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INNOCENCE   Official Competition
Australia - Belgium
1999 / 35 mm / Color / 95 min.

Retired organist and music teacher, Andreas Borg, discovers that his first love, Claire, lives in the same city that he does. Fifty years after they shared a passionate love affair in postwar Belgium, Andreas writes her a letter. Claire hesitatingly responds to his plea to meet again, and it soon becomes evident that their love has not faded. Nothing feels as if it has changed, yet everything inevitably has. Knowing that time is precious, they embark on an affair as reckless, intense and tempestuous as when they were young lovers. Andreas has been a widower for thirty years. Claire shares a bed with her husband John in a marriage that has dried up and emptied of all passion. The reunion with Andreas has brought the zest back into her life. Bewildered and overcome with jealousy, John does all in his power to halt the madness. But, torn between her affection for her husband and the passionate love of her youth, Claire decides to follow her heart, regardless of the consequences. Julia Blake and Charles Tingwell, actors who are both 70ish, bring a passion and risk to their renewed love affair that is heart-stopping. This is not a formula film with phony setbacks and a happy ending, but a truthful, philosophical film about what love means, what time means, and how time can steal love or deepen it. Most movie romances are about the desire of producers to team up two-highly paid stars. Cox's film is about how you may only get one true romance in life, and it's never too late to admit it. -- Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)
Script:  Paul Cox.    Phot.:  Tony Clark.    Ed.:  Simon Whitington.    Mus.:  Paul Grabowsky.    Cast:  Julia Blake, Charles Tingwell, Terry Norris, Robert Menzies, Marta Dusseldorp, Kristine Van Pellicom, Kenny Aernouts, Chris Haywood, Norman Kaye, Joey Kennedy, Liz Windsor.    Prod.:  Paul Cox, Mark Patterson, Illumination Films, 3 Butler Drive, Hendon 515015 (Australie), t�l.: (61-88) 348 93 64, fax: (61-88) 347 03 85, e-mail: [email protected] / Cin�T� (Belgique).    Sales:  Cinema Vault, 434 Queen Street East, Toronto, Ontario M5A 1T5 (Canada), t�l.: (416) 363-6060, fax: (416) 363-2305, e-mail: [email protected] / 1551 Ocean Avenue, Suite 260, Santa Monica, CA 90401 (�tats-Unis), t�l.: (310) 395-9911, fax: (310) 395-1166.    Canadian Distributor:  Cinema Vault.   
Paul Cox
Born in Holland in 1940, Paul Cox first came to Australia in 1963 as an exchange student and hated it, but he returned in 1965 to stay. He cleaned toilets, studied part-time at Melbourne University and set up a small photographic studio. His career as a photographer led to short films and, in 1976, his first full-length feature, ILLUMINATIONS. Cox followed this with two other features and, in 1981, LONELY HEARTS, whose success earned him an international reputation. His films since include: MAN OF FLOWERS (1983), MY FIRST WIFE (1984), CACTUS (1986), VINCENT (1987), ISLAND (1989), GOLDEN BRAID (1990), A WOMAN'S TALE (1991), THE NUN AND THE BANDIT (1992), EXILE (1994), LUST AND REVENGE (1996), THE HIDDEN DIMENSION (Imax 3D, 1997) and MOLOKAI: THE TRUE STORY OF FATHER DAMIEN (1999)