The fantastic World Cinema Showcase opens in Auckland this Thursday, then makes its way down the country through the main centres. Last year this wee gem of a festival, as selected by the New Zealand International Film Festival team, brought us the brilliant documentaries Armadillo and Waiting for Superman, plus the surprise hits Rubber and Tucker & Dale vs Evil. So what do they have in store for us this year? Here’s our preview of all the films, complete with trailers and our picks of the ones to see…
I can’t wait to catch films like Margaret, The Swell Season, Coriolanus, The Front Line and Das Boot this year.
In Part One of our preview we bring you the films in the ‘Features’ section of the programme.
Also look out for Part Two which features the ‘Documentaries’ section and Part Three which showcases the ‘Arts and Music’ section.
.
CINEMAS
Auckland: March 29 – April 11
Rialto Newmarket, Bridgeway Cinemas, Event Newmarket (click here for full schedule)
Wellington: April 5 – April 22
Paramount, Embassy (click here for full schedule)
Dunedin: April 19 – May 2
Regent Theatre, Rialto Cinemas (click here for full schedule)
Christchurch: April 26 – May 9
Hollywood 3 (click here for full schedule)
.
FILMS: FEATURES
.
ALOIS NEBEL
CZECH REPUBLIC | 2011 | 84 minutes
The end of the eighties in the twentieth century. Alois Nebel works as a dispatcher at the small railway station in Bílý Potok, a remote village on the Czech–Polish border. He’s a loner, who prefers old timetables to people, and he finds the loneliness of the station tranquil – except when the fog rolls in. Then he hallucinates, sees trains from the last hundred years pass through the station. They bring ghosts and shadows from the dark past of Central Europe. Alois can’t get rid of these nightmares and eventually ends up in sanatorium.
In the sanatorium, he gets to know The Mute, a man carrying an old photograph who was arrested by the police after crossing the border. No one knows why he came to Bílý Potok or who he’s looking for, but it is his past that propels Alois on his journey…
Director: Tomas Lunak. Cast: Miroslav Krobot, Marie Ludvikova, Karel Roden, Leos Noha, Alois Svehilk, Tereza Voriskoa.
.
CHINESE TAKEAWAY
ARGENTINA | 2011 | 90 MINUTES
A hilarious comedy about two men thrown together by fate from two very different back-rounds. One is a Chinese and the other Spanish, both cannot understand each others language. But with a little sly help from destiny, both have to learn to live with each other and their lives will never be the same again.
Director: Sebastian Borensztein. Cast: Ricardo Darin, Huang Sheng Huang, Muriel Santa Ana, Enric Rodriguez, Ivan Romanelli.
.
THE COLOR WHEEL
USA | 2011 | 83 MINUTES
The comic story of JR, an increasingly transient aspiring news-anchor, who forces her disappointing younger brother Colin to embark on a road trip to move her belongings out of her professor-turned-lover’s apartment. Problem is these grown up kids do not get along, and are both too obnoxious to know better. Chaos and calamity are not far behind he beat up Honda Accord. It can only be a matter of time before JR and Colin arrive at the strangest and most unsettling of resolutions and put to rest their decades of animosity, half-baked sibling rivalry and endless bickering.
Director: Alex Ross Perry. Cast: Carlen Altman, Alex Ross Perry, Bob Byington, Kate Lyn Sheil, Anna Bak-Kvapil, Ry Russo-Young.
.
CORIOLANUS (ADMIT ONE PICK)
UK | 2011 | 122 MINUTES
Caius Martius ‘Coriolanus’, a revered and feared Roman General is at odds with the city of Rome and his fellow citizens. Pushed by his controlling and ambitious mother Volumnia to seek the exalted and powerful position of Consul, he is loath to ingratiate himself with the masses whose votes he needs in order to secure the office. When the public refuses to support him, Coriolanus’s anger prompts a riot that culminates in his expulsion from Rome. The banished hero then allies himself with his sworn enemy Tullus Aufidius to take his revenge on the city.
Director: Ralph Fiennes. Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Chastain, John Kani, James Nesbitt, Paul Jesson, Lubna Azabal, Ashraf Barhom, Dragan Mieanovie.
.
DAMSELS IN DISTRESS
USA | 2011 | 99 MINUTES
A trio of girls set out to change the male-dominated environment of the Seven Oaks college campus, and to rescue their fellow students from depression, grunge and low standards of every kind.
Director: Whit Stillman. Cast: Greta Gerwig, Adam Brody, Analeigh Tipton, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Carrie MacLemore, Hugo Becker, Ryan Metcalf, Billy Magnussen, Caitlin Fitzgerald, Jermaine Crawfors, Aubrey Plaza.
.
DAS BOOT (ADMIT ONE PICK)
WEST GERMANY | 1981 | 150 MINUTES
Das Boot is one of the most gripping and authentic war movies ever made. Based on an autobiographical novel by German World War II photographer Lothar-Guenther Buchheim, the film follows the lives of a fearless U-Boat captain and his inexperienced crew as they patrol the Atlantic and Mediterranean in search of Allied vessels, taking turns as hunter and prey.
Director: Wolfgang Petersen. Cast: Jurgen Prochnow, Herbert Gronemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Herbertus Bengsch, Martin Semmelrogge, Bernd Tauber, Erwin Leder, Martin May, Heinz Honig, Uwe Ochsenknecht.
.
THE DEEP BLUE SEA
UK | 2011 | 98 MINUTES
Hester Collyer is the wife of an upper-class judge and a free spirit trapped in a passionless marriage. Her encounter with Freddie Page, a troubled former Royal Air Force pilot, throws her life in turmoil, as their erotic relationship leaves her emotionally stranded and physically isolated.
Director: Terrence Davies. Cast: Rachel Weisz, Simon Russell Beale, Tom Hiddleston, Harry Hadden-Paton, Ann Mitchell.
.
THE EYE OF THE STORM
AUSTRALIA | 2011 | 114 MINUTES
In the Sydney suburb of Centennial Park, two nurses, a housekeeper and a solicitor attend to Elizabeth Hunter as her expatriate son and daughter convene at her deathbed. But in dying, as in living, Mrs Hunter remains a powerful force on those who surround her.
Director: Fred Schepisi. Cast: Charlotte Rampling, Geoffery Rush, Judy Davis, Colin Friels, Robyn Nevin, John Gaden, Helen Morse, Alexandra Schepisi, Maria Theodorakis, Dustin Clare.
.
THE FRONT LINE (ADMIT ONE PICK)
KOREA | 2011 | 133 MINUTES
Toward the end of the Korean War, an uneasy ceasefire is ordered, but out on the Eastern front line of the Aerok Hills fierce fighting continues. A race to capture this strategic point to determine a new border between the two Koreas is the ultimate prize.
Director: Jang Hun. Cast: Shin Ha-kyun, Ko Soo, Lee Je-hoon, Ryu Seung-soo, Ko Chang-seok, David Lee, Ryoo Seung-young, Kim Ok-vin, Cho Jin-woong.
.
HARA-KIRI 3D: DEATH OF A SAMURAI (ADMIT ONE PICK)
JAPAN/UK | 2011 | 126 MINUTES
A remake of the 1964 samurai classic. A tale of revenge, honor and disgrace, centering on a poverty-stricken samurai who discovers the fate of his ronin son-in-law, setting in motion a tense showdown of vengeance against the house of a feudal lord.
Director: Miike Takashi. Cast: Ichikawa Ebizo, Eita Yakusho Koji, Mitsushima Hikari, Takenaka Naoto, Aoki Munetaka, Arai Hirofumi, Nakamura Baijaku.
.
KING OF DEVIL’S ISLAND
NORWAY | 2010 | 116 MINUTES
At Bastøy (located in the fjord of Oslo), life is tough; the manual labour is arduous and the young wards are underdressed and underfed for the freezing winter. Hard work, discipline and rough-handed punishment are what the guards believe will convert these youths into well-adjusted Christian citizens. So when enigmatic 17-year-old Erling arrives at Bastøy, his defiant attitude makes an immediate impression on the other boys, and rattles the authority of the stern governor. Erling quickly determines the only means of survival is escape, but this unwittingly transforms him from the role of fugitive into the leader of a rebellion, provoking an astonishing series of events that remain unparalleled in Norwegian history…
Director: Marius Hoist. Cast: Benjamin Helstad, Trond Nilssen, Kristoffer Joner, Stellan Skarsgard, Magnus Langlete, Morten Lovstad, Ellen Dorrit Peterson.
.
LETTERS TO FATHER JACOB
FINLAND | 2009 | 74 MINUTES
With few options, newly pardoned convict Leila agrees to work as an assistant to a blind pastor. Father Jacob spends his days answering the letters of the needy, which Leila finds pointless. But when the letters stop, the pastor is devastated and Leila finds herself cast in a new role.
(No Trailer Available)
Director: Klaus Haro. Cast: Kaarina Hazard, Heikki Nousiainen, Jukka Keinonen, Esko Roine.
.
MAGARET (ADMIT ONE PICK)
USA | 2011 | 150 MINUTES
A young woman witnesses a bus accident, and is caught up in the aftermath, where the question of whether or not it was intentional affects many people’s lives.
Director: Kenneth Lonergan. Cast: Anna Paquin, Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo, J. Smith-Cameron, Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Allison Janney, Jeannie Berlin, Keiran Culkin.
.
MISS BALA (ADMIT ONE PICK)
MEXICO | 2011 | 113 MINUTES
The story of Laura, a young woman whose aspirations of becoming a beauty queen turn against her, delivering her into the hands of a gang that’s terrorizing northern Mexico.
Director: Gerardo Naranjo. Cast: Stephanie Sigman, Irene Azuela, Noe Hernandez, James Russo, Jose Yenque.
.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA
TURKEY | 2011 | 157 MINUTES
Late one night, an array of men – a police commissioner, a prosecutor, a doctor, a murder suspect and others – pack themselves into three cars and drive through the Anatolian countryside, searching for a body, across serpentine roads and rolling hills. The suspect claims he was drunk and can’t quite remember where the body was buried; field after field, they dig but discover only dirt. As the night draws on, tensions escalate, and individual stories slowly emerge from the weary small talk of the men. Nothing here is simple, and when the body is found, the real questions begin.
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Cast: Muhammet Uzuner, Yilmaz Erdogan, Taner Birsel, Ahmet Mumtaz, Firat Tanis, Ercan Kesal, Erol Eraslan, Ugur Arslangoglu, Murat Kilic, Safak Karali, Emre Sen.
.
OUR IDIOT BROTHER
USA | 2011 | 90 MINUTES
Every family has one: the sibling who is always just a little bit behind the curve when it comes to getting his life together. For sisters Liz, Miranda and Natalie, that person is their perennially upbeat brother Ned, an erstwhile organic farmer whose willingness to rely on the honesty of mankind is a less-than-optimum strategy for a tidy, trouble-free existence. Ned may be utterly lacking in common sense, but he is their brother and so, after his girlfriend dumps him and boots him off the farm, his sisters once again come to his rescue. As Liz, Miranda and Natalie each take a turn at housing Ned, their brother’s unfailing commitment to honesty creates more than a few messes in their comfortable routines.
Director: Jesse Peretz. Cast: Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer, Hugh Dancy, Rashida Jones.
.
PRESUMED GUILTY
FRANCE | 2011 | 102 MINUTES
Alain Marecaux and his wife Edith were a couple raising three children in a working-class community in Northern France when their lives were suddenly turned upside down. Police arrived at their home one night and arrested the couple, who were charged with being part of a group of sexual predators preying on children. However, Alain and Edith both insisted they were innocent and didn’t even know the woman who has implicated them.
(No Trailer Available)
Director: Vincent Garenq. Cast: Philipppe Torrenton, Waldimir Yordanoff, Noemie Lvovsky, Raphael Ferret, Michele Goddet, Farida Ouchani, Olivier Claverie, Jean-Pierre Bagot, Sarah Lecarpentier.
.
THE SOURCE
FRANCE/BELGIUM/ITALY | 2011 | 131 MINUTES
A comedy/drama set in a Middle Eastern village and centered on a battle of the sexes, where women threaten to withhold sexual favors if their men refuse to fetch water from a remote well.
http://youtu.be/wvxyIlq4Q7w
Director: Radu Mihaileanu. Cast: Laila Bekhti, Hafsia Herzi, Biyouna, Sabrina Ouazani, Saleh Bakri, Hiam Abbass, Mohamed Majd, Amai Atrach.
.
WAR OF THE ARROWS
KOREA | 2011 | 122 MINUTES
Based on the 17th-century Manchu invasion of Korea, the film centres on the relationship between a brother and sister who must grow up and equip themselves to avenge the name of their dishonoured warrior father.
Director: Kim Han-min. Cast: Park Hai-il, Ryu Seung-ryong, Moon Chae-won, Kim Mu-yeoi, Lee Kyeong-yeong, Ryohei Otani, Kim Ku-taek, Lee Han-wi, Park Gi-woong, Lee Da-wit, Jeon Min-seo.
.
View WCS 2012 PREVIEW PART TWO – DOCUMENTARIES or WCS 2012 PREVIEW PART THREE – ARTS AND MUSIC
