Twentieth-century cultural icon Bob Dylan is the focus of the original cubist portrait I’m Not There, which earned the Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Venice IFF. Under the direction of Todd Haynes, who entrusted the role of Dylan to six different actors (including Heath Ledger in one of his final roles), the film contemplates the ever-intriguing question of what determines the identity of a human life.
The hero of John Sayles’ Honeydripper manages a rundown bar in a small-town black community. Debts pile up, customers are hard to come by. Will the arrival of a young man with an electric guitar set more in motion than teenage dance parties? The movie, which took Best Screenplay at the 2007 San Sebastian festival, stars the outstanding Danny Glover.
The films of Michel Gondry are always eagerly awaited. In his new film, Be Kind Rewind, Jack Black and Mos Def star as two friends who, after an unfortunate accident, begin putting together amateur versions of Hollywood hits.
The Chinese drama Zuo You (In Love We Trust), awarded Best Screenplay at this year’s Berlinale, posits the essential question of the permanence of love and the strength of human relationships.
Helen Hunt, the Oscar-winning star of As Good As It Gets (1997), debuts as a director with the tragicomedy Then She Found Me based on the Elinor Lipman novel.
The action drama Tropa de elite (Elite Squad) takes us into the drug-controlled favelas of Rio de Janeiro, a city the gods have most definitely abandoned. Where does justice end and revenge begin? The film took the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin IFF.
The Horizons section will also welcome director Sakamoto Junji, who will be on hand for the world premiere of Yami no kodomo-tachi (Children of Darkness), a powerful Japanese film investigating child prostitution and the black market in human organs in Thailand.
August, starring Josh Hartnett, will be screened at the Karlovy Vary festival as an international premiere. Austin Chick, who will present the film in person, is one of the most promising talents from the world of independent film. His debut, XX/XY, was presented in the dramatic competition at the 2002 Sundance festival. Chick also coproduced Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007).
Another international premiere will be Dansen (Dancers) from Danish director Pernille Fischer Christensen. The film tells the story of a passionate love affair marred by the shadow of a secret past.
| Film screenings: 2R2 - 5.7., 13:30, Richmond Cinema 3H1 - 6.7., 10:00, Husovka Theatre 7P1 - 10.7., 10:30, Cinema GH Pupp 14 Kilometers | 14 kilómetros Director: Gerardo Olivares Spain, 2007, 95 min A mere 14 kilometres separate North Africa from Spain. For immigrants, however, it is an unbelievably long journey that can even take many years. But they will always keep coming, and die in the attempt, because history has shown there is no wall that could confine their dreams... All of this is captured in a film by one of Spain's most renowned documentary filmmakers. Discussion My Program | |||||||||||||
| Film screenings: 4P4 - 7.7., 19:00, Cinema GH Pupp 612 - 9.7., 11:30, Grand Hall August | August Director: Austin Chick USA, 2007, 88 min, IP A story told at a nerve-racking pace set in the Wall Street district of Manhattan, where the self-confident Tom Sterling, suggestively portrayed by Josh Hartnett, fights to keep afloat the company he shares with his brother. Power and success still seem like things of the utmost importance; it's August 2001. Discussion My Program | |||||||||||||
| Film screenings: 1D6 - 4.7., 17:00, Theatre Karlovy Vary 825 - 11.7., 18:30, Small Hall - Thermal 934 - 12.7., 13:00, Congress Hall - Thermal Autumn Ball | Sügisball Director: Veiko Õunpuu Estonia, 2007, 123 min A black (non)comedy about loneliness, desperation, hope and the eternal desire for happiness. A repulsive housing development is home to lost souls, trying to come to terms with their lives in this finely stylised film full of absurd humour. An outstanding combination of the depressive, Eastern European view of the world and the meticulous North European sense of the absurd. Discussion My Program | |||||||||||||
| Film screenings: 412 - 7.7., 11:30, Grand Hall 719 - 10.7., 23:00, Grand Hall Be Kind Rewind | Be Kind Rewind Director: Michel Gondry USA, 2008, 102 min Jack Black and Mos Def star in a new film by celebrated Michel Gondry as two friends who begin making amateur remakes of Hollywood blockbusters after an unfortunate mishap. An exaltation of movie-making handiwork, a.k.a. "Anybody Can Make King Kong". Discussion My Program | |||||||||||||
| Film screenings: 125 - 4.7., 18:30, Small Hall - Thermal 3R3 - 6.7., 16:30, Richmond Cinema 4P2 - 7.7., 13:30, Cinema GH Pupp Cargo 200 | Gruz 200 Director: Alexey Balabanov Russia, 2007, 90 min This film, hailed by Russian critics as the most important screen event of the year, draws attention to the inauspicious traits of the Russian mentality. The filmmaker strengthens his message using hyperbole not only in the thriller elements of the story but also in his choice of precise spatio-temporal setting, namely the year 1984, a period when the marasmus of the stagnating regime was at its worst. Discussion My Program | |||||||||||||
| Film screenings: 5P4 - 8.7., 19:00, Cinema GH Pupp 6R3 - 9.7., 16:30, Richmond Cinema 8D1 - 11.7., 10:30, Theatre Karlovy Vary Dancer | Dansen Director: Pernille Fischer Christensen Denmark, 2008, 90 min, IP An attractive woman who runs a dance school with her mother falls passionately in love with a withdrawn and taciturn electrician. The intense, albeit brief moments of happiness that she enjoys in the embrace of her impulsive lover, however, are eventually accompanied by ever stronger suspicions that he is hiding some dark part of his past from her. Discussion My Program | |||||||||||||
| Film screenings: 126 - 4.7., 21:30, Small Hall - Thermal 3D2 - 6.7., 11:00, Theatre Karlovy Vary 4R5 - 7.7., 22:00, Richmond Cinema Days and Clouds | Giorni e nuvole Director: Silvio Soldini Italy, Switzerland, 2007, 116 min A well-off, middle aged married couple is forced to confront an unexpected existential crisis. When the husband is sacked from the company he co-founded and becomes increasingly dispirited by unavailing attempts to find work, his sophisticated wife takes on the role of the breadwinner, and conflicts between the two begin to culminate. Discussion My Program | |||||||||||||
| Film screenings: 3K3 - 6.7., 16:00, Panasonic Cinema 5L4 - 8.7., 19:30, Cinema Lázně III Czech subtitles, no English translation Don't Touch the Axe | Ne touchez pas la hache Director: Jacques Rivette France, Italy, 2007, 137 min The beautiful Duchess of Langeais secures her prized trophy - the heart of a young, high-principled general, disarmed for the first time in unfamiliar territory - the deceit-ridden Paris salons in the era of the post-Napoleonic reaction. Rivette presents a merciless duel between true feelings and contrived emotion in this demanding yet masterful adaptation of Balzac's short story. Discussion My Program | |||||||||||||
| Film screenings: 311 - 6.7., 9:00, Grand Hall 519 - 8.7., 23:00, Grand Hall 926 - 12.7., 21:30, Small Hall - Thermal The Elite Squad | Tropa de elite Director: José Padilha Brazil, Argentina, 2007, 118 min An action drama from the drug-run favelas of Rio de Janeiro, a city that the gods have definitively abandoned. Where does the law end and vengeance take over? The film won the Golden Bear at the Berlin IFF and became the box-office hit of the year in Brazil in spite of its leakage onto the pirate DVD market. Discussion My Program | |||||||||||||
| Film screenings: 3P3 - 6.7., 16:30, Cinema GH Pupp 611 - 9.7., 9:00, Grand Hall 8K5 - 11.7., 22:00, Panasonic Cinema The Girl by the Lake | La ragazza del lago Director: Andrea Molaioli Italy, 2007, 95 min An outwardly idyllic mountain town becomes the scene of an investigation brought on by the discovery of a girl's naked corpse on the shore of a nearby lake. The local residents are bound to each other by a murky web of relationships rooted in the distant past, but this never phases the aging police inspector Sanzio. The drama set in the atmospheric Italian Dolomites is a moral whodunit almost Dürrenmattesque in style. Discussion My Program | |||||||||||||
| Film screenings: 2R5 - 5.7., 22:00, Richmond Cinema 6P4 - 9.7., 19:00, Cinema GH Pupp 938 - 12.7., 22:00, Congress Hall - Thermal Honeydripper | Honeydripper Director: John Sayles USA, 2007, 122 min Alabama, 1950. Tyrone (Danny Glover) runs a neglected bar in a rural black community. He's deep in debt and the punters just aren't coming in. Will the arrival of a young man with an electric guitar set things in motion and get the dance-crazy on their feet? Do as they do, surrender to the rhythm! The film won Best Screenplay at the San Sebastian IFF 2007. Discussion My Program | |||||||||||||
| Film screenings: 7P4 - 10.7., 19:00, Cinema GH Pupp 9R2 - 12.7., 13:30, Richmond Cinema Children of the Dark | Yami no kodomo-tachi Director: Sakamoto Junji Japan, 2008, 137 min, WP An impressive and starkly indiscriminate film that confronts audiences with the world of child prostitution and the black market in human organs in Thailand. The film does not read any melancholic sentiment into its subject matter but instead captures it with rigorous complexity. It shows not only the victims but also the weight of the guilt borne by those who supply the demand for child trafficking.
|
