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Alain Resnais’ last film, Aimer, boire et chanter (Life of Riley), will close the 38th Montreal World Film Festival

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Alain Resnais’ last film, Aimer, boire et chanter (Life of Riley), will receive its North American premiere to close the 38th Montreal World Film Festival on September 1, it was announced by Festival president Serge Losique and director-general Danièle Cauchard.

Resnais began his career in the late 1950s and consolidated his early reputation with Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), Last Year at Marienbad (1961), and Muriel (1963), all of which adopted unconventional narrative techniques to deal with themes of troubled memory and the imagined past. These films were contemporary with, and associated with, the French New Wave, though Resnais did not regard himself as being fully part of that movement. He had closer links to the “Left Bank” group of authors and filmmakers who shared a commitment to modernism and an interest in left-wing politics. In later films, Resnais moved away from the overtly political topics of some previous works and developed his interests in an interaction between cinema and other cultural forms, including theatre, music, and comic books. This led to imaginative adaptations of plays by Alan Ayckbourn, Henri Bernstein and Jean Anouilh, as well as films featuring various kinds of popular song.

“By showing Aimer, boire et chanter we hope to pay posthumous tribute of one of the giants of French cinema in the name of all who loved his work,” declared Serge Losique. “The MWFF has played an important role in honoring French cinema over the years and it was natural than we would introduce Resnais’ final film to North America.”

In the midst of rehearsals for a new play, amateur dramatics proponents Colin and Kathryn receive the shattering news that their friend George is fatally ill and only has a few months to live. Life begins to come apart at the seams – not just for Kathryn, who was once George’s partner, but also for her friends Tamara and Monica. The full force of the emotional turmoil they experienced in their youth and their long-buried dreams are rekindled. Much to the chagrin of their respectable, middle-class husbands, the women begin to argue about which of them should be allowed to accompany George on a final journey …

 

 


Jury of the 38th Montreal World Film Festival

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Sergio Castellitto, president

 

 The Montreal World Film Festival is pleased to announce that  Franco-Algerian director-producer Rachid Bouchareb, Andréanne Bournival, grande dame of Quebec television and cinema, and noted Icelandic producer Fridrik Thor Fridriksson will complete the international jury of the 38th Festival. These three join already announced jurors, actresses Ana Torrent and Jane Zhang under the presidency of Italian actor and director Sergio Castellitto.

“We are happy and honored to have a jury of this diversity and calibre to judge our official competition,” declared MWFF president Serge Losique. “Their different perspectives, whether geographic or aesthetic, reflect the openness to other cultures that the Festival has had as its guiding light since its inauguration.”

The only A category competitive event in North America recognized by FIAPF (the International Federation of Film Producers Associations), the Montreal World Film Festival will be held in 25 days from August 21 to September 1, 2014.

 

The Jury

 

Rachid Bouchareb

            Rachid Bouchareb is a French film director of Algerian descent. From 1977 to 1983, he worked as an assistant director at France’s state television production company, Société française de production (S. F. P), and subsequently for broadcasters TF1 and Antenne 2. He formed his own production company, 3B, with his associate Jean Bréhat in 1988. Bouchareb began making short films in the 1980s.

            His featured film debut came in 1985 with Bâton Rouge. Since then his acclaimed films have included Poussières de vie (Dust of Life) (which competed in the 1994 MWFF before receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film); Little Senegal in 2001, as well as Two Men in Town in 2014, both shown in competition at the Berlin Film Festival; and Days of Glory, which received the Best Foreign Language Film nomination in 2006 and also won prizes at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. His film, Hors-la-loi, competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and it was the Algerian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 83rd Academy Awards and was one of the five final nominees.

 

 

 

Andréanne Bournival

            Over her long career in program management at several television channels – Télé-Québec (acquisitions and co-productions), Radio-Canada, TV5 and Canal D – then with the French production program of the National Film Board of Canda, Andréanne Bournival has always looked to ensure a prominent presence for the cinema, both from here and abroad, on the small screen.

            Andréanne Bournival was President of the Quebec section of the Academy of Cinema and Television. For her, the MWFF is a passport to the world, a reflection on the great and the small history of humanity, a way to live life intensely through the power of dreams, a connection to the sensitivity and creativity of filmmakers. The MWFF is also the opportunity to share her favourite movies with family and friends. She will be representing the public on this year's jury.

 

Fridirik Thor Fridriksson

            Director, writer, actor and producer Fridrik Thor Fridriksson began his filmmaking carrier with a series of eximental films and documentaries in the early 1980s (The Blacksmith and Rock in Reykjavik). In 1987, he founded The Icelandic Film Corporation, which has become Iceland's most important production company, producing Fridriksson’s films as well as working with other Icelandic directors and producers. Through Fridriksson's international reputation the company has built a network of internationally well-established co-production partner companies.

            As a director, Fridriksson gained international recognition and critical acclaim with his second feature Children of Nature, which won best artistic contribution in the 1991 MWFF before being nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film. In 2006, he played in Lars von Trier's film Le Directør and in Jóhann Sigmarsson long-feature  Plan B.  He has also coproduced such films as Trier's Dancer in the Dark  and Hal Hatley's No such Thing.

 

Ana Torrent

            Ana Torrent began her career as a child in what some consider to be the greatest of Spanish films, Victor Erice’s Spirit of the Beehive (1973) and she quickly confirmed her precocious talent in Carlos Saura’s masterful Cria Cuervos (1976) and Elisa vida mia (1976) . She has since worked with many other Spanish directors, including Jaime Armiñan, Julio Medem, Helena Tabema and Alejandro Amenábar, whose Tesis garnered Torrent a Goya nomination and best actress notices at several festivals. Her role in Jaime de Armiñan’s El Nido (1980) earned her best actress at the MWFF.     Torrent’s talent has attracted the interest of many foreign directors, including Klaus Kirschner (Misa en Si Minor), Gilo Pontecorvo (El Tunel), Peter Greenaway (The Tulse Lupper Suitcases I, II and III), Roland Joffé (There Be Dragons) and Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl). She has also acted extensively on the small screen, for Spanish networks as well as the BBC and Italy’s RAI, and on stage, where this September she will play in the Spanish National Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s Richard III.

 

Jane Zhang

            Singer and actress Jane Zhang, who performs in Cantonese and Mandarin as well as English and Spanish, burst onto the scene in 2005 after her appearance on Super Voice Girl, the mega-popular Chinese singing competition, and her vocal talent quickly propelled her to Chinese superstardom, with frequent comparisons to Mariah Carey and Celine Dion. Her album, Reform, went double platinum within a month, a sales record to this day. Her talents were soon harnessed for the screen, where she contributed the theme song for Gordon Chan’sPainted Skin, and Only for Love for Feng Xiao Gang’s The Banquet. She made her acting debut in 2006 in McDull the Alumni and has since participated in several other productions for large and small screens, including Panda Express and Mulan. Zhang made her American television debut on the Oprah Winfrey Show and she was the first Chinese singer on the red carpet of the Grammys. She performed in a World Peace One concert with U2, Madonna, Pink Floyd and Green Day and appeared at the first New York China Film Festival in 2010 .

 

Sergio Castellitto, President

            Born in Rome, Sergio Castellitto began his career in the theatre after studying at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica, and made his film debut in the early 1980s. An actor whose versatility was apparent early on, Castellitto subsequently worked with some of the leading lights of Italian cinema: Mario Monicelli (Rossini! Rossini!, 1991), Marco Ferreri (The Flesh, 1991), Francesca Archibugi (The Great Pumpkin, 1993, for which he won the David di Donatello Award for Best Leading Actor, and With Closed Eyes, 1994), Giuseppe Tornatore (The Star Maker, 1995, Nastro d'argento as Best Leading Actor), Ettore Scola (Unfair Competition, 2001), Gabriele Muccino (The Last Kiss, 2001), Marco Bellocchio (My Mother's Smile, 2002, and The Wedding Director, 2006), Paolo Virzì (Caterina in the Big City, 2004) and Gianni Amelio (The Missing Star, 2006).

            Castellitto’s talent was noticed by foreign directors as well and he appeared in such films as Luc Besson’s The Big Blue (1988), Jacques Rivette’sWho Knows (2001) and Around a Small Moountain (2009), Sandra Nettlebeck’sMostly Martha (2001), Paris je t’aime (2006, Isabel Coixet’s segment) and Andrew Adamson’sThe Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008). He made his directorial debut in 1999 with Libero Burro and confirmed his filmmaking talent, especially, in the critical and commercial hit Don’t Move (2004), starring Penelope Cruz from a story by his wife Margaret Mazzantini. He has since followed with two more films which he wrote, directed and starred in, Love & Slaps (2010) and Twice Born (2012).

Montreal FFM pays Tribute to Michael J. Werner

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The Montreal World Film Festival will pay tribute to international distributor-producer Michael J. Werner, chairman of film sales of Fortissimo Films. The veteran America-born producer has been located in Hong Kong over the past two decades from where he guided the production and distribution of Asian films to markets around the world.

 

“Michael J. Werner is an essential figure in the world of independent cinema, a shining example of how to make and distribute quality films for global audiences” said MWFF president Serge Losique. “He was born in California, produces in Asia and distributes around the world. By giving new directing and producing talents a platform he is contributing to the sustainment and expansion of the ever-evolving industry.”

 

As part of the tribute to Michael J. Werner, the Festival will show five recent films distributed and/or co-produced by Fortissimo: Tears of the Black Tiger directed by Wisit Sasanatieng (Thailand, 2000), Norwegian Wood, by Tran Ang Hung (Japan, 2010), The Grandmaster by Wong Kar Wai (Hong Kong, 2013) and the Canadian premieres of The Great Hypnotist, by Leste Chan (China, 2014) and Black Coal, Thin Ice by Diao Yinan (China / Hong Kong, 2014), this year’s Golden Bear winner at the Berlin Film Festival.

 

Los Angeles-born, Michael J. Werner is a long-time veteran of the movie sales business, with nearly 30 years experience in international film sales and consulting, specializing in the Asia-Pacific region. He joined Fortissimo Film Sales as an external consultant in 1995 and in 2000 became a partner in the company. Werner had a prior focus on big commercial films handling such titles as Die Hard 3, Talk Radio and Evita.

 

As a media consultant his clients included 20th Century Fox International, IBM, Polygram and The Sunshine Group/CineAsia. In recent years, he and Fortissimo has ventured into the world of film financing and production and Werner has served as executive producer, co-producer or associate producer on a number of high profile independent films from Asia including Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster, Invisible Waves by Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Norwegian Wood by Tran Anh Hung, Springtime in a Small Town by Tian Zhuangzhuang, and Tokyo Sonata by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, among many others.

 

 

A frequent speaker at panels, film financing events and seminars, Werner has also served on numerous advisory boards in Asia including Screen Singapore’s board of directors, Hong Kong’s Asian Film Awards nominating committee, Busan’s Asian Film Market advisory committee and Singapore’s New Feature Film Fund selection committee.

 

With Fortissimo Co-Chair Wouter Barendrecht, in 2005 Werner was awarded a Silver Hugo for his contribution to world cinema by the Chicago Film Festival and in 2006 they were jointly awarded a Golden Kinnaree for their contribution to Asian cinema by the Bangkok Film Festival. He has lived in Hong Kong since 1995. In 2006 he became member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Executive Branch).

 

The only large competitive festival in North America accredited by FIAPF (the International Federation of Film Producers’ Associations), the 38th Montreal World Film Festival will run in 21 days, from August 21 to September 1, 2014.

 

                       

 

Hippolyte Girardot will attend Montreal showing of Resnais’ last film Aimer, boire et chanter

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Montreal World Film Festival president Serge Losique and director-general Danièle Cauchard are pleased to announce that a posthumous tribute will be paid to Alain Resnais at this year’s Festival to mark his extraordinary career. Actor and personal friend of Resnais, Hippolyte Girardot, will attend the film’s showing to accept the Festival’s award in Resnais’ honour.

One of the giants of French cinema, Resnais began his career in the late 1950s and consolidated his early reputation with Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), Last Year at Marienbad (1961), and Muriel (1963), all of which adopted unconventional narrative techniques to deal with themes of troubled memory and the imagined past. A contemporary of the French New Wave but not fully a member, his interests were broader, extending to politics and an interaction between cinema and other cultural forms, including theatre, music, and comic books. In recent years this led to imaginative adaptations of plays by Alan Ayckbourn, Henri Bernstein and Jean Anouilh, as well as films featuring various kinds of popular songs.     

                  “Alain Resnais was and will always be a great ambassador of the French cinema. His work marked many generations and we are greatly honoured to be able to pay him this tribute,” declared Serge Losique.

                  The Resnais tribute will be held on the Festival’s closing night, September 1, with the North American premiere of his final film, Aimer, boire et chanter (Life of Riley). Turning for the third time to the theatrical comedies of British playwright Alan Ayckbourn -- after Smoking/No Smoking (1993) and Coeurs (2006), Life of Riley was produced  by Jean-Louis Livi, scripted by Laurent Herbiet,  and stars Sabine Azéma, Hippolyte Girardot, Caroline Silhol, Michel Vuillermoz, Sandrine Kiberlain, André Dussolier and Alba Gaia Bellugi.

                   Hippolyte Girardot, will be present to represent the film and accept the tribute in Resnais’ name. A veteran of nearly 70 films, Girardot previously worked with Resnais on You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet, released in 2012.

                  The 38th Montreal World Film Festival will run August 21 to September 1, 2014.

 

Strong German participation in Montreal

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MONTREAL COMPETITIONS WITH GERMAN ENTRIES

38th Montreal World Film Festival (21 August – 1 September 2014)

 

German films are prominently and abundantly represented in Montreal's 2014 program: after four German films shown last year, this year sees no less than six films with German involvement screening in the World Competition and First Films Competition. In total, 34 German films and co-productions have been programmed in the Montreal World Film Festival.

 

All of the German films in the World Competition will have their international premiere there and focus on people in stress situations. THE LIMITS OF PATIENCE by Christian Wagner (Claussen+Wöbke+Putz Filmproduktion, Christian Wagner Film) is about a juvenile court judge, played by Martina Gedeck, who passes beyond breaking point. In THE SUMMER HOUSE by Curtis Burz (focusingfilms), a father and husband puts his family idyll at risk when he starts feeling attracted to a colleague's son. THE CHAMBERMAID LYNN by Ingo Haeb (Sutor Kolonko, 58Filme, Pandora Filmproduktion) is the story of the alienated and isolated Lynn and her unusual way of obtaining some human contact.

 

AYA ARCOS by Maximilian Moll (Momentum Film) about an elderly actor who falls in love with a young hustler will have its world premiere in the competition for debut films. The mystery thriller BRIGHT NIGHT by Florian Gottschick (almost famous Film- und Medienproduktion, Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen (HFF) „Konrad Wolf“ Potsdam-Babelsberg) with Anna Grisebach, Benno Fürmann and Vladimir Burlakov in the leads was previously shown at the Filmfest Munich and will have its international premiere here. In addition, the German co-production THEY ARE ALL DEAD by Beatriz Sanchis (ES/DE/MX, Integral Film) will be shown in the First Films Competition.

 

The World Greats – Out of Competition will show TO LIFE! by Uwe Janson (CCC Filmkunst, MZ-Film) as a world premiere. There will be internationale premieres of FAMILY FEVER by Nico Sommer (süsssauer Filmproduktion, Traumfängerfilm) and THE HOTEL ROOM by Rudi Gaul (kurhaus production) in Focus on World Cinema – Feature Films as well as BELTRACCHI – THE ART OF FORGERY by Arne Birkenstock (Fruitmarket Kultur und Medien, Tradewind Pictures, Senator Entertainment, Telepool), THE HIGHEST LEVEL – A MUSIC DOCUMENTARY WITH LANG LANG AND SIR SIMON RATTLE von Christian Berger (Deutsche Welle) and WE WERE REBELS von Katharina von Schröder & Florian Schewe (Perfect Shot Films) in Documentaries of the World. NO LAND’S SONG by Ayat Najafi (DE/FR, Torero Film, HANFGARN & UFER) and PARCOURS D’AMOUR by Bettina Blümner (Reverse Angle Pictures) will have their world premieres in this section.

 

Up-and-coming German film-makers also have an international presence in Montreal outside of the first films competition. There are 14 shorts from German film schools in the international section of the Student Film Festival. Nine titles have been selected from the German Film & Television Academy in Berlin (DFFB), the other productions are from the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg, the Academy of Media Arts (KHM) in Cologne, the Academy for Television and Film Munich (HFF), and the FH Dortmund - University of Applied Science and Arts.

 

In June, German Films organised screenings for festival director Danièle Cauchard in Munich so that she could see new German feature films.

 

 

All of the German Films and Co-Productions in Montreal 2014:

 

World Competition

THE CHAMBERMAID LYNN (DAS ZIMMERMÄDCHEN LYNN) by Ingo Haeb (Sutor Kolonko, 58Filme, Pandora Filmproduktion)

THE LIMITS OF PATIENCE (DAS ENDE DER GEDULD) by Christian Wagner (Claussen+Wöbke+Putz Filmproduktion, Christian Wagner Film)

THE SUMMER HOUSE (DAS SOMMERHAUS) by Curtis Burz

 

First Films Competition

AYA ARCOS von Maximilian Moll (Momentum Film)

BRIGHT NIGHT (NACHTHELLE) von Florian Gottschick (almost famous Film- und Medienproduktion, Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen (HFF) „Konrad Wolf“ Potsdam-Babelsberg)

THEY ARE ALL DEAD by Beatriz Sanchis (ES/DE/MX, Integral Film)

 

World Greats – Out of Competition

TO LIFE! (AUF DAS LEBEN!) by Uwe Janson (CCC Filmkunst, MZ-Film)

 

Focus on World Cinema – Feature Films

BETI AND AMARE (BETI UND AMARE) by Andy Siege (DE/ET/CA/RO/ES, Kalulu Entertainment)

COME TO MY VOICE by Hüseyin Karabey (TK/DE/FR, Neue Mediopolis Filmproduktion)

FAMILY FEVER (FAMILIENFIEBER) by Nico Sommer (süsssauer Filmproduktion, Traumfängerfilm)

SILENCE IN DREAMLAND by Tito Molina (EC/DE, Weydemann Bros.)

THE HOTEL ROOM (DAS HOTELZIMMER) by Rudi Gaul (kurhaus production)

 

Focus on World Cinema – Short Films

THE CHICKEN by Una Gunjak (DE/HR)

THE HUMAN PRICIPLE (PRINZIP MENSCH) by Marco Gadge

TAWEEZ – THE TALISMAN WRITER by Ali Hakim (DE/AF)

 

Documentaries of the World

BELTRACCHI – THE ART OF FORGERY (BELTRACCHI – DIE KUNST DER FÄLSCHUNG) by Arne Birkenstock (Fruitmarket Kultur und Medien, Tradewind Pictures, Senator Entertainment, Telepool)

THE HIGHEST LEVEL – A MUSIC DOCUMENTARY WITH LANG LANG AND SIR SIMON RATTLE by Christian Berger (Deutsche Welle)

NO LAND’S SONG by Ayat Najafi (DE/FR, Torero Film, HANFGARN & UFER)

PARCOURS D’AMOUR by Bettina Blümner (Reverse Angle Pictures)

WE WERE REBELS by Katharina von Schröder & Florian Schewe (Perfect Shot Films)

 

Student Film Festival – International section

A DAY BY THE SEA (EIN TAG AM MEER) by Aline Chukwuedo

AUSSI LOIN by Franziska M. Hoenisch

BEAT BEAT BEAT (JETZT JETZT JETZT) by Christin Freitag

BERLIN TROIKA by Andrej Gontcharov

BLUR BLUE by Sonja Polligkeit

DEVIL by Lisa Bierwirth

ELISABETH by Katharian Woll

FLYING (Fliegen) by Katharina Woll

GABRIEL by Benjamin Chimoy (DE/ES)

MY LAST CONCERT (MEIN LETZTES KONZERT) by Selcuk Zvi Cara

NADESHDA by Anna Frances Ewert

PORCELAIN (PORZELLAN) by Katinka Narjes

RENDEZVOUS by Sylvia Borges

SHOES FROM TRIESTE by Gregor Bozic

Line up for The Montreal World Film Festival announced

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AT THE MONTREAL WORLD FILM FESTIVAL

from August 21 to September 1, 2014

 

 

A RICH SELECTION FROM 74 COUNTRIES

 

THE FUTURE OF CINEMA WITH 51 FIRST FEATURE FILMS

 

350 FEATURES AND SHORT FILMS

160 feature films

(100 world or international premieres and 32 North American premieres)

 

 

 

A jury presided over by Italian actor and director Serge Castellitto

 

Claude Lelouch will present «Salaud, on t’aime» as opening film

 

Hippolyte Girardot will present «Aimer, boire, chanter» as closing night film as a posthumous tribute to Alain Resnais

 

A tribute to Michael J. Werner, President of Fortissimo

 

The 38th Montreal World Film Festival is dedicated to Gabriel Garcia Marquez

 

 

The sections:

World Competition (features and shorts)

First Films World Competition (features)

Out of Competition (features)

Focus on World Cinema (features and shorts)

Documentaries of the World (features, medium-length films, shorts)

Tributes

Student Film Festival – National selection (short films)

Student Film Festival – International selection (short films)

 

 

 

 

 

THE OFFICIAL JURY

 

Sergio Castellito, President

Sergio Castellitto began his career in the theatre and made his film debut in the early 1980s. An actor whose versatility was apparent early on, Castellitto subsequently worked with some of the leading lights of Italian cinema: Mario Monicelli, Marco Ferreri, Francesca Archibugi, Giuseppe Tornatore, Ettore Scola, Gabriele Muccino, Marco Bellocchio, Paolo Virzì, Gianni Amelio. Castellitto’s talent was noticed by foreign directors as well and  he appeared in such films as Luc Besson’s The Big Blue, Jacques Rivette’s Who Knows, Sandra Nettlebeck’s Mostly Martha, and Andrew Adamson’s The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. He made his directorial debut in 1999 with Libero Burro and confirmed his filmmaking talent, especially, in the critical and commercial hit Don’t Move (2004), starring Penelope Cruz from a story by his wife Margaret Mazzantini. He has since followed with two more films which he wrote, directed and starred in, Love & Slaps (2010) and Twice Born (2012).

 

Rachid Bouchareb

Rachid Bouchareb is a French film director of Algerian descent. From 1977 to 1983, he worked as an assistant director. He formed his own production company, 3B, with his associate Jean Bréhat in 1988. His featured film debut came in 1985 with Bâton Rouge. Since then his acclaimed films have included Poussières de vie (Dust of Life) (which competed in the 1994 MWFF before receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film); Little Senegal in 2001, as well as Two Men in Town in 2014, both shown in competition at the Berlin Film Festival; and Days of Glory, which received the Best Foreign Language Film nomination in 2006 and also won prizes at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. His film, Hors-la-loi, competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and it was the Algerian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 83rd Academy Awards and was one of the five final nominees.

 

Andréanne Bournival

In her career in program management of several television channels – Télé-Québec (acquisitions and co-productions), Radio-Canada, TV5 and Canal D – then at the French program of the National Film Board of Canada, Andréanne Bournival has always looked to maintain significant presence of the cinema, both from here and abroad, on the small screen. At Radio-Canada, for seven years she maintained the cinema magazine, À première vue, with Chantal Jolis and René Homier-Roy, with a special daily edition during the Montreal World Film Festival. Andréanne Bournival was President of the Quebec section of Academy of Cinema and Television. For her, the MWFF is a passport to the world, a reflection on the great and the small history of humanity, a way to live life intensely through the power of dreams, a connection to the sensitivity and creativity of filmmakers. She is representing the Festival’s public on this year’s Jury.

 

Fridrik Thor Fridriksson

Fridrik Thor Fridriksson began his filmmaking carrier in the early 1980s. In 1987, he founded The Icelandic Film Corporation, which has become Iceland's most important production company, producing Fridriksson’s films as well as working with other Icelandic directors and producers. Through Fridriksson's international reputation the company has built a network of internationally well-established co-production partner companies, including Lars von Triers Zentropa and Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope. As a director, Fridriksson gained international recognition and critical acclaim with his second feature, Children of Nature, which won best artistic contribution in the 1991 MWFF before being nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film. Co-writing with two of Iceland's most acclaimed novelists and scriptwriters Einar Már Gudmundsson and Einar Kárason, Fridriksson has been acclaimed for the strong visual style of his films and his gift for stunning images.

 

Ana Torrent

Ana Torrent began her career as a child in what some consider to be the greatest of Spanish films, Victor Erice’s Spirit of the Beehive (1973) and she quickly confirmed her precocious talent in Carlos Saura’s masterful Cria Cuervos (1976) and Elisa vida mia (1976). She has since worked with many other Spanish directors, including Jaime Armiñan, Julio Medem, Helena Tabema and Alejandro Amenábar, whose Tesis garnered Torrent a Goya nomination and best actress notices at several festivals. Her role in Jaime de Armiñan’s El Nido (1980) earned her best actress at the MWFF. Torrent’s talent has attracted the interest of many foreign directors, including Klaus Kirschner (Misa en Si Minor), Gilo Pontecorvo (El Tunel), Peter Greenaway (The Tulse Lupper Suitcases I, II and III), Roland Joffé (There Be Dragons) and Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl). She has also acted extensively on the small screen, for Spanish networks as well as the BBC and Italy’s RAI, and on stage, where this September she will play in the Spanish National Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s Richard III.

 

Jane Zhang

Singer and actress Jane Zhang, who performs in Cantonese and Mandarin as well as English and Spanish, burst onto the scene in 2005 after her appearance on Super Voice Girl, the mega-popular Chinese singing competition, and her vocal talent quickly propelled her to Chinese superstardom, with frequent comparisons to Mariah Carey and Celine Dion. Her album, Reform, went double platinum within a month, a sales record to this day. Her talents were soon harnessed for the screen, where she contributed the theme song for Gordon Chan’s Painted Skin, and Only for Love for Feng Xiao Gang’s The Banquet. She made her acting debut in 2006 in McDull the Alumni and has since participated in several other productions for large and small screens, including Panda Express and Mulan. Zhang made her American television debut on the Oprah Winfrey Show and she was the first Chinese singer on the red carpet of the Grammys. She performed in a World Peace One concert with U2, Madonna, Pink Floyd and Green Day and appeared at the first New York China Film Festival in 2010 

 

 

 

 

WORLD COMPETITION – FEATURE FILMS:

 

AMANET / THE LAST WISH / Namik Ajazi / Albania, Italy

Life in Albania in the 1980s has turned into a real hell and Enver Hoxha’s paranoia reaches its peak as he gets rid of his closest “friends” one after the other. One of them is Mentor, head of the Secret Service. Sensing the danger Mentor locks himself night after night in a secret room of his house and starts recording the events he was involved in from the beginning of the Communist regime. Before getting arrested he manages to give his son Martin the audio tapes, his testament, entrusting him with the terrible truth of so many crimes, that their publication would change the course of Albanian history…

 

DER LETZTE TANZ / THE LAST DANCE / Houchang Allahyari / Austria

Julia Ecker, a patient in the geriatic ward of the Viennese psychiatric clinic, develops a deep affection and sympathy, even love, for her new male nurse Karl who is doing his civilian service at this hospital. A sensitive young man in his twenties, Karl feels warmth and also pity for 87-year-old Julia, spends a lot of time with her during his working hours and finally gives in to Julia's tender erotic seduction. The head nurse of Frau Ecker's station is jealous of Karl's rapport with his patients and his success at helping them preserve their remaining intellectual and physical skills. Accused of having "sexually abused a helpless old woman", Karl is brought to trial.

 

LUCKY STIFF / Christopher Ashley / USA

A young down-and-out British shoe salesman named Harry Witherspoon takes his dead uncle to Monte Carlo for the best time of his life -- a week of fun, dancing, gambling and sun. If the young man fulfills his uncle's request to the letter, he will inherit the 6 million left to him. If he doesn’t, the money will go to the Universal Dog Home of Brooklyn. As Harry races from casino to nightclub to beach to bedroom with his dead uncle, he is chased by a desperate optometrist, an avaricious showgirl, a mysterious Italian playboy and a trigger-happy murderess, as well as a young woman dead set on getting that money for the dogs. Guns go off, champagne corks pop, nightmares come to life, romance blossoms, dogs bark, and everyone sings! A zany, frothy, colorful and fast-paced musical comedy with a very happy ending.

 

UN RAGAZZO D'ORO / Pupi Avati / Italy

Davide's father, Ettore, was a scriptwriter of B-grade movies based on bad jokes. Davide is an advertising copywriter whose dream is to write something of value. Father and son never understood each other. When Ettore dies in a suspicious car accident -- seemingly a suicide -- Davide’s life takes an unexpected turn. He leaves Milan, his job, his girlfriend Silvia, and moves in with his mother in Rome. In his mother's house his father’s presence, frustrations, secret dreams can still be felt. Ettore’s greatest dream: Ludovica, a beautiful, radiant woman, a publisher who was interested in publishing the autobiographical book Ettore wanted to write. Davide, intrigued by the idea of finally getting to know his father and, above all, being able to continue seeing Ludovica, decides to write the book himself.

 

MELODY / Bernard Bellefroid / Belgium, France, Luxembourg

Melody decides to rent out her body in order to get the money she needs to realize her dream: opening a hair-dressing salon…

 

DAS SOMMERHAUS / THE SUMMER HOUSE / Curtis Burz / Germany

Architect Markus Larsen hides his bisexual tendencies while his wife Christine is drowning with their 11-year-old daughter Elisabeth in unbearable loneliness. When Markus meets the 12-year-old son of his colleague, he feels an immediate affection for the boy. Slowly, Markus begins to approach Johannes and he initiates an intimacy which he cannot control…

 

PERRO GUARDIÁN / GUARD DOG / Bacha Caravedo, Chinón Higashionna / Peru

Lima, the Military Amnesty Law that pardoned those convicted of crimes against humanity during the country’s internal war against terrorism is on the verge of being overturned. Perro (Dog), a former member of a paramilitary group freed by said law, works as an assassin-for-hire for a certain sector of the militia. He lives alone in a dingy room that he leaves only to fulfill his assignments. One particular job leads him to the Church of the Soldiers of Christ. Amid prayers and cries for salvation, Perro meets Apóstol, the cult’s leader. During his visits to the congregation, Perro also meets Milagros, an adolescent for whom he begins to feel a strange sort of attraction. Perro continues to visit the chapel and silently watches out for Milagros. His increased involvement in her life transforms Perro from the cold, distant killer he once was into someone whose violent assignments begin to weigh on his conscience.

 

UN HOMME D'ÉTAT / THE STATESMAN / Pierre Courrège / France

Just a few weeks before elections, the outgoing President of the French Republic, Jean-François Vanier, is at his lowest in the polls. Leader of the most powerful right wing party, he is trying to find a popular figurehead who can save his campaign. He decides to court Robert Bergman, a left wing politician and an iconic figure of French politics, who has retired to a small village in Gers, a region in the southwest of France…

 

MAINTENANT OU JAMAIS / NOW OR NEVER / Serge Frydman / France

Housewives and mothers usually don't rob banks, as a rule. Unless there is an economic crisis, your husband has lost his job and the bank is about to foreclose on your home. Unless one evening destiny puts a thief right in your path, and you use him to learn how to go astray, where there is no turning back.

 

DAS ZIMMERMÄDCHEN LYNN / THE CHAMBERMAID LYNN / Ingo Haeb / Germany

Lynn Zapatek, a chambermaid in a large hotel is a contradiction: she has a deathly fear of human interaction yet she craves intimacy. She is a good worker. No other chambermaid in the hotel is as thorough as Lynn. Her universe revolves around cleaning. But her curiosity is unstoppable. In order to understand what motivates other people, she goes through the guests' belongings and lies underneath their beds at night to eavesdrop. That's how she gets to know call girl Chiara who works in the same hotel. Lynn slowly emerges from her cocoon...

 

LOST IN KARASTAN / Ben Hopkins / United Kingdom, Georgia

Film director Emil Forester is down on his luck and needs a change. When he receives an invitation to a film festival in the Autonomous Republic of Karastan to attend a retrospective of his 2½ films, he decides to go. Little does he know that this could be the start of something big. After a crazy few days during which the famous actor Xan Butler propositions him, beautiful festival representative Chulpan flirts with him, at least Emil is having fun. But he soons finds out the real reason for which he had been invited to Karastan: the President Aleluyev asks him to direct an epic telling the story of Karastani 14th century medieval hero and founder. In spite of some doubts Emil agrees…

 

TRAVELATOR / Dusan Milic / Serbia, Montenegro, USA

Slav, 19, an avid video gamer in Serbia, has a mother who needs medical care that she can't afford. A war refugee, born in Slovenia, so in the enviable position of not needing a valuable American visa, Slav accepts the assignment: a trip to Las Vegas, to gun down a criminal insider who is enrolled in the Serbian state witness protection program. A crack shooter in video games, he is now a hit man for the Serbian mob. Slav luxuriates in the artificial worlds of Las Vegas. He spots and tails the target and his two official bodyguards, carefully noting their habits and behaviour. He begins to realize that he is himself a product of the war and the social circumstances that followed, little more than detritus on the very bottom of the human barrel. He is once again a dedicated shooter, this time in real life, and he uses his skill to complete his new mission.

 

CAPE NOSTALGIA / Izuru  Narushima / Japan

Etsuko Kashiwagi runs the Cape Café in a peaceful little town looking across the sea to distant Mt Fuji. It is the town's favourite meeting place, where farmers, fishermen, hospital workers, clergy, and even the occasional police officer, gather to taste Etsuko's special brew and trade gossip. The two most important things in Etsuko's life are her jack-of-all-trades nephew Koji and the spring water she brings every day from a small island nearby. In every cup Etsuko brews is a prayer for the well-being of her customers, and coffee at her café is an uplifting experience for all. Koji is 45, and devoted to Etsuko, who lives in a shack beside her café. He is hot-tempered, quick to jump to conclusions and a bit of a troublemaker. The winds of change have started to blow through the placid existence of the Cape Café.

 

THE LIGHT SHINES ONLY THERE / Mipo O / Japan

Tatsuo has given up working and is idling his life away. One day at a Pachinko parlour, he gets to know a coarse but friendly young man, Takuji. Tatsuo accepts Takuji's invitation and follows him home, which turns out to be a rundown, isolated house. It is here that Tatsuo meets Takuji's older sister, Chinatsu. They feel a quick mutual attraction and become close, but Chinatsu's life is difficult as she struggles to support her family. Even so, Tatsuo remains steadfast in his love for Chinatsu, and his unwavering feelings begin to sway her. Since finding a connection with Chinatsu, Tatsuo's reality quietly begins to regain its colour...

 

UNA STORIA SBAGLIATA / THE WRONG STORY / Gianluca Maria Tavarelli / Italy

In Gela, a town on the southern coast of Sicily, a soldier, Roberto, and a nurse, Stefania, are deeply in love. They decide to get married. Their life unfolds normally until Roberto dies from a bomb in Iraq. Devastated, Stefania decides to visits the site to figure out what really happened. She joins an association, Smile, a medical NGOs ministering to children in the country, and presents herself as a doctor. She is determined to find the man who murdered her husband. But in her personal quest, she discovers that the country is wracked with serious problems. Her vision of the world changes. So does her mission in life.

 

OBEDIENCIA PERFECTA / PERFECT OBEDIENCE / Luiz Urquiza Mondragon / Mexico

When 13-year-old seminarian Sacramento Santos joins a new order, Los Cruzados de Cristo, he hopes to rise through its three levels of obedience: 1. imperfect obedience, 2. imperfect obedience of the second degree, and finally 3. Perfect Obedience. But this progression proves to be more than just a spiritual journey. Sacramento is adopted by the order's founding father, Ángel de la Cruz, and over the course the year in which they live together, they fall in love and surrender to the most intense, blissful, and contradictory episode of their lives. Years later, older and wiser, Sacramento leaves the order regretting that episode, and he decides to seek justice from his old tutor.

 

DAS ENDE DER GEGULD / THE LIMITS OF PATIENCE / Christian Wagner / Germany

Corinna Kleist is a juvenile court judge who, after a leave of absence following the suicide of a convicted teenager, is appointed to a problem area in Berlin. She now tries harder than ever to change the system in order to prevent troubled kids from being turned into vicious criminals. In the case of 14-year-old Rafiq, she becomes emotionally involved and goes far beyond what her duty as a judge calls for -- the lonely and often hopeless struggle of a courageous woman trying to do the right thing...

 

DA GONG LAO BAN / FACTORY BOSS / Zhang Wei / China

For 20 years, Lin Dalin has operated a successful doll manufacturing business in Shenzhen, fighting tirelessly to compete in the international marketplace. Now, because of rising labour costs, China is losing some of its once-impressive manufacturing industry to cheaper Southeast Asian countries, and Lin's factory suffers with little work coming in to feed the assembly lines even while corners are cut on safety issues. Workers are not paid on time and they threaten to revolt. In a desperate attempt to avoid bankruptcy, Lin begrudgingly accepts a large order from a major international client, hoping that the insultingly thin profit margin will allow his company to survive another quarter. Meanwhile, Ai Jing, a young investigative journalist, goes undercover at Lin's factory to discover the truth about the working conditions in these "blood and sweat" factories.

 

SCAMMERHEAD / Dan Zukovic / Canada

Silas Breece, an unorthodox businessman and legendary hustler, travels the world seeking funds for his increasingly elaborate projects from eccentric investors, mobsters and shady government officials. When his plans begin to derail due to unforeseen circumstances, the scammer finds himself on the underworld's most wanted list. Down but not quite out, he decides his only hope is to ramp it up even further with his most outlandish project yet.

 

 

 

 

 

WORLD COMPETITION – SHORT FILMS:

 

La Ultima Cena / The Last Supper / Vanessa Quintanilla Cobo / Mexico

Romo / León Rechy / Mexico

Nunca Regreses / Never Come Back / Leonardo Diaz / Mexico

Derail / Xia Su / China

Hjonabandssaela / Chum / Jörundur Ragnarsson / Iceland

M 66: la route de la liberté /M 66 : On the Road to Freedom / Roger Otis / Canada

The Secret World of Foley / Daniel Jewel / United Kingdom

Today, I Did My Laundry / Zach Patton / Canada

Rabbit / Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre / France

A Boy's Life / Howard McCain / USA

Kemukujara / Akihito Nonowe, Isao Sano, Konoka Takashiro / Japan, Australia

Sibil Praeim / 11 Frame / Jiyeon Lee / South Korea

Bad Hunter / Sahim Omar Kalifa / Belgium

 

 

 

 

 

JURY OF THE FIRST FILMS COMPETITION

 

Noboru Hirose

Born in Tokyo. He studied history and musicology at Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2002 he writes for the Mainichi Newspapers (Japan) ca. 3000 articles and reports not only about movies, TV programs and classical music as feuilleton writer, but also about criminal cases as police reporter.

 

Bahman Maghsoudlou

Film scholar and critic Bahman Maghsoudlou received Iran’s Forough Farrokhzad literary award for a series of books about cinema and theatre, including the widely acclaimed Iranian Cinema. Maghsoudlou has served as a panelist, juror and lecturer at international film events. As a filmmaker he wrote, directed and produced the  documentary film Ardeshir Mohasses and His Caricatures (1972), which was shown at the Leipzig Film Festival in 1996, Ahmad Mahmoud: a Noble Novelist (2004), and Iran Darroudi: the Painter of Ethereal Moments (2010). His latest two films, the fifth and sixth in the great Iranian artists series, are Ardeshir: The Rebellious Artist (2012), and AbbasKiarostami: A Report (2013), which premiered at Montreal World Film festival.

 

Donald Ranvaud

Anglo-Italian with a marked tendency toward the Brazilian, Donald Ranvaud taught at universities of Warwick and East Anglia, where he became chairman of the film department. He founded the independent film magazine Framework in 1975, which he edited until 1988 and freelanced for MFB, Sight and Sound, The Guardian, La Repubblica, Cahiers du Cinema, American Film as well published books on Italian cinema. During this period he directed documentary items for Channel Four and RAI Uno, including portraits of Paul Schrader, Raul Ruiz, Cui Jian, Laurie Anderson and David Mamet as well as co-directed a feature, Visioni Private. In 1989 he helped start the European SCRIPT Fund. Since then he embarked on production full time, with directors and in countries before they became fashionable, particularly China: 1989-1993 (especially Life on a String and including Farewell my Concubine); and Latin America, 1994 - today (Central do Brasil, Familia Rodante, Xango, Lavoura Arcaica, Babilonia 2000, Madame Sata, Cidade de Deus, nominated for four Oscars in 2004). Most recently he was executive producer on The Constant Gardener by Fernando Meirelles.

 

 

FIRST FILMS WORLD COMPETITION:

 

 

NACHTHELLE / BRIGHT NIGHT / Florian Gottschick / Germany

It's supposed to be an idyllic weekend -- Anna and Stefan, Bernd and Marc, two couples spending a few days in the countryside. The expanding open-pit coal mining operation which will soon be swallowing the town, woods and meadows, brings them back to their hometown. The four protagonists are enjoying their visit to the moribund village... when an old debt about to be cashed in begins invading Anna's mind. Returning to their hometown seems to have a nefarious effect on her. Anna and Bernd are haunted by nightmares; realities begin to shift. As well, Stefan is attracted by the polyamorous relationship of the two other men -- a fact used by Marc to play mind games with Anna. She feels her well-structured life beginning to crumble...

 

AYA ARCOS / Maximilian Moll / Germany, Brazil

In the grey and rainy old quarters of Rio de Janeiro, successful author Edu falls in love with a young hustler, Fabio, despite his fear of attracting HIV. Fabio reciprocates, fascinated by the older man's talent and his independence from the rest of the world. Fabio is socially engaging and wants Edu to open up and they try to work on Edu's anxieties but he is stuck in his lonesome routines and worries. Two very different characters collide and start to understand and accept each other's way of life. All by himself Edu can't help but to take an HIV test which turns out positive. There is nowhere for him to turn, only to Fabio…

 

HIGH PERFORMANCE / Johanna Moder / Austria

Rudi and Daniel are very different brothers. Rudi wears a suit and Daniel rides a bike. Very different and not always amicable. All of a sudden they get the opportunity to help each other. While doing so, they become interested in the same woman, but for distinctively different reasons – as Nora soon discovers. What starts as a harmless quid-pro-quo situation with the prospect of two brothers growing closer again, soon becomes a struggle for values and love, threatening family cohesion and professional lives.

 

L'ANNÉE PROCHAINE / NEXT YEAR / Vania Leturcq / Belgium, France

This is the story of two childhood friends, Clotilde and Aude, 18, best friends since forever and who come from a small provincial village that they never left. The film begins when they are about to finish school and have to decide what they will do next year. Clotilde never felt comfortable in her village and has always wanted to leave while her friend Aude feels good: she has friends, a boyfriend, she has no real desire to leave or even a specific ambition. Clotilde decides to enroll them both in school in Paris so as to leave the village…

 

SCHIMBARE / Álex Sampayo / Spain

Luis and Elvira travel to Romania on orders from an Eastern European criminal organization. As they near their destination, they receive a call that requires them to change their route. They must stop in Budapest and pick up a consignment. Everything seems simple until they discover that what they are supposed to pick up is an 8-year-old girl. This is a lot more than they bargained for. They will have to make the hardest decision of their lives. Stick to the plan or release the girl…

 

TODOS ESTAN MUERTOS / THEY ARE ALL DEAD / Beatriz Sanchis / Spain, Mexico, Germany

If you saw Lupe, 35, in her bathrobe and slippers, you would never imagine that back in the '80s she was a pop star. She and her brother Diego made up the band Groenlandia, whose first album was a huge hit. But Lupe has turned her back on the life of touring and concerts. She is wholly dependent on her mother Paquita and has a teenage son, Pancho, who hates her. Luckily, her mother, Paquita, a superstitious woman with a heart of gold, is there to do the shopping, to deal with her frequent crises and do what matters most: be a mother to Pancho. But Paquita is running out of time…

 

LA VIE PURE / PURE LIFE / Jérémy Banster / France

In 1949, a French explorer journalist, Raymond Maufrais, former resistance fighter, embarked on a solitary expedition in the Amazon forest, on foot in the Guyanese jungle towards the previously unknown Tumuc Humac mountains. Maufrais arrives in Cayenne to fulfill his dream: to link French Guyana to Brazil, then follow the Jari river down to the city of Belem. This will be his last trip: no one will ever see Raymond Maufrais again. In 1950, an aboriginal man stumbles upon some diaries on the banks of the Tamouri river. In these diaries Maufrais relates his daily adventures and encounters with the native people of the river. After his disappearance, his father, Edgar Maufrais, sets out to search for him. He launches 18 expeditions over 12 years and covering 12.000 kms but never found him...

 

NOMADIC CHILDHOODS / Christophe Boula / France

In the middle of breathtaking landscapes in Central Asia, children fill a hostile world with their wishes and their dreams. They all share the same destiny: like their own people, they arrive at major crossroads in their lives -- confronted by love, danger and death. Three amazing destinies: Amraa, the Mongolian teenager, who leaves to the city to meet his lover; Apo, the Siberian baby, lost in the snow; and Lhamo, the Tibetan child, who wishes to live with her yak.

 

NEW TERRITORIES / Fabianny Deschamps / France, Tunisia

Eve, a Frenchwoman, checks into her hotel and puts on her suit; she is there for business, to introduce a new process for the cremation of the dead, “aquamation”, to the Chinese market… A poor Chinese textile worker from a small village, Li Yu is meticulously planning her escape, along with her fiancé and the dowry meant to pay for their wedding, which will now pay for their illegal border crossing. She is excited and nervous about her search for a new and better life. But each time she begins her own tale of travelling in trains and the backs of trucks, something stops her, something’s wrong…Two women from opposite worlds… two paths that meet at the crossroads of belief and reality.   

 

FEVER / Raphaël Neal / France

Damien and Pierre, two high school students from wealthy families decide to plan and carry out the murder of an unknown woman they have previously spotted on the street. The police are at a loss, confused by this murder without motive. Meanwhile, Zoé, an optician in the neighborhood, is feeling more and more moved by the event. When she encounters the teenage murderers she is overtaken by a growing and mysterious desire. Although scared -- she could have been the victim of Damien and Pierre -- Zoé is strangely attracted by the erotic power of the events…

 

A BERNI KÖVET / THE AMBASSADOR TO BERN / Attila Szász / Hungary

Attila Szász’s political thriller chronicles how on August 16, 1958, two Hungarian immigrants in Switzerland broke into the Hungarian embassy in Bern and took the Hungarian ambassador hostage. As the Swiss police surround the building and a group of Hungarian immigrants show up on the street to demonstrate, a tense, twist-filled hostage drama plays out behind the closed doors of the embassy. The screenplay by Norbert Köbli is based on a true story about the aftermath of the 1956 Hungarian rebellion that was brutally suppressed by Soviet tanks.

 

BA DIGARAN / WITH OTHERS / Nasser Zamiri / Iran

Arezoo and Amir-Hossein are a young couple who would like to start a family, but they can't; Arezoo can't conceive a child. There is just one solution: a surrogate mother. Tahareh, Arezoo's close friend and colleague is willing to open a new horizon in the young couple's life, but Iranian society is not. This is a traditional society and surrogate motherhood is not acceptable. When Yaghoub, Tahareh's ex-husband, is temporarily released from prison, things become even more complicated.

 

THE LESSON / Andris Gauja / Latviam Russia

Zane is a devoted teacher mentoring the senior class in a Latvian high school. She tries to live her life in the most meaningful way possible. She takes her mission as a teacher seriously and works hard to help her students develop their talents. Even so, as for many younger teachers, it's hard for Zane to keep her distance from her class -- the students soon become a sort of family for her. When she realizes she's falling in love with one of them, she faces a stark choice between her personal happiness and the pressures of society.

 

LOS BAÑISTAS / OPEN CAGE / Max Zunino / Mexico

The economy has collapsed: there is a shortage of labour, of will, of resources. The impoverishment of society is both moral and economic ― everyone looks after their own little comforts and survival. In this universe we find Flavia, a spoiled teenager with artistic aspirations that are somewhat frustrated when she is not accepted at the university. Her neighbour Martin, a mature man with rigid routines, is her antipode. In the street, outside the building, there is a camp of protesters: people who have lost their livelihood. In this group, though human values still govern conduct, its members have a serious problem: they need a shower…

 

GONZÁLEZ / Christian Díaz Pardo / Mexico

Gonzalez is without a job and he has to lie to his mother, who asks for her monthly check from him on the phone. His financial dire straits lead him right into the arms of an unnamed church in Mexico City with the charismatic Brazilian televangelist Pastor Elias. Gonzalez is assigned to work in the institution’s call centre, where the standard advice to any sort of woes from the calling customers is simple: if you give money to God through the church, God will eventually give back...

 

LA HORA AZUL / THE BLUE HOUR / Evelyne  Pegot-Ogier / Peru

Adrian Ormache is a prosperous lawyer for whom wealth and success are the most important things. Until one day he discovers a secret from his father’s life. He was a marine officer, in charge of a barrack in Ayacucho, an area mostly controlled by the terrorists, during the years of civil unrest. During his command many people were tortured, raped, and murdered, people who were not always terrorists, and specially women. In one occasion, his father forgave the life of one of these women, and she became his lover, but she escaped from the headquarters as soon as she was able to. Apparently, his father was in love with her. When Adrian finds out about the existence of this mysterious woman, he sets out to look for her. She is the only witness of the atrocities committed by his father...

 

TALYN NAADAN / STEPPE GAMES / Bair Dyshenov / Russia

Three warriors, three horses, three songs and one steppe. Somewhere in the Great Steppes a young warrior dies of his wounds after a battle. After his death, the warrior's horse is taken on the road back to his home village, covering a great distance to bear the bad news. In the second story, Baatar, a Russian army recruit, returns home to the steppes, where he finds out that his girlfriend is getting married to another man. Baatar tries to talk to the girl, but her brothers prevent their meeting. The hero of the third story is Purbe, a veteran of the Chechen war who was a trooper and cannot find his place in the civilian world; he longs for his days in the army. The three stories are connected by three folk songs and the steppe where all of them take place.

 

DEKALA PURUDU KENEK / THE STRANGE FAMILIAR / Malith Hegoda / Sri Lanka

Dinithi tries very hard to communicate with her husband, but he ignores her presence. Relentlessly. The more she tries to reach him, the more profound his silence becomes. Their 8-year-old daughter watches them despondently. Dinithi's parents try to get involved but they receive the same treatment from him. When she leaves the house, it is only with her daughter and to run errands... always with the same taxi that he has arranged. Dinithi is attractive to men and she knows it. So does her husband. One day, the husband is involved in a road accident in which a pedestrian is killed. His wife rushes to his side, hoping to be of help. Now he needs her more than ever...

 

 

 

HORS CONCOURS / WORLD GREATS

 

MIKRA ANGLIA / LITTLE ENGLAND / Pantelis Voulgaris / Greece

PSIE POLE / FIELD OF DOGS / Lech Majewski / Poland

CHAGALL - MALEVICH / Alexandre Mitta / Russia

DER KREIS / THE CIRCLE / Stefan Haupt / Switzerland

BOKUTACHI NO KAZUKO / OUR FAMILY / Yuya Ishii / Japan

BUDO NO NAMIDA / A DROP OF THE GRAPEVINE / Yukiko Mishima / Japan

AIMER, BOIRE ET CHANTER / LIFE OF RILEY / Alain Resnais / France

WU REN QU / NO MAN'S LAND / Ning Hao / China

SALAUD, ON T'AIME / WE LOVE YOU, YOU BASTARD / Claude Lelouch / France

AU FIL D'ARIANE / ARIANE'S THREAD / Robert Guédiguian / France

AUF DAS LEBEN! / TO LIFE! / Uwe Janson / Germany

JACK STRONG / Wladyslaw Pasikowski / Poland

HEALING / Craig Monahan / Australia

CUI MIAN DA SHI / THE GREAT HYPNOTIST / Leste Chen / China

BAI RI YAN HUO / BLACK COAL, THIN ICE / Diao Yinan / China, Hong-Kong

HANAYOI DOCHU / A COURTESAN WITH FLOWERED SKIN / Keisuke Toyoshima / Japan

CIUDAD DELIRIO / Chus Gutiérrez / Colombia, Spain

 

 

 

 

FOCUS ON WORLD CINEMA – FEATURE FILMS

 

HEROI / THE HERO / Luan Kryeziu / Kosovo

CIUDAD SIN SOMBRA / GIRL WITH NO FEAR / Bernard Canizares Esguerra / Ecuador, Colombia

SILENCIO EN LA TIERRA DE LOS SUEÑOS / SILENCE IN DREAMLAND / Tito Molina / Ecuador, Germany

BIGANEH / STRANGER / Bahram Tavakoli / Iran

OF HORSES AND MEN / Benedikt Erlingsson / Iceland

TOBE DAKOTA / FLY, DAKOTA, FLY! / Seiji Aburatani / Japan

SAKURASAKU / BLOSSOM BLOOM / Mitsutoshi Tanaka / Japan

LA TIRISIA / PERPETUAL SADNESS / Jorge Pérez Solano / Mexico

FREE RANGE - BALLAAD MAAILMA HEAKSKIITMISEST / Veiko Ounpuu / Estonia

THE BOAR KING / Chen-Ti Kuo / Taiwan /  China

APAKE KAKHAZARD / THE GLASS TRINKET / Nariné Mkrtchyan, Arsen Azatyan / Armenia

BARF / SNOW / Mehdi Rahmani / Iran

BING DU / ICE POISON / Midi Z / Taiwan /  China, Myanmar

FIÈVRES / FEVERS / Hicham Ayouch / Morocco, France

THE ALGERIAN / Giovanni Zelko / USA, Algeria

MATEO / Maria Gamboa / Colombia, France

28 / Prasanna Jayakody / Sri Lanka

MARIA AND THE SPIDER / Maria Victoria Menis / Argentina, Ecuador, France

SANSAN / A SPARKLE OF LIFE / Bunji Satoyama / Japan

SANBUN NO ICHI / ONE THIRD / Hiroshi Shinagawa / Japan

EL BUMBÚN / Fernando Bermudez / Argentina

TAJRISH... AN UNFINISHED STORY / Pourya Azarbayjani / Iran

INFÂNCIA / CHILDHOOD / Domingos Oliveira / Brazil

COPENHAGEN / Mark Raso / USA, Canada, Denmark

CHOELE / Juan Sasiain / Argentina

WERE DENGÊ MIN / COME TO MY VOICE / Hüseyin Karabey / Turkey, France, Germany

MAGKAKABAUNG / THE COFFIN MAKER / Jason Paul Laxamana / Philippines

SILSILE / CONSEQUENCES / Ozan Aciktan / Turkey

TOKYO - THE CITY OF GLASS / Kazuhiro Teranishi / Japan

QUEEN OF CARTHAGE / Mardana Mayginnes / New Zealand, USA

TOMMY / Tarik Saleh / Sweden

ZIMNY PUT / WINTER JOURNEY / Sergei Taramajev / Liubov Lvova / Russia

RASTRES DE SÀNDAL / TRACES OF SANDALWOOD / Maria Ripoll / Spain, India

THE BRIDGE AT THE END OF THE WORLD / Branko Istvancic / Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France

LA MEMORIA DE LOS OLIVOS / THE MEMORY OF THE OLIVE TREES / Raúl Romera Morilla / Spain

BETI AND AMARE / Andy Siege / Germany, Ethiopia

FAMILIENFIEBER / FAMILY FEVER / Nico Sommer / Germany

DAS HOTELZIMMER / THE HOTEL ROOM / Rudi Gaul / Germany

FOR THE LOVE OF POE / Nils Oliveto / Canada

WHEN THE OCEAN MET THE SKY / Lukas Huffman / Canada

MY EX-EX / Nathaniel Warsh / Canada

KAMKAM / GREED / Joel Lamangan / Philippines

BETWEEN YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW / Nilendra Deshapriya / Sri Lanka

4.48 / Jacky Katu / France

INVESTIGACIÓN POLICIAL / POLICE INVESTIGATION / Daniel Aguirre / Spain

PERARIYATHAVAR / NAMES UNKNOWN / Bijukumar Damodaran (Dr. Biju) / India

CLOSER TO THE MOON / Nae Caranfil / Romania, USA, Poland, Italy

APRÈS LA BATAILLE / AFTER THE BATTLE / Simon Leclère / France, Belgium

IS THAT YOU? / Dani Menkin / Israel, USA

TIR / Alberto Fasulo / Italy, Croatia

PERFIDIA / Bonifacio Angius / Italy

L'ULTIMA RUOTA DEL CARRO / THE FIFTH WHEEL / Giovanni Veronesi / Italy

SAM & AMIRA - Sean Mullin - USA

DR. PRAKASH BABA AMTE - THE REAL HERO / Samruoddhi Porey / India

INTHAR / THE SON OF THE LAKE / Yannick Borit / Myanmar

KURMANJAN DATKA / QUEEN OF THE MOUNTAINS / Sadyk Sher-Niyaz / Kyrgyzstan

CUDNA ŠUMA / STRANGE FOREST / Szabolcs Tolnai / Serbia, Hungary

SYN / THE SON / Arseny Gonchukov / Russia, USA

YELLOW RIVER ARIA - LAO QIANG / Gao Feng / China

KROK DO TMY / A STEP INTO THE DARK / Miroslav Luther / Slovakia

PRIMARY / Ross Fergusson / Canada

LA MAFIA UCCIDE SOLO D'ESTATE / THE MAFIA KILLS ONLY IN SUMMER / Pierfrancesco Diliberto aka Pif / Italy

E FU SERA E FU MATTINA / AND THERE WAS EVENING AND THERE WAS MORNING / Emanuele Caruso / Italy

MUERTE EN BUENOS AIRES / DEATH IN BUENOS AIRES / Natalia Meta / Argentina

NJINGA - QUEEN OF ANGOLA / Sergio Graciano / Angola

LAS VACAS CON GAFAS / COWS WEARING GLASSES / Alex Santiago Perez / Puerto Rico

LA SCULTURA / THE SCULPTURE / Mauro John Capece / Italy

CERTIFIÉE HALAL / CERTIFIED HALAL / Mahmoud Zemmouri / France, Algeria, Belgium

TOUS LES CHATS SONT GRIS / ALL CATS ARE GREY / Savina Dellicour / Belgium

KAJARYA / Madhureeta Anand / India

DE BEHANDELING / THE TREATMENT / Hans Herbots / Belgium

SWEEPING FORWARD / Patricia MacDowell / Canada

BEN'S AT HOME / Mars Horodyski / Canada

ELLA / SHE / Libia Stella Gomez / Colombia

ELEPHANT BLUES / Philippe Gautier / France

HEART OF LIGHTNESS / Jan Vardøen / Norway

OS FENÓMENOS / ACES / Alfonso Zarauza / Spain

 

 

FOCUS ON WORLD CINEMA – SHORT FILMS:

 

El modelo de Pickman / Pickman's Model / Pablo Ángeles / Mexico

El Olvido / The Omission / Fermin Rivera / Argentina

Padre / Father / Santiago Grasso / Argentina, France

Matabichos / Bug Killer / Gabriela Palacios / Mexico

Al morir la vie / Leaves to Live / Alex Argüelles / Mexico

No Return on Perishables / Takatsugu Naito / Japan

Taxistop / Marie Enthoven / Belgium

La Visite / Rocko Paolo / Canada

Sound of Tears / Dorothy A. Atabong / Canada

Together Alone / Guillaume Corde / France

The Jigsaw / Basil Al Safar / Portugal, United Kingdom

Fe-Male / Anka Schmid / Switzerland

Dragula / Frank Meli / USA

Tom in America / Flavio Alves / USA, Brazil

Manny Gets Censored / Graeme Robertson / Australia

I Know You / Colin Gerrard, Simone Gallorini / Netherlands, United Kingdom, Italy

A Job / Brendan Meyer / Canada

Prinzip Mensch / The Human Principle / Marco Gadge / Germany

Every Monday / Meelad Moaphi / Canada

A Spring Has Passed By / Eva Daoud / Bahrain

Central Market / Saleh Nass / Bahrain, U.A.E.

Au sol / Grounded / Alexis Michalik / France

Cadet / Kevin Meul / Belgium

The Phone Call / Matt Kirkby / United Kingdom

Vetrarmorgun / Winter Morning / Sakaris Stora / Faroe Islands

Rencontre / Alexandre Da Sylva / Canada

Le Plongeon / Dive / Delphine Le Courtois / France

All the Winters I Haven't Seen / Omid Khoshnazar / Iran

Pomegranate is the Fruit of Paradise / Teymour Ghaderi / Iran

L'Audition / The Audition / Jean-François Morin / Canada

Forêt / Samuel Feller / Belgium, France

Suicide Volonteers / Kenshow Onodera / Japan

Absolution / Jad Haber / Australia

C'est le pied / The Foot / Ricardo Filipe Costa / Canada

I Remember You / John Michael Kennedy / USA

Some Things Won't Sleep / Leah Johnston / Canada

Claire / Cate Smierciak / USA

When the Sun Falls / Yuji Kakizaki / Japan

Joy Burn / Jamie Zampini / Canada

La Contre-allée / Back Alley / Cécile Ducrocq / France

The Chicken / Una Gunjak / Croatia, Germany

The Goodbye Girl / Amber Ripley / Canada

Through the Pane / Pauline Egan / Canada

The Stomach / Ben Steiner / United Kingdom

Poussières / Dusts / Daniel Metge / France

Moul Lkelb / The Man With a Dog / Kamal Lazraq / France, Morocco

La Météo des plages / The Strand / Aude Léa Rapin / France

Itsy Bitsy Spiders / Bertrand Paré / USA

Trausla Sirds / All My Dead / Astra Zoldnere / Latvia

Severo / Harsh / Danilo Baracho / Brazil, Canada

Con buenas intenciones / With Good Intentions / Virginia Romeo / Spain, United Kingdom

Taweez - The Talisman Writer / Ali Hakim / Germany, Afghanistan

The Free Man / Sam Quah / Taiwan

Les frémissements du thé / The Way of Tea / Marc Fouchard / France

Hollygrove - The True Life Story of Monserrat / Carlos A. Hurtado / USA

The Clean Up / Jesse Allen / USA, Mexico

If You Leave Me Now / Maria Eriksson / Sweden

Check Please / Geoffrey James / USA

The Timekeeper / Scott Weber / Canada

C'est le ciel qui vous envoie! / Sent by Heaven! / Pierre Aboujaoude / France

Bikini / Oscar Bernacer / Spain

Onemoretime / José Gonzalez, Antonio Calabuig, Elisa Martinez / Spain

En août / In August / Jenna Hasse / Switzerland

Hirsiz var / There is a Thief / Ali Ihtiyar / Turkey

All He Knows Right / Akihito Nonowe, Isao Sano, Konoka Takashiro / Japan, Australia

Serena / Eric Lamhene / Luxembourg

Coral / Giacomo Martelli / Samoa, Italy, New Zealand

Techos Rotos / Brocken Ceilings / Yanillys Perez / Dominican Republic, France

Ginger in the Rye / Michael Mazzuca / Canada

HitchHikers / Joung Han / Canada

Trigger / Seungmi Lim / South Korea

The OceanMaker / Lucas Martell / USA

Café para llevar / Coffee to go / Patricia Font / Spain

12 Minutes About Peace / Joost Jansen, Reinout Swinnen, Bram Van Rompaey, Boris Sverlow, Gerrit Bekers, Britt Raes, Bert  Van Haute, Thomas Ceulemans, Wendy Morris, Silvia Defrance, Marc James Roels, Emma  De Swaef, Roman Klochkov, Joke Van Der Steen, Valérie Lommel, Michael Palmaers / Belgium

 

 

 

 

 

 

DOCUMENTARIES OF THE WORLD – FEATURE AND MEDIUM LENGTH FILMS:

 

COMO DIOS NOS TRAJO / LIKE GOD MADE US / Maury Marcano / Argentina, Venezuela

BERTRACCHI - THE ART OF FORGERY / Arne Birkenstock / Germany

BEYOND THE WALLS / Gayle Embrey / USA, Argentina

WATCHMEN IN THE WIND / Liang Bixin / China

COMPLICIT / Michael Ivan Schwartz / USA

L'HEUREUX NAUFRAGE / FORTUNATE SHIPWRECK / Guillaume Tremblay / Canada

CRUSTACEOS / CRUSTACEANS / Vicente Perez Herrero / Spain

LA TRACE / THE TRACE / Gabriel Tejedor, Enrico Pizzaleto / Switzerland

TELL ME OF THE SEAS / Reza Allamehzadeh / Netherlands

A RAS DEL CIELO / GRAZING THE SKY / Horacio Alcalá / Spain, Mexico, Portugal

AGNÈS LETESTU - A SHINING STAR / Marlène Ionesco / France

MAN vs TRASH / Martin Esposito / France

THE HIGHEST LEVEL / Christian Berger / Germany

NO LAND'S SONG / Ayat Najafi / Germany, France

I, AFRIKANER / Annalet Steenkamp / South Africa

OBAMA MAMA / Vivian Norris / USA, United Kingdom

SEX, FAME & MURDER: THE LUKA MAGNOTTA STORY / Naomi Hiltz / Canada

WE WERE REBELS / Katharina von Schroeder, Florian Schewe / Germany, Sudan

POTROSENI / CONSUMED / Borut Separovic / Croatia

JE VOUS ÉCRIS PAR-DELÀ LES MERS / HAITI,MY MOTHER'S LAND / Olivier Horn / France, Haiti

À L'OMBRE DU ROCHER / THE PERCÉ ROCK REDEMPTION / Martine Fortin, Guy Bonneau / Canada

PARCOURS D'AMOUR / Bettina Blümner / France, Germany

FELICE CHI È DIVERSO / HAPPY TO BE DIFFERENT / Gianni Amelio / Italy

DÉCEPTION DURABLE / SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT / Michelle Moore, William Ray / Canada

SUN-CHEON / SPLENDID BUT SAD DAYS / Hong-Ki Lee / South Korea

HASTA EL FIN DE LOS DÍAS / TO THE END OF RECKONING / Mauricio Bidault / Mexico

BIENVENUE CHEZ NOUS / WELCOME TO OUR HOME / Christine Doyon, Isabelle Darveau / Canada

 

 

DOCUMENTARIES OF THE WORLD – SHORT FILMS:

 

Bangladesher Ridoy / Saiful Wadud Helal / Bangladesh

Life After Manson / Olivia Klaus / USA

Scars of Cambodia / Alexandre Liebert / France

L'Être venu d'ailleurs / The Being From Elsewhere / Guy Bordin, Renaud De Putter / Belgium

Renée R. Lettres retrouvées / Lisa Reboulleau / France

The White House Overture / Steve Radley / USA

There is a Garden / Masoud Raouf / Canada

 

 

 

TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL J. WERNER

 

CUI MIAN DA SHI / THE GREAT HYPNOTIST / Leste Chen / China

BAI RI YAN HUO / BLACK COAL, THIN ICE / Diao Yinan / China, Hong-Kong

FAH TALAI JONE / TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER / Wisit Sasanatieng / Thailand

NORUWEI NO MORI / NORWEGIAN WOOD / Tran Anh Hung / Japan

YI DAI ZONG SHI / THE GRANDMASTER / Wong Kar-Wai / Hong-Kong

 

 

 

STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL – CANADIAN SECTION:

 

Bed/Frame  / Alysha  Seriani, Jae Woo Kang, Jessica Johnson / Canada

Bromance / Florence Pelletier / Canada

Burned / Cole Northey / Canada

Copper or Plastic / Michael Gannon / Canada

Cultivator of the Way / Rheanna Toy / Canada

Debt Sentence / Travis Welowszky / Canada

Driftwood / Chris Barnard / Canada

Emma / Aerlan Barrett / Canada

Happy Endings / Hannes Thor Arason / Canada

Hard Card / Lucas Hrubizna / Canada

Inside Voice / Weiyuan Li / Canada

La Gardienne / Pier-Philippe Chevigny / Canada

Last Night's Party / Jacqueline Andrade, Mark Cira / Canada

Lifers / Joel Andrew Salaysay / Canada

My Buddy / Mark Moliterni / Canada

Naked Eye / Lilian Sepulveda Navarrete / Canada

Objective Love / Lucia Lozano / Canada

Pull Up Your Pants Up / Adrian Wallace / Canada

Razones / Milad Alamkhany / Canada

Ropes / Monica Cheema / Canada

Running By / Bryce  Gamache / Canada

The Katherine Problem / Joseph Carney / Canada

'Til Death / Connor Gaston / Canada

Un après-midi avec Paolo / Anabelle Lavoie / Canada

Unordinary Journey in an Ordinary Day / Yoshino Aoki / Canada

Wake / Marc-Olivier Harvey / Canada

 

STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL – INTERNATIONAL SECTION:

 

Marea / Tides / Adam Breier / Cuba

17 anni / Age 17 / Filippo Demarchi / Switzerland

Ein Tag am Meer / A Day by the Sea / Aline Chukwuedo / Germany

Alice / Geoffroy Faugérolas / USA

Aussi loin / Franziska  M. Hoenisch / France, Germany

Jetzt jetzt jetzt / Beat beat beat / Christin Freitag / Germany

Berlin Troika / Andrej Gontcharov / Germany

Blur Blue / Sonja Polligkeit / Germany

Bonne Espérance / Kaspar Schiltknecht / Switzerland

Burrow / Natalie Erika James / Australia

Canuck Black / Rebecca Archer / United Kingdom

Devil / Lisa Bierwirth / Germany

Door God / Yulin Liu / USA

Dreamers / Joseph Dwyer / USA

Elisabeth / Katharina Woll / Germany

Enquête familiale en pays limitrophe / Quentin Bernard / France

Espés / Tanit  Fernandez, Isaac Rodriguez / Spain

I don't say goodbye, I say see you soon / Giuliana Monteiro / USA

Fliegen / Flying / Katharina Woll / Germany

Full-Windsor / Faraday Okoro / USA

Gabriel / Benjamin Chimoy / Germany, Spain

How to Avoid Annoying People / Ariel Nasser / USA

I've Been a Sweeper / Ciarán Dooley / Ireland

In Passing / Alan Miller / USA

Karaganda / Max Weissberg / USA

Un Sueño Recurrente / A Recurring Dream / Santiago Esteves / Argentina

Serori / Celery / Pedro Collantes / Netherlands

The Way Home / Ting Song / USA

Lehitmaser LeRega / Keep it Cool / Na'ama Keha / Israel

Le Doigt d'honneur / Malika Pellicioli / Switzerland

Load / Niv Shpigel, Robert Moreno / Israel

Love at Last Sight / Oscar Hernandez-Topete / USA

Mamis: A Family Portrait / Virginia Fuentes / United Kingdom

Maria's Episode / Sanja Zivkovic / Serbia/Montenegro

Has Anyone Seen Eyal Nurich? / Shira Porat / Israel

Michael S., re-collected / Steven Swirko / Austria

Morning / Yakie Ayalon / Israel

My Stuffed Granny / Effie Pappa / United Kingdom

Nadeshda / Anna Frances Ewert / Germany

Ni-Ni / Melissa Hickey / USA

Mein letztes Konzert / My Last Concert / Selcuk Zvi Cara / Germany

Oh! My Princess / Heewook Sa / South Korea

Paris Al Hamayim / Paris on the Water / Hadas Ayalon / Israel

Porzellan / Porcelain / Katinka Narjes / Germany

Rainbow / Marina Solovieva / Russia

Rendezvous / Sylvia Borges / Germany

Roughstock / Jessica Baclesse / USA

Erlösung / Salvation / Mark Gerstorfer / Austria

Scaremonger / Sasa Numic / USA

Shoes from Trieste / Gregor Božic / Germany

Si no se puede bailar, esta no es mi Revolución / Lillah Halla / Cuba

Smut / Tom Sveen / USA

The Life and Death of Tommy Chaos and Stacey Danger / Michael Lukk Litwak / USA

The Divide / Ashley Monti / USA

The Immaculate Reception / Charlotte Glynn / USA

Las Cieni / The Shadow Forest / Andrzej Cichocki / Poland

The Tour Guide / Amos Geva / Israel

The Wonderful / Erin Good / Australia

Tobacco Burn / Justin Liberman / USA

Woman in Fragments / Quan Zhou / USA

 

HOW TO SEE LOTS OF FILMS

AT THE WORLD FILM FESTIVAL

WITHOUT GOING BROKE

 

 

THE THEATRES

 

IMPÉRIAL THEATRE, 1430, de Bleury St. (Metro Place des Arts)

            Sandra & Leo Kolber Pavilion, Salle Lucie et André Chagnon

QUARTIER LATIN CINEMA (9 theatres, 350 Emery St. (metro Berri-UQAM)

 

 

TICKETS

 

In its ongoing effort to make quality cinema accessible to as many people as possible, The Montreal World Film Festival has instituted a special quantity discount. The discount coupons are now available.

 

10 coupons are available for $70. representing a saving of 30% on individual tickets.

 

The coupons can be exchanged for tickets for specified showings beginning Saturday August 16 at the box offices of the Quartier Latin Cinema, the Imperial Cinema and the Place des Arts.

 

Cinephile passes” are on sale for $250 each.

Passports” are on sale for $100 each.

 

Purchase forms for “Cinephile passes” and “Passports” are available on the Festival's web site: www.ffm-montreal.org

 

Further information: (514) 848-3883

 

 

 

Italian focus in Montreal: Thirteen films, produced or co-produced by Italy, are on show

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LA DOLCE VITA DOWNTOWN ITALY IN FINE FORM AT THE 38th MWFF

As always the Montreal World Film Festival has a bumper crop of Italian films to show, this year more than ever. Starting with the president of the jury, Sergio Castellitto, and continuing through various sections of the Festival, lovers of Italian cinema will have plenty to celebrate.

            Thirteen films, produced or co-produced by Italy, are on show and Pupi Avati will be on hand for the premiere of his new film along with a large delegation of Italian film people.

 

World Competition

            UN RAGAZZO D’ORO (A Golden Boy), directed by Pupi Avati. Davide's father, Ettore, was a scriptwriter of B-grade movies based on bad jokes. Davide is an advertising copywriter whose dream is to write something of value. Father and son never understood each other, and probably never really talked. When Ettore dies in a suspicious car accident -- seemingly a suicide -- Davide’s life takes an unexpected turn. He leaves Milan, his job, his girlfriend Silvia, and moves in with his mother in Rome. In his mother's house his father’s presence, frustrations, secret dreams can still be felt. Ettore’s greatest dream: Ludovica (Sharon Stone), a radiant woman, a publisher who was interested in publishing the autobiographical book Ettore wanted to write. Davide, intrigued by the idea of finally getting to know his father, looks for this mysterious book in his father’s papers but he finds nothing. Frustrated but intrigued, he decides to write the book himself.       

            AMANET (The Last Wish), by Namik Ajazi, an Albanian-Italian co-production, is set in Albania in the 1980s. Life in the country has turned into a real hell and Enver Hoxha’s paranoia reaches its peak as he gets rid of his closest “friends” one after the other. One of them is Mentor, head of the Secret Service. Sensing the danger Mentor locks himself night after night in a secret room of his house and starts recording the events he was involved in from the beginning of the Communist regime. He gives the tapes to his son, who escapes to Italy.
            THE WRONG STORY (Una storia sbagliata), by GianlucaMaria Tavarelli, is set in Gela, a town on the southern coast of Sicily, where a soldier, Roberto, and a nurse, Stefania, are deeply in love. They decide to get married. Their life unfolds normally until Roberto dies from a bomb in Iraq. Devastated, Stefania decides to visit the site to figure out what really happened. Expecting to find enemies, she finds instead people who are asking the same social and political questions that are being posed in the west, about health, the environment, poverty. Her vision of the world changes. So does her mission in life.

 

Focus on World Cinema

            THE FIFTH WHEEL (L’ultima ruotta del carro), by Giovanni Veronesi. Ernesto Marchetti is an everyday hero, a humble house mover. As a boy, his father explained the facts of life for someone in his social and economic circumstances: "You are a fifth wheel". Upholsterer, nursery school cook, mover, chauffeur, film extra... the only way to get ahead in life for a fifth wheel is to keep moving. And through Ernesto we are cast a cynical and watchful gaze on the vices and virtues of Italy and Italians, a journey through contemporary Italy that lasts for four decades.
            TIR, by Alberto Fasulo. Travelling around European roads, Branko has turned into a truck driver who is farther away from everything and everyone, living on his own in his cabin while trying to give his family a better life. Day and night, for long weeks, becoming one with his truck, he now earns three times his wage as a teacher, but everything has a price, even though sometimes it is not measurable in money.

            PERFIDIA, by Bonifacio Angius. After his wife dies, Peppino finds himself faced with the problem of his son Angelo who, despite being 35 years old, still lives at home, without a job or a steady girlfriend.

            THE MAFIA KILLS ONLY IN SUMMER (La mafia uccide solo d’estate), by Pierfrancesco Diliberto aka Pif, brings us back to Sicily. The day the well-known Mafioso Vito Ciancimino is elected mayor of Palermo is also the day Arturo is born, and this coincidence will have many more consequences on his life than one would think. In fact, the boy has two obsessions: his tormented love for Flora, who shares a desk with him in class; and the frightening connections between his city and the Mafia.
            AND THERE WAS EVENING AND THERE WAS MORNING (E fu sera, e fu mattina), by Emanuele Caruso, is set in Avila, where, in the town’s main square, everybody is celebrating the feast of Saint Eurosia, protector of earth's harvest. But something is also happening in the village bar, where all eyes are glued to the television set...
            THE SCULPTURE (La scultura), by Mauro John Capece. Moses is a talented sculptor totally committed to his art who struggles to eke out a living. He decides to rent a room to Korinne, a beautiful woman who works as an escort and is thoroughly convinced that the primary goals of life are easy money and external beauty. The meeting between Moses and Korinne leads to a love story that will change their lives forever.

            CLOSER TO THE MOON by Nae Caranfil, is a Romania-USA-Italy-Poland co-production set in 1959 telling the true story of a Romanian police officer who teams up with a small crew of old friends from the World War II Resistance to pull off a heist by convincing everyone at the scene of the crime that they are only filming a movie.

           

            Plus two short films: CORAL, by Giacomo Martelli, in which Pio, a Samoan fisherman, one day ventures into an off-limits lagoon and is faced with a moral dilemma by his discovery; and I KNOW YOU by Colin Gerrard and Simone Gallorini, which shows how in a game of confidence, it doesn't matter who you are, it's who they think you are.

           

World Documentaries

            HAPPY TO BE DIFFERENT (Felice chi è diverso), by Gianni Amelio, guides us through a secret Italy, its homosexual world before the 1980s, when the first attempts at "gay liberation" began to meet success. The film documents those who experienced the burden of being different,  people, now elderly, who remember how they lived this situation under Fascism and then in the Second World War, when a veil of silence was drawn over the topic, and people lived in fear and repression.

            The Montreal World Film Festival runs from August 21 to September 1. Coupon booklets and individual tickets are available August 16 to 21, from noon to 7 pm, at the Cinéma Imperial and the Cinéma du Quartier Latin  As well, festivalgoers may purchase their tickets through the Admission network beginning August 22.

 

38th edition of the MWFF The Cinema Under the Stars will be showing free movies!

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The Montreal World Film Festival

Cinema Under the Stars program will be back this year with twelve nights of free outdoor movie screenings. Beginning August 21 and running nightly at 8 :30 pm through Labour Day, September 1, the Festival will show a wide selection of popular movies on the esplanade of the Place des Arts. Pick your places… first come first serve!

 

Thursday, August 21th

LA VIE EN ROSE, France 2007, French, Olivier Dahan.

Biopic of French singing icon Edith Piaf.

 

Friday, August 22nd

LE SECRET DES POIGNARDS VOLANTS (Shi mian mai fu), China-Hong Kong 2004, Mandarin, French subtitles. Zhang Yimou.  The waning Tang dynasty is torn by unrest, and the police are on the hunt for the leader of the most prominent enemy army, the House of Flying Daggers.


 

Saturday,  August 23rd

WOODSTOCK, USA 1970 (director’s cut 1994), Michael Wadleigh, English w French subtitles.

In 1969 man first set foot on the moon...and for 3 days that summer, half a million people experienced the single most defining moment of their generation-the Woodstock music festival in upstate New York. This is the indelible record of that event.

 

Sunday, August 24

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, USA 1975, English, French subtitles, Milos Forman.

Portrait of a free spirit in a close system. After admittance to a mental institution, a brash rebel rallies the patients to take on the oppressive head nurse.  Winner of all five top Oscars.

 

Monday, August 25

LE BAL, Italy-France, 1983, Ettore Scola. A wordless history of 20th century Europe, France and Paris as seen through the portrait of a dancehall and its patrons.

 

Tuesday, August 26

ROUTE 132, Canada (Quebec), French with English subtitles, Louis Bélanger. Two old friends and small-time crooks embark on a crime spree, but take an unexpected detour that could lead them down the road to redemption.

 

Wednesday, August 27

TESS, UK - France 1979, English with French subtitles, Roman Polanski. Handsome, evocative adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s «Tess of the D’Ubervilles», with Nastassia Kinski in her star-making performance as the strong-willing girl from a poor family whose fortunes rise and fall when she is foisted onto polite society.

 

Thursday, August 28

LA MARIÉE ÉTAIT EN NOIR (The bride wore black), France 1969, French with english subtitles, François Truffaut. François Truffaut in his Hitchcock mode and a quintessential Jeanne Moreau who is cool and determined in her goal to exact revenge on the men responsible for her bridegroom’s death. Her failed suicide seems only to strengthen her resolve.

 

Friday, August 29

PULP FICTION, USA 1994, English with French subtitles, Quantin Tarantino.  The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster’s wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in three tales of violence and redemption. Winner of the Palme d’or at Cannes.

 

Saturday, August 30th

LAGAAN/LAGAAN: ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIA, Inde 2001, English and Hindi, French subtitles, Ashutosh Gowariker. The people of a small village in Victorian India, struggling under famine and high taxes, stake their future on a game of cricket against their British rulers.

 

Sunday, August 31th

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, (Wo Hu Cang Long), USA-China-Hong Kong-Taïwan, 2000, Mandarin with English subtitles , Ang Lee. Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword and and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, acrobatic, adolescent nobleman’s daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life.

 

Monday, September 1st:

IMAGINE: JOHN LENNON, UK, 1981, English with French subtitles, Andrew Solt. Discover John...the angry youth, the musician, the radical, the husband, the father, the lover, the idealist...through his own words and personal collection of film and music.

 

Booklets of tickets and individual tickets to films of the Festival itself will go on sale August 16 to 21, from noon to 7 pm, at the box offices of the Imperial Cinema and the Cinéma du Quartier Latin. Festivalgoers may also purchase tickets online through Admission beginning August 22.

 


The 38th Montreal World Film Festival opens today, word from the President

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The 38th Montreal World Film Festival August 21 - September 1, 2014


 

Since its founding 38 years ago, the Montreal World Film Festival continues to offer film lovers and professionals a rich program based on cultural diversity, innovation, independence and creativity. The success and international reputation of the Montreal World Film Festival are firmly linked to these principles and goals.

The World Film Festival is the only competitive film event in North America recognized by FIAPF, the International Federation of Film Producers’ Associations.

Influence Communication, Canada's top information broker and aggregator, which collects and aggregates 700,000 news items from around the world, analyzed fallout from the Montreal World Film Festival and concluded that it is "Quebec's standard-bearer in international media", the Quebec event that is the most widely covered around the world.

The exhibition of films in movie theatres has undergone considerable transformation in recent years. For a long time, even ahead of New York and Los Angeles, Montreal was the North American city where cinephiles could avail themselves of the broadest selection of works from around the world. These days, the programming of commercial cinemas is dominated by blockbusters. Without the Montreal World Film Festival and its annual selection of some 400 films from 80 countries, the Montreal film landscape would be drastically reduced.

In addition to its program of screenings, the Festival presents a wide series of film-related activities. We invite you to consult our web site regularly for details.

Bon festival!

Serge LOSIQUE 
President

 

Lelouch opens the 38th MWFF

Golden Boy - Un Ragazzo d'Oro has its world premiere in Montreal Pupi Avati in attendance

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UN RAGAZZO D'ORO

Written and directed by Pupi Avati with cinematography by Blasco Giurato, edited by Luigi Capalbo; starring Riccardo Scarmacio, Sharon Stone, Cristiana Capotondi, Giovanna Ralli; music by Raphael Gualazzi

Synopsis

When Davide's father, a maker of B movies, dies in a car accident, he is said to have left behind an unpublished autobiography. Unable to find the book, Davide decides to write his own. 

 

Director

Born in Bologna, Italy in 1938, Pupi Avati joined a jazz band in the mid-1950s and founded a production company with his brother Antonio. Together they produced, wrote and directed BALSAMUS, L'UOMO DI SATANA (1968). He has since directed a wide spectrum of films ranging from thrillers and horror films to lavish historical dramas. These include: THOMAS (1969), MISTRESS (1975), THE JAZZ BAND (1978), HELP ME DREAM (1981), WE THREE (1984), BIX (1991), BROTHERS AND SISTERS (1992), MAGNIFICAT (1993), DECLARATIONS OF LOVE (1994), MYSTERIOUS ENCHANTER (1996), THE BEST MAN (1998), MIDSUMMER NIGHT DANCE (1999), THE HEART IS ELSEWHERE (2003), CHRISTMAS REMATCH (2004) and Il cuore grande delle ragazze (2011). 

Pupi Avati filmography as a director

Films directed

 

Pupi Avati in Montreal to present his latest film with Sharon Stone...Golden Boy

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For its 38th edition, the Montreal World Film Festival is delighted to host the great director, screenwriter and Italian producer, Pupi Avati. The director is presenting UN RAGAZZO D’ORO (A Golden Boy) in the world competition, starring Sharon Stone and italiian actorRiccardo Scamarcio.

            The World Competition feature film UN RAGAZZO D'ORO (A Golden Boy), tells the story of Davide Bias. In the past, Bias’s father, Ettore, was a writer of mediocre films. Davide dreams of one day writing something really phenomenal. After the mysterious death of his father, which could be a suicide, Davide returns to live with his mother in Rome. The greatest desire of the deceased Ettore was to be closer to Ludovica (Sharon Stone), a publisher who was planning to publish his autobiography. Seeking to better understand his father’s motives, and fascinated by the presence of this seductive woman, Davide decides to write the autobiography in secret, in the place of his father.

            Born Giuseppe Avati in Bologna (Italy) in 1938, Pupi Avati chose to pursue a musical career. During the mid-60s, he decided to devote himself to cinema, his other passion, which developed after watching Fellini's film 8 ½, a film about the life of a director.

            Avati began with horror films, and is now considered the Italian master of this genre, with features like (The House of the Laughing Windows, 1976) and Zeder (1983), which are considered his masterpieces. Extremely versatile, Avati directed and produced films with genres as diverse as historical pieces, dramas, comedies jazz biopics, etc. He has also collaborated with filmmakers like Pier Paolo Pasolini.

            Between 1968 and 2014 he made 41 films, scripted 47, and has been nominated several times for the Palme d'Or in Cannes, the Golden Lion at Venice, and the Golden Bear in Berlin. He also received numerous awards and in 2000 he received the World Film Festival award for Best Screenplay for The Via degli Angeli as well as the Grand Prix of the Americas.

Québec Film "FOR THE LOVE OF POE" has its world premiere in Montreal

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The feature-film will be presented in two distinct original versions: English and French, a rare event.

 

FOR THE LOVE OF POE, produced written, directed and starring Nils Oliveto, will be presented in world premiere at the Montreal World Films Festival (MWFF) on August 30 at 18h45.

 

The film, screened separately in a French original version (''Pour l'Amour de Poe'') and also in an English original version, will turn out to be a rare event at the MWFF for a feature-project presented in two different languages since its beginnings in 1977. This ambitious project is the result of a solid collaboration among perfectly bilingual actors.

 

Shot in the greater Montreal area, FOR THE LOVE OF POE tells the story of Martin Skald (Nils Oliveto), an ex-convict and a beloved fan of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry. Immediately following his release from prison, he is commissioned  by a world-class smuggler (Serge Patry) to find three artifacts with supposedly supernatural powers dating back from Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Incas in the 1500's.

 

FOR THE LOVE OF POE  is a modern day poetic-suspense which extracts, from the words of the famous poet,  the deepest fear of a man suffocating from paranoia and delusions in direct connection with his past actions.

 

Nils Oliveto is also a professor in health and physical education at Lionel-Groulx College in St-Thérèse. A former student-athlete on scholarship in the United States, he started studying acting and screenwriting in parallel with his graduate degree studies in exercise physiology at the University of Oklahoma.He continued studying his craft and acting career in Los Angeles with top TV and film actors. Through his production company HAMMERMAN FILMS, Nils has produced, wrote, directed and starred in several productions that were featured in domestic and international film festivals.

 

Screenings for ''For the Love of Poe'' will take place August 30 (World Premiere-English version), August 31 (World Premiere-French version), and September 1 (English version) at the Quartier Latin Cinéma Cineplex Odéon.

Canadian Film "Sound Of Tears" had its World Premiere @ The Montreal World Film Festival

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SOUND OF TEARS

2014, Colour, Canada, Focus on World Cinema 

 

Production Team

Director : Dorothy A. Atabong

Screenwriter : Dorothy A. Atabong

Cinematographer : Joel Kim

Editor : Charles Ross

Cast : Albert Williams, Dorothy A. Atabong, Edsson Morales

Music : Coline Laroche de Feline, Dobet Gnahoré

Film production and Sales : Prod. & Ventes/Sales: Dorothy A. Atabong, Ayinke Films, soundoftearsfilm@gmail.com

 

 

Synopsis

A young woman is forced into an arranged marriage to save the family "honour" but her true love won't give up so easily. 

 

Director

-- Toronto actress-filmmaker Dorothy A. Atabong was born in Cameroon and graduated from the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre in New York. This is her directorial debut. 

Sayuri Yoshinaga on her first visit to Montreal with his film in competition Cape Nostalgia

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Sayuri Yoshinaga,one of the great actresses of modern Japanese cinema, winner of four Japan Film Academy awards, is in town to accompany director Izuru Narushima for the presentation of his CAPE NOSTALGIA in the Festival’s World Competition.

            Star of over 100 films, Yoshinaga has been one of contemporary Japanese cinema’s most popular actresses since the 1960s, with her own personal following of fans known as “sayurists” (Sayurisuto). Active in public causes, she has worked especially in the anti-nuclear movement and is a well-known supporter of the Seibu Lions baseball club.

CAPE NOSTALGIA is set  in a peaceful little town looking across the sea to Mt. Fuji. That’s whereEtsuko Kashiwagi runs the Cape Café. Named because of its location atop the cape where it juts out into the ocean, it is the town's favourite meeting place, where farmers, fishermen, hospital workers, clergy, and even the occasional police officer, gather to taste Etsuko's special brew and trade gossip. The two most important things in Etsuko's life are her jack-of-all-trades nephew Koji and the spring water she brings every day from a small island nearby. In every cup Etsuko brews is a prayer for the well-being of her customers, and coffee at her café is an uplifting experience for all. Koji is 45, and devoted to Etsuko, who lives in a shack beside her café. He is hot-tempered, quick to jump to conclusions and a bit of a troublemaker. Midori, who left town abruptly after quarrelling with her father Toku, a local fisherman, has come home after several years, and Etsuko senses that something is wrong. Tani, a local realtor, has been a regular customer for 30 years, and knows both Etsuko and Koji better than anyone, but he is growing distant. The winds of change have started to blow through the placid existence of the Cape Café.

Born in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan in 1961, Izuru Narushima's debut feature, The Hunter, (2004)  won him Best New Director honours at the 2005 Japanese Professional Movie Awards and the Yokohama Festival. His subsequent films include Fly, Daddy, Fly! (2005), Midnight Eagle (2007),Love Fight (2008), A Lone Scalpel (2010), Admiral Yamamoto (2011), Rebirth (2011), winner of Best Director at the Japanese Academy, and A Chair on the Plains (2013).

            CAPE NOSTALGIA (Fushigi Na Mikaki No Monogatari) will be shown in World Competition August 29 at 9 am and at 7 pm at the Imperial Cinema. It will be shown again at the Imperial on August 30 at 2 pm.

 

            There will be a press conference with Ms. Yoshinaga and Mr. Narushima at the Salon Création of the Hyatt Hotel on August 29 at 2:15 pm. The film is in town along with a delegation of two score Japanese media people, representing four TV networks and eight Japanese print publications.


TUDENT FILM FESTIVAL 2014 - Canada & International Awards

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THE 45TH STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL RANAUGUST 23 TO 27, 2014

The award ceremony took place August 27th at the Vego restaurant on St Denis

 

26 Canadian films, 60 international films selecteds A bumper year for diversity and new talent
 

Organized within the framework of the Montreal World Film Festival, the Student Film Festival, held August 23 to 27, 2014, this year has 2 competitive sections, comprising 26 Canadian films and 60 international films respectively. The winning films will share 6 prizes, including the Norman McLaren Prize for best Canadian film and the jury awardMost Promising Director.

                  The members of the 2014 jury are Roger Otis, Montreal filmmaker whose own short film is entered in this year’s official competition of the main festival, Leopoldo Soto, Mexican critic and filmmaker, and Alisi Telengut, who won two prizes at previous festivals.

                  Thoroughly eclectic, the 2014 edition comprises all forms and subjects. Locally, Concordia University has 4 films selected and the University of Montreal one. Simon Fraser University in Vancouver has nine films selected and Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver has one. From Ontario the festival has selected two films each from Humber College and Ryerson, and one each from the University of Western Ontario in London, and York University in Toronto. The University of Regina in Saskatchewan is represented by an experimental film.

The reputation of the Montreal festival has attracted many student films from around the world and this year, to accommodate the abundance of excellent foreign productions, an international competition was established. This section features films from 18 countries: the United States, South Korea,  Germany, Russia, Israel, Switzerland, Australia, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Serbia, Montenegro, Ireland, Spain, Austria, Cuba, France, Argentina and Poland. Prizes in both sections include the following categories: documentary, fiction, animation and experimental.

                 Founded by Serge Losique in 1969, the Student Film Festival is the oldest film festival in Canada and was incorporated into the World Film Festival in 1985. The Festival has an illustrious history of discovering new talent. Many of the young directors that have passed through its ranks over the years have gone on to become noted cineastes winning Oscars and other prizes around the world. Among them André Leduc, Joyce Borenstein, Veronica Soul, William McGillivray, Roger Cantin, Danyèle Patenaude, Jeannine Gagné, Franco Battista, Claude Laflamme, Barry Greenwald, Mario Bolduc, George Mihalka, Sturla Gunnarsson, Rafal Zielinski, Jean-Claude Lauzon, Christian Duguay, Geoff Bowie, Jeff Abugov, Stephen Reizes, Peter Mettler, Bachar Chbib, Attila Bertalan, Stefan Pleszczynski, Arto Paragamian, Benoît Pilon, André Turpin, Ann Marie Fleming…

 

 

LIST OF FILMS

 

STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL – NATIONAL COMPETITION

 

Bed / Frame / Alysha  Seriani, Jae Woo Kang, Jessica Johnson / Canada

Bromance / Florence Pelletier / Canada

Burned / Cole Northey / Canada

Copper or Plastic / Michael Gannon / Canada

Cultivator of the Way / Rheanna Toy / Canada

Debt Sentence / Travis Welowszky / Canada

Driftwood / Chris Barnard / Canada

Emma / Aerlan Barrett / Canada

Happy Endings / Hannes Thor Arason / Canada

Hard Card / Lucas Hrubizna / Canada

Inside Voice / Weiyuan Li / Canada

La Gardienne / Pier-Philippe Chevigny / Canada

Last Night's Party / Jacqueline Andrade, Mark Cira / Canada

Lifers / Joel Andrew Salaysay / Canada

My Buddy / Mark Moliterni / Canada

Naked Eye / Lilian Sepulveda Navarrete / Canada

Objective Love / Lucia Lozano / Canada

Pull Your Pants Up / Adrian Wallace / Canada

Razones / Milad Alamkhany / Canada

Ropes / Monica Cheema / Canada

Running By / Bryce  Gamache / Canada

The Katherine Problem / Joseph Carney / Canada

'Til Death / Connor Gaston / Canada

Un après-midi avec Paolo / Anabelle Lavoie / Canada

Unordinary Journey in an Ordinary Day / Yoshino Aoki / Canada

Wake / Marc-Olivier Harvey / Canada

 

STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL – INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Marea / Adam Breier / Cuba

17 anni / 17 ans / Filippo Demarchi / Switzerland

Ein Tag am Meer / Aline Chukwuedo / Germany

Alice / Geoffroy Faugérolas / USA

Aussi loin / Franziska  M. Hoenisch / France, Germany

Jetzt jetzt jetzt / Christin Freitag / Germany

Berlin Troika / Andrej Gontcharov / Germany

Blur Blue / Sonja Polligkeit / Germany

Bonne Espérance / Kaspar Schiltknecht / Switzerland

Burrow / Natalie Erika James / Australia

Canuck Black / Rebecca Archer / United Kingdom

Devil / Lisa Bierwirth / Germany

Door God / Yulin Liu / USA

Dreamers / Joseph Dwyer / USA

Elisabeth / Katharina Woll / Germany

Enquête familiale en pays limitrophe / Quentin Bernard / France

Espés / Tanit  Fernandez, Isaac Rodriguez / Spain

I Don’t Say Goodbye, I Say See You Soon / Giuliana Monteiro / USA

Fliegen / Katharina Woll / Germany

Full-Windsor / Faraday Okoro / USA

Gabriel / Benjamin Chimoy / Germany, Spain

How to Avoid Annoying People / Ariel Nasser / USA

I've Been a Sweeper / Ciarán Dooley / Ireland

In Passing / Alan Miller / USA

Karaganda / Max Weissberg / USA

Un Sueño Recurrente / Santiago Esteves / Argentina

Serori / Pedro Collantes / Netherlands

The Way Home / Ting Song / USA

Keep It Cool / Na'ama Keha / Israel

Le Doigt d'honneur / Malika Pellicioli / Switzerland

Load / Niv Shpigel / Robert Moreno / Israel

Love at Last Sight / Oscar Hernandez-Topete / USA

Mamis: A Family Portrait / Virginia Fuentes / United Kingdom

Marijina Epizoda / Sanja Zivkovic / Serbie / Montenegro

Has Anyone Seen Eyal Nurich? / Shira Porat / Israel

Michael S., Recollected / Steven Swirko / Austria

Morning / Yakie Ayalon / Israel

My Stuffed Granny / Effie Pappa / United Kingdom

Nadeshda / Anna Frances Ewert / Germany

Ni-Ni / Melissa Hickey / USA

Mein letztes Konzert / Selcuk Zvi Cara / Germany

Oh! My Princess / Heewook Sa / South Korea

Paris on the Water / Hadas Ayalon / Israel

Porzellan / Katinka Narjes / Germany

Rainbow / Marina Solovieva / Russia

Rendezvous / Sylvia Borges / Germany

Roughstock / Jessica Baclesse / USA

Erlösung / Mark Gerstorfer / Austria

Scaremonger / Sasa Numic / USA

Shoes from Trieste / Gregor Božic / Germany

Si no se puede bailar, esta no es mi Revolución / Lillah Halla / Cuba

Smut / Tom Sveen / USA

The Life and Death of Tommy Chaos and Stacey Danger / Michael Lukk Litwak / USA

The Divide / Ashley Monti / USA

The Immaculate Reception / Charlotte Glynn / USA

Las Cieni / Andrzej Cichocki / Poland

The Tour Guide / Amos Geva / Israel

The Wonderful / Erin Good / Australia

Tobacco Burn / Justin Liberman / USA

Woman in Fragments / Quan Zhou / USA

The 45th edition of the Student Film Festival has announced the award-winning filmmakers for this year

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– The 45th edition of the Student Film Festival has announced the award-winning filmmakers for this year. Between August 23 and 27, 2014, the jury viewed 86 films in 2 competitive sections, comprising 26 Canadian films and 60 international films respectively.

                  The members of the 2014 jury are Roger Otis, a Montreal filmmaker whose own short film is entered this year in the official competition of the main festival, Leopoldo Soto, a Mexican filmmaker and critic, and Alisi Telengut, who won two prizes at previous festvals.  The Student Film Festival is organized within the framework of the Montreal World Film Festival.

 

AWARDS – 2014 CANADIAN STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL

NORMAN MCLAREN AWARD FOR THE OVERALL WINNER

TIL’ DEATH by Connor Gaston (Humber College, Toronto)

 

JURY AWARD

UN APRÈS-MIDI AVEC PAOLO by Anabelle Lavoie (Concordia University, Montréal)


BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM:

PULL UP YOUR PANTS by Adrian Wallace (Humber College, Toronto)


BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM:

COPPER OR PLASTIC by Michael Gannon (Concordia University, Montréal)


BEST FICTION FILM:

LIFERS by Joel Andrew Salaysay (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver)

 

Special mentions:
DRIFTWOOD by Chris Barnard (Ryerson University, Toronto)

UNORDINARY JOURNEY IN AN ORDINARY DAY by Yoshino Aoki (Concordia University, Montreal)

 

AWARDS – 2014 STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

FIRST PRIZE

BERLIN TROIKA by Andrej Gontcharov (DFFB, Berlin, Germany)

 

JURY AWARD

MORNING by Yakie Ayalon (Tel Aviv University, Israel)

 

BEST ANIMATION FILM

MY STUFFED GRANNY by Effie Pappa (National Film and Television School, London, United Kingdom)


BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM:

NADESHDA by Anna Frances Ewert (Munich Academy of TV and Film, Munich, Germany)


BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM:

SI NO SE PUEDE BAILAR, ESTA NO ES MI REVOLUCION by Lillah Halla (Escuela Internacional de Cine y TV de San Antonio de los Banos, Cuba)


BEST FICTION FILM:

LE DOIGT D’HONNEUR by Malika Pellicioli (École d’art de Lausanne, Switzerland)

 

Special mentions:
THE DIVIDE by Ashley Monti (American Film Institute, Los Angeles, USA)

TOBACCO BURN by Justin Liberman (School of the Arts, Columbia University, USA)

 

***

                     The Montreal World Film Festival continues through September 1. Tickets are available at the box offices of the Imperial Cinema and the Cinéma du Quartier Latin, or online at the Admission site.

The Lesson has its world premiere in Montreal

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THE LESSON

Montreal Fest organized the world premiere of The Lesson a movie from Latvia,  (108 min), directed by Andris Gauja.

The film takes part in the First Films World competition at the Montreal World Films festival. Our team is here: Andris Gauja (Director&Producer), Guna Stahovska (Producer) and Aleksandrs Grebnevs (DoP), and we will be happy to meet you at the premiere today. The premiere will be introduced by the Honorary Council of Latvia in Quebec, Roberts Klaige. He could also help us in communication in French language if needed.

The film is about a young teacher who tries to become friends with the class she is mentoring, but she goes too far...

See the trailer here:

Production Team

Director : Andris Gauja

Screenwriter : Lauris Gundars, Andris Gauja

Cinematographer : Aleksandrs Grebnevs

Editor : Tambet Tasuja

Cast : Inga Alsina-Lasmane, Marcis Klatenbergs, Leva Apine, Liena Smukste, Marina Janaus, Andrey Smolyakov, Edgars Silins

Music : Andris Gauja

Film production and Sales : Prod.: Guna Stahovska, Andris Gauja, Riverbed Ltd.m Andrejostas Street, 4A, Riga 1045 (Lettonie), tél.: (+371) 2919 29 48, info@riverbed.lv / Horosho Prod., Ephremova Street, 20-21 Moscou (Russie), tél.: (+372) 5316 17 99, natalia@horprod.ru

 

 

Synopsis

A devoted teacher in a Latvian high school faces a stark choice between her personal happiness and the pressures of society. 

 

Director

Born in Talsi, Latvia in 1978, Andris Gauja studied screenwriting in Riga, worked as a TV journalist and began making documentary films in 2005, among which the most significant is FAMILY INSTINCT (2010) which won Best World Feature at Silverdocs (2011), got nominated for the Best Mid-Length Documentary at IDFA (2010), and was selected for over 25 film festivals around the world. THE LESSON marks his debut in fiction features. 

Beti and Amare selected in first film competition had a micro-budget 14,000 euros

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The film "Beti and Amare" had its World Premiere at the Moscow International Film Festival in the Main Competition. The film had a micro-budget 14,000 euros. Andreas Siege, the director of the film, also did the Cinematography for, Wrote, Edited, Acted, and Produced "Beti and Amare".

 

Synopsis:

"Ethiopia 1936. Beti, a young Ethiopian girl has escaped Mussolini's troops and found refuge in the peaceful south of the country. But the Italians are marching closer. Beti's only hope...will come from above!"

Revues/Reviews:

"His landscape sequences are elegiac, suggesting a film that cost far more than $14,000" (David D'Arcy, Indiewire) 

Check our video interview.

LA HORA AZUL - Interview with Evelyne PEGOT-OGIER

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LA HORA AZUL / THE BLUE HOUR

2014, Colour, Peru, First Films World Competition 

THE BLUE HOUR

 

Production Team

Director : Evelyne Pegot-Ogier

Screenwriter : Evelyne Perot-Ogier. D'après/Based on: La Hora azul De/By: Alonso Cueto

Cinematographer : Roberto Maceda

Editor : Carlos Alberto ALvarez

Cast : Giovanni Ciccia, Jackelyn Vasquez, Rossana Fernandez-Maldonado

Music : Antonio Gervasoni

Film production and Sales : Prod.: Evelyne Pegot-Ogier, Gustavio Sanchez, Panda Films, Calle Bayona 226, Lima 12 (Pérou), tél.: + 51 987 708 220, evelynepegot@gmail.com

 

 

Synopsis

Adrian, a successful lawyer, discovers dark secrets from his father's past that threaten his well-earned reputation. 

 

Director

Born in Lima, Peru in 1980, Evelyne Pegot-Ogier studied communications at the University of Lima, and then moved to Paris in 2001. After studying acting for 3 years, she began working in the French audiovisual industry as an assistant director and producer for documentaries and fiction. When she decided to become a director herself, she went back to Peru, where she wrote, produced and directed El vestido, a short film which won the audience award at the CON CAN Festival in Japan. In Lima she also founded her own production house, Panda Films. THE BLUE HOUR is her first feature. 

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