• Informations
  • The WFF
  • A word from the president
  • Enter a film
  • Accreditation
  • Tickets
  • Cinemas & Tourism
  • Hotel package deal
  • Employment
  • Program and poster
• Program
  • Search for films
  • Cinema Under the Stars
  • Our Cinema
• Press
  • Press releases
  • Press relations
• Market
  • Welcome
  • List of participants
  • Co-productions
  • Quebec based producers
  • Co-production submission
  • Conferences and symposiums
  • Vidéothèque
  • Video submission
• Sponsors
  • Sponsors
  • Become a sponsor
  • Publicity
• Archives
  • Prizes
  • Student prize-winners
  • Consult the archives
  • Press conferences
• Centre Cinéma Impérial
  • Welcome
  • History
  • Now playing

600 KILOS D'OR PUR (PC)
France / 2010 / Colour / 98 min / Dir.: Éric Besnard
Cast : Clovis Cornillac, Audrey Dana, Patrick Chesnais, Claudio Santamaria, Bruno Solo, Julie Paraense
A group of adventurers set out to rob a gold mine deep in the interior of Guyana. But the operation doesn’t go off as planned, and during their escape their helicopter is forced to make an emergency landing in the middle of the jungle. They’ve managed to get away with 600 kilos of gold, but now they have to carry the stuff on their backs through a hostile environment. The loot becomes a real burden. The seven desperados, five men and two women, plunge deeper into the forest. The inhospitable climate, insects, fatigue, the threat of pursuers, all compete to make their long trek a miserable experience. The jungle seems to want to swallow them up. And the unity of the group is corroded by gold fever.“IN GOLD WE TRUST surprises by going from hardcore action adventure to being a human suspense story in which the real obstacles to be overcome are each character's interior demons. A nice balance is reached between scenes in which the actors can truly create and live their characters and sequences fuelled by 100% adrenalin in which Eric Besnard can give free rein to his script. -- Maxime Chevalier (filmsactu.com)

ÂGE DE RAISON, L' (PNA)
France / 2009 / Colour / 97 min / Dir.: Yann Samuell
Cast : Sophie Marceau, Marton Csokas, Michel Duchaussoy, Juliette Chappey, Jonathan Zaccaï, Emmanuelle Grönvold
Margaret, fast approaching forty, works as a top executive in a large multinational construction company. Self-assured, articulate, she manages her career with steely determination. The same assiduousness with which she manages her romantic relationship with her elegant, considerate colleague Malcolm, who also also keeps his career front and centre. Margaret’s life is stable and on a fast track. Until she actually turns forty. On her birthday, a provincial solicitor sends her some old, forgotten letters she wrote to herself when she was seven, the age of reason. "Dear me. Today I am seven years old and I'm writing you this letter to help you remember the promises I made when I was 7, and also to remind you of what I want to become..." Re-reading the letters, one by one, Margaret plunges back into memories that upset all her certainties and cast doubt on her life choices. For she has become the opposite of what she hoped as a child. Can she change course at forty? Does the “age of reason” have an expiry date?“You'd have to be a coldhearted monster not to be at least mildly stirred by WITH LOVE... FROM THE AGE OF REASON, an awfully feel-good dramedy from writer-director Yann Samuell.” -- Jordan Mintzer (Variety)

ATENTADO, EL (PM)
Mexico / 2010 / Colour / 120 min / Dir.: Jorge Fons
Cast : Daniel Giménez Cacho, José María Yazpik, Julio Bracho, Irene Azuela, Arturo Beristain, Salvador Sánchez
The morning of September 16, 1897, Arnulfo Arroyo, a young law intern, drunk, dirty and unkempt, is getting ready to make good on the bet he made at dawn with the person he spent all night drinking with in a downtown bar in Mexico City. At another table, a third person is watching them. It is Independence Day in Mexico and there is a parade through the capital featuring General Porfirio Diaz. As Diaz passes, Arroyo picks up a stone and pushes through a line of soldiers. He launches himself with rage at the Mexican president, thus fulfilling his part of the bet, although at the last moment, he drops the stone and barely manages to strike a blow with his fist, while a faint voice yells, “Death to the Dictator.” Arroyo is arrested before a furious spectator can stab him in revenge. Police commisioner Velazquez and his deputy, Villavincencio, don’t know what to do with Arroyo. While Velazquez and Villavincencio plot to eliminate him in a fake “public” lynching, Diaz himself wants the young man unharmed to show that the government’s hands are clean. But there other people interested in Arroyo’s fate...

BLUE KNIGHT (PM)
China / 2010 / Colour / 99 min / Dir.: Zhuo Gehe
Cast : Qina Ritu, Naren Qimuge, Ha Da, Ning Bu, Si Qinhu, A Youxi, A Yunga
Sadi Bisi is a shepherd with a deep belief in his way of life. He doesn’t consider sheep trading honest work, and disapproved of his daughter's relationship with Ni Gelai, a sheep seller. Under pressure from her father, Ta Sa had to abandon her true love and stay in the grasslands. Ten years later, with city life appealing ever more to youth in the steppes, Sadi Bisi's now grown-up son, Ba Le'er, is also tempted. Once again Sadi Bisi is adamant that the nomadic culture should be passed on by shepherds from generation to generation and Ba Le'er should stay -- even giving his most precious horse to his son as incentive to stop him from leaving. However, Ba Le'er, as stubborn as his father, has made up his mind to leave. Ba Le'er's mother, who supported Ta Sa's relationship with the sheep trader, now appears to oppose her son’s decision, considering that her husband is growing old and needs their son around. As Ba Le'er sets out for the city, his father finds him at mid-journey, just as he did 10 years ago when he intercepted his daughter's elopement. But Sadi Bisi is now old and feeble. Overcome by disappointment and frustration, he remains silent. He has brought his precious horse along. Will it be enough to dissuade his son from leaving? Or will Sadi Bisi be forced once again to look elsewhere, perhaps to his 3-year-old granddaughter Nina, to pass on a dying tradition?

BUS PALLADIUM (PC)
France / 2010 / Colour / 100 min / Dir.: Christopher Thompson
Cast : Marc-André Grondin, Arthur Dupont, Élisa Sednaoui, Géraldine Pailhas, François Civil, Jules Pelissier
Lucas, Manu, Philippe, Jacob, and Mario have been great friends since childhood. They've got talent and ambition. They dream of music and glory. They form a rock band in the mid-1980s, colourfully-named “Lust”, and hope to emulate the grittier Rolling Stones. Their manager’s naïve strategy that all they have to do is make a record, sell it at shows, and the requisite “buzz” will kick in actually pays off, and the band’s version of blues-rock is substantial enough to stand on its own merits. The quartet enjoy their road to stardom, complete with rooftop poetry, affairs and filmed documentation. But the group’s increasing success also highlights their faultlines. And that’s when Laura enters their lives. Jealousy, competition and duels ensue. The personal aspirations that had been previously suppressed for the common good, now begin bubbling up, putting their shared future in doubt.

BUSHI NO KAKEIBO (PM)
Japan / 2010 / Colour / 129 min / Dir.: Yoshimitsu Morita
Cast : Masato Sakai, Yukie Nakama, Keiko Matsuzaka, Masahito Nishimura, Masatoshi Makamura, Mitsuko Kusabue
Set during the Meiji Restoration period of Edo era Japan, Naoyuki belongs to the 8th generation of the Inoyama family, a wealthy family known for finance and accounting. In the latter days of this era, Japan was facing a period of upheaval. The great Tenpo famine of the 1830s and other developments have left the finances of the Kaga Domain in a precarious financial position. As well, the samurai way of life is fading into oblivion. The higher one rose in samurai society , the more one had to spend to maintain the trappings of one’s status. Not only must the Inoyama family deal with the rise of their head, Naoyuki, but his father Nobuyuki, in Edo, is being crushed by debt and on the verge of bankruptcy. Naoyuki resolves to dispose of family furniture to pay off those debts The family members gather and promise to back him in the endeavour. A skilled accountant, Naoyuki keeps careful track of family expenses. As neighbours and colleagues watch curiously, the Inoyama family sets out to economize. Naoyuki’s son Naruyuki, is also destined to be an accountant and he learns to manipulate the abacus at an early age. But, as he grows up, Naruyuki is determined to keep up with the changing times. Conflict with his father is inevitable...

CAMÉLÉON, LE (PI)
France - United States / 2010 / Colour / 106 min / Dir.: Jean-Paul Salomé
Cast : Marc-André Grondin, Famke Janssen, Ellen Barkin, Emilie de Ravin, Tory Kittles, Brian Geraghty
In 2000, a young man comes forward and identifies himself to the Spanish authorities as Nicholas Mark Randall, an American citizen who has been missing for four years. The Spanish police are skeptical about the man’s story -- he claims to have been kidnapped by a mysterious sect -- and believe him to be an imposter. They are therefore surprised when Randall’s sister Kathy appears and takes him back to the United States, where his family welcome him back into their home and begin the long road to reconciliation. But Nicholas's brother-in-law Brian senses something wrong with the story; he comes to believe that this young man isn't really Nicholas. And Jennifer Johnson, an FBI agent looking into the case, shares his suspicions. But if Brian and Jennifer are convinced Nicholas is an imposter, why aren't Kimberley and Kathy willing to acknowledge the same evidence? The skeptical FBI agent and Nicholas's deadbeat brother-in-law set out to uncover who Nicholas really is, in the process exposing an array of long-dormant family secrets.

CATERPILLAR (PNA)
Japan / 2010 / Colour / 85 min / Dir.: Koji Wakamatsu
Cast : Shinobu Terajima, Shima Ohnishi, Ken Yoshizawa, Keigo Kasuya, Emi Masuda, Sabu Kawahara
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, in 1940, Lieutenant Kurokawa returns home as a honoured and decorated soldier -- but without arms and legs: they were lost on the battlefield in mainland China. Everyone in the village, the men and women, even close family members, look to Shigeko, the Lieutenant’s wife for vindication: she must honour the Emperor and the country in setting an example for all by fulfilling her duty and taking care of the “war god”…“There's nothing oblique or nuanced in CATERPILLAR, Koji Wakamatsu's indictment of right-wing militarist-nationalism and the partner-piece to his relentless expose of left-wing extremism, UNITED RED ARMY. As consciously strident in tone as the various forms of WWII Japanese war propaganda he deploys satirically, his conviction is so strong, and his argument so persuasive that this masterpiece has the blunt force of a tank rolling over naked flesh... His focus is on war's impact on civilian psyche and the hypocrisy of ‘patriotic duty’, expressed through a woman's sado-masochistic relationship with her husband, after he is horribly maimed in battle.” -- Maggie Lee (Hollywood Reporter)

CHANTRAPAS (PNA)
France - Georgia / 2010 / Colour / 122 min / Dir.: Otar Iosseliani
Cast : Dato Tarielshvili, Tamuna Karumidze, Fanny Gonin, Givi Sarchimelidze, Pierre Etaix, Bulle Ogier
Nicolas is an artist, a filmmaker, who merely wishes to express himself and whom everyone wishes to silence. When he first starts out in Georgia, the “ideologues” hope to gag him, concerned that his work doesn’t follow the “rules”. In the face of their insistence, Nicolas leaves his native country for France, land of freedom and democracy. But the “state of grace” will not last long…“Solemn themes of exile, freedom of expression and the artist's struggle to be understood are tinkled in a wry and charming way by Otar Iosseliani, who channels them through the experiences of fictional Georgian director Nicolas, who can never be happy or at home anywhere, and whose films flop everywhere. Offering an affectionately ironic look at both filmmaking and everyday life in Soviet Georgia, CHANTRAPAS is light but satisfying fare for the cultured or cinema-literate.” -- Maggie Lee (Hollywood Reporter) “Otar Iosseliani is up to his usual delectable tricks in CHANTRAPAS, a playfully caustic tale of the trials and tribulations a Georgian filmmaker endures at home and in exile in France.” -- Robert Koehler (Variety)

ELLA (PM)
Peru - Mexico / 2010 / Colour / 93 min / Dir.: Francisco J. Lombardi
Cast : Paul Vega, Rómulo Assereto, Patricia Garza
Alfredo, 51, is an established painter who finds himself stuck in an artistic rut; his creativity seems to have disappeared. His young wife, Luciana, 24, has been his muse in recent years, but something between them has been lost. Obsessed with Luciana’s youth and beauty, Alfredo feels that this is the end of something, and through his work he tries in vain to stop the march of time. When Luciana abruptly vanishes from his life, Alfred makes an unexpected discovery. He is forced to deal with pain and with the need for self-reconciliation, both as a person and as an artist.

EN FAMILIE (PC)
Denmark / 2010 / Colour / 100 min / Dir.: Pernille Fischer Christensen
Cast : Jesper Christensen, Lene Maria Christensen, Pilou Asbæk, Anne Louise Hassing, Line Kruse
Ditte belongs to a renowned family of bakers, the Rheinwalds. She is also a successful gallery owner and constantly on the move. Having been offered her dream job in New York,she decides, along with her boyfriend Peter, to accept the offer and move to the Big Apple. The future is bright and life is fun and simple. The couple are on their way when Ditte’s beloved and charismatic father, Rikard Rheinwald, master baker and purveyor to the royal court, falls seriously ill. Ditte calls off the move to New York in order to be with him and before long her own way of life hangs in the balance. Rikard demands that, in view of his illness, she take her place in the Rheinwald family business and assume ownership of the bakery, while Peter pulls in the opposite direction, feeling that Ditte’s loyalty to her family is forcing her to abandon their common dreams. All of a sudden, life isn’t so simple...

FLAMENCO, FLAMENCO (PM)
Spain / 2010 / Colour / 90 min / Dir.: Carlos Saura
Fifteen years after he gave us FLAMENCO, which became a landmark in the history of Spanish music and dance, Spain’s premier director, Carlos Saura, has gathered some of the great technicians who worked with him in the earlier film -- Vittorio Storaro as director of photography and Isidro Muñoz as music director -- to introduce us to a new generation of flamenco artists... singers, musicians and dancers.“There is a new and incredibly powerful flamenco; flamenco by young talents who are trying to make it in our country and abroad. They have so much to offer -- both in orthodox flamenco and in fusion flamenco, with other music styles with which they are experimenting... The reality of this art cannot be conveyed as such without some of the great masters we are so lucky to have in Spain. So, our first mission was to start 'placing' the different artists we already know in the history of flamenco in the different areas (Paco de Lucía, Manolo Sanlúcar, José Mercé…); we talked with each one of them personally... These important names have become part of the 'core' of the musical structure of the film; a kind of tree trunk on which to support the rest: what the younger artists and those who did not appear in the first film have to offer.” -- Carlos Saura

GALOP ARRIÈRE (PI)
France / 2010 / Colour / 88 min / Dir.: Bartabas
A full-length feature honouring the 25th anniversary of the Zingaro Theatre created by the equestrian artist Bartabas. Through the years Bartabas has created a new form of theatre; a subtle blend of equestrian choreography and world music. His riders explore world civilisations, skilfully marrying spectacular entertainment with poetry.“The chronological format of the film shows how Zingaro evolved towards a form of simplicity, something refined. How we dropped the artificial in order to aim at the essential... And I filmed my acts, my shows, to keep a record of them. My horse shows are not like dance, which have repertoires. The film is my repertoire... I look at the films of my shows like a painter who revisits his canvases in order to finish them, to complete them... The 25th anniversary of Zingaro is just a pretext. Anniversaries aren’t my thing. But this film hasn’t come about accidentally. I feel as if I have finished one thing and begun another. This isn’t an exercise in nostalgia. Rather, at least I hope, there is poetry, magic, feeling...” -- Bartabas

HENRI 4 (PC)
Germany - France - Spain / 2010 / Colour / 153 min / Dir.: Jo Baier
Cast : Julien Boiselier, Roger Casamajor, Karl Markovics, Armelle Deutsch, Chloé Stefani, Joachim Król, Ulrich Noethen, Andreas Schmidt
In the 16th century, Europe’s most powerful state, France, was being torn apart by religious wars: the majority Catholics who controlled the Parisian court, versus the Protestant Huguenots. Catherine de Medici is determined to make use of her power to retain the throne for her three sons. But, in the south, a dangerous opponent is emerging: Henry of Navarre. Catherine proposes that he marry her daughter, Marguerite, so that Huguenots and Catholics can finally coexist. Henry’s mother urges him to accept the offer: Catherine’s sons suffer from a mysterious blood disease; if they were to die then Henry would become king of France. The marriage of Henry and Marguerite ends in the St. Bartholemew’s Day massacre, in which thirty thousand Huguenots are slaughtered. Henry survives, but is held prisoner in the Louvre. Marguerite is in love with the man that she was made to marry for reasons of state, but when Henry learns that she was aware of her mother’s murderous plan he rejects her. Henry escapes, rejoins the Protestant forces and continues the conflict with the intention of founding a state based on humanist thought. And then he meets the love of his life: Gabrielle d’ Estrées. When Henry’s brother-in-law, Henry III, Catherine de Medici’s last son, is murdered, he becomes the new king – Henry IV. Marguerite lives in hope once more. But the momentum of political, military and amorous intrigue is not so easily stopped.

HERMANO (PNA)
Venezuela / 2010 / Colour / 96 min / Dir.: Marcel Rasquin
Cast : Alí Rondón, Eliú Armas, Fernando Moreno, Gonzalo Cubero, Marcela Girón
Daniel's an exceptional soccer player, a striker. Julio's the team's captain, a born leader. They were raised as brothers and play soccer in their slum, La Ceniza. Daniel dreams of playing at the professional level while Julio feeds the family with dirty money; he has no time to dream. The opportunity of their lives knocks when a soccer scout invites them to a tryout with the city's best team: Caracas Football Club. Then tragedy strikes. They must choose, on a dirty soccer field, what is more important: family, revenge or the dream of their lives. On this field, more than a game is on the line.

HUNTER'S BRIDE (PNA)
Switzerland / 2010 / Colour / 137 min / Dir.: Jens Neubert
Cast : Juliane Banse, Regula Mühlemann, Michael König, Michael Volle, René Pape, Franz Grundheber, Benner Schollum
HUNTER’S BRIDE is based on Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz (1821), considered the first important German romantic opera. Based on a folk legend, Weber discovered the subject in a ghost story by Johann August Apel and in draft form it was called The Hunter’s Bride. Weber himself offered the following précis: “An old hunter in the service of a Prince wants to give his loyal assistant, Max, the hand of his daughter, Agathe, and also appoint him his successor. The Prince agrees to this, but there exists an old law that requires the young man to undergo a severe shooting test. Another malicious and dissolute hunter’s assistant, Kaspar, also has his eye on the girl but has sold himself to the Devil. Max, who is otherwise an excellent shot, misses everything during the time immediately preceding the shooting test and, in his despair, is enticed by Kaspar into making so-called ‘free bullets,’ of which six invariably find their way home, but in return for which the seventh belongs to the Devil. This is meant to hit the poor girl and thereby plunge Max into despair and suicide, etc. However, Heaven decrees otherwise; at the shooting test Agathe falls but so does Kaspar -- the latter as the victim, the former only from fright. The whole action is concluded on a joyous note.” The music for the film was recorded at the Abbey Road Studios with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Harding, and the Rundfunkchor Berlin conducted by Simon Halsey.

IMPASSE DU DÉSIR (PM)
Switzerland / 2010 / Colour / 99 min / Dir.: Michel Rodde
Cast : Rémy Girard, Laurent Lucas, Natacha Régnier, Gregory Waldis, Julie Nicolet, Maurice Aufair, Michel Cassagne, Cathy Sarr, Vincent Aubert, Céline Bloomey
Robert Block, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, one day discovers that his young wife, Carole, is cheating on him. This situation disturbs him personally and professionally. He becomes obsessed and he cannot focus on his patients. His jealousy hinders him from caring for his patients as responsibly as he should, until Léo Debond, a psychotic and depressive bachelor, seeks his help. Robert views him with a mixture of compassion and secret contempt. After Carole wants to leave him for good, he takes advantage of Léo’s trust and dependence and makes him an accomplice in a secret plan aiming to end his own pain.“Michel Rodde plunges us into a thriller revolving around cynical manipulation and a professional abuse of power. The built-in suspense of the film is accentuated by by a series of surprises that are unveiled as the story unfolds. This film is in the vein of Dominik Moll’s HARRY IS HERE TO HELP whose dark, offbeat humour captivated international audiences.” -- Production notes

IN THE ELECTRIC MIST (Director's cut) () (PC)
United States - France / 2009 / Colour / 117 min / Dir.: Bertrand Tavernier
Cast : Tommy Lee Jones, John Goodman, Peter Sargaard, Mary Steenburgen, Kelly Macdonald, Justina Machado, Ned Beatty
Lt. Dave Robicheaux, a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana, is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie (Baby Feet) Balboni, who is co-producer of a Civil War film. At the same time, after Elrod Sykes, the star of the film, reports finding another corpse in the Atchafalaya Swamp near the movie set, Robicheaux starts another investigation, believing the corpse to be the remains of a black man who he saw being murdered 35 years before. (The version of the film being presented at the MWFF is the complete, director’s cut.)“French filmmaker Tavernier captures Louisiana with a remarkable eye. Even though the film meanders a bit, the skilful direction and camerawork combine with strong acting to create an engaging, insinuating thriller... It's rare to see a murder mystery play out in such an unrushed way, as Tavernier quietly adopts the rhythms of the Deep South (and Tommy Lee Jones himself) to dig into the culture, finding ghosts from the past and linking them to present-day conundrums. This is masterful, gripping filmmaking, even when it seems to be going nowhere, because every shot reveals us something about the characters and the society. And by the time the mysteries are solved, whodunit isn't really that important.” -- Rich Cline (Shadows on the Wall)

INSOUPÇONNABLE (PI)
France / 2010 / Colour / 95 min / Dir.: Gabriel Le Bomin
Cast : Marc-André Grondin, Laura Smet, Charles Berling, Gregori Derangère, Francis Perrin, Dominique Reymond
Geneva today. Sam and Lise, in their early 30s, are childhood sweethearts, but they were raised on the wrong side of the tracks and Lise works as a hostess in an upscale bar to make ends meet. Henri, 50, a widower and local public official who runs his family’s auction house with his brother Edouard, is one of her regular, wealthy clients. When he falls for Lise, she and Sam realize that he is also their big and perhaps only chance to make a fast buck. When Henri proposes marriage, Lise introduces Sam as her brother and becomes the model wife until the time is right to act. But instead of what seemed like idyllic world from the outside. Henri’s family is seething with hatred and resentment, including the hidden rivalry between Henri and his brother Edouard. When their kidnap plan begins to unravel, Lise and Sam realize they're no longer pulling the strings. And their lives and love hang by a thread...

KAMERAMÖRDER, DER (PNA)
Austria - Switzerland - Hungary / 2010 / Colour / 96 min / Dir.: Robert Adrian Pejo
Cast : Merab Ninidze, Dorka Gryllus, Andreas Lust, Ursina Lardi
Sonja is in heaven. She’s in love with Thomas and has moved in with him in a house straight out of a glossy lifestyle magazine, set in the idyllic countryside on the shore of Lake Ferto. Over the Easter weekend they are to host old friends of Thomas’ from Vienna, Heinrich and Eva. However, their idyll is disrupted by the disappearance of three boys from the neighbourhood and particularly by the sudden discovery of a snuff video evidently filmed just metres from where Sonja and Thomas live, containing images of the missing children and the shoes of their unknown tormenter. The atmosphere among the friends changes and each of them slowly begins to reveal their true character...“What if a couple of kids from next door disappeared only to reappear on a Blair-Witch-like snuff video a couple of days later? That's the pulpy premise at the basis of Hungarian director Robert Adrian Pejo’s otherwise surprisingly earnest psychological thriller adapted from Austrian novelist Thomas Glavinic's bestseller... (An) atmospheric and solidly made genre item.” -- Boyd Van Hoeij (Variety)

KONGZI (PNA)
China - Hong Kong / 2010 / Colour / 125 min / Dir.: Mei Hu
Cast : Chow Yun-fat, Zhou Xun, Chen Jianbín
The northern Chinese kingdom of Lu, circa 500 B.C. Feudal China is controlled by princes under titular kings, and Confucius, a commoner already in his 50s, is made minister of law by the Lu king so the territory can be managed according to civilized principles. Chief among Confucius’ band of pupils is his son, Yenhui. Confucius abolishes practices such as burying servants alive with their dead masters. But as Lu becomes more powerful, it is eyed with suspicion by the more warlike kingdom of Qi, ruled by Duke Jing. Himself the son of a famous warrior, Confucius proves his military know-how against a powerful Lu prince, Gongshan Niu, and ends up leading Lu’s troops against Qi’s. Meanwhile, Lu’s main ally, the weak kingdom of Wei, cozies up to Confucius in the form of Nanzi, the aged king’s young consort, who unsuccessfully tries to divert the bearded sage from his principles. However, when Confucius returns to Lu from his visit to Wei, the Lu nobles move against him. Confucius’ struggle is far from over...“Chow Yun-fat makes a commanding screen presence as Confucius. Combining calm sagacity with a potent physicality that more than fills director Hu Mei's big visual stage, Chow carries the biopic almost single-handedly and prevents it from becoming overly respectful.” -- Derek Elley (Variety)

LULA, O FILHO DO BRASIL () (PC)
Brazil / 2009 / Colour / 128 min / Dir.: Fabio Barreto
Cast : Gloria Pires, Cleo Pires, Rui Ricarod Diaz, Juliana Baroni, Antonio Saboia, Milhem Cortaz, Marcos Cesena
Brazil, 1945. Dona Lindu gives birth to her seventh son, Luiz Inácio da Silva, soon to be known by the nickname of “Lula”. A month earlier, Dona Lindu’s husband Aristides had left her to live in São Paulo with a younger woman...“In the opening scenes of a new Brazilian movie, a 7-year-old boy roams barefoot through the parched, cactus-filled dirt of the northeastern town of Caetés, collecting water from a creek where cows drink while his mother waits in the one-room house he shares with seven brothers and sisters. The boy, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, would become president of Brazil and one of the world’s most popular leaders, despite his fourth-grade education and impoverished childhood. The movie, LULA, THE SON OF BRAZIL, traces his inspiring biography from the hardscrabble childhood with a doting mother and a hard-drinking, abusive father, to his heroic rise as a union leader who was briefly imprisoned by the military dictatorship. ‘What Lula has offered Brazilians is freedom from an inferiority complex,’ said Fabio Barreto, the film’s director, an avowed supporter of the president who makes no apologies for glossing over any rough spots in his story. ‘This society has always been treated as inferior and lazy and less than what they are. No one has ever come here to tell us that our people are strong.’” -- Alexei Barrionuevo (New York Times)

MANON LESCAUT (PM)
France / 2010 / Colour / 84 min / Dir.: Gabriel Aghion
Cast : Céline Perreau, Samuel Theis, Xavier Gallais, Laurent Stocker, Robert Hirsch, Pierre Moure
Set in France and Louisiana in the early 18th century, the story follows the hero le Chevalier Des Grieux and his lover Manon Lescaut. Des Grieux comes from a noble and landed family, but forfeits his hereditary wealth and incurs the disappointment of his father by running away with Manon. In Paris, the young lovers enjoy a blissful cohabitation, while Des Grieux struggles to satisfy Manon's taste for luxury. He scrounges together money by borrowing from his unwaveringly loyal friend Tiberge and from cheating gamblers. On several occasions, Des Grieux's wealth evaporates (by theft, in a house fire, etc.), prompting Manon to leave him for a richer man because she cannot stand the thought of living in penury.The two lovers finally settle down in New Orleans, where the virtual absence of class differences allows them to live in idyllic peace for a while. But when Des Grieux reveals their unmarried state to the Governor and asks to be wed with Manon, the Governor's nephew sets his sights on winning Manon's hand. In despair, Des Grieux challenges the Governor's nephew to a duel and knocks him unconscious. Thinking he had killed the man and fearing retribution, the couple flee New Orleans and venture into the wilderness of Louisiana...

PRINCESSE DE MONTPENSIER, LA (PNA)
France / 2010 / Colour / 139 min / Dir.: Bertrand Tavernier
Cast : Mélanie Thierry, Lambert Wilson, Gaspard Ulliel, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Raphaël Personnaz
France, 1562. The wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants rage against a backdrop of intrigue and shifting alliances. Marie de Mézières, a beautiful young aristocrat, and Henri de Guise, one of the kingdom's most intrepid heroes, are in love, but Marie's father promises her hand in marriage to the Prince of Montpensier. The prince takes Marie back to his chateau, where she is tutored by Chabannes, the Protestant deserter he protects, who soon falls in love with the young woman. Then, on their way back from battle, Henri de Guise and the Duke d'Anjou, the heir to the throne, stop at the chateau. Henri and Marie realize their feelings for each other are as strong as ever...“A young noblewoman is torn between passion, duty, companionship and ambition, each quality personified by a different man, in the compelling period drama THE PRINCESS OF MONTPENSIER. Like its heroine, director Bertrand Tavernier's visitation to 16th-century France has both beauty and brains, and offers a portrait of renaissance life -- complete with ethics now utterly alien to a contemporary mindset -- leagues more accurate than the most historical epics.” -- Leslie Felperin (Variety) 

ROZYCZKA (PNA)
Poland / 2010 / Colour - B&W / 118 min / Dir.: Jan Kidawa-Blonski
Cast : Andrzej Seweryn, Robert Wieckiewicz, Magdalena Boczarska, Julia Kornacka, Jacek Braciak, Jan Frycz
Warsaw, 1967. The Polish Communist government has begun to worry about intellectual dissent in the wake of the “Prague Spring” and, in reaction to the Communist debacle during the Six-Day War in the Middle East, it is beginning an antisemitic campaign under the guise of “anti-Zionism.” Kamila, an attractive young secretary in the dean's office at the university, is madly in love with Roman, who is handsome, and apparently has a management post in a state foreign trade enterprise. What she does not know is that her lover is in fact an officer of the dreaded state security police (SB) and his real line of work is surveillance of dissident intellectuals, considered potential enemies of the Communist state. One of his targets is a well known writer-professor Adam Warczewski, suspected of clandestine contacts with Western anti-communist circles. Warczewski skillfully pretends innocence, coming across as a bon-vivant, not interested in politics. Pressed by his superiors who are demanding more tangible results, Roman devises an intricate plot. He will use his beautiful fiancée as a secret weapon against Warczewski. Moreover, he asks Kamila to become Warczewski's lover. The dangerous love triangle and the hazardous play of emotions take place against the backdrop of rising political dissent and government repression...

SAN QIANG PAI AN JING QI (PNA)
China - Hong Kong / 2010 / Colour / 95 min / Dir.: Zhang Yimou
Cast : Sun Honglei, Xiao Shenyang, Yan Ni, Ni Dahong, Cheng Ye, Mao Mao
A self-centered skinflint, noodle shop proprietor Wang abuses his pretty young wife, but she gets the last laugh in an affair with Li, the shop’s shy cook. Whenever she needs to go to town, they have a tryst, which doesn’t go unnoticed. Fearing she’ll never be happy as long as she’s married to Wang, the wife purchases a gun from a Persian merchant. Meanwhile, Zhang, a quiet policeman informs the shop owner of the affair, which sends Wang in a rage. He offers Zhang a large sum if the policeman will kill his philandering wife and the shy cook. Going on his mission, Zhang returns with a blood-stained cloth and the purchased gun. Zhang, however, shoots the boss and plans to steal his safe full of money. His staff, meanwhile, is also in pursuit of the money and what ensues is a hilarious dance of murder, theft and well-choreographed combat.“Zhang Yimou's remake of the Coen brothers' BLOOD SIMPLE is exhilarating and inventive. The setting is as far removed from conventional film noir territory as can be imagined. The drama plays out in the deserts of northern China. It is also set in a time when guns are new and swords and spears are still the weapons of choice... Zhang's formal mastery is little short of astonishing.” -- Geoffrey Macnab (The Independent)

TÊTE EN FRICHE, LA (PI)
France / 2010 / Colour / 82 min / Dir.: Jean Becker
Cast : Gérard Depardieu, Gisèle Casadesus, Maurane, Patrick Bouchitey, Jean-François Stévenin, François Xavier Demaison
Fiftysomething Germain lives a quiet life. At the local bar with his girlfriend Annette, in the park where he counts the pigeons, or in the vegetable garden where he grows produce to take to market. Germain is a simple man. His father left his mother when she became pregnant and she still blames her son for ruining her chance at love. At school German was the butt of all the teacher’s jokes and never learned to read properly. One day, in the park, he meets Margueritte, an old lady whose work as a scientist took her all over the world. She has a passion for literature, which she soon shares with Germain. Before long, a true bond of affection unites them, and Germain realizes that he has the right to take control of his destiny...“Best viewed with a baguette and a Bordeaux, and while wearing a beret, veteran director Jean Becker's MY AFTERNOONS WITH MARGUERITTE is French feel-good filmmaking to the max. Yet a heaping pile of clichés doesn't prevent this touchingly simplistic tale -- about a fiftysomething knucklehead who encounters the titular senior on a park bench and learns some valuable lessons about life and literature -- from exuding a strong and universal emotional appeal, backed by Gerard Depardieu's finely tuned perf as a dungaree-wearing ogre with a heart.” -- Jordan Mintzer (Variety)

TRÈS EXCELLENTE ET DIVERTISSANTE HISTOIRE DE FRANÇOIS RABELAIS, LA (PM)
France - Belgium - Luxembourg / 2010 / Colour / 2 x 110 min / Dir.: Hervé Baslé
Cast : Michel Aumont, Éric Elmosnino, Bernadette Laffont, Anne Azoulay, Jacques Boudet, Patrick Catalifo, Paul Crauchet
Three days before his death in 1553, François Rabelais, the great French renaissance writer, poet, doctor and humanist whose reputation has sometimes reduced him to a composer of bawdy satire, seeks to revisit some of the major events of his life before it comes to an end. To the Abbé Gravot his confessor, he relives his childhood, during which his lawyer father spared no expense of time and effort in the education of an inquisitive boy. He remembers his youth in a Franciscan monastery. He remembers his days as an itinerant young monk eager to discover new landscapes and people. Always driven by the urge to learn, he defies clerical constraints, finally leaving his religious order and his monastery. He doffs his frock to escape the "elves" sworn to destroy those who dare to engage in the study of Greek humanities. Protected by King François I and his sister Marguerite de Navarre, Rabelais finds refuge among the Benedictines and for a few years lives a perfect life, among the flowers and herbs, in the good company of scholars. But the call of science is irresistible. He doffs the cassock of the Benedictines and escapes to Paris and then Montpellier to uncover the mysteries of medicine, then to practice them in Lyon, the Athenaeum of Gaul, also known for its good publishers. Gargantua and Pantagruel await him...

ULTIME 56 ORE, LE (PI)
Italy / 2010 / Colour / 107 min / Dir.: Claudio Fragasso
Cast : Gianmarco Tognazzi, Luca Lionello, Barbora Bobulova, Simona Borioni, Nicole Murgia, Libero De Rienzo
When a contingent of Italian soldiers were sent to Kosovo in the 1990s, little did they know that their biggest enemy would not be Milosevic’s troops. Because of the depleted uranium used in NATO ammunition, the veterans back home are now dying of leukemia and their children are being born deformed. One soldier, a close friend of squadron leader Colonel Moresco, is euthanized by his wife, Dr. Ferri. Why doesn’t the army recognize the problem? she asks Moresco. When he tries and fails, Moresco decides on a more extreme protest. With a dozen former comrades, Moresco takes over a hospital ward and holds patients and staff hostage. The Army has 56 hours to acknowledge the issue or the hostages will die. Police commissioner Paolo Manfredi, a cop who eschews force in favour of negotiation, enters the hospital where, as it happens his wife is a patient awaiting a bone marrow transplant along with their 15-year-old daughter...

UOMO CHE VERRÀ, L' (MAN WHO WILL COME, THE) (PC)
Italy / 2009 / Colour / 117 min / Dir.: Giorgio Diritti
Cast : Alba Rohrwacher, Maya Sansa, Claudio Casadio, Greta Zuccheri Montanari, Eleonora Mazzoni, Orfeo Orlando, Diego Pagotto
Winter, 1943. Martina is 8 years old and lives on the slopes of Monte Sole, not far from Bologna. She is the only child of a peasant family who, like many, are struggling to get by. Years earlier her newborn brother died and she hasn’t spoken since. Now her mother is pregnant again. Martina anxiously awaits her brother’s arrival as the war gets closer and closer and life becomes more and more difficult. On the night of September 28, 1944, the baby is finally born. Almost simultaneously the SS unleash an unprecedented reprisal in the area, which will go down in history as “The Marzabotto Massacre”.“Giorgio Diritti's second feature is a surprisingly elegant and thoughtful take on a wartime massacre.” -- Natasha Senjanovic (Hollywood Reporter)“Out of the historical record -- which is still foggy, as so few villagers survived -- Diritti has mounted a film that sets the age-old rhythms of rural life against these few days of incomprehensible brutality... THE MAN WHO WILL COME marks Diritti as one of Italy’s directors to watch...” -- Lee Marshall (Screen Daily)

UOMO NERO, L' (CEZANNE AFFAIR, THE) (PNA)
Italy / 2010 / Colour / 124 min / Dir.: Sergio Rubini
Cast : Sergio Rubini, Valeria Golino, Riccardo Scamarcio, Fabrizion Gifuni, Anna Falchi, Maurizio Micheli
When Gabriele Rossetti returns to his small town in southern Italy to say goodbye to his dying father, the old man's last words reawaken memories from the forgotten past. Ernesto Rossetti had worked as a stationmaster in a small town not far from Bari, but his thwarted ambition had always been to paint. He was convinced he was destined to become a famous artist and was willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of his beloved masters and for his belief in his own talent, even his own pride. His irascibility and exasperation over his inability to realize his artistic ambition led to violent mood swings which were taken out on Gabriele's mother and on the peace and quiet of an otherwise tranquil family life. These were the only shadows in young Gabriele's childhood, leading him to seek refuge in his vivid fantasy, as well as in the much less problematic company of a young bachelor uncle who lived with the family and knew how to enjoy himself. But then, in the course of the preparations for the funeral, Gabriele spends a night in the home where he grew up, discovering a truth about his father that he never would have imagined, and which radically alters his view of the now deceased parent.

VOROBEY (PI)
Russia / 2010 / Colour / 90 min / Dir.: Yuri Shiller
Cast : Denis Babushkin, Sergey Reusenko, Sergey Ugryumov, Kristina Babushikina, Olesya Shablova, Elena Shkurpelo
According to a local legend, many years ago horses in the village of Vasilievka appeared as if by some miracle. Since that time the famous herd of horses has been lovingly protected by the villagers. They even managed to save the horses during wartime and various periods of drought and hunger. But this time, things are very serious. The crops have failed and the chairman of the village council hasn’t enough to pay people’s salaries nor to repay the bank on its loans. He seems to have no other choice than to send the poor animals to the slaughterhouse. The villagers are all sad; they would dearly love to save the horses. But the economic straits they find themselves in leaves them no alternative. There is only one person in the village who comes to the defence of the horses -- little Mitya Vorobiev, son of the village shepherd.