Amreeka
In director Cherien Dabis’ Cannes-winning debut feature, a Palestinian single mother and her teenage son leave their hometown amid the fallout of the US-led war on Iraq and embark on a turbulent journey to new lives in Illinois. Humor and warmth are abundant in this story of displacement and struggle.
Inferno
Said to be inflamed by the success of 81/2, French director Henri-Georges Clouzot set out in 1964 to make an ambitious film about jealousy and madness. The project was aborted, and the footage was locked away for decades, until French archivist Serge Bromberg got a hold of the surviving 185 cans of film negative. Inferno, the resulting documentary, is infused with Clouzot’s bewitching and sometimes ghostly images that linger on the then 26-year-old legendary beauty Romy Schneider.
The Life and Death of a Porn Gang
Marko is a film school graduate who tried his luck with horror films and the porn industry but failed miserably. Frustrated, he assembles a troupe of junkies, transvestites and porn actresses and starts a touring live porn show. Shocking and original, the film challenges many taboos — such as murder, group sex, and bestiality.
Sweet Rush
The latest work by Polish master Andrzej Wajda, Sweet Rush is a self-referential film that focuses on a middle-aged woman still mourning her two long-dead sons when she is suddenly taken with a young man. The film is grouped in the festival’s Spotlights section, which features new works by celebrated directors including Theo Angelopoulos, Raoul Ruiz and Jane Campion.
Thirst
South Korea’s Park Chan-wook, maker of the celebrated Vengeance trilogy, ventures into vampire territory but with none of the genre’s conventional baggage. The story centers on a priest-turned-vampire who has an affair with his best friend’s wife. Thirst and two other vampire flicks will be shown together at a marathon screening that starts tomorrow night at 11:50pm at Shin Kong Cineplex.
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