Film Reviews

Fragments of several (mostly) silent films are shown. They're guided by quotes from, among others, Plato and Sappho and a soundtrack.

Buenos Aires. Exe, 25 years old, has just lost his job and is not looking for another one. His neighbors and friends seem as odd to him as they always do. Online, he meets Alf, a boy from Mozambique who is also bored with his job and who is about to follow Archie, another boy who has run away into the jungle. Through the dense vegetation of the forest, Archie tracks ants back to their nest. One of them wanders off course and comes across Canh, a Filipino, sitting on top of a giant heap of earth and who is about to go back to his strange, beautiful home town, where he too has a miserable job.

The main character, nicknamed "Teddy Bear" by his friends and acquaintances, is a manager of a sports club in Poland. One day he is detained at the border just as his sport team is off to a tournament. It appears that somebody has torn out a few pages from his passport. It occurs to him that perhaps his ex-wife has done it in order to get her hands on their joint account in a London bank. Therefore, he has to get to London as soon as possible in order to transfer the money to a different bank. The solution is taking part in a movie, made by his friend. The script requires a double role, thus the search for another actor is announced. The double has to apply for the passport, and that is solved through a girlfriend who agrees to play the dope's new fiancée. At the engagement party he is slipped a drug, and Teddy Bear runs off to the airport with the false passport. On the plane, however, he meets his ex-wife...

A ten year old boy gets tired of life with abusive parents and cashes in his piggy bank and steals a Mustang. He rides off into a surreal America playing "Motorama," a game sponsored by Chimera Gas Company. He has various encounters with different people, and eventually reaches the Chimera Gas Company where he finds they are not playing by the rules of the game.

A young aspiring rock guitarist is forced to become the musical director of the local marching band when his father is hit by a bus just four weeks before a major competition.

Set in Edwardian England where upper lips are always stiff and men from the Colonies are not entirely to be trusted, Fisk Senior has little time or affection for his son, but when the pair visit an eccentric Indian, they start a strange journey that eventually allows the old man to find his heart.

Lyudmila doesn't have any luck in finding the perfect job. She tried to be an air hostess, newscaster, model, ice skater, but fate had something else in store for her - a petrol station, where her incredible positivity and fiery personality charm everyone around her.

Elliot, a successful gynecologist, works at the same practice as his identical twin, Beverly. Elliot is attracted to many of his patients and has affairs with them. When he inevitably loses interest, he will give the woman over to Beverly, the meeker of the two, without the woman knowing the difference. Beverly falls hard for one of the patients, Claire, but when she inadvertently deceives him, he slips into a state of madness.

A hyper-repressed and schlubby accountant (Jonas Chernick) strikes a deal with a worldly but disorganized stripper (Emily Hampshire): he'll help her with her crushing debt if she helps him become a better lover. Sharp direction by the versatile Sean Garrity and a very funny script by Chernick ensure for an uproarious — and surprisingly educational — sex comedy. (TIFF)

Julien Monnier has a serious problem. Though he's a brilliant couples counselor, he can't keep a woman in his life for more than two weeks. Indeed, ever since his childhood, Julien jinxes every woman who falls in love with him. But it's not just any small jinx. It's the kind that sends you to the hospital several times a week, that destroys your professional life or that turns your friends into enemies. Julien is strictly speaking a true black cat for women. Joanna Sorini will soon learn this at her expense the day she meets him. A career that's just taking off, a love life that finally seems to be taking a good turn, all that may just change.

Raphael is a ghostwriter who takes a job writing for famous footy player Kevin. To his delight and his girlfriend, Murials horror, Kevins current girlfriend is an old (easily rekindled) flame of Raphaels. A freak accident leaves a close friend dead and Raphael is forced to reconsider his priorities.

From 1997 to 2006, serial killer Ronald Dominique raped and killed twenty-three men in poverty- stricken Southeastern Louisiana. Difficulties in apprehending Dominique ranged from the underfunding of law enforcement to a lack of family advocacy for the victims, to the general distraction by other catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina. Bayou Blue meditates on the decay of a community.

A conflict develops between a troubled Vietnam veteran and the sister he lives with when she becomes involved romantically with the army buddy who reminds him of the tragic battle they both survived.

A financial executive who can't stop his career downspiral is invited into his daughter's imaginary world, where solutions to his problems await.

A filmmaker's insight into the biggest gathering on earth -the Kumbh Mela.