samples of short form synopses for programme

 BALLAST d. Lance Hammer, USA 2007 Perhaps the most accomplished and flawless feature film debut of the year, Lance Hammer’s extraordinary Ballast won both Best Director and Best Cinematography awards at Sundance. Poetic and understated, Ballast looks at the lives of a fractured African-American family in the Mississippi Delta. Single mother Marlee struggles to support her young son, James, who is constantly getting into trouble. A suicide leads to more interaction with Marlee’s brother-in-law, Lawrence, himself damaged by recent events. Forced together, by circumstance, the three must overcome their suspicions to co-exist and make something of their lives. English, 35mm, 96 min THE BANISHMENT d. Andrey Zvyagintsev, Russia 2007 Zvyagintsev, whose fantastic debut, The Return, won him the best director prize at DIFF 2005, again focuses on the family in his extraordinary follow-up. A husband, wife and their two children take a holiday in the countryside, and seem happy enough in the beautiful natural surrounds. But it soon becomes clear that something is seriously wrong, and there is great tension between the husband and wife. The idyll will soon give way to a deep and dark tragedy, one which is only gradually revealed in all its complexity. Each frame is perfectly composed and every performance a sublime one. Russian with English subtitle, 35mm, 150 min BEFORE THE RAINS d. Santosh Sivan, India/USA 2007 Sivan (The Terrorist, Asoka, Navarasa) works on a larger scale here with this epic period piece. Linus Roache (Priest) plays Moores, an ambitious British landowner in 1930s Kerala who wishes to extend his plantation. Crucial to Moores getting things done is TK a local fixer who makes all the necessary logistical arrangements. While Moores is married, he is also conducting a torrid affair with the beautiful servant Sajani (the incomparable Nandita Das). When his wife returns from England, Moores decides to end his affair with Sajani, who is herself married, but this is not so easily done and the consequences are tragic. English and Malayam with English subtitles, 35mm, 98 min Filmmaker in attendance THE BIRD CAN'T FLY d. Anna Threes, Netherlands/ South Africa/ Ireland 2007 When middle-aged pastry chef Melody (an excellent Barbara Hershey) returns to her hometown of Fairlands to attend the funeral of her only daughter, she encounters a grandson named River she never knew she had. In the years since her last visit, the town has become virtually buried by the sand of the encroaching desert and nearly everyone has left or died. Melody's attempt to make sense of this desolate landscape and resolve her relationship with her grandson is set against the threat of an encroaching sandstorm. John Kani and Tony Kgoroge also deliver exceptional performances. English, 35mm, 89 min Filmmaker in attendance BLACK ICE d. Petri Kotwica, Finland/Germany 2007 An edgy and gripping psychological thriller, Black Ice's classicism and careful craftsmanship are reminiscent of an earlier time in cinema. Set against the gorgeous frozen landscape around Helsinki, the films details a wife's arc of vengeance against the rival for her husband's attention. When the hyper-intelligent Saara discovers that Leo is having an affair, she tracks down the other woman. Masquerading as a psychologist, she becomes her friend and confidante, gathering information which she will eventually use in a dangerous game of life and death. Black Ice is as chilling as the landscape it so beautifully presents. Finnish with English subtitles, 35mm, 100 min CAPTAIN ABU RAED d. Amin Matalqa, Jordan 2007 The first feature film to emerge from Jordan in more than two decades is also one destined for international success, with early talk of an Oscar nomination. Amin Matalqa’s charming film is beautifully acted and conceived. Abu Raed is a lonely airport janitor in Amman. One day he finds a discarded captain’s hat, and innocently puts it on. Some of the neighbourhood kids see him and insist, despite his protests, that he tell them stories about his international adventures. The erudite Raed indulges them, and in so doing gives them hope and inspiration. Arabic with English subtitles, 35mm, 110 min CHERRY BLOSSOMS – HANAMI d. Doris Dorrie, Germany 2008 Poetic, beautiful and heartbreaking, Cherry Blossoms follows a grieving widower's journey to Japan where he finds a new understanding of both his late wife and himself. When Trudi learns that her husband Rudi is terminally ill, she conceals the diagnosis from him, and instead persuades him to join her on a trip to Japan to visit their son. And then Trudi dies quietly in her sleep. Grief-stricken, Rudi heads for Tokyo in search of his son and the transcendent beauty of the cherry blossom festival. Dörrie reconfirms her exceptional talent with this tender, emotionally intense and profoundly moving story of love. English and German with English subtitles, 35mm, 122 min DIVIZIONZ d. Yes! That’s Us, Uganda/South Africa 2008 A rare film from Uganda, and an Official Selection at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, Divizionz is a heady mix of drama and hip hop. Kapo, Bana, Kanyankole and Mulokole are four aspiring musicians, who are on the verge of a big breakthrough. But there are many obstacles in the way, and the four constantly get into trouble, with others, and each other. Shot on a very low-budget, Divizionz is a new kind of African film, one focused on urban youth and capturing the mayhem and the beauty of life in the big city. Luganda with English subtitles, 35mm, 89 min DP75-TARTINA CITY d. Serge Issa Coelo, Chad/France 2007 In an unnamed African country, the torture of political prisoners is routine. Adoum, a journalist, is on his way to Europe when he is detained at the airport while in possession of an incriminating letter. He is taken to notorious underground cells run by Colonel Koulbou. Koulbou is a terribly cruel sadist, who enjoys machine-gunning prisoners. As Adoum’s girlfriend and friends desperately try to find him, help comes from a surprising source: Koulbou’s wife. Unrelenting and disturbing, DP 75-Tartina City is a scathing attach on governments that defy their own laws, and a rousing argument for press freedom. Arabic, French and German with English subtitles, 35mm, 88 min DUNYA & DESIE d. Dana Nechushtan, The Netherlands 2008 Dunya & Desie is a heartwarming road movie about best friends Dunya and Desie. Dunya is Moroccan, raised with Ramadan, Imams and Mecca. Desie is as Dutch as cheese and tulips. On her 18th birthday, Dunya learns that her family wants her to get married to a cousin in Morocco. Against her will, she must go to Morocco to meet her future husband. At the same time, Desie discovers that she’s pregnant and decides to seek out her biological father who lives in Morocco. It is there that the two will need to make big decisions on the future of their lives. Dutch with English subtitles, 35mm, 94 min EAT, FOR THIS IS MY BODY d. Michelange Quay, Haiti/France 2007 This surreal non-linear film from Quay is tenaciously independent in its vision. Both exhilarating and confounding, Eat, For This is My Body is a challenging and visually impressive film that explores Haiti and its tumultuous history. The film centres on the twisted relationship between a white woman (Sylvie Testud) and a group of black children who filter into her ghostly home. The events that follow offer a sinister expression of Haiti's colonial legacy. Dreamlike, the film explores what Quay calls “the generations inside of me”. Quay's visual poem is a remarkable experiment in avant-garde formalism. French with English subtitles, 35mm, 105 min ESTOMAGO – A GASTRONOMIC LOVE STORY d. Marco Jorge, Brazil/Italy 2007 Estômago is the latest addition to the rich canon of gastronomic cinema. In Marco Jorge’s audacious film, the story of the rise of an idiot savant with a sublime talent for haute cuisine cooking is told twice – once when the protagonist is in prison, and once as a flashback to when he was still a free man. Jorge intercuts the two storylines with fluidity, constantly keeping viewers guessing about the conclusions. Both a sexy mix of comedy, good food and violence and a charming fable about the relativity of happiness, the film will stir your various hungers. Estômago is that rare film which will satisfy both foodies and lovers of gangster flicks. Portuguese with English subtitles, 35mm, 113 min Filmmaker in attendance

samples of long form synopses for catalogue

 Ballast (Ballast) USA 2007, English, 96 min Director: Hammer, Lance Lance Hammer’s extraordinary debut follows a Mississippi Delta family torn apart by suicide and violence as they struggle to heal and lift themselves out of their misery. Ballast’s hand-held camera provides an intimacy but Hammer, who also wrote and edited the film, keeps emotions at arm’s length. Using non-actors, available light and actual locations, the film portrays a marginal world and the people who live in it. The result is beautifully shot, the bleak winter of the Delta shimmering grainily against the Mississippi sky. Hammer doesn’t underestimate his audience and leaves much for them to figure out for themselves. In the process he brings the American periphery to centre stage and makes the invisible visible, constructing a low-rise terrain of struggle, loss, poverty and wounded hearts. Ballast’s triumph is its recreation of emotional space, its Southern minimalism less concerned with narrative cohesion than with feel and tone. This is a film that never stoops to explain itself or its characters. Instead, the viewer is pulled into a world that is utterly, relentlessly convincing. Banishment (Izgnanie) Russia 2007, 157 minutes Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev Director Andrey Zvyagintsev won the Golden Lion at Rotterdam for his debut film The Return. With his second film, The Banishment, he continues to extend his artistic arc of beauty and profundity. Dense with religious metaphor, and with heavy nods to russian surrealist Tarkovsky, the film examines a family’s banishment from a paradise that was never really any kind of Eden. Roughly adapted from William Saroyan's The Laughing Matter, the film’s narrative deal with the aftermath when Vera (Maria Bonnevie) tells her husband Alex (Konstantin Lavronenko) that he is not the father of the child she is carrying. His first instinct is to call his brother, who advises him that he should either kill Vera or forgive her. But should he forgive her, she must “get rid” of the child. Gorgeously filmed and faultlessly acted, Zvyagintsev has created a remarkable mood piece with The Banishment. From the breathtaking opening shot onwards, the film is a masterpiece of framing, as close to visual fine art as cinema gets, signalling the swift rise of Zvyagintsev’s talents. Before The Rains India/USA 2007, 98 minutes Director: Santosh Sivan Before the Rains is a colonial noir melodrama set against the rising tide of Indian Nationalism. Taking place in Southern India in 1937, the film’s narrative tells of married British plantation owner Henry Moore (Linus Roache) who has an affair with a local married woman named Sajani (Nandita Das) who works in his household. When they are spotted on a riverbank by two village boys, tragedy inevitably ensues, accompanied by humiliation. Meanwhile, Moore’s plans to complete a commercial road before the rains arrive are thwarted by simmering labour unrest. Superbly photographed by veteran director Santosh Sivan (previously responsible for, among others, the brilliant 1999 classic The Terrorist) and produced by the Merchant-Ivory group, Before the Rains is powerfully acted and filled with passion. An empathetic and moving account of illicit love that is also a study of the idiocy of colonialism in the last days of empire, the film weaves its morally compromised threads together like a tightly constructed and highly literary thriller. The Bird Can't Fly (The Bird Can't Fly) Netherlands/ South Africa/ Ireland 2007, English, 89 min Director: Threes Anna When middle-aged pastry chef Melody (Barbara Hershey) returns to her hometown of Fairlands to attend the funeral of her only daughter, she encounters a grandson named River (Tony Kgoroge) she never knew she had. In the years since her last visit, the town has become virtually buried by the red sand of the encroaching desert and nearly everyone has left or died. Melody’s attempt to make sense of this desolate landscape and resolve her relationship with her grandson is set against the threat of an encroaching sandstorm. The storm forces them into the strange underworld formerly known as the Paradise Hotel, a place steeped in memories of the past, memories that will ultimately force the mother and son to confront their painful family history. Dutch director Threes Anna has infused The Bird Can’t Fly with a surreal symbolism. Set against a bright, white dream of a South African landscape, the film’s striking visuals combine with great performances from John Kani, Hershey and Kgoroge to provide a captivating and uniquely South African story. Black Ice (Musta Jaa) Finland/Gemany 2007, Finnish, 100min Director: Petri Kotwica This ambitious second feature from Finnish director Petri Kotwica is at once reminiscent of both Ingmar Bergman and Alfred Hitchcock, with its twin strains of horror and emotional drama. Set against the gorgeous frozen landscape around Helsinki, the films details a wife’s arc of vengeance against the rival for her husband’s attention. When the hyper-intelligent Saara (Outi Maenpaa) discovers that Leo (Martti Suosalo) is having an affair, she soon tracks down the other woman (Ria Kataja). Masquerading as a psychologist, she becomes her friend and confidante, before allowing things to unravel. With a brilliantly written script and three mesmerizing performances at its centre, much of the film’s pleasures are derived from the way in which Kwotica constantly pushes both his audience and his narrative too far for comfort but still manages to make it work. An edgy and gripping psychological thriller, Black Ice’s classicism and careful craftsmanship are reminiscent of an earlier time in cinema. Captain Abu Raed (Captain Abu Raed) Jordan 2007, 110 min Director: Amin Matalqa When Abu Raed (Nadim Sawalha), a janitor at Amman International airport in Jordan, finds a captain’s hat in a rubbish bin, his life is unexpectedly transformed. Wearing the hat on his way home, a gang of boys is convinced that he is a real pilot and beg him to tell them stories of his exploits. Initially reluctant, he quickly gives in, and is soon telling elaborate tales to the boys about the adventures of Captain Abu Raed. As the “Captain” tells his stories, he finds himself drawn into the lives of his listeners, particularly that of the aggressive Murad (Hussein Al-Sous). He also strikes up a friendship with a real pilot named Nour (Rana Sultan) who is at odds with the conventions of Jordanian society. This charming debut feature from writer-director-producer Amin Matalqa nods gently in the direction of Guiseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso. Like Tornatore, Matalqa knows that true emotional power is the result of careful restraint rather than swirls of sentimentality. With an effortless performance from Nadim Sawalha as the Captain, this is a hugely likeable film that is all the more remarkable for the fact that it is one of only a handful of films to emerge from Jordan in fifty years of film production. Cherry Blossoms – Hanami (Kirschbluten – Hanami) Germany 2008, German, 122 min Director: Doris Doerrie Cherry Blossoms: Hanami follows a grieving widower’s journey to Japan where he finds a new understanding of both his late wife and himself. When Trudi (Hannelore Elsne) learns that her civil servant husband Rudi (Elmar Wepper)is fatally ill, she fails to share the diagnosis with him, and instead persuades him to join her on a pilgrimage to Japan to visit their son. But the couple only make it to the Baltic sea, where Trudi dies quietly in her sleep. Grief-stricken, Rudi nonetheless heads for Tokyo in search of his son (Maximillian Brueckner) and the transcendent beauty of Mount Fuji. Writer-director Doerrie is also a successful novelist and this film is elegantly plotted with detailed characterization. The delicate but relaxed pace provides the space required for her carefully observed narrative to unfold in its own idiosyncratic rhythm. Cherry Blossoms – Hanami was inspired by Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story, and, like that masterpiece, it is gentle, elegiac and full of bitter-sweet beauty. Control UK 2007, 121 min Director: Anton Corbijn Acclaimed British rock photographer Anton Corbin was responsible for many seminal early music videos made for British New Wave bands such as Propaganda, Depeche Mode and Echo and the Bunnymen. His most celebrated work, however, remains the haunting music video for Atmosphere, Joy Division’s beautiful anthem of doom, made eight years after Ian Curtis’ death. Now, more than two decades later, Corbin has created a masterful look at the life of the legendary band’s enigmatic lead singer. In beautiful monochrome, Control is insightful, funny and tragic. The film spans the last few years of Curtis' life, leading up to his senseless suicide in 1980. It looks at the struggle between his enduring love for his wife and his burgeoning relationship with his girlfriend, his decimating bouts with epilepsy, his incredible talent, and his all-consuming performances with Joy Division. Control has received huge critical acclaim and won more than 25 awards internationally. It is essential viewing, not just for the band’s fans, but for anyone with more than a passing interest in music and film. Divizionz Uganda/South Africa 2007, 91 minutes Director: James Taylor Directed by South African film maker James Taylor, Divizionz is a Ugandan production which makes full use of some that country’s finest musical and acting talent. The film follows a day in the life of four friends who are trying to escape the stifling atmosphere of the slums of Kamwokya. They plan to rise beyond the position that life has given them by achieving their dreams of musical glory. This dream hinges on making it to a club in Kampala to perform their music. Filmed on the ground in Kamwokya, Divizionz brings the lives of the shackland’s residents to the big screen in an engaging and contemporary manner. With wonderful central performances from Ugandan musical stars Buchaman and Bobi Wine as the slightly unhinged aspiring performers, this is a fascinating journey through a drug addled ghetto where the redemptive possibilities of fame offer the only way out. Divizions won the Golden Impala at the 2006 Amakula Film Festival. DP75-Tartina City Chad/France/Gabon 2007, 88 minutes Director: Issa Serge Coelo DP75-Tartina City is set in an unnamed African country ruled by a brutal government death squad headed by the psychotic Colonel Koulbou (Felkissam Mahamat). Young journalist, Adoum (Youssouf Djaoro), having obtained his passport with some difficulty, heads to the airport with the intention of traveling abroad in order tell the world about the human rights violations that are taking place in his country. But as he passes through security, government thugs find a compromising letter on him that was planted by a foreign journalist. He is thrown into one of Koulbou's horrifying jails where the prisoners are given only tartina – a mixture of bread and sheep’s bowels – to eat. Some of the prisoners have been there for years and all seems lost, but Adoum receives unexpected help from Koulbou's angry and alienated wife. Tartina City’s production values are ultralow budget, but its dramatic tension is so intense that it elevates the film into a profoundly unsettling viewing experience. Director Issa Serge Coelo successfully recreates the horrors of disappearance more unsettlingly than any Hollywood director has done with infinitely more money. The film, only the fifth feature from Chad, and the second from Coelo, won the Innovation Award at the 31st Montreal World Film Festival. Dunya & Desie Netherlands/Belgium 2008, 100 minutes Director: Dana Nechushtan A cinematic expansion of an award-winning Dutch television series, Dunya and Desie tells the cross-cultural story of a friendship between two teenage girls from different backgrounds, Dunya (Maryam Hassouni) who is Moroccan born and bred, and Desie (Eva van de Wijdeve) who is Dutch. When Dunya discovers on her eighteenth birthday that her family have arranged for her to marry a distant cousin who lives in Morocco, she is horrified. Desie has a different problem – she has just found out that she’s pregnant. The pregnancy intensifies her desire to meet the father she has never known. When she learns that he lives in Morocco, the two friends decide to go there together. The resulting adventure is a whole new set of experiences for Dunya and Desie. Dunya and Desire resonates with positive energy and humour, giving an invigorating spin to the road-trip genre. Beautifully acted, this story of friendship and understanding provides a nuanced exploration of what it’s like to straddle two worlds, without ever becoming too serious. Eat For This Is My Body (Eat For This Is My Body) Haiti/ France 2007, 105 min Director: Michelange Quay This surreal non-linear first feature from filmmaker Michelange Quay is tenaciously independent in its vision. Both exhilarating and confounding, Eat, For This is My Body is a challenging and visually impressive film that explores Haiti and its tumultuous history. Overflowing with dark absurdity, the film’s meditations on race, colonialism and power echo a politically conscientised David Lynch. Like Lynch, the director consistently refuses to meet our expectations, subtly shifting perspective as the film evolves. And like Lynch, the film’s darkness is bathed with off-kilter beauty. The film centres on the twisted relationship between a white woman (Sylvie Testud) and a group of black children who filter into her ghostly home. The events that follow offer a sinister expression of Haiti’s colonial legacy. Dreamlike and compelling, the film explores what Quay calls “the generations inside of me”. A quietly confident visual poem, Quay’s film is a remarkable experiment in avant-garde formalism. The Edge of Heaven (Auf der Ander) Germany/ Turkey 2007, 122 min Director: Akin, Fatih Director Fatih Akin, responsible for the 2005 DIFF hit Head On, returns to our screens with the utterly assured and deeply moving The Edge of Heaven. This brilliantly acted drama chronicles the emotional lives of six people - four Turks and two Germans – and explores the connections they make with each other through moments of love and tragedy. In the process of rendering these individual lives with delicate conviction, the film navigates the tensions between Turkey and Germany, where Turks function as low-level labourers or "guest-workers". But their cheap labour results in a imperialist legacy of guilt and cultural apartheid which pervades both cultures. The Edge of Heaven is a powerful piece of humanism that gives full expression to two seemingly different cultures. In doing so, it builds a space in which difference is subjugated to a shared sense of connection. This is the director’s fifth film and marks the point in his career in which Akin has established himself as a major international talent. Estomago – A Gastronomic Love Story (Estomago) Brazil/ Italy 2007, 113 minutes Director: Marco Jorge Estomago is the latest addition to the rich canon of gastronomic cinema. In Marco Jorge’s audacious film, the story of the rise of an idiot savant with a sublime talent for haute cuisine cooking is told twice – once when the protagonist is in prison, and once as a flashback to when he was still a free man. Jorge intercuts the two story-lines with fluidity, constantly keeping viewers guessing about the twin conclusions. Both a sexy mix of comedy, good food and violence and a charming fable about the relativity of happiness, Marcos Jorge’s film will stir your various human hungers. With a superb central performance from Joao Miguela, Stomach is one of those films that celebrates life’s journey rather than its destinations. Riveting and fueled with magical-realist undertones, Estomago will delight those who loved Like Water for Chocolate but found its cuisine and storyline a little too sweet. But whatever your cinematic and culinary taste, one thing is guaranteed: you’ll leave Estomago with the desire to eat something.