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PRESS RELEASES
For immediate distribution - Tuesday, August 6th, 2002
WORLD CINEMA : REFLECTIONS OF OUR TIME
26th WORLD FILM FESTIVAL
WORLD CINEMA : REFLECTIONS OF OUR TIME
Montr�al, August 6th, 2002. This section encompasses the greatest variety of films on the greatest variety of subjects. A panorama of current cinema, this section is a festival in itself. It includes films of truly diverse origins, fiction as well as documentaries, covering the spectrum of international culture and society.
Bangladesh
LALSALU (A TREE WITHOUT ROOTS) 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 110 min / Dir. Tanvir Mokammel
A mysterious mullah arrives in a small farming village, cleans up a dilapidated grave and erects a shrine on the site to an unknown �holy man�. The money rolls in but there is a price to pay.
Bulgaria
SADBATA KATO PLACH (FATE AS A RAT) 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 75 min / Dir. Ivan Pavlov
Four men in a small seaport town make their living stealing rocks from the local quarry. The men fight back when construction of a resort threatens their existence.
Canada
WOMEN WITHOUT WINGS (WOMEN WITHOUT WINGS) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 109 min / Dir. Nicholas Kinsey
A young Albanian-Canadian woman torn between two lovers, travels to a remote Albanian village to attend a family funeral and finds a unique solution to her sentimental distress.
MADAME BROUETTE / Canada - S�n�gal - France / Canada - Senegal �France / 2002 /
35 mm / Colour / 104 min / Dir. Moussa Sene Absa
Czech Republic
BAB� L�TO (AUTUMN SPRING) 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 97 min / Dir. Vladim�r Mich�lek
A mellowly defiant pensioner risks alienating his exasperated wife of 44 years by passing himself off as other people, including a ticket inspector, a mountain climber, and a rich opera star looking to buy a palace.
Denmark
ULVEPIGEN TINKE (LITTLE BIG GIRL) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 92 min / Dir. Morten K�hlert
In 1850, a shepherd boy finds a young girl in wretched condition and she is taken in and cared for by a farmer. Things become interesting when it turns out that she is from a rich family...
Finland
KUUTAMOLLA / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 119 min / Dir. Aku Louhimies
Influenced by big screen romance, a young woman is looking for the perfect mate.
France
BORD DE MER (SEASIDE) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 88 min / Dir. Julie Lopes-Curval
A leisurely but keenly observed portrait of a French seaside town some of whose inhabitants chafe at the suffocating, small-town atmosphere. One young girl jumps at the chance to get away...
UNE EMPLOY�E MOD�LE (A MODEL EMPLOYEE) 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 90 min / Dir. Jacques Otmezguine
The CEO of a French software company resists pressure from an American group to sell out. Things get complicated when he falls in love with his receptionist who is abused by her boyfriend.
UNE AFFAIRE PRIV�E (A PRIVATE AFFAIR) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 107 min / Dir. Guillaume Nicloux
When Rachel Siprien disappears and the police comes up empty, a private detective is hired. Fran�ois pieces together the puzzle, but his own life intrudes in the case.
MATIR MOINA (THE CLAY BIRD) France - Bangladesh 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 94 min / Dir. Tareque Masud
To remove him from Hindu influences, young Anu is sent away to an Islamic religious boarding school by his strict father. While political upheaval is roiling the region, Anu struggles to adapt to the monastic life.
LE LOUP DE LA C�TE OUEST (THE WOLF OF THE WEST COAST) France � Portugal / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 132 min / Dir. Hugo Santiago
Lew Millar, a famous California private eye, is hired by an old American expatriate in Europe who just had an attempt on his life. Millar doesn't perform bodyguard duty but something about this job intrigues him.
Germany
GHETTOKIDS / Germany-France 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 90 min / Dir. Christian Wagner
Two immigrant boys in trouble with the law are given a new lease on life by a caring Munich schoolteacher. But it is a precarious lease and anything can plunge them back into delinquency.
ABSOLUT WARHOLA / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 80 min / Dir. Stanislaw Mucha
In a remote town of Eastern Slovakia, Europe's only pop art museum houses a shrine to Andy Warhol, the town's favourite son and the link to an incomprehensible world far away.
DIE DATSCHE (HOME TRUTHS) 2002 / Video / Colour / 86 min / Dir. Carsten Fiebeler
A married couple, Elke and Arnold, are robbed in their country cottage on the very evening before there are scheduled to sell it. Arnold is resigned to his misfortune but Elke is a schemer...
Greece
O EVDOMOS ILIOS TOU EROTA (THE SEVENTH SUN OF LOVE) Greece - Bulgaria � Turkey / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 124 min / Dir. Vangelis Serdaris
A maidservant from the country is lusted after by a Greek army officer, by his inexperienced groom and by the officer's young wife but she ends up turning the tables on all of them.
DEKAPENTAVGOUSTOS (ONE DAY IN AUGUST) 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 106 min / Dir. Constantinos Giannaris
Three families from the same Athens apartment block set out to the country on a Greek holiday weekend and quickly discover that vacations are hazardous for domestic peace.
SOSSE ME (SAVE ME) 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 107min / Dir. Stratos Tzitzis
A young woman trapped in the mistakes she has made in her life, struggles to escape the tightening noose.
Iceland
M�VAHL�TUR (THE SEAGULL'S LAUGHTER) 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 104 min / Dir. �g�st Gudmundsson
When the beautiful young widow of an American serviceman returns to her hometown in Iceland to begin a new life, the men are enchanted but the women are suspicious.
REYKJAVIK GUESTHOUSE -- RENT A BIKE (REYKJAVIK GUESTHOUSE -- RENT A BIKE 2002 / Video / Colour / 78 min / Dir. Bj�rn Thors, Unnur �sp Stef�nsd�ttir
When his father dies, J�hann, a Reykjavik guest house owner, retreats into a world of his own making. Then a little boy knocks and enters.
India
ABAIDHA (THE DEMOLITION MAN) 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 112 min / Dir. Gul Bahar Singh
Birman's job is distateful -- demolishing illegal shops and slum dwellings -- but he believes in doing it as fairly as possible. When his wife begins seeing an old classmate, however, Birman suspects that his whole life might be a lie.
SWARAAJ (THE LITTLE REPUBLIC) India / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 90 min / Dir. Anwar Jamal
In a remote village in the Indian state of Rajasthan, four women set off on an expedition to find much-needed water, in open defiance of the village council that is dominated by upper caste men.
Iran
MAN, TARANEH, PANZDAH SAL DARAM (I'M TARANEH, 15) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 110 min / Dir. Rassul Sadr-Ameli
Hard-working, 15-year-old Taraneh's father is in jail but she is determined to live an honest, simple life. Things get complicated when she becomes pregnant and her fianc� leaves for Germany.
ALEFBAYE AFGHAN (THE AFGHAN ALPHABET) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 46 min / Dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
With his digital video camera, Mosen Makhmalbak follows the children in border villages and wonder why they are not being educated.
RUZEGAR-E MA (OUR TIMES) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 75 min / Dir. Rakhshan Bani-Etemad
Iranian filmmaker Rakhshan Bani-Etemad documents two episodes during the 2001 Iranian presidental elections -- acting students set up a campaign office and a women candidate urgently need to find a new place to live.
AVAZHA-YE SARZAMIN-E MADARI-AM (MAROONED IN IRAQ) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 97 min
While Saddam Hussen's bombs keep falling on Iraqi Kurdistan, an elderly singer crosses the border from Iran in search of his ex-wife, who left him 23 years earlier but whom he still loves.
Israel
AUGUST (AUGUST -- A MOMENT BEFORE THE ERUPTION) Israel � France / 2002 /
35 mm / Colour / 72 min / Dir. Avi Mograbi
The director sees August as a symbol for everything that is unpleasant in the state of Israel, but his wife thinks that the month represents everything that is good and optimistic.
HATZOZRA BAVADI / 2001 /. 35 mm / Colour / 97 min / Dir. Lina Chaplin, Slava Chaplin
A young arab woman and a jewish musician both Israeli and madly in love with each other must face many obstacles of family and social order.
Italy
GIORNI (DAYS) 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 80 min / Dir. Laura Muscardin
Claudio, a 35-year-old bank manager who has been HIV-positive for ten years, finds his strictly-ordered life upset by a chance encounter with a seductive younger man.
SANTA MARADONA / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 96 min / Dir. Marco Ponti
A quartet of Italian twentysomethings find it hard to make the transition from carefree student days to adulthood, career and committment.
I BANCHIERI DI DIO -- IL CASO CALVI (THE BANKERS OF GOD -- THE CALVI AFFAIR) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 125 min / Dir. Giuseppe Ferrara
A dramatized account of how the head of one of Italy's largest private banks ended up hanging from a bridge in London in 1982. A story of financial, political and religious intrigue.
Japan
ENAN NO MUSUME (DAUGHTER FROM YAN'AN) 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 120 min / Dir. Ikeya Kaoru
A young woman in rural village would like to find her biological parents, young Red Guards who were �sent down� to Yan'an during the Cultural Revolution.
Kurdistan
JIYAN LIFE / Kurdistan - Belgium 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 94 min / Dir. Jano Rosebiani
In 1988, Saddam Hussein sent the Iraqi air force to bomb an Iraqi Kurdish town with chemical weapons, killing 5000 men, women and children. The town struggles to heal and rebuild.
Moldova
PATUL LUI PROCUST (THE BED OF PROCRUSTES) Moldova 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 118 min / Dir. Viorica Mesina, Sergiu Prodan
In 1920s Bucharest, a rich gentleman discovers that his old, dead, friend had had a secret affair with his sometime mistress and finds the relationship completely out of character.
Netherlands
RANA'S WEDDING (JERUSALEM, ANOTHER DAY) Netherlands � Palestine / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 87 min / Dir. Hany Abu-Assad
Her father is moving to Egypt and Rana must be on the 4 p.m. plane with him unless she can get married before then. But this is Jerusalem, today, and there is a war going on.
Norway
TYVEN, TYVEN (HOLD MY HEART) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 92 min / Dir. Trygve Allister Diesen
A divorced father denied access to his 7-year-old daughter, decides to kidnap her to re-establish a relationship that the breakup had destroyed.
Romania
IN FIECARE ZI DUMNEZEU NE SARUTA PE GURA (EVERY DAY GOD KISSES US ON THE MOUTH) / 2001 / 35 mm / B&W; / 93 min / Dir. Sinisa Dragin
Someone who kills animals is a butcher, and someone who kills people is a murderer. Dumitru, 40, is both. Just released from prison, he quickly picks up where he left up eleven years earlier.
Russia
LUBOVNIK (THE LOVER) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 96 min / Dir. Valeri Todorovsky
When his wife Lena dies, Mitya struggles to cope. One day, rummaging through her things in search of pleasant memories, Mitya discovers a love letter from Lena to an unknown man.
Slovenia
SELESTENJE RUSTLING (LANDSCAPES) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 90 min / Dir. Janez Lapajne
Luka, in his late twenties, escapes to the countryside to reflect on his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, Katarina, but real life soon invades his idyllic retreat. Decisions have to be made.
South Korea
DONG SUNG (A LITTLE MONK) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 102 min / Dir. Joo Kyung-jung
Do-nyeom is a 9-year-old Korean boy who is also a Buddhist monk. He lives in two worlds, that austere one of the temple and the �fun� one available in town. Two worlds that are hard to reconcile.
HEUK SOO SEON (THE LAST WITNESS) 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 120 min / Dir. Bae Chang-ho
When the body of an old man is found in the river with a knife in his chest, a detective opens a homicide investigation which leads him into some dark corners of 20th century Korean history.
GOYANGIRUL BUTAKHAE (TAKE CARE OF MY CAT) 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 112 min / Dir. Jeong Jae-eun
Five 20-year-old women who have just graduated from high school are trying to find their way into the real world of jobs. For some the future seems bright, for others it is threatening and the friendships of adolescence don't last.
Spain
EN LA CIUDAD SIN LIMITES (THE CITY WITH NO LIMITS) Spain � Argentina / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 120 min / Dir. Antonio Hern�ndez
His large family gather round the deathbed of an old patriarch in a Paris hospital. His youngest son, puzzled by the man's paranoid behavior, is determined to uncover the secrets that madness appears to be hiding.
LOS NI�OS DE RUSIA (THE CHILDREN OF RUSSIA) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 93 min / Dir. Jaime Camino
During the Spanish Civil War, children of Republican fighters were sent to safety to the Soviet Union. The �temporary� evacuation lasted two decades.
RENCOR (RANCOUR) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 106 min / Dir. Miguel Albaladejo
A down-at-the-heels singer runs into her old lover at a Spanish beach resort and is determined to make him pay for having ruined her career.
Sweden
LJUDMILAS R�ST (THE VOICE OF LJUDMILA) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 75 min / Dir. Gunnar Bergdahl
In 1986, Ljudmila Ignatenko was 23, in love with her fireman husband Vasili, and five months pregnant. On the night of April 25-26, Vasili was called to put out a fire. It was at the Chernoby nuclear plant.
MURAREN(THE BRICKLAYER) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 95 min / Dir. Stefan Jarl
Documentary portrait of Thommy Berggren, one of Sweden's great actors, who came to international attention in Bo Widerberg's ELVIRA MADIGAN (1967).
SUXXESS / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 102 min / Dir. Peter Schildt
When the new CEO at a laid-back Swedish software company turns out to be a stern taskmaster, the employees are stunned. Only the company's young development manager protests. How far is he prepared to go?
ALLA �LSKAR ALICE (EVERYONE LOVES ALICE) 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 116 min / Dir. Richard Hobert
When her father has an affair with a neighbour, 12-year-old Alice tries deseperately to keep her family together. When denial and spite don't work, she tries accomodation.
Turkey
B�Y�K ADAM K���K ASK (HEJAR) Turkey - Greece � Hungary / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 120 min / Dir. Handan Ipek�i
When a young, orphaned Kurdish girl gets left behind in a neighbouring house, a Turkish judge becomes her devoted guardian despite his previous anti-Kurdish biases.
United Kingdom
BOXED / United Kingdom � Ireland 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 75 min / Dir. Marion Comer
A priest in Northern Ireland is abducted by the IRA to hear the last confession of a suspected informer, but, in a risky gamble, the priest turns the tables on them and locks himself up with their prisoner.
HWEROW HWEG (BITTER SWEET) 2002 / Video / Colour / 90 min / Dir. Antal Kovacs
Becky and Jack were madly in love once, but drugs got in the way. When he gets out of prison, Jack goes back to his bad old ways. He's looking for Becky, either to love her or to kill her.
RE-INVENTING EDDIE / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 93 min / Dir. Jim Doyle
When his young daughter comes to school with a detailed -- first-hand -- description of lovemaking, Eddie finds that he must exile himself from his own home until the matter is straightened out.
United States
PLOSHAD POBEDI (VICTORY SQUARE) United States � Belarus / 2002 / Video / Colour / 92 min / Dir. Liza Davitch
Tania and Nastia are a closely-knit mother and daughter in post-Soviet Belarus whose relationship begins to suffer when each becomes romantically attached to a man the other despises.
UNFORESEEN / 2001 / Video / Colour / 80 min / Dir. Edward Barkin
A rich young executive impulsively promises his fianc�e half of everything he owns for her hand in marriage. When he finds out that he was tricked, the damage is already done and only revenge is an option.
Vietnam
VU KHUC CON CO (SONG OF THE STORK) Vietnam � Singapore / 2002 / 35 mm / Colour / 96 min / Dir. Jonathan Foo, Nguyen Phan Quang Binh
A group portrait of five young Vietnamese men during the Vietnam War. They take a physical and psychological journey that changes forever their perspectives on life.
Yugoslavia
BOOMERANG Yugoslavia � Canada / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 92 min / Dir. Dragan Marinkovic
An absurd black comedy about a group of ordinary Belgrade citizens all of whom find their way to Caf� Boomerang, a surreal tavern run by a hard-drinking black-market arms dealer.
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Henry Welsh : (514) 495-8176 � From August 20 : (514) 841-2080
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