Opening Night Feature - Bread & Tulips
Bread and Tulips
(Pane e
Tulipani)
Dir. Silvio Soldini | Italy
35 mm | Color | 115 min. | 2000
Italian with English Subtitles
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Friday, September 28 - 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Hors d'oeuvres and party provided by Kazimierz World Wine Bar. A full bar is hosted by Seagram and features Don Julio Tequila Margaritas - 2 complimentary drinks per opening night ticket holder. Location - 7137 East Stetson in Scottsdale, just north of the corner of 6th Ave. and Stetson.
Auditorium 2
Opening Night Gala - 8:30 PM. Friday, September 28
Bread and Tulips - Award winning film of 9 David di Donatello's - Italy's "Oscar"
Awards: Best Film, Best Actor (Ganz), Best Actress (Maglietta), Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (tied) (Battiston), Best Supporting Actress (Massironi), Best Sound, Best Cinematography, 2000 David di Donatello Awards (Italy's "Oscar"); Best Director (Soldini), Best Actress (Maglietta), Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Andreasi), Best Supporting Actress (Massironi), 2000 Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists
A thoroughly winning tale about a housewife who discovers there is more to life than a husband, a house and children—indeed, much more! During a coach tour, Rosalba, our forty-year-old housewife, is left behind when her bus makes a rest stop. Her husband and sons are unaware of her absence until it is too late. By the time they start to look for her, she has already decided to spread her wings and strike out on her own. Virtually penniless, she finds digs in a cheap, run-down hotel and soon befriends a local waiter. What follows is a mix of comic farce and romantic discovery. When Rosalba's husband tires of her "little holiday," he hires a timid plumber with a passion for detective novels to discover her whereabouts. Rosalba, meanwhile, blooms...! Bread And Tulips is a charming blend of tenderness and poignancy served up with affection for all its wonderful characters. As a confused housewife turns into an independent spirit, Soldini radiantly communicates the potential that lies within us all. (Summary written by Santa Barbara International Film Festival)
- Producers: Istituto Luce, Monogatari
Screenplay: Silvio Soldini, Doriana Leondeff
Music: Giovanni Ventosa
Principal Cast: Licia Maglietta, Bruno Ganz, Marina Massironi, Giuseppe Battiston, Felice Andreasi, Antonio Catania
DIRECTOR: Born in 1958 in Milan, Soldini studied cinematography at NYU. He made the first of eight short features at the age of 24, setting up his own Monogatari production company in 1984, shortly after winning festival recognition for Paesaggio Con Figure (Landscape With Figure, 1983). Over the next 15 years, he made eight documentaries, but it was three feature films – neatly constructed social dramas with tragi-comic touches – that brought him recognition. Filmography: Drimage (short) (1982), Paesaggio con figure (short) (1983), Giulia in Ottobre (short) (1985), Antonio e Cleo (short) (1988), L'Aria serena dell'ovest (1990), Femmine, folle e povere d'archivio (short) (1992), Un' anima divisa in due (1993), Fate in blu diesis, D'estate (short) (1994), Dimenticare Biasca (short) (1997), Le Acrobate (1997). (top)
Aberdeen
Dir. Hans Petter Molland | UK/Norway | 35 mm | Color
113 min. | 2000
In English
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Aberdeen is a modern, raw, pitch black comedy about an urban woman in her twenties (Lena Headey) and her two parents (Stellan Skarsgard, Charlotte Rampling). Their small nuclear family was blasted to bits years ago, and they have all had to pay a price. Now the daughter lives in London, the alcoholic father in Oslo and the mother in Aberdeen. One day the mother calls to ask her daughter to go to Norway to find her father and bring him back. The daughter grudgingly obliges. She sees it as a courier service – delivering a parcel. But her dad is more obstinate than most parcels and the trip turns out to be quite some ride, with tragicomic discoveries for all parties involved. (Summary written by the Glasgow Film Office)
Web Site Link: http://www.FirstRunFeatures.com/th/Aberdeen/thmain.html
- Producers: Tom Remlov, Petter J. Borgli
Screenplay: Hans Petter Moland, Kristin Amundsen
Cinematography: Philip Øgaard
Music: Zbigniew Preisner
Editing: Sophie Hesselberg
Principal Cast: Lena Headey, Stellan Skarsgård, Ian Hart,
Charlotte Rampling, Jason Hetherington, Louise Goodall
DIRECTOR: Born in Oslo, Hans Petter Moland studied film and theater at Emerson College in Boston. He returned to Norway to found the Moland Film Company, Scandinavia's largest advertising production outfit. Filmography: The Last Lieutenant (1993), Zero Kelvin (1995) (top)
The Circle
(Dayereh)
Dir. Jafar Panahi | Iran
35 mm | Color | 91 min. | 2000
Farsi with English Subtitles
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In this shocking, politically courageous look at the "other Iran," there's a scene in which a woman goes to light up a cigarette only to be rebuked by a man she doesn't even know. Here, this "other Iran" is not simply the world of women, chadors licking at the edges of the frame, but women willfully, sometimes furiously, in plain sight. Director Jafar Panahi's narrative delicately drifts among several women, each story gracefully melting into another, while a sense of their everyday oppression comes increasingly into sharp focus. In Panahi's first film, The White Balloon, the subject was a little girl in search of a goldfish; here the theme is women in search of their own selves. Unsentimental and deeply felt, the film has a pulp vigor and bristling moral outrage that mark it as a very new kind of Iranian cinema from first frame to last. (Summary by the New York Film Festival.)
Web Site Link: http://www.celluloid-dreams.com/circle
- Producer: Jafar Panahi
Screenplay: Kambozia Partovi
Director of Photography: Bahram Badakhshani
Editing: Jafar Panahi
Décor: Kambozia Partovi
Principal cast: Fereshtem Sadr Drafai, Fatemeh Naghavi, Nargess Mamizadeh, Maryam Parvin Almani
DIRECTOR: Jafar Panahi studied directing at Teheran’s College of Cinema and TV. Before turning to feature films, he made several short and medium-length films for Iranian television. His first feature film, The White Ballon, received numerous awards, including the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The Mirror received the Golden Leopard at the 1997 Locarno Film Festival. Filmography: The Mirror (1997), The White Balloon (1995) (top)
Cure
(Kyua)
Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa | Japan | 35 mm | Color | 115 min. | 1999
Japanese with English subtitles
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Considered Kurosawa’s first masterpiece, Cure is part atmospheric crime film and part philosophical meditation. Detective Takabe - played by Koji Yakusho star of Shall We Dance? - is tracking a series of identical murders, committed under the same set of bizarre circumstances. Corpses are found with an “X” slashed through their chests; the killer remains near the site of the crime, unable to recall the events that lead to the killing. Nothing seems to connect the murders and Takabe becomes increasingly frustrated. Finally, investigators find and enigmatic drifter named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara). As he passes through police and forensic custody, a rash of “X” murders follows. While Takabe and his psychologist friend Sakuma (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) immediately become aware that Mamiya has powerful hypnotic powers, it takes a twist-filled investigation before they determine what makes him tick. Is his mesmerizing technique an infection of the psyche or an honest cure for an already unhealthy mind?
Web Site Link: http://www.cowboybi.com/cure/
- Executive Producer: Hiroyuki Kato
Screenplay: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Photography: Takusho Kikumura
Music: Gary Shiya
Editing: Kan Suzuki
Principal Cast: Koji Yakusho, Tsuyoshi Ujiki, Anna Nakagawa
Masato Hagiwara
DIRECTOR: Born July 20, 1955, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan. Kurosawa has an extensive filmography as both a writer and director. Films include: Knadagawa Wars (1983), The Excitement of The Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl (1985),They're Back (1988), Sweet (1989), The Guard From The Underground (1992), Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself 1-6 (1995), The Revenge - A Visit From Fate (1997), The Revenge - The Scar That Never Fades (1998), Serpent's Path (1998), Spider's Gaze (1998), License to Live (1998), Charisma (1999), Barren Illusion (1999)
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The Girl
Dir. Sande Zeig | France
35 mm | Color | 84 min | 2000
In English
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Web Site Link: www.thegirl-themovie.com
- Screenwriters: Sande Zeig and Monique Wittig
From a Story By: Monique Wittig
Producer: Dolly Hall
Director of Photography: George Lechaptois
Editors: Geraldine Peroni and Keiko Deguchi
Music: Richard Robbins
Painting and Drawings: Thierry Tourant
Principal cast: Claire Keim, Agathe de la Boulaye, Cyril Lecomte, Sandra N’Kake, Ronald Guttman, Cyrille Hertel, Pascal Cervo, Franck Prevost
DIRECTOR: Sande Zeig’s first short film Central Park (produced in association with Good Machine, Inc.) was presented in over 30 film festivals, including Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, Locarno, Rio de Janeiro and Taipei. Central Park was broadcast on Canal+ (France) and SBS (Australia). The Girl is her feature film debut. (top)
Life is to Whistle
(La Vida Es Silbar)
Dir. Fernando Perez | Cuba
35 mm | Color | 106 min. | 1999
Spanish with English subtitles
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Bebé, an 18-year-old girl, is happy and does not understand why everyone else is not. She tells us the stories of Mariana, Julia and Elpidio, three characters who are not happy in La Habana at the end of this century. Mariana is a young dancer who, in order to get the part of Giselle in a ballet, makes a promise to God that she will never go to bed with any man. Mariana manages to get the part, but in the process of staging the work will have to choose between love and her promise. Julia has two passions: to do good to others... and animals. But from one moment in her life, Julia starts to faint at work, in the street and in public places. A young psychologist reveals the cause of her fainting to her and from then on, Julia will have to choose between accepting this truth or fainting for the rest of her life. Elpidio Valdés, a young musician of mixed race who enjoys life, was abandoned by his mother, Cuba Valdés, and from that time has been living in a constant state of anxiety to know what Cuba was, is and will be. Elpidio will also have to choose between love and his need for Cuba. In the end, the three characters meet and Bebé (the narrator) reveals to us the secret of happiness in La Habana in the year 2020.
- Producers: ICAIC and Wanda Distribución S.A.
Screenplay: Fernando Pérez, Umberto Jiménez, Eduardo Del Llano
Director of Photography: Raul Pérez Ureta
Music: Edesio Alejandro
Editor: Julia Yip
Ballet Coordinator: Amparo Brito
Principal Cast: Luis Alberto García, Coralia Veloz, Claudia Rojas, Bebé Pérez, Isabel Santos, Rolando Brito, Joan Manuel Reyes, Mónica Guffanti
DIRECTOR: Fernando Pérez graduated in Hispanic Language and Literature from the University of La Habana. He also was a cinema critic for several years for the magazine, "Cine Cubano" and other specialist publications. Between 1974 and 1984 he made several documentaries, for which he received various nominations and prizes in different festivals. (top)
Lumumba
Dir. Raoul Peck | 35mm
Color | 115 min. | 2000
A French/Belgian/Haitian/
German co-production
French and Lingala
with English subtitles
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Web Site Link: http://www.zeitgeistfilm.com/current/lumumba/lumumba.html
- Producers: Jacques Bidou, Diana Elbaum, Phillippe Bober.
Raoul Peck, Georges Goldenstern, Richard Boidin
Screenplay: Raoul Peck, Pascal Bonitzer
Cinematography: Bernard Lutic
Editing: Jacques Comets
Music: Jean-Claude Petit
Principal Cast: Eriq Ebouaney, Alex Descas, Maka Kotto
DIRECTOR: Born in Haiti, Raoul Peck studied at theAcademy of Film and Television in Berlin, graduating in 1988. He served as Haiti's Minister of Culture from 1996-1998. Selected filmography: Haitian Corner (1988), Corps plongés (1997), Lumumba - Death of a Prophet (1991) (top)
The Personals
(Zhenghun Qishi )
Dir. Chen Kuo-fu | Taiwan
35 mm | Color | 104 min. | 1999
Mandarin Chinese
with English Subtitles
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With dry humor, director Chen Kuo-fu chronicles modern romantic and sexual mores. A lonely ophthalmologist runs a personal ad for a husband, and now she has to sort through the applicants. The majority of the men (predictably) turn out to be unsuitable: actors in disguise, men with shoe fetishes, pimps. Actress Rene Liu anchors this funny, sad, beautifully observed look at the search for love and companionship.
(Summary written by The Chicago International Film Festival)
- Producer: Hsu Li-kung
Executive Producer Hsu, Chiu Shun-ching
Screenplay: Chen Kuo-fu, Chen Shih-chich
Editing: Chang Dar-lung
Principal Cast: Rene Liu, Chen Chao-jung, Wu Pai, Chin Shih-chich, Ku Pao-ming, Shih Yi-nan, Wang Chao-ming, Chen Wen-his, Niu Cheng-tse
DIRECTOR: Born in 1958, Chen Kuo-Fu was a noted film critic, author, film festival programmer and magazine editor before directing his first feature film in 1989, the critically acclaimed School Girl. Hou Hsiao-Hsien produced his second feature Treasure Island. The film premiered in competition in the 1993 Locarno Film Festival and was shown at the Toronto, Montreal, Nantes and Rotterdam Film Festival. (top)
The Price of Milk
Dir. Harry Sinclair
New Zealand | 35 mm | Color
89 min. | 2000
In English
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(Summary written by The Cleveland International Film Festival)
Web Site Link: http://lot47.com/priceofmilk/indexsound.html
- Producer: Fiona Copland
Screenplay: Harry Sinclair
Cinematography: Leon Narbey
Editing: Cushla Dillon
Music: The Moscow Symphony Orchestra
Principal Cast: Danielle McCormack, Karl Urban,
Willa O'Neill, Rangi Motu, Michael Lawrence
DIRECTOR: Born in Aukland in 1959, Harry Sinclair started as an actor in that city's Theatre Corporate. He continued drama studies at École Paul Gaulier in Paris. He made his directorial feature debut in 1997. Filmography: Topless Women Talk About Their Lives (1997) (top)
Russian Doll
Dir. Stravos Kazantzidis
Australia | 35 mm | Color
90 min. | 2000
In English
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Web Site Link: http://www.lot47.com/russiandoll/
- Executive Producer: Bruno Charlesworth
Producer: Allanah Zitserman
Co-Producer: Hugo Weaving
Co-Writers: Stravos Kazantzidis, Allanah Zitserman
Cinematographer: Justin Brickle
Editor: Andrew Macneil
Principal Cast: Hugo Weaving, Natalia Novikova, David Wenham, Rebecca Frith, Sacha Horler, Helen Dallimore
DIRECTOR: Born in Cyprus, Stravos Kazantzidis moved to Australia in 1980. He graduated from AFTRS in 1992. His short film, Road to Alice, was the winner of the 1992 Australian Film Institute Best Short Film award, also scooping Channel Four Young Filmmaker of the Year award at the Edinburgh Film Festival. He was also the producer and co-writer of the Cannes market hit Love and other Catastrophes (1996) and Strange Planet (1999). (top)
Yesterday Children
(Kahapon, May Dalawang Bata)
Dir. Carlos Siguion-Reyna
35 mm Color | Philippines
90 min. | 1999
Tagalog With English Subtitles
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Set during the time of El Nino-related drought in the Philippines, the film is a parable of a town's sense of desperation and endurance as it explains and copes with the forces of nature. After months of a dry spell, the rice fields have become barren and the town is stricken with poverty. Many of the villagers lose faith in the Roman Catholic Church and turn to an animistic cult. Christian prayer and the Eucharist make way for rituals with sacrificial virgins. Amidst the flux are a bastard boy and a blind girl, whose insight provides for a subtle commentary of the society they live in. As the clash of faiths unfold, the viewer encounters the textures and layers of the town's varied characters--misogynistic cult leaders, a devoutly Catholic mother, her cynical daughter, the priest with a dubious past and the terrified virgin who becomes the town's last remaining offering. As the film reaches redemption through its moving climax, the children come of age. Innocence is lost, while dignity is regained. (Summary written by The San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival)
- Producer: Carlos Siguion-Reyna
Screenplay: Bibeth Orteza
Dir. Photography: George Tutanes
Editor: Manet A. Dayrit
Principal Cast: Ara Mina, Tonton Gutierrez, Pen Medina, Ray Ventura, Jennifer Sevilla, Eva Darren
DIRECTOR: After graduating from Ateneo de Manila University, Carlos Siguion-Reyna studied at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts where he received his masters degree in film. In 1989, he received a FOCUS award. He has ten Best Director awards from various Philippine film industry, press and critics' organizations. Filmography: Your Wife, My Wife (1988), Ikaw pa lang ang minahal (1992), Kailangan kita (1993), Wherever You Are (1994), Harvest Home (1995), Elena's Redemption (1996), They Call Me Joy (1997), The Man in Her Life (1997), Three (1998), Yesterday Children (1999), Dog Food (2000) (top)