There are two collections. The General collection from several
distributors. The French collection courtesy of the French Institute
and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
London to Brighton
Paul Andrew Williams, UK, 2006, 85 mins
At last - after years in the Mockney doldrums, the British crime flick gets
a double-barrelled shot in the arm. London To Brighton is a
brutal and brilliantly assured debut from writer/director Paul Andrew Williams.
And he's not the only new name to watch - there are terrific turns from unknowns
Lorraine Stanley and Georgia Groome, respectively playing a hooker and a
teenage runaway in flight from some very unsavoury characters. World-beatingly
grim, it'll put you through the wringer, but you won't regret the journey.
So, why are Kelly (Stanley) and Joanne (Groome) making such a mad dash from
capital to coast?
There's no time for questions at the start, the film takes off like a rocket,
with our heroines hiding out in a public lavatory after a mysterious but
clearly traumatic incident. Then we see gangster's son Stuart (Sam Spruell)
set a deadline for Kelly's wimp pimp Derek (Johnny Harris) to find the two
females and eventually, flashback by flashback, we discover the awful truth
of what the women did and why. Though it steams along like a fast train from
Victoria, London To Brighton doesn't sacrifice realism for momentum. The
dialogue, performances and use of low-life locations keep a rigorously tight
check on credibility. While Williams deals in some pretty appalling subject
matter - principally paedophilia - he maintains balance through the sympathetic
shading of the central relationship. It's hard to overstate the excitement
of seeing fresh British talent break through with such energy. Source:
bbc.co.uk
“The best British film of the year” The Guardian
Official website:
www.l2b-themovie.co.uk
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Lost Embrace (El Abrazo partido)
Daniel Burman, Argentina/France/Italy/Spain, 2004, 100 mins
Set in a Buenos Aires galería (shopping mall), this superb, minor-chord
comedy places lingerie clerk Ariel (the sweet and doleful Daniel Hendler
from Whisky) at the rueful centre of a group of garrulous,
mainly Jewish, fellow shopkeepers, family and mild idiosyncrats as he receives
a series of revelations about the father he never knew. Shot like The
Office on a mobile, hand-held camera which zooms in and out to catch
background events and character reactions, Burman’s affectionate, talkative
film trades on acceptable levels of sentimentality and boasts a series of
winning performances, notably Hendler’s and Adriana Aizemberg’s
as his evasive mother. Reminiscent at times of Chantal Ackerman’s mall-set
musical Golden Eighties or Joan Micklin Silver’s bitter-sweet
Jewish homage Crossing Delancey, Lost Embrace sets a drolly
comic tone all of its own. Small and light, but it’s rewardingly full
of acute observations, from the gently satiric to the surprisingly poignant.
Wally Hammond, timeout.com
"A wonderfully eccentric variation on Woody Allen, with perhaps just a twist
of Fellini” Metro
Official website:
www.axiomfilms.co.uk
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Mountain Patrol (Kekexili)
Chuan Lu, China/Hong Kong, 2004, 90 mins
The mountains that rise from the Tibetan plateau make a suitably dramatic
backdrop for this story about the murderous cost we humans exact on the natural
world. Based on depressingly true events, Mountain Patrol: Kekexili
tracks the heroic efforts of a small group of Tibetans struggling
to keep the Tibetan antelope, or chiru, from extinction. If that sounds like
a recipe for pity and sob stories about cute critters, think again. Written
and directed by Lu Chuan, whose first feature was the well-received
Missing Gun, Mountain Patrol is as tough and unsparing as its
backdrop, a blood-boiling environmental thriller with a dash of Sergio Leone.
Although the traffic in endangered wildlife gives the film its headline hook
— you need to kill three to five antelopes to make one shahtoosh shawl
— the story that briskly unfolds has as much to do with man's inhumanity
to man as to his fellow creatures. Which is why, given China's historic and
violent aggression against the Tibetan people, it's hard not to read the
film on several levels at once. Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
"Compelling... awesome... unforgettable... a work of art" Philip French,
The Observer
"Terrific... majestically beautiful and begs to be seen on the big screen"
Daily Telegraph
Official website:
www.axiomfilms.co.uk
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Pot Luck (L’auberge espagnole)
Cedric Klapisch, France/Spain, 2002, 135 mins
As part of a job that he is promised, Xavier (Romain Duris), an economics
student in his twenties, signs on to a European exchange programme (Erasmus)
to gain a working knowledge of the Spanish language. Promising that they'll
remain close, he says farewell to his loving girlfriend (Amélie's
Audrey Tautou), then heads to Barcelona. An English girl (Kelly Reilly) and
her brother (Kevin Bishop), a young woman from Belgium (Cécile de
France), an Italian, a boy from Denmark, a German and a girl from Tarragona
all join him in a series of adventures that serve as an initiation to life.
Pot luck is a wonderful film filled with bohemian ideas and absolute truth.
Source: CineFile
“Blissfully funny, terrifically intelligent and tender when you least
expect it to be” David Denby” The New Yorker
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Russian Dolls (Les Poupeés russes)
Cedric Klapisch, France/UK, 2005, 123 mins
Five years after their year together in Barcelona, the exuberant flatmates
from Pot Luck / L’auberge espagnole (2002) reunite for a Russian wedding.
With their student days behind them, they are close to 30 and facing career
and relationship issues, yet remain young at heart. Xavier has become a writer,
but still seems a little lost. Besides the difficulties of making a living
he has problems settling down with a girl, embarking on one meaningless romantic
encounter after another. To put it bluntly, he’s a little messed up.
Dividing his time between his ex-girl friend (Audrey Tautou), his mother,
his passing romantic encounters and his lesbian pal (Cécile de France),
Xavier has a hard time getting his work done properly, which is to create
a simple love story for a TV series. Help though is at hand in the form of
his former English flatmate played by Kelly Reilly who also writes. What
starts as a professional collaboration turns into something else – and
the loose ends begin to unravel at the unlikely wedding of her brother (Kevin
Bishop) to a Russian ballerina (Evguenya Obraztsova) in St Petersburg. Source:
CineFile
**** “Irresistibly entertaining” Empire; ****
“Kelly Reilly, opposite heart-throb Romain Duris, has a chameleon
quality” The Observer
Official website:
www.russiandollsthemovie.com
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Son of Man
Mark Dornford-May, South Africa, 2006, 86 mins
Set in the fictional African state of Judea, where violence, poverty and
sectarianism are endemic, Son of Man is an adventurous and
ambitious new interpretation of the Gospels by the South African theatre
and film ensemble, Dimpho Di Kopane, who also produced U-Carmen
eKhayelitsha. The country is invaded by a neighbouring dictatorship
under the pretence of establishing democracy and peace through the means
of summary executions and brutal massacres. As the civil war reaches a new
level, a divine child - the Saviour - is born. As he grows up he sets out
to redeem his people from oppression through an ethics of non-violent protest
and solidarity. Visually striking and featuring a powerful soundtrack
incorporating inspirational traditional and protest songs, Son of
Man is a daring tale of defiance and revolution with an ethical and
political scope that reaches far beyond contemporary Africa. Source:
www.africa-in-motion.org.uk
“A vivid, thrilling, visually awe-inspiring piece of cinema” Daily
Telegraph
Official website:
www.sonofmanmovie.com
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Tais-Toi! (Shut Up!)
Francis Veber, France, 2003, 85 mins
Following in the same fine comic tradition of director Francis Veber’s
previous hits, Le Placard / The Closet and Le dîner
de cons / The Dinner Game, the plot relies heavily on cars, cell
phones and sudden bursts of superhuman strength as Jean Reno and Gérard
Depardieu repeatedly hop out of the frying pan and into the fire. Quentin
(Depardieu) is far too literal-minded to succeed as a crook. But what he
lacks in intellect he makes up for in brute strength. Yet Quentin likes to
talk the way most of us like to breath (hence the title). Ruby (Reno) on
the other hand is the strong silent type who has managed to hide £15
million purloined from his rival before ending up in a cell with Quentin
who mistakes Ruby’s silence for good listening skills. A great, completely
one-sided friendship is born. Source CineFile
**** “Part crime caper, part amiable buddy farce…expertly played”
BBC
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The Three Marias (As Tres Marias)
Aluisio Abranches, Brazil/Italy, 2002, 90 mins
It’s the 1970’s and Firmino Santos Guerra is abandoned by his
fiancée, Filomena (Marieta Severo) in favour of his greatest enemy,
Borges Capadocio. From this day on bad blood runs between the two families.
Thirty years later and Borges Capadocio and his two sons are brutally murdered
leaving behind his widow Filomena. She enlists the help of her three daughters
– all called Maria – who are each given the task of finding an
assassin in order to wreck revenge on the Santos Guerra family. Maria Francisca
(Julia Lemmertz), the eldest, has to find a gunman known as Ze das Cobras,
who has not spoken to a woman since the death of his mother. Maria Rosa (Maria
Luisa Mendonca) searches for Chief Tenorio, an honest backwoods cop, who
also happens to be an expert on knives. Maria Pia (Luiza Mariani), the youngest,
goes off in search of Jesuino Cruz, the most feared killer in the region,
but the problem is he’s in jail. Destiny, however, has different plans
for The Three Marias as their quests take them in unexpected directions.
Source: CineFile
“If you loved City of God, or Y Tu Mama Tambien then The Three
Marias is the next treat in store” Alan Jones, Film Review
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Tony Takitani
Jun Ichikawa, Japan, 2004, 76 mins
When Tony Takitani learns to draw, a teacher tells him ‘you’re
good, but I don’t feel any warmth’. You’d be forgiven for
thinking the same of a film whose stately, slow-panning medium shots, muted
stone-and-earth palette, spare piano accompaniment and measured, distancing
voiceover seem calculated to cool the blood. Yet it’s a mode perfectly
suited to its subject.
Adapted from a short story by Haruki Murakami, Tony Takitani is
about a soul regretfully acclimatised to solitude: born after the war and
given a Western name by his forward-looking but misguided father, Tony (Issey
Ogata) struggles to make friends, develops an aptitude for technical illustration
and eventually meets a young woman (Rie Miyazawa) whose passion for fashion
mirrors his own fetishistic fascination with the look of things. There are
shades of Vertigo in what follows, but where Hitchcock charted
the sacrifice of the self on the altar of romantic obsession, Jun Ichikawa
stresses Murakami’s characters’ acute and seemingly insuperable
atomisation – an alienation slightly undermined by the gimmick of having
them speak a line from the narration out loud every so often. But this is
a small reservation in a moving, expressive and refreshingly unsentimental
film whose compact running time reflects the quiet efficiency of its narrative,
characterisation and mise en scène. Ben Walters, timeout.com
"A gem" ***** The Sunday Telegraph
"Has about it something approaching perfection" Philip French, The Observer
Official website:
www.tonytakitani.com
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Transylvania
Tony Gatlif, France, 2006, 102 mins
The beautiful, dark and haunting Zingarina (Asia Argento) finds herself in
pursuit of the man she loves after he abandons her, confused and two months
pregnant. Zingarina throws herself body and soul into a trip to find her
lost lover in Romania, venturing into the strange, forbidding foreignness
of the mythic territory of Transylvania. This is a strange and unsettling
place but one full of compassion and humanity.
When events take an unexpected turn, Zingarina discovers that to be free
she must rid herself of all ties and connections to her past life to truly
experience the possibilities that come her way. She cautiously takes a new
path with another man, Tchangalo (Birol Unel); an enigmatic traveller free
of borders and home. Source: www.peccadillopictures.com
“A passionate whirl of a film” Daily Telegraph
Official website:
www.peccadillopictures.com
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True North
Steve Hudson, Germany/Ireland/UK, 2006, 96 mins
Riley (Peter Mullan) and Sean (Martin Compston) are cod fishermen working
the waters between Scotland and Belgium. Times are hard and catches are meagre.
In Ostend Sean goes behind his father’s (Lewis) back and tries to arrange
an illegal shipment of cigarettes. In an example of the grim irony that hovers
at the edge the film, Sean's contact doesn't approve of smoking, but is able
to offer a far more profitable cargo: a hold full of Chinese immigrants.
The nightmare of people trafficking is savagely exposed in first time
writer-director Steve Hudson's powerful story of maritime misadventure. A
powerful and thought provoking film that succeeds equally as sad human drama
and compelling thriller. Source: www.channel4.com/film
“Powerfully acted, angrily topical but essentially human film... a tense
thriller shot through with an important social message." Empire
Official website:
www.truenorth-film.com
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Unknown White Male
Rupert Murray, USA/UK, 2005, 88 mins
This conundrum of identity originated in 2002 when a thirty-something English
broker, Doug Bruce, woke up on the New York subway with no idea where he
was and no memory of who he was. The Coney Island hospital he checked into
simply registered him as "unknown white male". Medical examination would
later reveal that Doug had succumbed to a rare "fugue state" amnesia whereby
his episodic memory - of his life, work, loved ones - was completely wiped:
in short, the person he had once been had vanished. His long-time friend,
Rupert Murray, contacted him some months later to investigate what happened,
and this documentary is the result.
The mystery of his trauma deepens as we see Doug trying to reboot his whole
cognitive system: he knows about geography, for instance, but doesn't know
what snow is, or cricket, or fireworks. More disconcerting is the film's
chronicle of reintroduction to his family and friends, whom he meets as if
for the first time. He doesn't know them, and they can't locate the person
he once was. At some point one wonders if this isn't an elaborate hoax
by people who've watched Memento too many times. Can
this really have happened? By the end you feel inclined to give the film-makers
the benefit of the doubt. If Doug is faking then it's one of the best
impersonations of bewilderment you've ever seen. Ben Walters, timeout.com
“**** An extraordinary film” The Times
“A British Gem” The Observer
“****Unique, beautiful, optimistic” Total Film
Official website:
www.unknownwhitemale.co.uk
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