most surprising manner, and their voices become harmoniously united in a final dream linking space and time in a poetic and harrowing vision of life at the dawn of a new millennium.

The film centres on the existential crisis of a 30-year-old woman. Dusha is a dance instructor who is searching for a way out of her solitude. The emotional impasse she is facing is caused to a large degree by those close to her: her despotic mother, her absent father, and her married lover with whose child she is pregnant. The appearance of a strange young admirer will help her to mature, reawakening in her a sense of optimism and helping her to look forward to the future. A hopeful, contemporary story, it is based on a clever screenplay that keeps the viewer enthralled to the very end.

For the past forty years, Abbas Esfandiar has been washing and preparing corpses before accompanying them to their last resting place. Esfandiar, like many of his past customers, one day begins to feel the presence of Ezrael, the Angel of Death. Might Esfandiar too be mortal?

The village of Tepecik during the sixties. Recep and Mehmet are two young friends working as apprentices in a nearby town. Recep works for a watermelon vendor and Mehmet for a domineering barber, but they are obsessed with becoming film directors and escaping their small-town lives. After discovering that the small local theatre regularly discards worn-out film, the boys have begun collecting and, with a makeshift film projector, screening these films each night in an abandoned shed. Their fellow villagers disapprove and believe that they should be spending their time on more useful things, nevertheless, they are undaunted...

Patagonia is a rough land, and for 52-year-old Juan Villegas it’s even rougher. A mechanic who’s lost his job, Juan tries to make ands meet by selling hand made knives. No one wants them, but Juan isn’t bitter and never loses his cool. When one day he repairs a young woman’s car, he is given a most unusual gift: a beautiful Dogo Argentino, a game hound of noble pedigree called Bombon. Bombon is a good-natured animal and Juan unquestioningly welcomes the dog into his life. For Juan Villegas, it’s a first step towards a promising new career as a dog exhibitor, and the start of a beautiful friendship...