Festival Round Up: Karlovy Vary

Going to be trolling festival sites for interesting films a bit today ... Up first is the Czech Karlovy Vary festival ...

Karlovy is a major festival with a LOT of films screenings so rather than repeat a lot of films that have played elsewhere I'm mostly looking at the films from the Eastern European programs and the other titles that haven't gathered much notice elsewhere ...

City of the Sun: "The heroes of this ironic social comedy from the wilds of Ostrava are a foursome of friends who, after being laid off, decide to set up a business. However, all kinds of obstacles get in their way, including themselves." The trailer looks like a good time ... not particularly work safe, though ...

Come Into The Light: "Over ten years ago, the Mafia did away with Father Puglisi, who endeavoured in his parish on the outskirts of Palermo to prevent the inevitable transformation of street kids into members of the ‘honourable society’. Director Faenza, returning in his film to the last three years of the priest’s efforts, provides an unobtrusive, arresting look at the life of a fascinating figure."

Life With My Father: "Brothers Paul and Patrick are chalk and cheese, linked only by their surname and by the father whose name they adopted. When the aging man returns home with an empty bank account and a worsening state of health, all three are forced to coexist in the crumbling family house."

The Lost Domain: "Using the story of two men of differing world views who are connected by their love of flying, director Raoul Ruiz uses several time planes to portray certain historical reversals of the last half century. As one of Salvador Allende’s supporters, the filmmaker left his native Chile in 1973 after the military coup and settled in France. There he shot dozens of films, some of which were screened in competition at prestigious festivals including Cannes, Venice and Berlin."

My Nikifor: "A film about an odd friendship between an academic painter named Marian Wlosiński and the physically disabled and illiterate naive painter Epifan Dworniak, known to the world as Nikifor Krynicki. The charm of his work and even the way he perceives reality influenced the film’s narrative style." This one looks pretty fantastic ... beautifully designed and shot. Trailer is the 'Zwiastun' option in the Multimedia menu ...

Noriko's Dinner Table (Noriko no Shokutaku). I couldn't find a website for this one but it's worth mentioning because it's the newest from the director of Suicide Circle ... here's the film fest's write up: "A family portrait and contemporary psychothriller about the rebellion of otherwise obedient daughters under the influence of a suicide circle. Since Nagisa Oshima started making movies, it seems that a strong generational conflict slumbers under the surface of Japanese society, a conflict which is the prime mover behind a film by a controversial director, a virtuoso manipulator of viewer emotions reminiscent of Lars von Trier." Anybody got anything on this one? Logboy? Gom?

The Unburied Man: "A cinematic statement on the end of the life of Communist Premier Imre Nagy, who tried to institute democracy in 1956 during the Hungarian Uprising. He was executed and his name long became taboo. This reconstruction of his attitudes and life draws on a memoir written by his daughter Erzsébet."

Dallas Among Us: "Radu Dima travels to his native village of Dallas for his father’s funeral. He is a Romany who left his community to become a teacher. His return to the fold of the poorest and most wretched of individuals reminds him of his past and confronts him with a stark and hopeless reality."

The Wedding: "The wedding of a rich villager’s daughter climaxes with exuberant drinking and a settling of debts between the father and his ‘creditors’ - the groom, who’s only after a hot car, and the gangster, who’s supplying it. In this blackly absurd comedy, runaway cupidity is demonstrated by not only the wedding guests but by the local authorities as well: the notary, the priest and the police...."

The Children of Leningradsky: "Statistics show that around 30,000 homeless children are wandering around Moscow. They gather in the metro and in railway stations, they eke out a living by begging, stealing and through prostitution. They come from various social strata and all of them long for a home. They have an extraordinary sense of solidarity, they know how to love, but they are also capable of killing."

Fateless: "This sensitive and unusual story about a Jewish boy who gradually falls through the cogs of the Nazi extermination machine, is constructed on the contrast between the horror of life in the concentration camp, and the disinterested, seemingly abstract narration of an adolescent teenager."

Gilles' Wife: "Frédéric Fonteyne (A Pornographic Affair) shot a film version of the novel of the same name by Madeleine Bourdouxhe. Set in the 1930s, this is the story of Elisa, pregnant with her third child, a great mother and loving wife, who nonetheless must suffer pain and humiliation."

Kissed By Winter: "Light drama centred on a female doctor who moves to a remote Norwegian village and becomes interested in a mysterious death."

Measures To Better The World: "Wacky mockumentary, in Christopher Guest style, satirising European bureaucracy and Germans’ penchant for precision."

New Town Original: "Fresh, likable portrait of a group of young slackers in suburban England, one of whom falls for a thug’s ex-girlfriend."

Silentium: "Comedy crimer about a disshevelled detective investigating a Catholic school’s dark secrets."

Suburbs: "Violent, darkly comic drama centred on four amoral, working-class slobs in a Slovenian hamlet." Trailer comes complete with naughty bits.

Ultranova: "Offbeat love story between two lost souls, set in the bleak industrial landscapes of Liège, Belgium." Would be worth checking out just for the soundtrack, but the visuals look mighty nice, too. Seems to be mining a Last Life vibe ...

The Beauty Exchange: "Filmed over a period of time, this feature-length documentary questions the ideal of female beauty as perceived by consumer society. Four protagonists try in vain to approach the conception forced in various ways on the public by the mass media."

Dirty Soul: "How will Anna, Jana and stepbrother Vladimír solve their life crosswords? A biting comedy comprising a mosaic of the emotional lives of several characters closely tied by blood, romance or marriage."

The New Breed: "A thriller about crime, love, and betrayal, loosely based on the so-called Orlík murders, regarded as the biggest criminal case of the Czech post-revolution era."