The 12 films in the World Narrative Competition - featuring filmmakers from 11 countries, five female directors, and five first-time directors - represent a diverse range of styles and stories in contemporary global cinema. Themes of displacement and coming-of-age, in particular, resonate throughout this year’s competition.
Angels Crest has a number of peripheral problems, mostly to do with the sheer number of under-developed characters and subplots.
Tragedy strikes a small-town community.
(Country: Canada, UK; Year: 2011; Director: Gaby Dellal; Writer: Leslie Schwartz, Catherine Trieschmann; Stars: Thomas Dekker, Elizabeth McGovern, Jeremy Piven, Lynn Collins, Mira Sorvino, Kate Walsh, Joseph Morgan, Rachel Clentworth, Ameko Eks Mass Carroll, Chris Ippolito, Greg Lawson, Julian Domingues, Emma Macgillivray, Colin A. Campbell)
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Like many an Old West prospector's treasure, while Mateo Gil's movie has a good- looking gloss its substance is more fool's gold that fortune.
What would have happened to Butch Cassidy if he hadn't died in Bolivia?
(Country: Spain; Year: 2011; Director: Mateo Gil; Writer: Miguel Barros; Stars: Sam Shepard, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Stephen Rea, Dominique McElligott, Eduardo Noriega, Padraic Delaney, Magaly Solier, Cristian Mercado, Fernando Gamarra, Luis Bredow, Daniel Aguirre, Maria Luque)
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Poetry, politics, madness, and desire collide in the true story of the woman hailed as South Africa’s Sylvia Plath. In 1960s Cape Town, as Apartheid steals the expressive rights of blacks and whites alike, young Ingrid Jonker finds her freedom scrawling verse while frittering through a series of stormy affairs. Amid escalating quarrels with her lovers and her government-censor father, the poet witnesses an unconscionable event that will alter her life’s course.
(Country: Netherlands; Year: 2011; Director: Paula van der Oest; Writer: Greg Latter; Stars: Rutger Hauer, Liam Cunningham, Carice van Houten, Grant Swanby, Nicholas Pauling, Leon Clingman, Graham Clarke, Tarryn Page, Damon Berry, Candice D'Arcy, Florence Masebe, Waldemar Schultz, Louis Pretorius, Thamsanqua Mbongo, Ceridwen Morris)
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International premiere
Cairo Exit
(El Korough)
When 18-year-old Amal becomes pregnant, she struggles with the choice between absconding to Greece with her beloved Muslim boyfriend and staying in Cairo with her Coptic Orthodox Christian family. But when her motorbike gets stolen and she’s fired from her job, Amal must reevaluate her future options as an unmarried young mother in Egypt.
(Country: Egypt; Year: 2010; Director: Hesham Issawi; Writer: Hesham Issawi, Amal Afify, Alexandra Kinias; Stars: Mohamed Ramadan, Maryhan, Ahmed Bidder, Sana Mouziane, Safaa Galal, Mohamed Goma, Nadia Fahmy, Kamal Attiah, Abdul Rahman, Nabil Hagrassy, Sanaa Muzian)
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International premiere
Grey Matter
(Matière Grise)
When his grant falls through a few days before production, a young filmmaker hides the bad news from his team and continues preparations on his film The Cycle of the Cockroach without financing or equipment. Reality blurs as scenes from the script suddenly begin to materialize—can this film exist only in his dreams? One of Rwanda’s first feature-length narrative films.
Precocious doesn’t even begin to describe Henry James Hermin, a petri dish child who writes rabble-rousing manifestos on the nature of truth… at age 10. This boy-genius misfit’s world turns upside down when — to the dismay of the doting single mother who raised him — he embarks on a search for his biological father.
(Country: US; Year: 2011; Director: Dennis Lee; Writer: Dennis Lee; Stars: Michael Sheen, Toni Collette, Jason Spevack, Jamie Johnston, Kate Hewlett, Kristin Fairlie, Aaron Abrams, Melyssa Ade, Drew Davis, Samantha Weinstein, R.H. Thomson, Austin Macdonald, Chris Ratz, Mishu Vellani, Torri Webster)
World premiere
The Kite
(Patang)
A businessman arrives in Ahmedabad for a surprise visit to his once grand family home, bringing with him his daughter and some unexpected news for the family’s future. Among the flurry of preparations and the energy of the festival itself, the transformative and intersecting tales of six characters unfold.
A small-time hustler on the outs is taken in by a troubled mum and daughter.
(Country: US; Year: 2010; Director: Joe Maggio; Writer: Joe Maggio; Stars: Dennis Farina, Jamie Anne Allman, Meredith Droeger, Ian Barford, Chelcie Ross, Gary Cole)
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Like the chocolate at its heart, Améris' film is sweet, a little indulgent and over all-too-quickly but leaves a lingering glow of happiness.
Two pathologically shy neurotics connect through a love of chocolate.
(Country: France, Belgium; Year: 2010; Director: Jean-Pierre Améris; Writer: Jean-Pierre Améris, Philippe Blasband; Stars: Benoît Poelvoorde, Isabelle Carré, Lorella Cravotta, Lise Lamétrie, Swann Arlaud, Pierre Niney, Stéphan Wojtowicz, Jacques Boudet, Alice Pol, Céline Duhamel, Philippe Fretun, Grégoire Ludig, Philippe Gaulé, Joëlle Séchaud, Isabelle Gruault)
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Aschan has chosen an austere, cold palette that reflects the cool calculations of Cassandra and Emma as they vie for dominance and she and her co-writer Josefine Adolfsson keep the scripting stripped down, so that the body language of the pair is as impor
An intense relationship of power-play develops between two girls on an equestrian acrobatics team.
(Country: Sweden; Year: 2011; Director: Lisa Aschan; Writer: Josefine Adolfsson, Lisa Aschan, Helene Lindholm; Stars: Kevin Caicedo Vega, Maria Hedborg, Sigmund Hovind, Inger Lindberg, Isabella Lindquist, Adam Lundgren, Sergej Merkusjev, Linda Molin, Malin Müller, Nasrin Pakkho, Mathilda Paradeiser, Elin Söderquist)
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Alma is a small-town teenager with an active imagination and an even more active libido. After a titillating but awkward encounter with school heartthrob Artur turns her into a social outcast, Alma is desperate to move out of town and on with her life. Turn me on, goddammit is an offbeat coming-of-age comedy.
