Saturday, 10th November 2007 - 00:00CET
Foreign flicks
In its fourth edition, the Malta International Film Festival is reaching out to project a more varied view of films that include everything, from thrillers to documentaries.
Showing Todayat the Empire Cinemas
AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER?
biography/drama
Arthur Morrison (Jim Broadbent), and his wife Kim (Juliet Stevenson), are GPs in the same medical practice in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales. They have two children, Gillian (Claire Skinner), and her older brother Blake (Colin Firth), from whose perspective the story is told. Blake is 40, married with two children, an established author, and having to face the fact that his father is terminally ill.
The film opens during a summer bank holiday family trip in the late 1950s. Arthur hits the hard shoulder to skip a long queue of traffic at a car racing event, and eight-year-old Blake, and the rest of the family, are crippled with embarrassment.
It's the first of many flashbacks that illustrate Arthur's bluff attitude to life and his pride in getting something for nothing. These childhood episodes also introduce Beaty (Sarah Lancashire) and her daughter, Josie. It soon becomes clear that Beaty and Arthur are more than just friends and that Josie is potentially Arthur's child. Adult Blake strives to find out the truth about Josie, and in doing so uncovers the interesting parameters of his father's marriage.
at the Embassy
DEATH PROOF
crime
For Austin's hottest DJ, Jungle Julia (Sydney Tamiia Poitier), dusk offers an opportunity to unwind with two of her closest friends, Shanna and Arlene (Jordan Ladd and Vanessa Ferlito). This three fox posse sets out into the night, turning heads from Guero's to the Texas Chili Parlour. Not all of the attention is innocent: Covertly tracking their moves is Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), a scarred, weathered rebel who leers from behind the wheel of his muscle car. As the girls settle into their beers, Mike's weapon, a white-hot juggernaut, revs just feet away.
at the Eden Cinemas
PAN'S LABYRINTH (El Laberinto del fauno)
drama/fantasy
Spain, 1944. The end of the Civil War. Recently remarried Carmen (Ariadne Gil) moves with her daughter Ofélia (Ivana Baquero) into the house of her new husband, coldly authoritarian Vidal (Sergii Lopez), a captain in Franco's army.
Finding her new life hard to bear, the young girl seeks refuge in a mysterious labyrinth she discovers next to the sprawling family house. Pan (Doug Jones), the guardian, a magical creature, reveals that she is none other than the long-lost princess of a magical kingdom. To discover the truth, Ofélia will have to accomplish three dangerous tasks, tasks which nothing has prepared her to face...
Showing Tomorrowat the Empire Cinemas
THE FAMILY FRIEND (L'Amico di famiglia)
drama
Geremia de' Geremei (Giacomo Rizzo), known as Geremia Heart-of-Gold, is the neighbourhood loan shark, using a certain loquacious phoney grace to simulate concern for the desperate people who come to his tailoring establishment for loans. This includes the proud Saverio (Gigi Angelillo) who humiliates himself by asking for money to pay for a suitable wedding for daughter Rosalba (Laura Chiatti), although the bride soon discovers it would have been better to forgo the party than deal with the thoroughly unpleasant moneylender.
at the Embassy
WATER
drama
The year is 1938, India is ruled by the British, and it is around this time that Mohandas K. Gandhi has arrived from Africa to begin his tryst with the British, as well as battle the traditions that bind the Hindus. Not yet in her teens, Chuyia (Sarala Kariyawasam) is married to a much older and sickly male, who shortly after the marriage, passes away. Chuyia is returned unceremoniously to her parents' house, and from where she is taken to the holy city of Banaras and left in the care of a wide assortment of widows who live at "the widows' house," shunned by the rest of the community. Chuyia believes that her mother will come to take her home. She meets several elderly women, including the head of the house, Madhumati; a quiet, confident woman named Shakuntala (Seema Biswas); and a gorgeous young woman named Kalyani (Lisa Ray) - all widows. Chuyia does not know that according to Holy Hindu Scriptures she has been destined to live here for the rest of her life, for when a woman's husband dies', she has three options: To marry her husband's younger brother, if his family permits; to kill herself on his funeral pyre; to live a life of celibacy, discipline, and solitude amongst her own kind.
at the Eden Cinemas
MOLIERE
comedy
1644, Paris, and 22-year-old Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, also known as Molière, is not yet the writer that history recognises as the father and true master of comic satire, author of The Misanthrope and Tartuffe, and a dramatist to rank alongside Shakespeare and Sophocles. Far from it. He is, in fact, a failed actor.
His Illustrious Theatre Troupe, founded the previous year, is bankrupt. Hounded by creditors, Molière is thrown into jail, released, and then swiftly imprisoned again. When the jailors finally let him go, he disappears.
The combined efforts of historians have unearthed no trace of him before his reappearance, several months later, when his troupe begins touring the provinces - a tour that will last for 13 years, and culminate in Molière's triumphant return to Paris.
But what happened to Molière during these mysterious lost months?
Showing on Mondayat the Empire Cinemas
CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER (Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia)
action
On the eve of the Chong Yang Festival, golden flowers fill the Imperial Palace. The Emperor (Chow Yun Fat) returns unexpectedly with his second son, Prince Jai (Jay Chou). His pretext is to celebrate the holiday with his family, but given the chilled relations between the Emperor and the ailing Empress (Gong Li), this seems disingenuous.
For many years, the Empress and Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye), her stepson, have had an illicit liaison. Feeling trapped, Prince Wan dreams of escaping the palace with his secret love Chan (Li Man), the Imperial Doctor's daughter.
Meanwhile, Prince Jai, the faithful son, grows worried over the Empress's health and her obsession with golden chrysanthemums. Could she be headed down an ominous path?
at the Embassy
CLIMATES (Iklimler)
drama
The film begins on a summer holiday in Kas where, out in the sun, at dinner with friends and on a tense motorbike ride, Isa (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) and Bahar (Ebru Ceylan) quietly reveal just how sour the marriage has become (Bahar soon leaves for home - Istanbul - alone). In the rainy autumn Isa encounters a bewitching former lover named Serap (Nazan Kesal). Isa and Bahar are two lonely figures dragged through the ever-changing climate of their inner selves in pursuit of a happiness that no longer belongs to them. Finally, in the snowy winter, Isa goes to the mountains to find Bahar on a location shoot (she works in television), and in their reunion there lies the possibility of a détente.
at the Eden Cinemas
FAMILIA RODANTE
comedy
The grandmother of a large, extended family is invited to become the matron of honour at her niece's wedding in her far away, native hometown. And so, the adventure begins as the whole clan hits the road in a mobile home.
Showing on Tuesdayat the Empire Cinemas
DAYS OF GLORY (Indigenes)
drama
Time period: 1944-1945. The liberation of Italy, Provence, the Alps, the Rhone Valley, the Vosges and Alsace marked vital stages in the Allied victory. And in the place that France was able to take among the Allies following the Armistice. This victorious and bloody march on Germany was carried out by the 1st French Army, recruited in Africa to sidestep the German occupiers and the officials of the Vichy regime: 200,000 men, including 130,000 "natives" comprising 110,000 North Africans and 20,000 Black African. The rest of the force was made up of French North Africans and of young Frenchmen who had fled the Occupation. This is the forgotten story of the so-called "native" soldiers.
at the Embassy
BLACK BOOK (Zwartboek)
thriller
September 1944 - Rachel Steinn (Carice van Houten), a beautiful, young and feisty Jewish revue star, has fled the Nazis and gone into hiding in the Netherlands.
When her hiding place is destroyed by a stray bomb, she meets a sailor who offers her refuge at his parents' house. They are tipped off by resistance fighter Van Gein (Peter Blok) that their hideaway is no longer safe and he offers to smuggle her by boat into safe Allied territory with a group of wealthy Jews. Sensing this is her only option, Rachel gathers all her valuables and braves the escape. Just as the boat is about to leave, she discovers her family are making the journey too.
But tragedy strikes when a Nazi patrol intercepts their boat, ruthlessly killing everybody. In the ensuing massacre, Rachel manages to escape, but not before she has witnessed the brutal murder of her family and the plundering of their valuables by Nazi officer Franken (Waldemar Kobus) and his comrades.
at the Eden Cinemas
THE LIVES OF OTHERS (Das Leben Der Anderen)
drama
November 1984. Hohenschön-hausen Detention Centre. A prisoner is suspected of having helped a friend flee the country. State Security Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) interrogates him efficiently and mercilessly, using an arsenal of means to pressure the man, including sleep deprivation. Wiesler has his interrogation tape-recorded for use as an example in the classes he teaches at the College of the State Security (Stasi).
Lieutenant Colonel Anton Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur), a former classmate of Wiesler's who now heads the Culture Department at the State Security, invites Wiesler to accompany him to the premiere of the new play by Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch). Minister Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme) is also attending the performance. Afterwards, at the premiere party, Hempf cannot seem to take his eyes off the attractive lead actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), Dreyman's girlfriend.
• All films showing at 3, 6 and 9 p.m.
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