Festival News
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23/06/2010
Palmarés de Premiados de la Cuarta Edición del Festival -
16/06/2010
Clausuramos el Festival con un clásico del cine mudo indio. El maestro Joan Pineda interpretará al piano y en directo la banda sonora -
16/06/2010
The Granada Film Festival Cines del Sur will have tomorrow Panahi's statements after being liberated -
15/06/2010
Mañana te esperamos en el Seminario 'Cines del Norte, Cines del Sur'
Itineraries / Open Screen
The informative section Itineraries presents the usual collage of creations, from the urgent documentary report, such as the one told by the Iranian Red, White and the Green, or the painful journey through the endless twists and turns of justice that the Chinese filmmaker Zhao Liang follows in his documentary Petition, not forgetting the most recent work of one of the most memorable French authors, Claire Denis (White Material), or the first film piece by one of the greatest video artists world over, the Iranian Shirin Neshat (Women Without Men). Family relationships are the common thread of the hypnotic My Daughter, by Chinese filmmaker Charlotte Lim, and they are also present in a project that confirms globalisation as one of the main priorities of the current scene: the Finnish-Zambian production Suwi, by Musola Cathrine Kaseketi. Another African film, the Malian The Power of the Poor, speaks of the terrible ritual murder of albinos in sub-Saharan Africa; and Crab Trap by the Colombian Oscar Ruiz Navia, takes us on a journey, somewhere between escape and initiation, to life in a remote and exotic community.
Open Screen
The success of outdoor screenings in previous years, in the Plaza de las Pasiegas, the Corral del Carbón and the Palacio de los Córdova, has motivated festival organisers to once again plan this type of screening. The budget restrictions affecting the festival, and so many other types of public activity, mean that we must limit the Open Screen to just five titles, all of which will be screened in Plaza de las Pasiegas. But this reduction in number has no effect on variety.
In effect, from the audacious adaptation of one of the most famous plays of one of the most important Argentine playwrights, Jorge Daulte, Nunca estuviste tan adorable, by Mansi Martínez, to a peculiar itinerant Indian film, Road, Movie, by Dev Benegal, this section also illustrates the little known political situation in Taiwan following its segregation from mainland China, with the family melodrama Prince of Tears, by Yonfan, and the comical adventures of a slovenly police officer in his clash with a legendary young bandit, in the Korean film Running Turtle, by Yeon-woo Lee. Without forgetting our yearly date with that beloved goldmine of popular Asian cinema, Bollywood; on this occasion it is with Kurbaan, the directing debut of Renzil D´Silva, a well-known screenplay writer (the attentive viewer will remember him for being behind one of the Bollywood creations most applauded by Granada audiences, Rang de Basanti), who now takes on nothing less than Islamist terrorism….in the United States.
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Crab Trap (El vuelco del cangrejo)
Oscar Ruíz Navia
Set in the Afro-Colombian community of La Barra on Colombia’s Pacific coast, Crab Trap tells two stories: the drama of a young man fleeing from his past and the oncoming clash between a remote village and the advent of modernity, represented by two outsiders who arrive on the scene. Daniel comes to the village looking for a boat to leave the country. His plan is to stay only a few days, but a strange shortage of fish has affected La Barra and Daniel must stay longer than intended. In the meantime, Cerebro, the leader of the community, is trying to adjust to modern times.
COLOMBIA / FRANCE 2009. 35 MM. Color. 95’
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Faith (Suwi)
Musola Cathrine Kaseketi
This film, made with Finnish support, tells a somewhat autobiographical story. It is the story of Suwilanji, an ambitious young woman who is determined to make something of herself despite growing up in a community wracked by poverty. Suwilanji's life is changed forever when an accident costs her the use of her legs, but despite the new challenges she now faces, she refuses to give up her dreams of a better life. Suwilanji's ambitions are not entirely selfish, and when she makes friends with Bupe, a girl whose parents have succumbed to AIDS, she takes the youngster under her wing.
ZAMBIA / FINLAND 2009. DIGIBETA. Color. 86’
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Kurbaan (Kurbaan)
Rensil D’Silva
Avantika, a psychology professor in New York, decides to return to India to be with her ailing father. She finds work at Delhi University and meets and falls in love with Ehsaan Khan, a substitute teacher. Despite reservations due to Ehsaan being a Muslim, her father agrees to bless their wedding.
Soon after the marriage, they leave to start a new life together in New York and they buy a house in an Indian neighbourhood. Just as they are settling in, their conservative Muslim neighbours, Hamid and Anjum, invite them over for dinner. The next morning, Salma, one of the women Avantika met the night before, visits her under the pretext of giving her some sweets. Visibly afraid, Salma tells Avantika that she is in grave danger. It turns out that nothing is what it seems. Salma pleads with Avantika to help her. What follows is a series of incidents that pulls Avantika into a vortex of danger and intrigue.INDIA 2009. 35 MM. Color. 161’
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My Daughter (Li fa dian de un er)
Charlotte Lim
Faye is 18 years old and lives with her mother, who has brought her up alone. Painfully aware of the futile relationships that her mother begins with various men, the young woman harbours contradictory feelings towards her, wavering between love and hate.
It seems that things never change and time has no effect on reality, until Faye finds out that her mother is pregnant, a piece of information that puts her on the brink of madness.
With minimal casting, enclosed interiors, elliptical narrative and mostly medium-to- close-up shots, My Daughter takes the narrative potential of contemplative film to the extreme, and at the same time explores complex family relations.MALAYSIA 2009. DIGIBETA. Color. 76’
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Petition (Shangfang)
Zhao Liang
Petition is a unique testimony about China today. In 1996 director Zhao Liang started filming the “petitioners” who come to Beijing from all over China to plead their cases against abuses and injustices committed by their local authorities. Gathered near the complaint offices, around the city’s southern railway station, living in most cases in makeshift shelters, the complainants wait for months or years to try to obtain justice. Faced with the most brutal intimidation from the authorities and hired thugs, the complainants find that their hopes come to nothing.
CHINA / FRANCE 2009. DIGIBETA. Color. 124’
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Prince of Tears (Lei wangzi)
Yonfan
After the 1949 revolution, the defeated Chiang Kai-Shek took his army and people from mainland China to Taiwan, with the dream that they would defeat the Communists. During the period called White Terror, when the anti-Communist sentiment in Taiwan became outright hysteria, two sisters come home from school to find that their house has been searched and their parents accused of being Communist spies.
This incident serves to unravel the tale of the handsome Air Force officer father, the beautiful and devoted mother, a mysterious bureaucrat and a general's glamorous wife. Their lives and loves intertwine until everything explodes.TAIWAN / HONG KONG 2009. 35 MM. Color. 120’
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Red, White and the Green (Ghermez, Sefid, Sabz)
Nader Davoodi
In June 2009, the world was shaken by the events preceding the 10th Iranian presidential election. Over 65 people were killed, and the world began to ask itself just what could cause such widespread anger with the regime.
Red, White and the Green is a documentary on what occurred during the last three weeks leading up to the election.
The most moving aspect of the movie is the great optimism shown by most people towards the upcoming election, not knowing the great horror that is around the corner for many of them.
During the film, the director interviews various prominent figures including the government-denounced film director Jafar Panahi.IRAN 2010. DIGIBETA. Color. 55’
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Road, Movie (Road, Movie)
Dev Benegal
Vishnu itches to escape his father's business. An old truck presents Vishnu with a ticket to freedom. He offers to drive the antique Chevy across the desert to the sea. As he sets off, he discovers that what he is transporting is not just a battered vehicle but actually an old touring cinema.
The journey turns dire when he is waylaid by corrupt cops and a notorious water lord. The key to his freedom is the eccentric collection of films and the two projectors in the back of the truck. Just like in 1001 Nights, if the films are good, the group survives and moves on. If the films are boring, they face death.INDIA / USA 2009. 35 MM. Color. 95’
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Running Turtle (Geobuki dalinda)
Lee Yeon-woo
Along the same lines as films such as Memories Of Murder or The Chaser, the most recent success of South Korean cinema deals with a rural police officer named Jo Pil-Seong, who is a gambler and a bit corrupt. After being suspended from service because of a series of mistakes made during an exam, this lazy antihero who has fallen on hard times steals money from his wife to bet it on the bullfights. With the help of some shady business, he manages to win a large amount of money but on his way home he runs into the legendary fugitive Song Gi Tae, who not only steals all his winnings but also beats him up. With injured pride and empty pockets, Jo Pil-Sung begins a hilarious chase in hopes of capturing the criminal and earning the forgiveness of his family.
SOUTH KOREA 2009. 35 MM. Color. 117’
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The Power of the Poor (Fantan fanga)
Adama Drabo, Ladji Diakité
The Power of the Poor, by the Mali-born directors Adama Drabo and Ladji Diakité, is a critique of the atrocious ritual crimes committed against albinos, a result of the superstition that the mutilated body parts of the victims have curative powers. Through the encounter between Fafa, who leads a theatre group for marginalized people and was a friend of one of the latest victims, and Doussou, a young policewoman, the film describes how small cracks hidden in the bowels of the earth can give rise to tremendous quakes. This tapestry of African traditions, political satire, police procedures and popular spiritual sentiment, offers a singular point of view about Africa.
MALI 2009. 35 MM. Color. 88’
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White Material (White Material)
Claire Denis
A contemporary story set in an unnamed African country torn apart by a rebellion. In a rural province, the birthplace of one of the rebel chiefs, Maria, a fierce and fearless white woman, refuses to abandon her coffee harvest.
Without her knowing, André – her ex-husband and father of their teenage son– resolves to arrange the family's escape to France. The crops no longer mean anything to him. He has married again, a young African woman with whom he has a son, and he will stop at nothing to save them. Not even at betraying Maria by placing her destiny in the hands of the local mayor, a man who is actually very much involved in the conflict.FRANCE 2009. 35 MM. Color. 102’
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Women Without Men (Zanan-e bedun-e mardan)
Shirin Neshat (in collaboration with Shoja Azari)
Against the backdrop of the coup d’etat orchestrated by the CIA in Iran in 1953, the fate of four women converges in the midst of political chaos. The encounter gives rise to a story of companionship, consolation and friendship.
With an atmosphere close to magical realism, thanks partly to the film having been inspired by Shahrnush Parsipur’s novel of the same name, the visual poetics of the artist Shirin Neshat portray the role of women in Iranian society at the time and the problematic sociopolitical, religious and historical aspects of the situation in Iran. It also explores the symbolic value of the garden in Islamic tradition.
As might be expected of an artist, the visual beauty of this feature film is astounding, in a play of soft colours combined with splendid photography.AUSTRIA / FRANCE / GERMANY 2009. 35 MM. Color. 95’
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You were Never so Lovely (Nunca estuviste tan adorable)
Mausi Martínez
Based on the successful independent play by Argentine Javier Daulte, You were Never so Lovely pays homage to classical cinema and also paints a portrait of a family over the years.
In the mid 1950s, Blanca receives the new furnishings that will replace the ones that have been in her home since she was married 20 years ago. In the midst of the bustle, an anonymous gift is delivered and surprises the entire family: a large television accompanied by a note that says ‘To Blanca….From you know who’. But the family is quite accustomed to this type of mystery. Still, Salvador, Blanca’s husband, makes a decision, not suspecting that such a seemingly inoffensive and liberating action will trigger Blanca’s collapse.ARGENTINA 2009. 35 MM. Color. 90’
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