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1998
2/7/98 La Dolce Vita (Italy
1961)- What better film to start a film festival off with than Fellini's brilliant Academy-Award winning film?
La Dolce Vita exposes the decadent side of Roman society as seen through the eyes of a cynical gossip columnist, played by
Marcello Mastroianni. The film deals with the loss of meaning in a man's life.
2/14/98 La Strada (Italy 1954)
Anthony Quinn stars as Zampano the brutish circus strongman and Gulieta Masina turns in a brilliantly moving performance
as a circus waif who is enslaved by her love for Zampano. One of Fellini's most powerful and poetic films, it marks his break
with neorealistic filmmaking.
2/21/98 Spirit of the Beehive (Spain 1964)
Anna Trorrent stars in the mysterious
story of a child's inner world amidst the upheaval in Spain during the Franco era. It was a daring allegory for the Fascist
regime at the time.
2/28/98 Wild Strawberries (Sweeden 1957)
One of Bergman's best loved films of the sixties,
Wild Strawberries is the story of an elderly doctor who must make a journey to a distant city to receive an award. He senses
that his life is coming to a close. Bergman creates a window into the doctor's visions, dreams and inner world- an existential
metaphor for the sixties.
1999
2/6/99 Nueba Yol (Dominican Republic 1995) A rags-to-riches story which
turns on a tragic-comedy theme. An soulful immigrant leaves his old life and comes to America - to find that the streets are
not made of gold. In the decadence and squalor of New York he finds his fortune and his love in a fairy tale ending.
2/13/99
Amarcord (Italy 1974) Based on Fellini's recollections of his youth spent in Rimini, a small town in pre-war Italy, Amarcord
focuses on a young man who longs for the freedom of adulthood, but is afraid to leave the sweetness and safety of childhood.
While celebrating the kinship that exists in a small town, Fellini pinpoints serious shortcomings that would later pave the
way to Fascism. This screening included a lecture by Professor Mario Aste of UMASS at Lowell.
2/20/99 What Have
I Done to Deserve This? (Spain 1983) Perdo Almovodar's debut film, typically outrageous and irreverent view of a dysfunctional
family living in a Madrid apartment building.
2/27/99 The Exterminating Angel (1962)They don't get much wilder
than this, from the master director, Luis Bunuel of Spain. Surreal, outrageous, incisive, provocative. A group of sophisticated elites
gather for an evening in an elegant home. It is a formal occasion, but then the thin veneer of civilization drops away. The
dignified guests' souls are unmasked as they revert to a beastial level and find themselves compelled to stay for
a night-long frenzy.
2000
2/12/2000 El Mariachi (Mexico 1989) A magical tale about a young man who
plays the guitar and how he finds love, but first encountering danger from drug dealers and criminals.
2/19/2000 Kolya
(Czech Republic 1998) Kolya has it made.An aging bachelor who plays in a symphony orchestra, he is a self-absorbed playboy
who wants women, but with no committments or complications. Circumstance intervenes and Kolya finds the meaning of love and
happiness. A big favorite of the festival.
2/26/2000 Il Postino (Italy 1994) One of the great, unforgettable
foreign films, it tells the story of a rural postman who learns the art of poetry and how to talk to women from Pablo Neruda,
the famous Nobel-winning Chilean poet, who was exiled in Italy in the 1950's.
3/2/2000 Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down
(Spain 1989) Another outrageous film by Pedro Almovodar. Antonio Banderas plays a mentally ill man who stalks a movie star
and abducts her. Gradually, after spending time together, they fall in love and eventually get married.
2001
2/10/2001
Butterfly (Spain 1999) Set in the winter of 1936 at the onset of the Spanish Civil War, Butterfly tells of a unique
relationship between an 8-year-old boy, Moncho and an eldely village teacher- the kindly, dignified Don Gregorio. With infinite
patience and affection, Don Gregorio imparts life's lessons to his young charge. But a dark cloud is gathering over Spain
and as the political climate intensifies, Don Gregorio-despite being beloved by the villagers- finds himself on the wrong
side: he is an unapologetic atheist and Loyalist. Under the rising tide of Fascism, these qualities mark him as an enemy of
the state. The ending of the movie is an emotionally intense statement on the caprices of human nature. This was the best
attended film ever shown at the festival.
2/17/2001 Mediterraneo ( Italy 1991) During World War 2, a group
of eight Italian sailors- a loveable collection of misfits and dreamers- is dispatched to secure a strategically unimportant
Greek island. They soon find themselves cut off from the war. It seems there is time for everything now. One sailor realizes
he was always a frustrated artist and finds himself repainting frescoes in the village's ancient church. Another sailor, who
was always lonesome, falls in love with the village prostitute and marries her. A delightful, sentimental fantasy.
2/24/01
Ay!Carmela (Spain 1990) During the Spanish Civil War, a husband and wife team are pressed into service of the Loyalists,
and ordered to perform for troops at the front. Later they are captured by the opposing Nationalist army. An Italian lieutenant
who spares their lives is a self-proclaimed famous theatrical director in Italy. He forces them to perform material that is
pro-Fascist. Carmela has to decide how far she will compromise herself to save herself and her husband from execution.
3/3/01
To Live (China 1994) Set against four decades of Chinese political turmoil, To Live follows the lives of a young couple
(Fughi and Jiazhen) as they struggle to survie their own changing station within political and cultural upheavals of their
time. Fughi has a gambling problem, and when it costs his family their fortune and home, Fughi has nothing left but a trunkful
of puppets by which to make his living. His ability to entertain with puppets lands him in the company of the Nationalist
army, and then the Red army. As years go by , bringing bizarre twists, tragic losses- and profound hope- Fughi and his family
steel themselves to accept what destiny has in store for them by doing the one thing they know how to do best: To Live. Winner
of the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, To Live was banned in its own country for its profoundly compelling world
view.
2002
4/11/2002 The Monster (Italy 1990) Released into the mainstream Italian market where it became
a huge hit, the Monster is a hilarious farce featuring the Italian comic, Roberto Benigni. When the film opens, we learn that
a serial rapist/killer is on the loose. He has killed numerous women, and police are desperate to catch him. A team of psychiatrists
assisting on the case has constructed a profile of the killer, and the police begin a comprehensive search. Through a series
of bizzare coincidences, a bumbling, unemployed, petty thief (played by Benigni) is pegged as the chief suspect. An attractive
female police officer is sent under cover to use her charms to entrap him. The Monster starts out slowly in the first half
hour, but after that its a roller coaster ride of laughs. Whether ogling women, disposing of a dead cat, fending off Nicoletta
Braschi"s advances, or literally dousing a fire inhis pants. It is easy to see the reasons for his international popularity.
4/18/2002 Three Seasons (Viet Nam, 1999) The first American-funded production to be screened Vietnam since the war, Three Seasons is a narrative composed
of four separate but interwoven vignettes. One tells of the relationship between a young peasant girl who harvests lotus flowers
and her employer, a blind teacher who has lost his ability to write and his will to live because of leprosy. Meanwhile, Hai,
a cyclo driver, falls in love with a high-class prostitute who caters to wealthy foreigners. He saves all he can from
the pittance he earns to buy a night with her. From this beginning, a genuine relationship develops between them. At the same
time, the psychologically fragmented American, James Hager, has returned to Vietnam after a 30-year absence to find the daughter he fathered
during the war. Finally, there is the boy Woody, the street urchin who sells cheap watches, condoms, chewing gum, and cigarettes
to passers-by on the street. When the case containing his merchandise is stolen,
he must face the wrath of his father. Together these stories form a potent metaphor for Vietnam's rapid transition from the old world to new.
4/25/2002
The Grandfather (Spain-1998)
Nominated for an Academy Award, The Grandfather is a sprawling
two-and-a-half hour period piece rife with gorgeous, sun-dappled shots of Spain, heady emotional outpourings, and pre-Franco politics. Don Rodrigo, a titular
head of a formerly rich family, has just returned from an eight-year hiatus in South America. His son, dead of a broken heart, has left behind two daughters by the haughty wife, Dona Lucrecia.
One daughter is the true offspring of the union, the other is a bastard taken under the son's wing and into his heart. Not
so for Don Rodrigo, however, who is so rigidly unmoved by the death of his son that his only concern is to discover which
of the two girls carries "his blood." He resolves that his salvation , and that of his deceased son, can only be obtained
by the destruction of his stepdaughter. Jay Carr of the Boston Globe called this, "a solid, humane, old-fashioned film in the best sense of the term." Starring the
Spanish film legend, Fransisco Fernan Gomez, whose career spans five decades of Spanish cinema.
April 12, 2003
TITLE: Johnny Stecchino
COUNTRY: Italy
STARS: Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Michel Blanc
DIRECTOR: Roberto Benigni
YEAR: 1992
LANGUAGE: Italian
RUNNING TIME: 1 hour 40 minutes
RATING: R
The screening of Roberto Benignis hilariousIl
Monstroat last years NECC Foreign Film Festival led people to ask if there were any more of Benignis films that were as outrageously
funny as this one. There is indeed, and this is it. Roberto Benigni directs and plays the starring role of Dante, a half-witted,
but loveable, small-time thief and part-time school bus driver for handicapped children. Dantes life is unexciting until unexpected
circumstances lead to a case of mistaken identity and he is mistaken for the dangerous Mafioso capo di tutti capo, Johnny
Stecchino. After Dante gets together with Johnnys girlfriend, Maria, he travels to her Palermo villa, where he bumbles though
a screwball comedy of errors without ever realizing that everybody else thinks he is a Mafia boss. A very funny must-see film
for lovers of great comedy, Johnny Stecchino was one of the highest grossing
movies of all time at the Italian box office.
April 19, 2003
TITLE: Me, You, Them
COUNTRY: Brazil
STARS:Regina Case, Lima Duarte
Stenio Garcia, Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos
DIRECTOR: Andrucha Waddington
YEAR: 2000
LANGUAGE: Portugese
RUNNING TIME: 1 hour 47 minutes
RATING PG-13
Where else but in a Brazilian film (God bless them) can an actress playing a romantic
lead role be twenty pounds overweight with bad hair- and still be profoundly and compellingly
sensual?
Inspired by a true story, this bittersweet
comedy revolves around an orphaned, unmarried mother adrift in Brazils rural, desert-like Northeast. Finding herself tricked into marrying an old miser who exploits her shamelessly,
she begins to collect lovers and have babies with unapologetic abandon. In the process she manages to acquire three husbands-
the old one as a provider, another for friendship, and still another for sex- and somehow persuades them to live with her
under one roof. Critic A.O. Scott of the New York Times called it an unexpected delight that weds the humor and magic of a
folk tale with a very modern feel for the psychological dynamics between men and women in the subtle politics of male rivalry
in a macho culture. Winner of the best picture award at the prestigious Karlovy
Vary International Film Festival in Europe.
April 26, 2003
TITLE: The Color of Paradise
COUNTRY: Iran
STARS: Moshen Ramnzani, Hossein Mahjub
DIRECTOR: Majid Majidi
YEAR: 1999
LANGUAGE:Farsi
RUNNING TIME: 1hour 34 minutes
Rating: PG
One of the best of a recent series of critically acclaimed films from Iran, The Color of Paradise
is a stunningly beautiful and culturally rich tale about an 8-year-old boy, Mohammed, and his coming of age under stark circumstances.
Mohammeds father is a penniless widower, who gets an opportunity to marry a village woman with a dowry. Beaten down from relentless
poverty, he hungers for a better life- even if it means denying his own son. The emotional complexity of the film broadens
each step of the way to its unforeseeable conclusion. Although it is about an 8-year-old boy, it is not strictly a kids movie,
and the PG rating is well advised for children younger than 10. Bob Graham of the San Fransisco Chronicle called it a transcendental film, deeply committed and beautifully
wrought. It will make anyone who sees it look at the world with different eyes. Winner of the best picture award at the Montreal
Film Festival
April 10, 2004
title- The Wind Will Carry Us
country- Iran
director- Abbas Kiarostami
During the past decade, Abbas Kiarostami has
emerged as one of the most popular film directors on the international cinema scene. In one of his most abstract, symbolic and
socially critical films,a camera crew travels from Tehran to Siah Dareh, a remote village located on a dry,
barren mountainside, to film the death and funeral ritual of a Mrs. Malek, a hundred-year- old Kurdish woman. The crew ends
up staying longer than planned because the womwn lingers between life and death, and then her health begins to improve. Meanwhile,
the film crew wanders aimlessly about the town, spending time in the cemetary and talking to the townsfolk, observing
the folk ways and the harsh life of the villagers. Poetry figures in the story with a connection to two of Iran's most important
poets, Forough Farrokhzaad and Omar Lhayyam. Winner at the Venice Film Festival.
April 17, 2004
title- Central Station
country- Brazil
year- 1998
rating- not rated
Central Station is a profound story
of the human spirit, featuring an unforgettable performance by Fernanda Montenegro. Inside Rio's bustling Central Station,
two unlikely souls become linked by circumstance. When a young boy witnesses his mother's accidental death, a lonely, retired
schoolteacher reluctatnly takes the child under her wing. Although initally distrustful of each other, the two form an uncommon
alliance as they venture from Rio into Brazil's barren and remote northeast in search of the boy's father. Together, their
journey restores the careworn woman's spirit and teaches the child a precious lesson. A potent tear-jerker of uncommon and
graceful subtlety, Central Station earned its place as an all-time classic in international films. Winner of the Golden
Globe Award as the best foreign language film of 1999.
April 24, 2004
Bitter Sugar
country- Cuba
year-1996
director- Leon Ichaso
time- 105 minutes
Gustavo is young, strong, intelligent, handsome, and a graduate of Havanas
prestigious Lenin School, an ideal of
Cubas new man. He has
been promised a scholarship to study aeronautical engineering at the University
of Prague. . He falls in love with
Yolanda, a beautiful, free spirited dancer. Their relationship deepens despite their radically opposed beliefs. But Gustavos
optimistic dreams for the future and his beliefs about the revolution begin to crumble as he gradually awakens to the suffering
and frustration around him. His brother is a rockero in a heavy metal band, but gets in trouble with the police and injects
himself with the AIDS virus in protest. His father gives up his job as a respected psychiatrist to play piano for tourists.
Yolandas desperate circumstances require her to become a bar girl, which leads to a surprise ending. Filled with intoxicating Latin rhythms and excellent cinematography, Bitter Sugar is an amalgam of true
stories and a visceral look at modern day Cuba. Rene Rodriguez
of the Miami Herald called it,a film of blazing, white-hot emotion.
April
2, 2005
TITLE:
The Closet
COUNTRY: France
STARS:
Daniel Autiel, Gerard Depardieu, Thierry Lhermitte
DIRECTOR:
Francis Veber
YEAR:
2000
LANGUAGE:
French
RUNNING TIME: 1 hour 31 minutes
In this excellent French farce , Francoise Pignon, (played by
Daniel Autiel) overhears that he is about to be fired from his job as an accountant.
In a last resort bid to save his job, he claims that he is gay-even though he is not.Then the unintended consequences begin.
Pignon’s co-workers start to
perceive him as somehow far more interesting. His teenage son, previously cold
and distant, now sees him as cool and contemporary. Certain women like the challenge of trying to attract a gay man. And Pignon’s employers, running a
company that manufactures condoms, don't dare fire a gay man for fear of bad publicity.
Gerard Depardieu plays the macho Santini, who must adapt his own
image, too, and pretend to be gay-friendly. The company's hypocritical boss now claims that he himself is not anti-gay, alll
evidence to the contrary, and insists that people who work for him refrain from telling “gay” jokes and become
more sensitive.
The Closet works unselfconsciously and naturally-
without being didactic or excessive. Bob Graham of the San Fransisco Chronicle called it “neither a ‘gay’
movie nor a straight movie, but a funny one.”
April
9, 2005
TITLE:
Elling
COUNTRY: Norway
STARS:
Sven Nordin, Christian Ellefsen
DIRECTOR:
Petter Neass
YEAR:
2001
LANGUAGE:
Norwegian
RUNNING
TIME: 1 hour 27 minutes
When his mother, who has sheltered him his entire
40 years, dies, Elling, a sensitive, would-be poet, is sent to live in a provincial state mental hospital. There he meets
Kjell Bjarne, a gentle giant and female-obsessed virgin in his 40s. After two years, the men are released and provided with
a state-funded apartment and stipend. There they must prove to a government social worker that they can make it in the “sane”
world. Through a friendship born of desperate dependence and absurd circumstances, the skittish Elling and the boisterous,
would-be lover of women, Kjell Bjarne, discover they can not only survive on the outside, they can thrive. But as their courage
grows, these two dysfunctionl pals find oddball ways to cope with society, striking
up the most peculiar friendships in the most unlikely places. This coming-of-age story of two middle-aged men won a nomination
for an Academy Award for best foreign film in 2002
April 16, 2005
TITLE:
8 1/2
COUNTRY: Italy
STARS:
Marcello Mastroianni
DIRECTOR:
Federico Felinni
YEAR:
1963
LANGUAGE:
Italian
RUNNING
TIME: 1hour 34 minutes
One of the most written about, talked about, and imitated
movies of all time, Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (Otto e Mezzo) turns one man's artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema.
Felinni’s alter-ego, Marcello Mastroianni, plays
a film director who takes a holiday at an exclusive health spa in order to overcome a creative dry spell, but instead spends
more of his time networking with decadent resort patrons and arranging liaisons
with his oversexed mistress, Carla (Sandra Milo) than in formulating creative ideas for his next film, all of which leads
him inwards to confront his own contradictions in a surreal journey of memories, dreams and reflections.
Fellini makes ample use
of caricatures and he clearly paints his women archetypes: Anouk Aimee as the bored, unhappy wife, Sandra Milo as the voluptuous
shallow girlfriend, Edra Gale as the monstrous town prostitute, Saraghina, and Claudia Cardinale as the ideal dream girl.
This "signature film" of Italy's
master director hasn't faded a bit but is as sweeping and lush as it was in the early 60s.
Screened in its original black and white. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and Best Director.
APRIL 15, 2006
Title- Mondays in the Sun
Country- Spain
Year -2002
Language- Spanish
Time- 102 minutes
The magnificent Javier Bardem stars in this film
about a group of unemployed friends and the laconic lives they lead in northern Spain. There's a broken spirit to this movie
that the actor taps into-he's heavy and slack and bitterly humorous. The director Fernando León de Aranoa conveys the texture
of slow-motion existence, and the cast around Bardem inhabit their idle fates with an affecting ease.
APRIL 22, 2006
Title- The Man Without a Past
Country- Finland
Year- 2002
Language- Finnish
Aki Kaurismäki's "The Man Without a Past" was one of the 2002
New York Film Festival's true highlights, blooming in the less-publicized shade between the high-profile attention-getters.
Unlike fellow amnesiac Bourne in last summer's Matt Damon vehicle,
Kaurismäki's man doesn't possess any exotic martial arts skills or Swiss bank accounts. Aided by the downtrodden of Helsinki,
he moves into an empty container with "sea view," plants potatoes, listens to R&B on a found jukebox, and falls in love
with a Salvation Army soup kitchen volunteer (Kaurismäki regular Kati Outinen). With its sly humor, sparse dialogue, and down-and-out
cast, "The Man Without a Past" is one of the warmest and funniest films of the year.
"The Man Without a Past" won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes
and was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards.
APRIL 29, 2006
Title- Rififfi
Country- France
Year- 1955
Director- Jules Dassin
Language- french
A banner film that broke through standards of accepted language, dialogue,
gun violence, and crime on screen and stylized the film noir genre, Jules Dassin's 1954 film RIFIFI was an instant success.
Based on the novel of the same title, DU RIFIFI CHEZ LES HOMMES by Auguste le Breton, the film's use of hard-boiled slang
and the gangster garb of trench coats, top hats, and a cigarette dangling from one corner of the mouth went on to become the
emblems of Humphrey Bogart-style noir classics. In RIFIFI, a hardened man, Tony le Stephanois (Jean Servais) is released from
prison after five years to find that his woman has shacked up with another gangster, and the life he had planned to return
to no longer exists. Down on his luck and without a dime in his pocket, he rounds up his old crime buddies--who drink and
smoke all night assembled around the poker table--and agrees to commit one last crime: a jewel heist. For weeks the men plan,
studying the alarm system and working out each detail of the break-in. When it actually comes time to perform the robbery,
their actions are perfectly choreographed, their methods precise and successful, and they walk away untouched with millions
of dollars of jewels. However, there's a hitch, and what was meant to be the perfect crime turns into a nasty gang war resulting
in a blood bath on the glorious streets of 1950s Paris.
April 7, 2007 The Sea Inside
(Spain, 2004)-
Based on the true story of Ramon Sampedro, who fought a 30-year campaign to end his own life, this film rekindled a ferocious political
and ethical debate in Spain over euthanasia. The Sea Inside explores Ramon’s
relationship with his family- and with the two women who love him; Julia, his attorney, and Rosa, who desperately wants to
teach him that life is worth the struggle- despite the failure to find love and emotional security in her own life. While
the film skillfully avoids a descent into saccharine sentimentality or the emotional excesses of soap opera, in the end, Ramon’s wisdom and bravery deliver a lesson about the meaning of human life.
Winner of the Academy Award as best foreign language film of 2004.
April 14,2007 The Edukators
(Germany 2004)
Three young political activists develop their own style of confronting economic injustice;
they break into the McMansions of the super rich, rearranging furniture and belongings, enjoying food and expensive liquors, and – while not stealing anything- leaving notes
behind about the absurdity and decadence of the homeowners’ lifestyles,
crediting the “Edukators” with the invasion. When the three are eventually surprised by one of the homeowners,
a wealthy businessman with a radical past, the Edukators take him hostage, setting the stage for a clash of generations and
ideologies. A thought provoking and brilliantly conceived film, The Edukators earned
a rousing 15-minute standing ovation at its official premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
April 21,2007 Spring,
Summer, Autumn,Winter...and Spring (Korea 2003)
Captivating and deeply spiritual
film about two Buddhist monks living in a temple floating on Jusan Pond, surrounded by forested mountains. One of the monks
is an adult, while the other begins the film as a child. The story progresses from season to season, the years pass as if
in a dream, and the child monk becomes a man. A beautiful, but troubled woman seeking refuge from the world enters the temple,
and she and the young monk begin a love affair, which marks his fall from innocence to experience. Ty Burr of the Boston Globe
called it “as spare and unvarnished as a wooden temple floating on a lake, but its reflections run deep, and it can
ripple your thoughts for months.” Audience Award winner at the San Sebastian International Film Festival
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