Film Festival
UNITED STATES
Native American
Smoke Signals
Directed by Chris Eyre, 1998 – 89 minutes
Native-American filmmaker Chris Eyre’s award-winning film, based on stories from Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, explores the search for Indian identity in a world of alcoholism and isolation. Two friends, having lived their entire lives in the same small reservation town in South Dakota, leave their world in order to claim the remains of Victor’s dead father in Arizona. In the process of traveling across America, they encounter a foreign world of discrimination and deceit. But prevail, finally, to come to accept who and what they are.
LATIN AMERICA
Colombia
Rodrigo D: No Future
Directed by Victor Gaviria, 1990
The first Colombian film to be selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival, Rodrigo D is a shockingly accurate and timely portrayal of the reckless existence of youth in one of the most exciting and dangerous cities in Latin America, if not the world – Medellin, Columbia. This neorealist film centers around Rodrigo, a would-be drummer, and his friends who are trapped in the violence and drugs which define their turbulent lifestyle.
Cuba
Guantanamera
Tomas Gutierrez & Juan Carlos Tabio, 1994 – 194 minutes
Romantic comedy of a famous diva who returns to her home town of Guantanamo for a reception in her honor and a surprising reunion with her once beloved Candido…fluid and easygoing, yet an ambitious and bold overview of contemporary Cuba.
SOUTH PACIFIC
New Zealand
Once were Warriers
Directed by Lee Tamahori, 1995 – 102 minutes
The title of Lee Tamahori’s breakthrough feature refers to the Maori people and their proud history. Set in an apocalyptic suburban New Zealand landscape, the film focuses on a dysfunctional family. The abused wife struggles to keep her family together despite the brutish and violent ways of her alcoholic husband, which, the filmmaker suggests, is a result of alienation from the authentic (Maori) culture.
ASIA
South Korea
Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women
Director/Producer/Writer: Dai Sil Kim-Gibson, Dai Sil Productions – 88 minutes
Silence Broken shatters a half-century of silence for Korean girls and women forced into sexual servitude by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. Their compelling testimony is presented side by side with interview of Japanese soldiers and recruiters. Their stories, told with unusual archival footage and dramatized images, echo soulful sorrow and the amazing resilience of the human spirit. Kim-Gibson forges a new style of film making by combining interviews with powerful dramatic sequences.
“A wrenching and formally inventive look…Silence crafts a complicated and impassioned historical document through interview with survivors, dramatic re-creations of their stories, and the bald faced denials of many Japanese leaders and veterans.” Gary Dauphin, The Village Voice.
Vietnam
The Scent of Green Papaya
Directed by Tran Ang Hung, 1993 – 104 minutes
A moving and undeniably brilliant film by the talented Vietnamese-exile filmmaker Tran Anh Hung, set in 1951 and centered on a young woman who becomes a servant for a turbulent family. The film follows in exquisitely lyrical detail the quiet beauty and stoically accepted hardships of her life as, ten years later, she starts a love affair with her next employer. Shot entirely on a Paris soundstage, this, says critic Roger Ebert, “is a film to cherish.” Vietnamese with English subtitles.
MIDDLE EAST
Israel
Cup Final
Directed by Eran Riklis, 1990
Israeli director Eran Riklis’s critically acclaimed film about an unexpected and touching rapprochement between enemies, amid the life-and-death struggles of Israelis and Palestinians during the days of the 1982 war in Lebanon.
Iran
Taste of Cherry
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami, 1997
This is the story of the last day in the life of Mister Sadii. He is going to Teheran, where he wants to find somebody to bury him, after he has killed himself…
In Persian with English subtitles.
CENTRAL ASIA
Kazakstan, S.U.
The Needle (Igla)
Directed by Rachid Nougmanov, 1989 – 81 minutes
A young man, Moro, returns to Alma Ata to collect money owed to him. While waiting out an unexpected delay, he visits his former girlfriend Dina, and discovers se has become a morphine addict. He decides to help her kick the habit and to fight the local drug Mafia responsible for her condition.
“A refreshingly inventive… hip, dream, sleepwalk – thriller.”
Moro’s sense of alienation from his city and his homeland resonated with youthful audiences in the Soviet Union.
In Russian with English subtitles
AFRICA
GUINEA BISSAU
Blue Eyes of Yonta
By Flora Gomes, 1991 – 90 minutes
The story of three people, each of whom is so much in love with their dreams that they miss the real opportunities which life offers. Vicente, a hero of the revolution, now a businessman, is so despondent over the failure of his political ideals that he fails to notice the flirtations of Yonta, the beautiful, young daughter of two former comrades. Yonta represents the younger generation who have grown up since independence and replaced revolutionary rhetoric with an unabashed enthusiasm for Western consumer culture. She, in turn, is oblivious to the attentions of Ze, a poor student from the countryside, who sends her absurdly romantic poems (actually written for a Swedish girl) praising her improbably “blue eyes.”
SENEGAL
Guelwaar
Ousman Sembene, 1993 – 115 minutes
Conflict erupts in a Senegalese village when a Christian is accidentally buried in the Muslim cemetery. Prejudice and ignorance lead to a full-blown religious war. Inspired by actual events, the film creates the first African legend of the 21st century dealing with ethno-religious tensions. It also explores the complex relations of rich and poor states in the context of humanitarian aid.
EUROPE
Macedonia, UK, France
Before the Rain (Pred dozhdot)
Directed by Milcho Manchevski, 1994 – 109 minutes (in English)
Manchevski’s lush, cyclical drama is told in three chapters and has many characters; however, the primary focus is on Aleksandar, a disillusioned war photographer who, after witnessing an execution in Bosnia, decides to return to his Macedonian village. He soon learns that ethnic hatred has arrived before him, and his old homeland is now a dangerously armed camp of militant Orthodox and Moslem factions. Violence is imminent and everyone is caught in the crossfire.
BELGIUM
La Promesse
Directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne
Harrowing tale of a boy being raised by a father
who mercilessly exploits illegal immigrants - as their supposed savior,
landlord and employer. Trouble begins when the boy, who has always
obeyed his father unquestionably, develops a friendship with one of
the illegals.