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PRESS RELEASES
For immediate distribution - Tuesday, August 6th, 2002
26 FILMS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD TO COMPETE FOR THE COVETED GRAND PRIX OF THE AMERICAS
26 FILMS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD TO COMPETE
FOR THE COVETED GRAND PRIX OF THE AMERICAS
Montreal, August 6th, 2002 - �For the 26th Anniversary of the Festival, the Official Competition will present films of a very high standard which will show the trends of international cinema. We are proud of this selection which brilliantly demonstrates the work of the most talented filmmakers�, stated Serge Losique, president and Dani�le Cauchard, vice-president of MWFF, the only competitive festival in North America recognized by FIAPF.
HI�BIRYERDE (IN NOWHERELAND) Turkey � Germany / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 105 min / Dir. Tayfun Pirselimoglu
S�kran, in her forties, works in the central train station of Istanbul. She dotes on her only son, Veysel, who works in a small factory in the suburbs. S�kran is particularly devoted to her son because of her adverse experiences with her late husband's political activities. The boy's father, a Kurd, was deeply involved in the fight for Kurdish independence, and the family suffered the consequences. After her husband's death, S�kran worked hard to ensure sure that Veysel was sheltered from political influences. Then, one day, Veysel disappears. His mother goes to the police to find out what happened. They have no record of his being arrested and they claim to know nothing about his disappearance. But they offer to show her some unidentified murder victims. S�kran faints at the sight of one particular, mangled body but she assures the police that it isn't her son. Sule, Veysel's girlfriend, on the other hand, is sure that it is him. S�kran is angry at Sule for her insistence. She is sure that Veysel is alive and that he will turn up alive any day.
VOINA (THE WAR) Russia / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 115 min / Dir. Alexei Balabanov
Overshadowed by events in the Middle East and Afghanistan, the war in Chechnya goes on and on, the Chechens taking hostages and detonating bombs in southern Russia and the Russian army repressing the rebellion with scorched earth brutality. In Alexei Balabanov's controversial slice-of-war, two Russian soldiers and two touring British actors are taken captive by the Chechen rebels. John, one of the two young Britons, is sent home to fetch �4 million as ransom for his fianc�e. Back in England, the authorities don't want to hear anything about it, but the actor finally manages to find the required sum and he and a fellow ex-hostage Vanya revisit Chechnya in a blaze of disorganized, vicious revenge. The young Briton turns out to be dangerously naive about war and he isn't above betraying Vanya to achieve his own ends.
LA BALSA DE PIEDRA (THE STONERAFT) Netherlands � Spain / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 117 min / Dir. George Sluizer
Following a cataclysm that no seismograph has registered, a rift opens along the border between Spain and France. Slowly but resolutely, the Iberian peninsula floats off westwards across the Atlantic. A great stone raft. The impact on the geopolitical scene is substantial, as the North American powers look to acquire a whole new tract of land and Europe loses a chunk of its land and population. Only staunch Gibraltar gets left behind on its rock. But what of the floating populations? Spaniards and Portuguese, disrupted in their daily routines, leave their homes, escaping the looming perils of the coast, and wander along the roads of the interior. Their disorientation is aggravated when the raft starts to revolve on its own axis and the sun rises in what used to be the west. There were premonitory signs: a woman drew a line in the ground that cannot be erased; a man threw a stone a tremendous distance, a stone heavier than any human could lift; another man was followed everywhere by a huge cloud of starlings; still another could feel the earth quivering; and a woman pulled on a woollen thread that seemed to have no end.
IL CONSIGLIO D'EGITTO (THE COUNCIL OF EGYPT) Italy - France � Hungary / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 134 min / Dir. Emidio Greco
Sicily, 1782. The Ambassador of Morocco is forced to stop in Palermo because of a storm. The only person who can speak Arabic (though haltingly) is a Franciscan monk named Vella. Called in as a �translator�, Vella immediately seizes on the opportunity to build his reputation. He pretends to have discovered a lost codex, the �Council of Egypt�, according to which some feudal privileges are illegal and he undertakes the job of �translating� it. The noblemen are alarmed at the thought that their inherited properties could suddenly be confiscated. Abbot Vella is now feared, suspected, wooed and blandished. Aristocrats who once looked down on the priest, now lavish him with gifts to get their families' names removed from the damning document. In the meantime, a republican, libertarian battle is raging.
SERAFIN SVJETIONICAREV SIN SERAFIN (THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER'S SON) Croatia � Austria 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 103 min / Dir. Vicko Ruic
In Croatia at the end of the 19th century, during the reign of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (who was later assassinated in Sarajevo), Serafin Skok lives with his father in the lighthouse on the islet of Glavat. His father a cold, inaccessible man and his mother Maria having died when he was a child, Serafin grows up with the seagulls as his only playmates. As a young adult, he enlists and becomes an officer in the artillery battalion of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Army, based in the city of Karlovac. There he meets and falls in love with Scarlet, a young woman with morals to match her name. Scarlet's spendthrift ways soon lead Serafin to financial ruin. He passes a bad cheque to cover his losses, but, racked by a guilty conscience, fearing scandal and loss of his army rank, Serafin feigns madness and ends up in an asylum. Within the walls of the asylum, what was feigned becomes real; he goes mad. With the help of Sofia, however, a young woman who works in the asylum laundry, Serafin manages to escape. Unlike Scarlet, Sofia is a simple woman with simple tastes, just the sort of wife Serafin now needs...
IL PI� BEL GIORNO DELLA MIA VITA (THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE) Italy / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 102 min / Dir. Cristina Comencini
Irene is in her sixties. A widowed grandmother who is still good looking and very much in command, she lives alone in the decaying family villa in Rome. Three generations of her family have grown up in the house, but getting them to return to the place, even for brief visits, isn't easy. Her eldest daughter, Sara, is also widowed. She fills the gap by obsessing about her adolescent son, worrying that he might have an accident, use drugs or, heaven forbid, be gay like his uncle Claudio, her younger brother. Rita, the other daughter, seems at least from the outside to lead a more fulfilled life: she lives in a nice house, has a husband Carlo whom she married for love, and two daughters, Silvia and Chiara. But behind the facade lies a deep discontent: since the birth of her youngest daughter, she has been unable to have sexual relations with Carlo and now she is becomin / Dir.g attracted to a charmin / Dir.g veterinarian, Davide. Claudio, meanwhile, has never managed to come out of the closet to his mother Irene, and even though he is now a successful lawyer, the need for secrecy strains his personal relationships. The maelstrom of discontent and repressed desires generates tensions that eventually trigger an emotional earthquake.
ISTGAH-E MATROUK (THE DESERTED STATION) Iran / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 100 min / Dir. Alireza Raisian
On their way way to Mashad in a car, a young couple are involved in an accident. Their car is inoperable. The man, who is a photographer and has been taking pictures all through the trip, makes his way to a small nearby village where he finds a schoolteacher who has some skills at repairing cars. While the man and the teacher go back to tend to the disabled car, the young woman, who was once a schoolteacher herself, begins teaching the local children in the single classroom of the village. As the two men work on the car, the young woman slowly becomes acquainted with the children and the other villagers.
CASOMAI / Italy / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 114 min / Dir. Alessandro D'Alatri
Tommaso, a Milanese advertising executive, and Stefania, a make-up artist, meet, fall in love and marry. A baby is born. Their love is sincere, passionate and strong. It is a love without secrets. Then other people get involved. Their friends, their relatives, even acquaintances. Everyone wants to �help�. But won't this participation, this meddling, finally worm its way into their relationship and end up altering it? Frustrations with work, money problems, an unexpected loneliness, an unwanted second pregnancy. Slowly, their relationship does change. Physical passion gives way to parental fatigue. Like so many other couples, Stefania and Tommaso stop struggling, no longer communicate with each other, fight for no reason. But their marriage may not be hopeless. When love seems to disappear, that doesn't mean that it is gone forever. Often, all it means is that it is stifled, buried under a thousand small problems that may not have anything to do with them.
MEIN ERSTES WUNDER (MY FIRST MIRACLE) Germany / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 90 min / Dir. Anne Wild
During vacation on the North Sea coast, Dole meets Hermann and they become close friends. But this is no ordinary friendship. Dole is eleven years old and Hermann is a middle-aged man, married, with children. Back home near Mannheim, they see each other quite often. One day though, Dole's mother decides to move to France. But Dole has other ideas. A short while later Hermann answers a knock at the door to find Dole standing on his front step. She's decided to run away, and he agrees to go with her. Pursued by Dole's mother and Hermann's wife, their journey becomes a wild goose chase that ends where it all began, on the North Sea coast. But since their first encounter, a few things have changed. Dole has grown up. Hermann has not.
I AM DINA / Norway - Denmark - Sweden - Germany � France 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 124 min / Dir. Ole Bornedal
Northern Norway in the 1860s. In the laundry room of her family's manor, little Dina unwittingly provokes an accident that causes her mother's death and earns her father's hostility. Overwhelmed by grief, Dina's father cannot bear the sight of his little girl and she is hidden away to be looked after by the household servants. She rapidly becomes unruly -- a wild creature, unwilling to speak and unable to read. Her only playmate is the stable boy, Tomas, but he is no match for headstrong, fearless Dina. Seeing the child in a feral state, a family friend, Jacob, pleads with Dina's father to do something, and a tutor, Lorch, is hired to bring Dina back to civilization. The little girl is gradually drawn out of her isolation by a passion for the cello and Lorch's devotion but she remains as obstinate and unpredictable as ever. Relations with her father are frosty and Dina continues to comfort herself by conjuring up her mother's ghost, fantasizing about joing her lost parent in the spirit world.
INOCHI / Japan / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 111 min / Dir. Tetsuo Shinohara
When Miri Yu finds herself pregnant by a married man with no prospect of getting divorced, she wonders whether she shouldn't have an abortion. She turns to her former boyfriend Higashi Yutaka for solace and advice. Higashi is the theatre director who had first discovered her literary talent and had encouraged her to become a novelist. But when Miri goes to visit him, she finds him coughing incessantly: he has an advanced cancer. The two lives in Miri's life begin heading in opposite directions, the baby towards birth, Higashi towards death. But Higashi won't give up without a struggle. He tries all sorts of advanced medical treatment. Miri, meanwhile, gives birth after months of hesitation. Transcending blood ties, the couple will concentrate on rearing the child and exploring their love for each other and for life. Higashi's cancer, in fact, was one of the reasons for Miri's decision to have the baby. His illness convinced her that she could not deny a life. Higashi in turn, fully aware that his illness is termin al, promises to try to stay alive as long as possible and to help her raise the child.
UN HONN�TE COMMER�ANT (STEP BY STEP) Belgium � Luxembourg / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 93 min / Dir. Philippe Blasband
Contemporary Brussels. The police suspect Hubert Verkamen of having massacred a whole family. Verkamen may try to pass himself off as an honest businessman but the police have compelling evidence that he is a dangerous drug dealer. They've never been able to nail him for anything before, so they relish the opportunity to have him arrested now. This time they'll do a more thorough job. Inspectors Bex and Denoote are in charge of the interrogation and they hope to extract a confession.They try to wear him down, but Verkamen resists. He has powerful help during the interrogation: the ghost of Monsieur Chevalier, the late crime boss. Chevalier is with him all the way and steers Verkamen into an imaginary confession, all the better to extract the information that he needs.
O DELFIM / Portugal � France / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 83 min / Dir. Fernando Lopes
Portugal at the end of the 1960s. Tom�s is the heir to a world that is crumbling. Brooding, boozy and irascible, he lives on the Laguna, a large estate, with his wife Maria das Merc�s, who hasn't borne him any children, though whose fault it is remains uncertain. He has a black, one-armed valet Domin / Dir.gos, a large guard dog and a Jaguar which is useful for visiting the brothels in Lisbon. A detective, an amateur hunter who comes to the Laguna every year to hunt shelduck, discovers a year after the event, that Domin / Dir.gos was found lying dead on his master's bed and the body of Maria das Merc�s was found floating in the laguna. As for Tom�s and his dog, they seem to have disappeared without a trace. Though from out of the fog over the Laguna, from time to time, one can hear the eerie sound of a dog barking...
SALOM� (SALOME) Spain / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 86 min / Dir. Carlos Saura
A�da G�mez is rehearsing a new ballet. Quickly, the choreography is taking shape with a girl whose suggestive dancing causes everyone on the set to take notice. The dancers applaud. Suddenly the crowd of dancers parts, revealing the silhouette of a man, a crooked figure in a wheelchair. He is Herod, king of Judah, and we are his birthday party. Herodias, his wife, gets up to dance, but Herod only pays attention to his stepdaughter Salome. Like all the other guests, he is fascinated by her beauty. He gets up awkwardly, to try to dance with her, but he stumbles and she laughs at him. Humiliated, he sits back down. Herodias is jealous and mortified; she hates her daughter. But young Salome ignores her mother and keeps on dancing. Suddenly a handsome young man appears. He is John, known as the Baptist, a holy man loved by everyone. All stop to watch his entrance. Silence. Salome is dumfounded by his elegance and his natural authority...
PARLEZ-MOI D'AMOUR (SPEAK TO ME OF LOVE) France / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 98 min / Dir. Sophie Marceau
Justine and Richard have lived together for fifteen years. They have three children. Justine is going to leave him. He has already moved moved out; he is living in another flat and has just found work abroad. Separation. Two people suspended between the weight of the past and a still-uncertain future. For Richard it is a return to the past via a reunion with a seventeen-year-old son, and for Justine it is a return to memories of her childhood, of her father who abandoned her, of her first heartbreak, of her first meeting with Richard. It's nearly Christmas and they haven't seen each other again. Justine and the children still live in the same neighbourhood, in the same block of flats to which Richard is returning tonight. But a whole year has passed.
PEAU D'ANGE / France / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 85 min / Vincent Perez
Ang�le, a young woman, leaves her rural hometown to find work in the city. She meets a young man, Gr�goire, and they spend the night together. For her it was a night of love in which she abandoned herself completely. For him, it was a gesture of consolation. He's not interested in seeing her again. Neither her, nor the small provincial city in which he grew up and will never remember with any fondness. Destiny takes them in different directions, but they will carry with them each an indelible impression of that night. Gr�goire, who until now had been able to dispense with memory, will always be haunted by his experience with Ang�le. Coincidences and crossed stars will lead them to meet up one again.
LA TURBULENCE DES FLUIDES / Canada � France / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 115 min / Dir. Manon Briand
Alice, a seismologist working in Tokyo, is sent to a small town on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River to observe a peculiar phenomenon: the tides have stopped rising and falling. To Japanese experts, this indicates that a major, global earthquake may occur soon. A particularly bad omen is the fact that the site of this strange phenomenon is Alice's hometown. Alice does everything she can to maintain an emotional distance from the town, where she remembers having spent an unhappy childhood, especially after her parents separated. Accompanied by her journalist friend Catherine, she undertakes her research, surveys the land, conducts seismic probes. Nothing obvious shows up. And while Alice and her scientific colleagues struggle to understand what is causing the anomaly, forest fires continue to ravage the region and a vague sense of unease permeates the town.
EL ULTIMO TREN (THE LAST TRAIN) Uruguay - Spain � Argentina / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 90 min / Dir.: Diego Arsuaga.
A big Hollywood filmmaker has bought an historic 19th century Uruguayan locomotive to use in his next picture, and the Uruguayan owner of the locomotive, a slick young entrepreneur, gladly shows off shiny old �Number 33� to the TV cameras. Not so happy to see the old steam engine on TV, however, are the aging members of the �Friends of the Rail� association, mostly former employees of the state railway company who are living off fading memories and dwindling pensions. �Number 33� should not be sold to �foreign capital�, they feel. And their feelings run high enough for them to steal into the railway yard one night, load the locomotive up with water and coal and then chug away into the countryside. While two of their colleagues issue statements to the press, three old men and an 8-year-old boy make off with the hijacked engine now festooned with a banner proclaiming: �Our National Heritage is Not for Sale!�
EL VIAJE DE CAROL (CAROL'S JOURNEY) Spain / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 120 min / Dir. Imanol Uribe
Carol, a twelve-year-old Spanish-American girl who was raised in New York, travels with her mother to Spain in the spring of 1938, at the height of the Civil War. Separated from her father whom she adores, a pilot in the International Brigades, Carol arrives in her mother's home village and transforms the secretive family environment. Her innocence and rebellious nature drive her at first to reject a world that is at once new and foreign. But she soon becomes friends with Maruja, the village teacher and this, together with the lessons in life learned from her grandfather and her love for a local boy, Tomiche, take her on an unforgettable and bittersweet journey into the world of adulthood.
BLUE CAR / United-States / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 96 min / Dir. Karen Moncrieff
Meg is a smart teenager with a promising literary talent. Pained by the dispensatrice of her father from their lives after the breakup of her parents' marriage, and unable to communicate with the overworked noter, she veers betwenn exasperation and affectionate concerne for her emotionally scarred kid sister Lilly. Expressing her sorrow through the poetry she rites for her high school English class, Meg is encouraged by her teacher Mr Auster to enter national conest for young poets. A once-promising novelist, he begins mentoring her, push-pull her to go deeper within herself to expose her nerve center through her work.
IGBY GOES DOWN / United-States / 2002 / Colour / 35mm / 97 min / Dir. Burr Steers
Igby Slocumb, a rellious, sarcastic seventies-year-old-boy, is at war with the stillingie world of �pld money� privilege he was born into. With a schizophrenic father, a self-absorbed noter and a shark like Young Republican big brocher, Igby figures there must be a better life out there and he sets about finding it. Happily flunking out of yet annoter prep school, Igby is sent off to a military academy in the dressage Midwest. With the aid of his mother's pilfered credit card, he goes on the lam. His voyage eventually lands him in New York, where he hides out at his godfather's week-end pied � terre.
HEAVENLY GRASSLAND / China / 2002 / 35 mm / 110 min / Dir. Mr. Saifu & Mrs. Mailisi
This is the story of a young Han Chinese boy brought by circumstances, and against his will, into the Mongolian grasseyant. While leasing to accept Mongolian ways of life, the broken hearted youth eventually overdose his inner conflicts and a self-imposed handicap. Years later, he is again forced to leave the grasseyants, a changed young man.
V�TER (I'M THE FATHER) Germany / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 102 min / Dir. Dani Levy
Marco and Melanie, a young married couple, are living a life of passion and chaos despite all the little frustrations of everyday existence. Their love for each other seems like a beacon over heavy seas. But career pressures, burnt toast and dirty laundry are eroding their tenderness toward each other, and they never seem to find enough time for their six-year-old son Benny, either. Their world seems to be falling apart when Melanie moves out and takes Benny with her. When she files for divorce, Marco suddenly discovers his love of fatherhood. He makes a decision that may change his life forever.
LEAVING METROPOLIS / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 88 min / Dir. Brad Fraser
David is a painter whose success has brought him fame, money and insulation from the life experiences that inspired him to paint. When he decides he needs to get out in the world again, he takes a job as a waiter in a small caf�. Though David has a history of falling for straight men who later leave him for women, the last thing he expects to do now is fall in love with Matt, the co-owner of the caf�. LEAVING METROPOLIS examines the effect of their affair on the women in their lives. Shannon and Kryla are David's best friends. Shannon is an HIV-positive transsexual waiting for her final operation. Kryla is a refugee from several failed relationships who resents David's new love. Violet is Matt's wife. They all feel comfortable with the old order, the comic-book world they knew as children. Though they are adults they must constantly work at the uncertain and sometimes painful process of growing up.
RAPSODIE CHILIENNE / Chili / 2002 / Vid�o / Couleur / / Dir. Raul Ruiz
AM ANDEREN ENDE DER BR�CKE (ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE) / Chine � Autriche / 2002 / 35 mm / 100 min / Dir.. Hu Mei
SHORT FILMS
HAR ROZ BAR JEDAR IN HAMHAMEH (EVERYDAY ON THE LINE OF CHAOS) Iran / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 14 min / Dir. Arezoo Arzanesh
UNDERCOVER France / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 6 min / Dir. Olivier Ayache-Vidal
MITOLOGIA (MYTHOLOGY) Bulgaria / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 3 min / Dir. Boris Despodov
BLUE SKIES / Canada / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 7 min / Dir. Ann Marie Fleming
KITTY New Zealand / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 5 min / Dir. Patrick Gillies
� DEMI MOT (BETWEEN THE LINES) Belgium / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 4 min / Dir. Marc Levie
THE QUALITY OF MERCY (LA VERTU DU PARDON) United States / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour /12 min / Dir. Stephen Marro
J'ATTENDRAI LE SUIVANT... ( I'LL WAIT FOR THE NEXT ONE...) France / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 5 min / Dir. Philippe Orreindy
THE SUMMER HOUSE (LA MAISON D'�T�) United States / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 12 min / Dir. Joel Sadilek
F�GELMANNEN (THE BIRDMAN) Sweden / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 6 min / Dir. Arvid Unsgaard
SATURDAY Ireland / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 11 min / Dir. Paul Farren
IL SORRISO DI DIANA (DIANA'S SMILE) Italy / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 15 min / Dir. Luca Lucini
ANGELI Canada � Denmark / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 15 min / Dir. Lejf Marcussen
STILTWALKERS Canada � Netherlands / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 13 min / Dir. Sjaak Meilink
LOON DREAMING Canada / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 6 min / Dir. Iriz P��bo
LA PIROUETTE (PIROUETTE) Canada / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 8 min / Dir. Tali
UNA SECONDA OCCASIONE (A SECOND CHANCE) Italy / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 13 min / Dir. Anselmo Calotta
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Henry Welsh : (514) 495-8176 � From August 20 : (514) 841-2080
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