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Films & Events by Title - Synopsis View >
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Paper Moon Affair
[Feature] - Canadian Images
(Canada, 2005, 82 min)
In David Tamagi's intense and visually stunning first feature, a mysterious Japanese woman (Misa Shimizu) arrives in a small fishing village in a remote corner of the Pacific Northwest. Abruptly abandoned by her cold but wealthy Chinese husband, Keiko forms an intense bond with two local residents. More >
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Paradise Now
[Feature] - Cinema of Our Time
(France, Germany, Netherlands, Palestine, 2005, 90 min)
Shot in Nablus, Hany Abu-Assad's timely and shocking film looks at two Palestinian childhood friends who are recruited to carry out a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Sworn to secrecy, the friends begin their journey across the border, but the operation doesn't go as planned... Best Director, Berlin Film Festival. More >
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A Particular Silence
[Feature] - Nonfiction Features of 2005
(Italy, 2005, 75 min)
Matteo is 24 years old and suffering from a profound form of autism. This highly personal documentary from screenwriter Stefano Rulli (The Best of Youth) is a searing portrait of one family coping, or not, with a difficult and mysterious condition. Rulli was prompted by Matteo's condition to open "The City of the Sun," a special retreat for families struggling with the developmentally challenged. More >
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Passages
[Short] - Canadian Images
(Canada, 2005, 11 min)
precedes Lynching of Louie Sam, The
Poetry, stories and cultural reminiscences weave a powerful message about aural traditions. As society changes, these texts bring context connecting us to the past and offering lessons for the future. More >
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Patterns
[Shorts Program] - Canadian Images
(Canada, 2005, 10 min)
plays in This Is My Story
A puzzling dreamworld unfolds as Daphne waits for her phone to ring. More >
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Pavee Lackeen
[Feature] - Cinema of Our Time
(Ireland, 2005, 87 min)
The Travellers are Ireland's nomads. Like the Roma (Gypsies in Europe) they are fiercely proud and independent people. But in a world that has grown increasingly smaller, is there any room left for their traditional way of life? Perry Odgen's film follows ten-year-old Winnie and her family as they struggle to survive without compromise, treading a fine line between fiction and documentary along the way. More >
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Peacock
[Feature] - Dragons and Tigers
(China, 2005, 144 min)
Ace cinematographer Gu Changwei turns director with this vivid panorama of small-town family life in the early 1980s. Focused on the family’s three contrasted adolescent kids, it’s a patchwork of domestic incidents, crises and small, surreal epiphanies... The best of its kind since Edward Yang’s A One and a Two and a top prizewinner in Berlin. More >
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A Perfect Fake
[Mid-Length] - Canadian Images
(Canada, 2005, 56 min)
plays with Lifelike
Marc de Guerre's fascinating exploration of the challenging and graphic world of virtual porn and the culture of love/sex dolls in Japan. More >
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Phantom Limb
[Short] - Nonfiction Features of 2005
(USA, 2005, 28 min)
precedes Georgi and the Butterflies
Jay Rosenblatt uses the metaphor of the phantom limb--the illusion that a limb still exists after it has been amputated--in this collection of personal reflections on grief and loss triggered by the death of a child. More >
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The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
[Feature] - Cinema of Our Time
(France, Germany, UK, 2005, 99 min)
The Brothers Quay are at it again. Almost ten years after Institute Benjamenta, comes this morbid tale of dead opera singers, mad scientists, dust, decay, dolls and other typical Quay brothers' obsessions. With a wealth of references from Magritte to the "Stink Ant of the Cameroon" there is an undeniable, diabolical pleasure to be taken from the images and uneasy atmosphere onscreen. Entirely unwholesome! More >
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Pigeon
[Shorts Program] - Canadian Images
(Canada, 2004, 11 min)
plays in This Is My Story
Wendy Crewson and Michael Lerner star in this sumptuous short about a startling act of charity that took place during WWII. More >
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Play
[Feature] - Cinema of Our Time
(Chile, 2005, 105 min)
Two people may or may not find each other in Alicia Scherson's elliptical, lyrical play on finding and losing love in the big city. The city is Santiago, and the couple are from vastly differing economic and cultural backgrounds. When Cristina finds a briefcase that belongs Tristan, she takes it as an opportunity to enter his world... More >
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Police Beat
[Feature] - Cinema of Our Time
(USA, 2004, 80 min)
A huge hit at Sundance, Robinson Devor's drama follows bicycle cop "Z" over the course of seven days and six nights. Devor has fashioned an entirely new type of police drama (soulful, oblique, almost blue) that blends the mean streets of Seattle with notions of globalization, and even a little romance all jammed into 80 minutes. More >
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The Porcelain Doll
[Feature] - Cinema of Our Time
(Hungary, 2005, 75 min)
Three short stories of the surreal, the bizarre and the fantastical make up a Bermuda triangle of strangeness in this film from director Péter Gárdos. Are they political allegories or simply folk tales gone wild? Ultimately it doesn't really matter, as the strength of the images is entirely universal. Gárdos lived with the villagers he puts on screen and the amateur performances are equal to those of the professionals in the cast. More >
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Portrait of a Lady Far Away
[Feature] - Cinema of Our Time
(Iran, 2005, 98 min)
A random phone call from a woman planning to kill herself sends a lonely architect on a journey of self-discovery in this allusive debut feature from director Ali Mossaffa. Is this a real woman or merely a phantom from the past; the truth may be as mysterious as the midnight quest itself. More >
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The Prince Contemplating His Soul
[Feature] - Cinema of Our Time
(France, Tunisia, 2005, 96 min)
in this third feature from director/fabulist Nacer Khemir, an old blind dervish named Bab 'Aziz and his granddaughter are travelling through the desert on their way a great convocation of dervishes, an auspicious event held every 30 years. "An Arabian dream that weaves timeless story threads with mystical and Sufi elements into a beautiful film object."--Variety More >
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Princess Raccoon
[Feature] - Dragons and Tigers
(Japan, 2005, 111 min)
Remember our pioneering tribute to Suzuki Seijun back in 1991? Well, the grand old man is still at it, and here finally delivers his long-promised musical, starring (who else?) Odagiri Joe from Bright Future and China’s newest diva Zhang Ziyi. The story is a legend: an abandoned son meets a beautiful woman who is actually a raccoon spirit in human guise. The music ranges from schmalz to hip-hop; the visuals, of course, are out of this world. More >
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Protocols of Zion
[Feature] - Nonfiction Features of 2005
(USA, 2005, 90 min)
The tract of the title gained renewed interest after 9/11. Documentarian Marc Levin took to the street to discover the roots of this pervasive and persistent so-called conspiracy, uncovering along the way, still deeply rooted anti-Semitism, not only in America, but the world over. Raging, fierce, yet stubbornly hopeful, this film seeks to understand the birth of racial hatred, and in so doing, fight it. More >
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Punk: Attitude
[Feature] - Nonfiction Features of 2005
(UK, USA, 2005, 88 min)
A punk documentary from someone who was there and lived to tell. Director Don Letts started his career as a DJ at the legendary club The Roxy and he pulls no punches in telling the dirty truth of Punk's squalling infancy. All those left standing tell their version of the story, including the New York Dolls, The Stooges, MC5 and the Ramones. More >
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The Real Dirt on Farmer John
[Feature] - Nonfiction Features of 2005
(USA, 2005, 83 min)
The subject of this memoir/documentary is John Peterson, a sometime farmer with a feather boa, occasional performance artist and all-around 100% genuine American eccentric. Documentarian Taggart Siegel charts the very rocky ground traversed by Peterson over the last 20 years as he attempts to save his farm, and himself, from the changing social and economic climate of middle America. More >
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The Red Baton: Scenes of Musical Life in Stalinist Russia
[Mid-Length] - Nonfiction Features of 2005
(France, 2004, 55 min)
plays with North Korea: A Day in the Life
You think you got it bad, you could have been Shostakovich. Using archival footage, socialist realist propaganda films, and some of the most beautiful music in the world, documentarian Bruno Monsaingeon recreates a period of stunning oppression that resulted in a cultural flowering quite unlike any other. More >
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Red Velvet Girls
[Shorts Program] - Canadian Images
(Canada, 2005, 14 min)
plays in Inherited Disorder
A lesbian vampire must choose between her lover and a centuries-old tradition of arranged marriage in this lush gothic short. More >
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Roma
[Feature] - Vancouver Int'l Film Centre
(Argentina, 2004, 155 min)
One young man's life serves as the focal point for the struggles that tore Argentina apart in the 60s and 70s. "Argentinean director Adolfo Aristarain turns a compassionate eye towards his own spiritual and political education in the rangy, quietly affecting and rewardingly intense Roma, his most accomplished work to date."--Variety More >
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Rome, Open City
[Feature] - Vancouver Int'l Film Centre
(Italy, 1945, 100 min)
preceded by My Dad Is 100 Years Old
Roberto Rossellini's neo-realist classic still thrums with energy and immediacy, despite its having been released 60 years ago. It is Rome, 1944, and the Nazis are closing in on Italian resistance leaders... Anna Magnani is outstanding as one of the few trained actors in a cast of non-professionals. More >
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Room 710
[Shorts Program] - Canadian Images
(Canada, 2005, 7 min)
plays in Little Things
A sleep-deprived hotel guest is troubled by the noise of a couple fighting next door. More >
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Russia/Chechnya: Voices of Dissent
[Mid-Length] - Nonfiction Features of 2005
(UK, 2005, 47 min)
plays with Life in Peace
As much about the repression of dissent in Russia as the wars in Chechnya, the versatile and talented Carlo Nero's documentary offers new insights into the wars. More >
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