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|  | 1/2 the Rent [HALFR] Germany 92 minCinema of Our Time
Fugitive computer hacker Peter surreptitiously begins to inhabit the lives--and apartments--of the people he encounters in Marc Ottiker's unique and utterly charming first feature. As Peter starts to feel a bond with his unknowing "victims," the film evolves into a smart humanist comedy with a slightly menacing undertone. |
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|  | 16 Years of Alcohol [16YEA] Great Britain, Scotland 102 minCinema of Our Time
Told largely in flashback, seminal Scottish punk Richard Jobson's semi-autobiographical saga of thwarted ambitions and misdirected lives is tinged with regret for wasted youth and the ravages of drink. Packed with ravishing visual images and haunted by its melancholy narration, it's like a three-day bender jammed into one woozily ambitious debut. |
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|  | 18 Years Later [18YEA] France 89 minSpotlight on France
Coline Serreau's sequel to her 1985 monster hit, Three Men and a Cradle, is not just a funny and lilting multi-generational comedy about the transformative power of love. It's also a charmingly barbed critique of American-style competitiveness versus French-style savoir-vivre. |
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|  | 50 Questions (Short) [HITTI] Canada 11 minCanadian Imagesplays in Hitting Zero
A workaholic shows up for his efficiency review only to discover that the interviewer is the very temp whose lunch invitation he rejected last week. |
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|  | 8:17 p.m., Darling Street [817PM] Canada 101 minCanadian Images
At 8:17 p.m. on Darling Street, an apartment building explodes and six people die. Saved by the chance of an untied shoelace, Gérard (Luc Picard), an ex-reporter and reformed alcoholic, questions fate in Bernard Émond's compelling drama. |
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|  | Abbas Kiarostami: The Art of Living [ABBAS] Ireland 55 minNonfiction Features of 2003 plays with Dziga and His Brothers
A unique film essay on world-renowned Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, this nonfiction feature from Pat Collins and Fergus Daly is framed around interviews with the director on the Aran Islands and at Cannes, and is the first documentary to celebrate him as the interdisciplinary artist he is: poet, painter, photographer, installation artist, filmmaker. |
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|  | Abjad [ABJAD] Iran 110 minCinema of Our Time
Veteran filmmaker Abolfazl Jalili, one of Iran's most poetic visual stylists, turns to autobiography with this tale of first love, religious difference and resistance in the wake of the 1980 revolution. |
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|  | Accelerated Under-Development: In the Idiom of Santiago Álvarez [ACCEL] USA 64 minNonfiction Features of 2003 preceded by Superior Elegy
Travis Wilkerson's energetic film uses the richly innovative documentaries of Cuban filmmaker Santiago Álvarez to revisit the past century's radical changes. Wilkerson includes examples of Álvarez's brilliant films, and borrows from the Cuban's methods of expression, combining Álvarez's words and films into a compelling opposition of image, word and music. |
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|  | Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer [AILEE] Great Britain 89 minNonfiction Features of 2003
Documentarians Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill return to the subject of one of their most successful films, serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who is, here, facing her final appeal. A haunting look at madness and a genuine attempt to come to grips with it. |
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|  | Al-Jazeera Exclusive [ALJAZ] Great Britain 60 minNonfiction Features of 2003 plays with The Blind Orchestra
Once praised as the only independent Arab news broadcaster and now condemned in Britain and the US for the very same reason, al-Jazeera Television provided an Arab perspective on the Iraq War. BBC correspondent Ben Anthony's investigates the inner workings and behind-the-scenes rationale of the station. |
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|  | Angel on the Right [ANGEL] France, Italy, Switzerland, Tajikistan 89 minCinema of Our Time
Social upheaval brought about by the seven-year-long civil war in Tajikistan serves as the backdrop for Djamshed Usmonov's witty parable about a "Russianized" good-for-nothing who returns to his native village ostensibly to look after his dying mother. A dryly humorous, deadpan delight. |
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|  | Angela [ANGLA] Italy 95 minCinema of Our Time
In Roberta Torre's gripping docudrama, Angela runs a shoe market in Palermo, and is a trusted accomplice to her Mafioso husband's illegitimate enterprises. She thrives on the luxury, the money, and above all, the risk. Yet her thirst for passion leads her into the arms of her husband's right-hand man… |
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|  | Animal Nightmares (Short) [LITLI] Canada 7 minCanadian Imagesplays in A Little Life
Sex, frogs and rock 'n' roll--a lush exploration of the spiritual connection between man and nature. |
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|  | Any Way the Wind Blows [ANYWA] Belgium 127 minCinema of Our Time
As a sweltering June Friday unfolds to a killer soundtrack, eight characters dream of alternative realities and pine for the weekend. Belgian musician Tom Barman's ambitious debut captures all the comedy and drama of life in Antwerp--family crises, house parties, alternative art, and let's not forget the Windman... |
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|  | Arctic Crime & Punishment [ARCTI] Denmark 60 minNonfiction Features of 2003 preceded by Islet
Sasha Snow's compelling look at how the community of Ilulissiat in northern Greenland deals with crime and justice follows two stories: that of Naalu, a woman who killed her husband, and Jens, a man who beat up his wife. |
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| | Aspiration (Short) [LITLI] Canada 12 minCanadian Imagesplays in A Little Life
A man drives to a secluded beach with a single object--a hammer--and waits... |
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|  | At Five in the Afternoon [ATFIV] France, Iran 106 minSpecial Presentations
Samira Makhmalbaf's feminist Cannes prize winner is set just after the Taliban's fall, when young women have earned the right to go to school--or even be president--but lack the respect of their conservative fathers. Amid the optimism, though, anarchy rules; after 20 years of brutal occupation, Afghanistan is rich in ruins. |
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|  | Baghdad On/Off [BAGHD] France 86 minNonfiction Features of 2003
Made prior to the recent war, this poignant road movie traverses Kurdish northern Iraq documenting encounters with the disenfranchised survivors of Saddam's oppression. "Iraqi-born filmmaker Saad Salman... puts an unforgettable human face on the plight of Iraq and of refugees everywhere..."--Variety. Winner of the Audience Prize at Paris' International Cinema Encounters. |
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|  | The Barbarian Invasions [BARBA] Canada 99 minGalas
As relatives, friends and lovers flock to the bedside of ailing Rémy, their facetious exchanges show that 17 years later The Decline of the American Empire continues. Denys Arcand's latest feature was awarded both Best Screenplay and Best Actress (Marie-Josée Croze) at this year's Cannes Film Festival. |
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|  | Bastards [BASTA] Canada 99 minCanadian Images
A wild, barefoot and homeless activist forces herself into the life of a retired man, Sam, to teach him about the Revolution. Shot on digital video, from Sam's point of view, Mort Ransen's (Touched, VIFF 99) latest feature is intense, raw and empowering. |
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|  | The Best of Youth Part 1 [BEST1] Italy 180 minCinema of Our Time
Winner of the top prize in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at Cannes, Marco Tullio Giordana's amazing film "is an impassioned epic that sweeps up its characters in nearly 40 years of human drama and social history, intertwining the two with a master seamstress' delicacy... [The filmmakers] pull the audience so forcefully into their story that it becomes like an enveloping dream..."--Scott Foundas, Variety |
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|  | The Best of Youth Part 2 [BEST2] Italy 186 minCinema of Our Time
Winner of the top prize in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at Cannes, Marco Tullio Giordana's amazing film "is an impassioned epic that sweeps up its characters in nearly 40 years of human drama and social history, intertwining the two with a master seamstress' delicacy... [The filmmakers] pull the audience so forcefully into their story that it becomes like an enveloping dream..."--Scott Foundas, Variety |
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|  | The Big Charade (Short) [DELIC] Canada 6 minCanadian Images
precedes The Delicate Art of Parking
A hilarious mock trailer about a young man's vengeful journey into the seedy underworld of charades. |
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|  | A Big Girl Like You [BIGIR] France 87 minSpotlight on France
Rebellious 16-year-old Sabine is interested in sex and clubbing, and not much else. But when she leaves home to move to Paris, she is plunged into a minefield of exploitation that will test her courage and mark her definitive entry into womanhood. |
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|  | Bless Their Little Hearts [BLESS] USA 80 minLos Angeles
Co-written and shot by Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep), Billy Woodberry's seminal film explores the poor African-American's side of Los Angeles: the unemployment, poverty, urban decay and lack of opportunity. An ultra-realistic classic, part of our "Los Angeles Plays Itself" series. |
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|  | The Blind Orchestra [ALJAZ] Netherlands 52 minNonfiction Features of 2003 plays with Al-Jazeera Exclusive
The Al Nour Wal Amal Orchestra, founded in Cairo in 1954, is unique: it consists entirely of blind women performing classical music in a society where women playing music is frowned upon. Sabine Konig's truly fascinating documentary looks at the lives of the current members, focusing on their triumphs and setbacks. |
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|  | Blossoms and Blood (Short) [WATER] USA 12 minLos Angeles
precedes Water and Power
A deconstruction of the film Punch-Drunk Love and of the San Fernando Valley. |
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|  | Blue Like a Gunshot (Short) [HAILP] 6 minLatin Music
precedes Hail, Proud and Immortal Labour!
This richly textured animated short offers an eloquent cri de coeur about the state of our world. |
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|  | Blue Like a Gunshot (Short) [MESSE] Canada 6 minCanadian Images
precedes The Messengers
This richly textured animated short offers an eloquent cri de coeur about the state of our world. |
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|  | Bola de Nieve [BOLAD] Cuba, Mexico, Spain 73 minLatin Music
Cuban, black, homosexual, revolutionary and, above all, musician, Bola de Nieve (1911-1971) and his times are revealed in this magnetic documentary by José Sanchez-Montes examining the myth and fate of the musician who, with the spare use of a piano and a magical voice, raised the hairs on end for the likes of Edith Piaf, Paul Robeson, Pablo Neruda and Josephine Baker. |
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|  | A Boy's Life [BOYSL] USA 77 minNonfiction Features of 2003
What begins as the story of an emotionally disturbed seven-year-old boy living in poverty with his grandmother in Eupora, Mississippi, takes on the dimensions of Greek tragedy and American Gothic in award-winning documentarian Rory Kennedy's utterly compelling tale. |
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|  | The Bread Maker [BREAD] Canada 80 minCanadian Images preceded by Fair Phyllis
This charming romantic comedy features Honey Reddigan, a factory worker who aspires to be like the heroines in the romance novels she writes. But, when she falls for a commitment-phobic TV meteorologist, she begins to wonder whether happily-ever-after is all it's cracked up to be. |
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|  | Broken Wings [BROKE] Israel 87 minSpecial Presentations
Nir Bergman's elegant film is a moving, acutely perceptive portrait of an Israeli family thrown into chaos by the loss, nine months earlier, of an adored father and husband. As mother Daphna and her four children try to pick up the pieces, another traumatic event brings the dysfunctional clan back together. |
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|  | Building Bridge: A Housing Project for Women (Short) [SQUAT] Canada 22 minCanadian Images
precedes Squat!
Culminating a twenty-year effort, Bridge Housing for Women opened a safe haven for women to escape the streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. This documentary chronicles the inspiring story of the project's originators and the women who now have a home. |
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|  | Bus 174 [BUSXX] Brazil 133 minNonfiction Features of 2003
A true life Brazilian version of Dog Day Afternoon, José Padillha's gripping documentary examines the hijacking of a Rio de Janeiro bus in the summer of 2000. Expertly edited from multiple-angle television footage and interviews with the hijacker's acquaintances, Padillha, with the force of tragedy and the depth of first-rate investigative journalism, shows a Brazil teetering on the precipice of disintegration. |
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|  | Best of Youth (Full Version) [BESTO] Italy 366 minCinema of Our Time
Winner of the top prize in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at Cannes, Marco Tullio Giordana's amazing film "is an impassioned epic that sweeps up its characters in nearly 40 years of human drama and social history, intertwining the two with a master seamstress' delicacy... [The filmmakers] pull the audience so forcefully into their story that it becomes like an enveloping dream..."--Scott Foundas, Variety |
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