Monthly Archives: November 2012

Art, Social Progress

Here and There | Aquí y Allá

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Here and There | Aquí y Allá
Antonio Méndez Esparza 2012
Mexico/Spain/USA
North American Premiere
Series: NYFF50: Main Slate
Venue: Francesca Beale Theater
2 October 2012

Cast: Pedro De los Santos Juárez, Teresa Ramírez Aguirre, Lorena Pantaleón Vázquez, Heidi Solano Espinoza, Angel De los Santos Leyva

Winner of the Grand Prize at 2012 Critics Week in Cannes.

“Aquí” – a village in the Guerrero region of Mexico – home to Pedro and Teresa and their teen-age daughters Lore and Heidi. “Allá” – the United States, where Pedro works for years, returning home to find his wife steadfast but his daughters older and wary, though they warm to him as they cherish everyday moments together as a family.

“A story about hope, and the memories and loss of what we leave behind.”

NYFF: http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2012/films/here-and-there
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1874416/
Film website: http://www.aquiyallafilm.com/

Update: US Distributor – Torch Films (2012)

Art, Social Progress

Fill the Void / Lemale et ha’chalal

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Rama Burshtein 2012
Israel
Cast: Hadas Yaron, Yiftach Klein, Irit Sheleg, Chaim Sharir, Razia Israely, Hila Feldman
Director of photography: Asaf Sudry
Production designer: Ori Aminov
Costumes: Chani Gurewitz
Series: NYFF50: Main Slate
9 Oct 2012
US Premiere
Venue: Alice Tully Hall

The official submission of Israel to the Best Foreign Language Film for the 85th Academy Awards 2013.

Along with NYFF pick Araf, Fill the Void introduces a new film meme of chaste eroticism, as a young woman creates love to the fierce rustle of silks in prayer.

Director Rama Burshtein was born in New York and studied at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem. In her first feature film, Burshtein tells the ancient story of a man and a woman looking for happiness.

With influences ranging from Jane Austen to David Lynch, the screenplay follows the family of Rabbi Aharon (Chaim Sharir) whose elder daughter Esther (Renana Raz) dies giving birth. Only the baby can assuage the grief of mother Rivka (Irit Sheleg), younger sister Shira (Hadas Yaron, in a brilliant performance) and husband Yochay (Yiftach Klein).

In the end, the decision rests with Shira. A movie unlike any other.

NYFF: http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2012/films/fill-the-void
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2219514/

Art

El muerto y ser feliz / The Dead Man and Being Happy

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The Dead Man and Being Happy
El muerto y ser feliz | Javier Rebollo 2012
Spain/Argentina/France
North American Premiere
New York Film Festival: Main Slate
Sun, Oct 14

Cast: José Sacristán, Roxana Blanco, Jorge Jellinek, Valeria Alonso, Carlos Lecuona

“The further you push the ridiculous, the closer you approach the poetic.”

A fresh take on an ancient trope: Sooner or later, the road ends.

Santos, a tumor-burdened hit-man on a prepaid final assignment, is hijacked by a mysterious young woman who passively commandeers his battered Ford Falcon at a gas station. Traversing five thousand kilometers of central Argentina together, seeking fuel, food and morphine with ever-depleting funds, the two become a couple until they are not.

Love can be light as dew on the Pampa yet ferociously protective in time of need.

NYFF: http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2012/films/the-dead-man-and-being-happy
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1890391/

Art, Social Progress

Bwakaw

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Bwakaw
Jun Robles Lana 2012
Philippines
New York Film Festival Main Slate
7 October 2012
U.S. Premiere
Selected as the Philippines’ 2013 foreign-language Oscar submission

Cast: Eddie Garcia, Rez Cortez, Gardo Versoza, Armida Siguion Reyna, Alan Paule, Soxie Topacio, Joey Paras, Luz Valdez, Beverly Salviejo
Director of photography: Carlo Mendoza
Music: Jema Pamintuan, Jeff Hernandez

Rene (in a career-topping performance by superstar Eddie Garcia) spends his days revising his last will and testament, grousing to neighbors and colleagues (at the post office where he continues to work even though he is no longer on the payroll), ever in the company of a scrawny mutt with the onomatopoeic name Bwakaw.

Rene shares his bed with a santa entiento inherited from his devout mother, which has grown miraculously over the years but is unable to deliver miracles when they are most needed.

In the film’s most tender and heart-rending scenes, Rene journeys to a nursing home to visit Alicia (Armida Siguion Reyna), whose dementia lifts in a brief moment of lucidity that illuminates the years lost to both of them because of Rene’s long journey to knowledge about his sexuality.

Shot in San Pablo Laguna. Dedicated to the playwright Rene O. Villanueva. Another entirely original film from the Philippines. What is in their water?

NYFF: http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2012/films/bwakaw
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2244376/

Art, Social Progress

Araf – Somewhere In Between

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Yeşim Ustaoğlu 2012
Turkey/France/Germany
New York Film Festival: Main Slate
13 Oct 2012
North American Premiere

Cast: Neslihan Atagül (Zehra); Baris Hacihan (Olgun); Özcan Deniz (Mahur); Nihal Yalcin (Derya); Yasemin Conka (Meryem)
Original Music by Marc Marder

“Every moment that we haven’t seen, heard, touched or smelled before will start to reverberate in us in a very different way and take another form once we experience it. In Araf, I tried to touch upon those fleeting moments and feelings that can occur.” – Yeşim Ustaoğlu

In a disintegrating town midway between Istanbul and Ankara, two teenagers search for something better. A girl (in a luminous performance by Neslihan Atagül) starts to pursue the desire awakening in her body while the boy-next-door hopes that a TV show will change his life.

Molten slag breaks forth. A windshield wiper does not stop rain. And nothing can be the same.

NYFF: http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2012/films/araf-somewhere-in-between
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2249712/