Foreign Language Films

 

Palestinian film “OMAR,” Palestine’s official Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film this year and winner of Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at this year’s 2013 Cannes Film Festial will be released in the US this Winter 2013.

Written and directed by Golden Globe winner, Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad, “OMAR” stars Adam Bakri in the title role, Leem Lubany, Waleed F. Zuaiter, Samer Bisharat and Eyad Hourani. The film ‘achingly captures the emotional struggles of a young Palestinian baker whose loyalty to family and country are complicated by his love for Nadia, a beautiful young student.  Following the assassination of an Israeli occupation soldier, Omar, a co-conspirator and friend of the suspected sniper, is arrested. Facing a life sentence, he is coerced by the Israeli authorities and enlisted as a collaborator to find the killer in exchange for his freedom.’

http://youtu.be/jkCnA5UOI94

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Pawel Pawlikowski’s Polish Communist-era drama IDA, which has been playing to audiences at film festivals in Telluride and Toronto will be released in the US next year 2014 by Music Box Films. IDA tells the story of a young orphaned novice nun exposed to a past and a family she never knew existed.

Best known for his breakthrough The Last Resort and BAFTA-award winning My Summer of Love, IDA marks the first film for the Polish-born, British filmmaker, set in his homeland.  IDA won the International Critics’ Prize (FIPRESCI Prize) in Toronto as well as the won the top prize at Poland’s recent Gdynia Film Festival along with Best Actress (Agata Kulesza) and Cinematography (Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski). Music Box plans a winter/spring North American festival campaign followed by a late second quarter 2014 theatrical release.

In 1962 Poland, Anna (newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska), an eighteen-year-old orphan raised in the convent, is preparing to become a nun when the Mother Superior insists she first visit her one remaining living relative. The sheltered and innocent Anna soon finds herself in the presence of her aunt Wanda (Kulesza), a worldly and world-wearyCommunist Party insider, who informs Anna that her real name is Ida, she isJewish and her parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation. This revelation triggers a heart wrenching journey for the two women into the countryside, to the family house and into the secrets of the repressed past as it evokes the legacy of the Holocaust and the realities of postwar Communism.

http://youtu.be/MRzbCZtiWYc 

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 At the NY Premiere on August 13: Ziyi Zhang, Samuel L. Jackson, Tony Leung and Wong Kar Wai

Samuel L. Jackson – a huge fan of Kar Wai – has lent his support to the film THE GRANDMASTER by signing on as a presenter with Martin Scorsese. “THE GRANDMASTER is a wild ride and an expertly crafted martial arts film. I was blown away by Tony Leung and Ziyi Zhang’s performances, and needless to say by Wong Kar Wai’s direction; he’s a living legend who I’ve admired for ages, and it’s a true honor to lend my support alongside Martin Scorsese.” 

Ziyi Zhang and Michael B. Jordan at an LA screening of THE GRANDMASTER

THE GRANDMASTER, now playing in New York, L.A. and Toronto, and opening nationwide August 30, is the new film by acclaimed director Wong Kar Wai. Six years in the planning and three years in the making, THE GRANDMASTER is described as an epic action feature inspired by the life and times of the legendary kung fu master, Ip Man. The story spans the tumultuous Republican era that followed the fall of China’s last dynasty, a time of chaos, division and war that was also the golden age of Chinese martial arts. 

http://youtu.be/Zl8dzRLr3Mg

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Sundance Selects will release acclaimed filmmaker Claire Denis’ BASTARDS in the US on October 25, 2013.  The film, which made its world premiere in Un Certain Regard at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, will make its U.S. premiere next month at the 2013 New York Film Festival, following a North American Premiere at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. 

BASTARDS follows Marco Silvestri, a captain on a container-ship who is called urgently back to Paris by his desperate sister Sandra. Sandra’s husband has committed suicide, the family business has gone under, her daughter has gone adrift – and she holds powerful businessman Edouard Laporte responsible. Determined to exact a terrible revenge for the violence done to his family, Marco moves into the building where Laporte’s mistress Raphaelle lives; but he can’t avoid Sandra’s secret manipulations… or the fact that he is falling in love with Raphaelle.

http://youtu.be/WY6RkbAt6D8

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Sundance Selects will release Abdellatif Kechiche’s 2013 Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or Winner BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR with the MPAA rating of NC-17 in the United States, as opposed to trimming the film or releasing the film Unrated.  Starring Lea Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos, the film is being rated NC-17 for “explicit sexual content.” Sundance Selects will release the film in theaters beginning on October 25, 2013, on the heels of screening as part of the 2013 New York Film Festival.

BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR centers on a 15-year-old girl named Adèle (Exarchopoulos) who is climbing to adulthood and dreams of experiencing her first love. A handsome male classmate falls for her hard, but an unsettling erotic reverie upsets the romance before it begins. Adèle imagines that the mysterious, blue-haired girl she encountered in the street slips into her bed and possesses her with an overwhelming pleasure. That blue-haired girl is a confident older art student named Emma (Seydoux), who will soon enter Adèle’s life for real, making way for an intense and complicated love story that spans a decade and is touchingly universal in its depiction.

An NC-17 rated motion picture is one that, in the view of the Rating Board, most parents would consider patently too adult for their children 17 and under. No children under the age of 17 and under can be admitted into theaters to see the film. The rating signals that the content is appropriate only for an adult audience. An NC-17 rating can be based on violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other element that most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children. The film received a rating of “12″ by the French Ministry of Culture, which indicates the film is unsuitable only for children younger than 12 years of age in that country.

When BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR won the Palme D’Or at this year’s Cannes film festival, Jury president Steven Spielberg called the film “a great love story that made all of us feel privileged to be a fly on the wall, to see this story of deep love and deep heartbreak evolve from the beginning. We didn’t think about how it was going to play, we just were really happy that someone had the courage to tell this story the way he did…The issue of gay marriage is one that many brave states in America are resolving in a way that suits all of us that are in favor of gay marriage. But I think actually this film carries a very strong message, a very positive message.”

http://youtu.be/LW1UfYdtcHg

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AFTERMATH, winner of the Yad Vashem Award at the 2013 Jerusalem Film Festival and the Critics’ Prize at the 2012 Gdynia Film Festival in Poland, will open at Lincoln Plaza in New York on November 1st, and at The Royal and other Laemmle Theaters in Los Angeles on November 8. A national release will follow.

AFTERMATH, written and directed by Władysław Pasikowski, tells the story of two brothers, Jozek (Maciej Stuhr) and Franek (Ireneusz Czop) who discover a secret and are forced to revise their perception of their father, their entire family, their neighbors, and the history of their nation. Franek, the older brother, returns home to Poland after many years living in Chicago and discovers that his younger brother is being mysteriously threatened and shunned by local townspeople. What follows is a gothic tale of intrigue as the brothers are drawn into investigating the village’s dark secrets.

Upon the release of this film in its native Poland, AFTERMATH received intense criticism from Polish nationals, who accused the film of being “anti-Polish propaganda” and a gross manipulation of historical truth. AFTERMATH has so riled the Polish right wing that it has been banned from some local cinemas, while its leading actor, Maciej Stuhr, has received death threats.

http://youtu.be/KZapH2vo-cs

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Hitoshi Matsumoto, one of Japan’s leading comedians returns to the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival with R100, following earlier TIFF premieres of his previous films BIG MAN JAPAN (2007) and SYMBOL (2009). The title of R100 is a word play on the Japanese ratings system, suggesting that the viewer should be at least 100 years old to see the film. Mr. Matsumoto thought of the title while doing publicity for his previous film SCABBARD SAMURAI. With R100, he wants to challenge the concept of rating, or any kind of judgment, of films–which he explores in a tongue-in-cheek subplot about the filmmaking process.

The universe that Mr. Matsumoto created for R100 is decidedly kinky. He dives headlong into the world of sexual fantasies, bypassing the usual fetish clichés. In a hilarious performance as a dead-pan, no-nonsense police officer, Matsumoto gets to ask the pivotal question: “What happens if you get what you asked for?”

A very ordinary man (Nao Omori) who takes care of his son while his wife lies in a coma, enters a very ordinary building. Following a seductive ride on a merry-go-round, he signs up with an exclusive club. Membership is one year only and cannot be cancelled under any circumstances.

Happily he endures dominatrix intrusions in his daily life, until they get a little too close to his unsuspecting family. With a courage not displayed in his professional life as a bed salesman, he tries to cancel his membership, evoking the wrath of the American CEO, who descends upon Tokyo to teach him a lesson…

The all-star cast includes Nao Omori of VIBRATOR (2003) and ICHI THE KILLER (2001), Mao Daichi, a renowned stage actress, Shinobu Terajima of CATAPILLAR (2010), Hairi Katagiri of KAMOME DINER (2006), Ai Tominaga, a Japanese supermodel, Eriko Sato of FUNUKE SHOW SOME LOVE YOU LOSERS! (2007), and Hitoshi Matsumoto himself. Warner Bros Pictures releases the film in Japan on October 5.

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Felix

FELIX described as “the feel-good South African family movie” was the winner of the Audience Choice Best Film award at this year’s 34th Durban International Film Festival. Durban International Film Festival manager Peter Machen called Felix “a South African equivalent of Billy Elliott… a lovely, vibrant, feelgood film about a young township boy intent on following his dreams.”

In FELIX, 14-year-old Felix Xaba dreams of becoming a saxophonist like his late father, but his mother Lindiwe thinks jazz is the devil’s music. When Felix leaves his township friends to take up a scholarship for grade eight at an elitist private school, he defies his mother and turns to two aging members of his father’s old band to help him prepare for the school jazz concert.

Felix was created by a predominantly female creative team, with SAFTA Lifetime Achievement winner Roberta Durrant directing; and featured an all-star cast that included Joburg-born Oscar-nominee Dame Janet Suzman in her first South African film; South African Film and Television Award (SAFTA) Best Actress winner Linda Sokhulu in her feature debut; and newcomer Hlayani Junior Mabasa, who was cast in the title role from over 400 auditions across the country.

http://youtu.be/4XC2YXTxuhQ

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The Colombian film “LA PLAYA DC“, an official selection at 2012 Cannes Film Festival, will open in NY on Friday July 19 for a one week run at reRun Theater in Brooklyn, NY. Directed by Juan Andres Arango, the film tells the story of Tomas (Luis Carlos GUEVARA), an Afro-Colombian teenager who fled the country’s Pacific coast pushed out by the war, faces difficulties of growing up in a city of exclusion and racism. When Jairo (Andrés MURILLO), his younger brother and closer friend disappear, Tomas is forced to leave his home to look for him.

With the help from his older brother Chaco (James SOLIS), Tomas plunges in the streets of the city. His search becomes an initiatory journey that compels him to face his past and to leave aside the influence of his brothers in order to find his own identity. Through this journey, Tomas reveals a unique perspective of a vibrant and unstable city that, like Tomas, stands on the threshold between what once was and what might be.

http://youtu.be/nJWLSGikowU

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See the the trailer for the wild and hilarious Bollywood bromantic comedy FUKREY that hits the big screen on June 14. This new film about four slackers in Delhi comes from the blockbuster producing duo of Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar whose recent hits include Talaash starring Aamir Khan, Don 2 with Shah Rukh Khan, and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara starring Hrithik Roshan.

College. Three of the most important years of your life. Three years of studies (at times) and sheer indulgence. Indulgence in all the little pleasures that a carefree life has to offer. But it isn’t always about ragging, fuchcha parties, college fests, raves and churning out ways to whack some extra pocket money from your parents. It’s sometimes hard, ugly and complicated. More so, when you really need to get admission in the coolest college in town and you know you don’t deserve it. And to top that, you get yourself involved in the most bizarre situations that could crack you into pieces before you could crack it.

FUKREY is one such crazy story of four restless and hapless souls, running after their individual desires, brought together by one dream, which turns their not so simple life upside down. From breaking school walls, to cross dressing dancers at the Ram Lila; from a Jugaad Baaz college watchman to leaking examination papers; from a female pimp, who runs her drug cartel through Nigerian henchmen to visionary dreams. Can the four ‘Fukrey’, the four nobodies, twist their fate and dreams into reality or will they forever be lost in the obscurity that they come from?

FUKREY stars Pulkit Samrat, Manjot Singh, Ali Fazal, Varun Sharma, Priya Anand, Vishakha Singh, Pankaj Tripathi, and Richa Chadda.

http://youtu.be/0A6gpPuw9ak

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