Sixteen films to compete for BIFF 2007 Jury Prizes
Eight features and eight documentaries will compete for the Jury Prizes at the 10th Bermuda International Film Festival, March 16-24.
The winner of the Best Narrative Feature award will receive the Mary-Jean Mitchell Green Award, which includes a cash prize of $5,000. The festival’s competition slots in the Best Narrative Feature and Best Documentary Feature categories are restricted to first- and second-time feature directors.
Among the eight narrative features are award winners from the Cannes and Sundance film festivals, plus four films – Does it Hurt? The First Balkan Dogma, How is Your Fish Today?, Fresh Air and The Man of No Return – which were screened at the prestigious International Film Festival Rotterdam earlier this month.
The documentary feature category includes Beyond the Call, a documentary by Adrian Belic, who made BIFF 1998 favourite Genghis Blues, and Tribeca Film Festival audience choice award winner, The Cats of Mirkitani.
The 16 feature length films selected for competition at BIFF 2007 are:
FRESH VISIONS – COMPETITION FEATURES
Cashback
(d. Sean Ellis, United Kingdom, 90 minutes)
Starting life as an excellent short film that was nominated for an Academy Award, Cashback takes us into the poetic world of Ben, a young art student. Dumped by his girlfriend, Ben struggles with the insomnia brought on by this painful loss and eventually takes a job working the graveyard shift at Sainsbury to pass the time. Surrounded by an odd assortment of characters by turns slapstick funny and pitiable – Barry and Matt the practical jokers, Brian the kung-fu master wannabe – Ben is coping by literally freezing time and the people around him. During these wonderfully dreamy pauses, Ben speculates on interactions with these people and attempts to come to grips with the world around him. In his real life, Ben begins to open up to the opportunities that abound, taking notice of Sharon, the quiet but direct checkout girl. As their worlds collide, this highly original romance shows its edge and delivers moments of true comedy alongside the mysteries of life.
Does It Hurt? – The First Balkan Dogma (Boli li? – Prvata balkanska Dogma)
(d. Aneta Lesnikovska, Macedonia-Netherlands, 98 minutes)
Macedonian and Dutch with English subtitles
Director Aneta Lesnikovska has made a film about modern life in the Macedonian capital of Skopje. As she says, this is not “donkey in mountains”; rather, it is a refreshing, fast-paced and amusing film shot according to the rules of Dogma, made to mark the 10th anniversary of the Dogma manifesto. Made with a talented crop of Macedonian actors, some of them friends, the reality of the film is based on fiction – and vice versa. Aneta lies to her friends, telling them that she has found Danish producers to finance a film. The producers never arrive – but in the meantime, she researches the film, and asks her friends to tell their life stories. This becomes the film as they lay bare their hopes, dreams, ambitions, love lives -- as well as their human frailties. The result is an entertaining and pacy film that has already won plaudits for its finely honed script.
Fresh Air
(d. Agnes Kocsis, Hungary, 109 minutes)
Hungarian with English subtitles
Director Agnes Kocsis makes her feature film debut with a poignant film about a troubled relationship between a mother and a daughter set against the background of contemporary life in Hungary. Both the mother, who is in her 40s and single, and daughter, who is studying fashion, are lonely but cannot admit that to each other. The mother, who works as a toilet attendant in the subway, secretly meets men she meets through lonely hearts clubs and ads. The daughter, meanwhile, is ashamed of her mother’s job and opens all the windows and doors when her mother arrives home. But when her mother seems on the verge of losing her job, the daughter steps in to help – and in so doing, comes to appreciate the sacrifices that her mother has made. Winner, Best First Film, Hungarian Film Week, and Best Film, Brussels International Film Festival.
How is Your Fish Today? (Jin tian de yu ze me yang?)
(d. Guo Xiaolu, China-United Kingdom, 83 minutes)
Mandarin with English subtitles
A young man in southern China has killed his lover. He starts a lonely escape across the whole country towards his land of wonder, a snowy village at the northern border. Sitting at his desk in Beijing, a scriptwriter is writing that man's story. It is through his characters that his life gains its weight, meaning and freedom. His imagination blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction. The snowy village lies on the quiet border between China and Russia. Old villagers fish under the ice, school children study English text about America. They endure the long winter nights waiting for the sun to come back. When the scriptwriter arrives in that mysterious village, he meets his own fictional character, lying on the frozen river at the border, covered in snow. Two men contemplate the icy landscape. One wants to cross the border to see the other side of the world. The other longs to head back to his hometown, which he left so many years ago.
The Man of No Return (Chelovek bezvozvratny)
(d. Katya Grokhovskaya, Russia, 104 minutes)
Russian with English subtitles
Katya Grokhovskaya’s ambitious first feature is a gripping tale about how the lives of several families dramatically cross in a small suburban town in Russia. The main focus is the Knyazev family, an older couple with three adult children. The mother is terminally ill, while the father, a former military boss is in conflict with his son, who is desperate to end his military service. The son is sleeping with an older woman in exchange for cash so that he can raise enough money to go on the run with his young girlfriend. The daughters have their own issues – one is sleeping with her boss, the other is contemplating an affair. The multiple subplots are weaved together skillfully by the filmmaker, who has assembled a strong cast that includes a comeback by Galina Jovovich (mother of Milla).
Military Intelligence and You!
(d. Dale Kutzera, United States, 78 minutes)
Military Intelligence and You! is a biting satire in the form of a World War Two training film. It combines new scenes with those from vintage military productions to dramatise the importance of the U.S. military knowing what they are attacking, before they attack it! Patrick Muldoon stars as Major Nick Reed, a military analyst determined to find a hideen Nazi fighter base. Complicating his efforts is a chance meeting with his former love, Lt.. Monica Tasty (Elizabeth Bennett) and her current beau, Major Mitch Dunning (Mackenzie Astin). The result is a biting satire that has been more than 60 years in the making.
Retrieval
(d. Slawomir Fabicki, Poland, 103 minutes)
Polish with English subtitles
Retrieval is an uncompromising portrait of a young man caught in a dilemma beyond his control. Living in an industrial city that has seen better days – high unemployment leaves the young little choice but to follow in their parents’ footsteps – Wojtek faces a dismal future. However, he has fallen in love with Katja, a slightly older Ukrainian woman who lives with her young child. But how can he earn enough money to support Katja and her child, and get an apartment large enough for the three of them? Special Mention, Ecumenical Jury, Cannes Film Festival.
Sweet Mud (Adama Meshuga’at)
(d. Dror Shaul, Israel-Germany-Japan, 97 minutes)
Hebrew with English subtitles
This unique, emotionally vivid coming-of-age story shatters the utopian myths surrounding the kibbutz, Israel’s method of communal settlement. Twelve-year-old Dvir Avni lives with his psychologically unstable mother, whose past erratic behaviour has resulted in her being shunned by the other kibbutzniks. Dvir tries to participate in his bar mitzvah year while parenting his own mother. This fine and provocative film captures the social codes and rhythms of life in a kibbutz – and does so with great sensitivity and beauty. Winner, Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival.
NEW REALITIES – COMPETITION DOCUMENTARIES
Beyond the Call
(d. Adrian Belic, United States, 82 minutes)
In an Indiana Jones meets Mother Teresa adventure, three middle-aged men, former soldiers and modern-day knights, travel the world delivering life saving humanitarian aid directly into the hands of civilians and doctors in some of the most dangerous yet beautiful places on Earth – the front lines of war. Their personal convictions and courage drive them to places such as Afghanistan, Albania, Chechnya, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand, Rwanda and the southern Philippines, often when few if any other humanitarian aid organisations are around. The camera follows them as they take us on a journey into the heart of humanity and the soul of courage.
The Cats of Mirikitani
(d. Linda Hattendorf, United States, 74 minutes)
English and Japanese with English subtitles
Jimmy Mirikitani, an 85-year-old Japanese-American born in Sacramento and raised in Hiroshima, is living on the streets of New York in January 2001. When a neighbouring filmmaker stops to ask about Mirikitani's art, a friendship begins that will change both their lives. In sunshine, rain, and snow, she returns again and again to document his drawings, trying to decipher the stories behind them. The tales spill out in a jumble -- childhood picnics in Hiroshima, ancient samurai ancestors, lost American citizenship, Jackson Pollock, Pearl Harbour, thousands of Americans imprisoned in WWII desert camps, a boy who loved cats... But what began as a simple portrait of one homeless man was transformed by events, and the filmmaker’s generous spirit, into a beautiful and moving film that is a heart-warming affirmation of humanity that will appeal to all lovers of peace, art, and cats. Winner, Audience Award, Tribeca Film Festival.
Golden Lotus, The Legacy of Bound Feet (Zhong Guo Jin Lian)
(d. Joanne Cheng, China, 60 minutes)
Against the backdrop of China’s modernity, and from along the banks of the northern Yellow River to remote Yunnan Village in southwest China, the filmmaker searches for the last survivors of Bound Feet – China’s 1000-year-old tradition of erotic beauty, mutilation and female survival. Told through the first person narrative of the filmmaker, who was raised by her bound feet grandmother, the film records otherwise lost voices and the haunting memories of 12 Chinese women with bound feet. This poignant film reveals a dark secret about Chinese civilisation and women’s changing destiny in a society once, and perhaps still, dominated by men.
A Hebrew Lesson (Ha’ulpan)
(d. David Ofek and Ron Rotem, Israel, 120 minutes)English and Hebrew, Chinese, Russian, German and Spanish with English subtitles
This delightful, thought-provoking documentary chronicles the lives of several immigrants to Israel who meet in a Hebrew language Ulpan (language class). Chin left her daughter in China and traveled to Israel to make a living. She cleaned Ehud’s house, and they fell in love. Sasha never considered living in Israel, but four years after his woman left Russia with their child, he understood that life without his child is worthless. He left a thriving business behind only to find himself living in Tel Aviv’s worst neighbourhood. Marisol grew up as a Jewish Princess in Lima, Peru – and comes to Israel to learn something about life. An unexpected pregnancy alters her plans. The film, at times funny, and at other times sad, paints the daily reality with irony. But beyond the obvious differences, the human common denominator of longing and love, triumphs time and again.
Living With Lew
(d. Adam Bardach, United States, 88 minutes)
Scott Lew is a funny guy. The first to share a joke, a wry smile or an amusing observation, Scott has always had a keen eye and ear for life’s many absurdities. In 2003, at the age of 33, Scott was tragically diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Despite this devastating news and the rapid progression of his disability, Scott forged ahead and made the choice to direct his first feature film, a heartfelt comedy entitled, Bickford Shmeckler’s Cool Ideas from a script he wrote. Over the next three years, as Scott worked tirelessly to achieve his goal, trusted friend and filmmaker Adam Bardach set forth to document Scott’s trials and triumphs. Living With Lew is the story of one man’s indomitable spirit, relentless lust for life, dogged pursuit of a dream and his wild, subversive sense of humour that shines like a beacon through the bleakest of prognoses.
Row Hard, No Excuses
(d. Luke Wolbach, United States, 90 minutes)
The Transatlantic Rowing Challenge, a two person, 3000 mile race across the Atlantic Ocean from Tenerife to Barbados that takes between 50 and 100 days to complete is the backdrop of Row Hard, No Excuses. The race drives the story, but this documentary is about the people. John Zeigler and Tom Mailhot, the Massachusetts team, are determined to win the race. These two men are over 40, have trained for three years for this competition, and are both searching for something in their lives. The challenges of the race, wind, water, sun, exhaustion, and injury boil each team member down to his/her essence. John and Tom learn more about each other and about themselves than their imaginations ever conjured.
Sleeping Island (La Isla Durmiente)
(d. David Martin de los Santos, Spain, 59 minutes)
Spanish with English subtitles
This rich, evocative, lyrical documentary speaks to a hidden Cuba, a magical, mystical place full of mystery and quiet beauty. With vibrant cinematography and incredible interviews the filmmakers get to the heart of Cuba’s Afro-Caribbean heritage. Cuba is a land of dichotomy, of potential, of inspiration. The secret religious life of Cuba is a complex amalgam of Catholicism and pantheism, of squalor and civility, of hope and despair. The Cuba in this film is not a simple backdrop of old cars and cracking paint, it is the pivotal character of the film as seen in the hopes and beliefs of its people. Music, nationalism, sexuality, art, immigration, ambition, all are brought out of the hothouse of Cuba and shared as tropical delicacies with the spectator. This fast-paced, hypnotic, beautiful film will capture those who view it and sweep them into the dream that is Cuba, the Sleeping Island.
Storm of Emotions
(d. Yael Klopmann, Israel, 106 minutes)
An unusual story that captures and holds your attention, Storm of Emotions documents the removal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza strip. In 1982, following the peace accord between Israel and Egypt, the terms of which included the evacuation of the Sinai desert, thousands of settlers had to leave their homes and one option was a move to Gush-Katif, on the outskirts of the Gaza strip. Years later, the Israeli government has decided to pull back from the Gaza strip and this unleashes a storm of political and social turmoil. At the front line are the men and women of the Israeli police force, tasked with the delicate, complex and sensitive job of forcing their fellow citizens to move – again – without violence or loss of life. The filmmaker follows key police personnel as they train for and execute the “disengagement”. Their struggle to balance emotions, beliefs, conscience and a sense of brotherhood is at times heart-rending, and the pain is visible. Storm of Emotions is a singular opportunity to witness the unique impact of Israeli politics on its own people.
Tickets to BIFF 2007 will go on sale March 5 at 10 a.m. both online at www.biff.bm as well as at the festival’s physical box office at # 6 Passenger Terminal, Front Street, Hamilton.
The mission of the Bermuda International Film Festival is to advance the love of independent film from around the world, and create a community welcoming to filmmakers and filmgoers.