Foreign Language Films

Check out the trailer for Mohamed Khan’s FACTORY GIRL which premiered last year at the 2013 Dubai International Film Festival, winning two awards, the Muhr Arab Feature Best Actress Award,  for Yasmine Raess, and the FEPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) Best Arab Feature award. Factory Girl was written by the director’s wife Wessam Soliman,  The film tells the story of one year in the life of Hiyam (played by Yasmine Raees), a young woman working in a clothing factory who falls in love with her supervisor.

Hiyam, a young factory worker, lives in a lower-middle-class neighbourhood, along with her co-workers. She is clearly under the spell of Salah, the factory’s new supervisor, who has expressed his admiration for her. She believes love can transcend the class differences between them. However, when a pregnancy test is discovered in the factory premises, her immediate family and close friends accuse her of sinning. Hiyam decides not to defend herself and pays an enormous price in a society that fails to accept independent women. FACTORY GIRL examines the changes that take place in her life over the four seasons of the year. From falling in love to facing heartbreak, her life comes around a full circle by the end of the year. DIFF

http://youtu.be/yC5XwpFQoLM

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Shout! Factory,and Cinevox, have entered a picture deal to distribute BRAZILIAN WESTERN (FAROESTE CABOCLO) in both U.S and Canada. Produced and directed by René Sampaio, this crime action-drama premiered with critical praise at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival and recently played at the Miami International Film Festival.

A film by René Sampaio, BRAZILIAN WESTERN is a film adaptation of the popular song “Faroeste Caboclo” by Brazilian music icon Renato Russo and tells the story of love, blood and revenge. João de Santo Cristo, a young man who leaves his life of poverty in the backlands of the state of Bahia to try his luck in Brasilia. With the help of his cousin Pablo, he becomes a carpenter’s apprentice but also gets involved in drug trafficking. 

One day, he happens to meet the beautiful Maria Lúcia, the daughter of a senator. They begin a relationship, but João plunges deeper and deeper into a downward spiral of crime and violence. He finally meets his greatest enemy, the playboy drug dealer Jeremias, his rival in business and for the heart of Maria Lúcia.

Directed by René Sampaio and produced by Bianca De Felippes, Marcello Ludwig Maia and René Sampaio, the film boasts and impressive cast of Fabrício Boliveira, Isis Valverde, Felipe Abib, Antônio Calloni, César Troncoso, Marcos Paulo and Flavio Bauraqui.

 http://youtu.be/426CZGDKLU8

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Nabil Ayouch’s HORSES OF GOD, Morocco’s Submission for the 2014 Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, will be released in the U.S. by Kino Lorber, with a planned release in May, 2014.  “HORSES OF GOD” had its World Premiere in’ Un Certain Regard at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and went on to win multiple awards including Best Director at the Seattle International Film Festival.  The film, inspired by the terrorist attacks of May 16th, 2003 in Casablanca, follows two young men living in the slum of Sidi Moumen in Casablanca, caught up in Islamic fundamentalism and become martyrs.

In HORSES OF GOD, 10-year-old Yachine lives with his family in the Sidi Moumen slum in Casablanca. His mother leads the family as best as she can. His father suffers from depression, one of his brothers is in the army, another is almost autistic and the third, Hamid (13), is the neighbourhood boss and Yachine’s protector.

When Hamid is sent to jail, Yachine takes job after job, however hopeless, to try and lift himself up from the violence, misery and drugs that surround him. Released from prison, now an Islamic fundamentalist, Hamid persuades Yachine and his friends to join their “brothers”.

The Imam – their spiritual leader – starts to direct their arduous physical and mental preparation. One day, he tells them they have been chosen to become martyrs.

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Zhang Yimou

Zhang Yimou’s latest film COMING HOME starring Gong Li, and currently in post-production, has been acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for release in the U.S. Inspired by Yan Geling’s “THE CRIMINAL LU YANSHI, COMING HOME is described as a romance drama chronicling the journey of a Chinese dissident (Chen Daoming) from the 1920′s to the 1990′s.

COMING HOME marks the twelfth collaboration between the Sony Pictures Classics team and Zhang Yimou, dating back to the 1991 Orion Classics release of RAISE THE RED LANTERN. Other films include HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, SHANGHAI TRIAD, THE STORY OF QIU JU and CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER. The film will also be SPC’s sixth collaboration with Producer Bill Kong which began in 2000 with Ang Lee’s Academy Award winning CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON.

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THE NOTEBOOK (Le Grand Cahier), directed by Janos Szasz (Woyzech, The Witman Boys) and the Hungarian entry for Best Foreign Language Film is set for release in the U.S. after having been acquired by Sony Pictures Classics.  Set on the onset of WWII, The Notebook, which stars Ulrich Thomsen (The Celebration) and Ulrich Matthes (Downfall), tells the story of thirteen year old twins abandoned by their parents and forced to live with their cruel grandmother in a village on the Hungarian border. Studying the evil surrounding them, the twins learn to rely on their loyalty to one another, ultimately surviving in the face of challenging circumstances.

Adapted from Agota Kristof’s bestselling novel of the same name, The Notebook received The Grand Prix Crystal Globe, the top prize at the 2013 Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where it had its world premiere. The film also received The Europa Cinemas Labels Award, which supports theatrical exhibition in Europe, and had its North American premiere at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival. 

http://youtu.be/krrkKObqPv0

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The official trailer has been released for Yuval Adler’s BETHLEHEM, winner of six Israeli Academy Awards and Israel’s Official Entry for the Best Foreign Language Film – 86th Academy Awards.  BETHLEHEM tells the story of the unlikely bond between Razi, an Israeli secret service officer, and his Palestinian informant Sanfur. BETHLEHEM is set to be released in the U.S. on February 21, 2014.

Sanfur is the younger brother of a senior Palestinian militant. Razi recruited him when he was just 15, and developed a very close, almost fatherly relationship to him. Now 17, Sanfur tries to navigate between Razi’s demands and his loyalty to his brother, living a double life and lying to both. When the Israeli secret service discovers how deeply involved Sanfur is in his brother’s activities, Razi is faced with an impossible dilemma.

http://youtu.be/k-lz14rIs-A

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IN BLOOM, an award-winning film co-directed by Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross, and Georgia’s Official Entry for the Best Foreign Language Film, will open in New York at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center onJanuary 10, 2014. A national release will follow.

 IN BLOOM, the directorial debut of Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross, is inspired by Nana’s personal memories of her youth in the troubled early 1990s in Georgia. The film follows inseparable friends Eka and Natia, both fourteen years old and at the end of their childhood in the early nineties Tbilisi, the capital of the newly independent Georgia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The country is facing violence, war on the Black Sea coast (Abkhazia) and vigilante justice that plague society. But for Eka and Natia, life just unfolds: in the street, at school, with friends or elder sisters who are already dealing with male dominance, early marriage and disillusioned love. For these two girls in bloom, life just goes on…

IN BLOOM premiered at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the C.I.C.A.E. prize. The film went on to screen at a number of international film festivals picking up multiple prizes along the way, including the Special Jury Prize at the Montreal Film Festival and the FIPRESCI prize and Golden Firebird in Hong Kong. In US, the film screened at the Hamptons International Film Festival and at AFI Fest in Los Angeles, where it won the New Auteurs Award for Personal Storytelling. IN BLOOM has been selected to screen at the upcoming Palm Springs International Film Festival in January 2014.

http://youtu.be/ynYAVerw9fY

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THE PAST (LE PASSÉ), Iran’s official Entry for the Best Foreign Language Film – 86th Academy Awards, directed by Oscar winning director Asghar Farhadi of A Separation (A Separation won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2012, becoming the first Iranian film to win the award) has released its trailer. THE PAST opens in theaters on December 20th, 2013.

Following a four year separation, Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) returns to Paris from Tehran, upon his estranged French wife Marie (Bérénice Bejo)’s request, in order to finalize their divorce procedure so she can marry her new boyfriend Samir (Tahar Rahim). During his tense brief stay, Ahmad discovers the conflicting nature of Marie’s relationship with her teenage daughter Lucie (Pauline Burlet). Ahmad’s efforts to improve this relationship soon unveil a secret from their past.  

http://youtu.be/7kdUF8UZb4M

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CHILD’S POSE by Calin Peter Netzer and Romania’s Official Entry for the Best Foreign Language Film – 86th Academy Awards, will open at Film Forum in NYC on February 19, 2014, and at the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles on February 21, 2014. A national release will follow. CHILD’S POSE (Poziţia Copilului), winner of the Golden Bear for the Best Film at 2013 Berlin International Film Festival,  pivots on a riveting performance by Luminita Gheorghiu (Best Supporting Actress, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Los Angeles Film Critics) as a steely, well-to-do Bucharest architect determined to keep her 30-something deadbeat son out of jail after a deadly car crash. How far will she go to convince the police, eyewitnesses and even the victim’s family that her son was not recklessly speeding?

One cold evening in March, Barbu is tearing down the streets 50 kilometres per hour over the speed limit when he knocks down a child. The boy dies shortly after the accident. A prison sentence of between three and fifteen years awaits. High time for his mother, Cornelia, to intervene. A trained architect and member of Romania’s upper class, who graces her bookshelves with unread Herta Müller novels and is fond of flashing her purse full of credit cards, she commences her campaign to save her lethargic, languishing son. Bribes, she hopes, will persuade the witnesses to give false statements. Even the parents of the dead child might be appeased by some cash. 

Călin Peter Netzer portrays a mother consumed by self-love in her struggle to save her lost son and her own, long since riven family. In quasi-documentary style, the film meticulously reconstructs the events of one night and the days that follow, providing insights into the moral malaise of Romania’s bourgeoisie and throwing into sharp relief the state of societal institutions such as the police and the judiciary. [via Berlin International Film Festival]

http://youtu.be/fTr7qiVKWcM

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The Irish film RUN & JUMP which had its world premiere at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival and winner of Best Irish Feature and Best First Irish Feature at the 2013 Galway Film Festival, will be released theatrically and on premium VOD platforms in early 2014 by Sundance Selects. Directed by Steph Green, ‘RUN AND JUMP’ stars Will Forte (’30 Rock’), Maxine Peake (‘Shameless’) and Edward MacLiam (‘Holby City’), and tells the unconventional love story of a happy-go-lucky Irish family and the American neuroscientist who comes to stay with them after the husband suffers a stroke.

After a stroke leaves her husband mentally disabled and fundamentally changed, spirited Irish housewife Vanetia struggles to keep her family together in the wake of tragedy. A research grant from American doctor Ted Fielding, interested in documenting the family’s recovery process, allows them to get by. Though Vanetia initially resents living under Ted’s microscope, she soon finds comfort in his calming presence, while Ted responds to Vanetia’s dynamic, unpredictable personality. As the two explore their bond within their unique situation, a new family begins to emerge. 

Directed by Academy Award®-nominee Steph Green and featuring Saturday Night Live star Will Forte in an impressive dramatic debut, this life-affirming film embraces the healing power of love and family in all of its idiosyncratic forms. Run and Jump is an unexpected, unconventional romance, intimate family portrait and emotional journey of recovery that ultimately uplifts through its heartfelt message of human connection and the power of acceptance. via Tribeca Film Festival

http://youtu.be/xrM5BfJehfE

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GLORIA directed by Sebastian Lelio and Chile’s entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the Oscars, will be released in the US on January 17, 2014 by Roadside Attractions. GLORIA stars Paulina García who won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for her performance as a vivacious, middle-aged divorcée who finds what may be her last chance for love while grooving on the dance floor of the local singles club.

Gloria Cumplido (Paulina García) is in her late fifties and lives on her own. Divorced for more than twelve years, she has two grown children and a toddler grandson. While she loves her family, she is not ready to move into full-time grand-parenting. She is smart, savvy, and vivacious. Behind her coquettish demeanour and her oversized glasses is a woman who doesn’t want to settle into a tepid relationship she’s supposed to be grateful for. She wants a real romance, ideally with a partner who loves to dance. At night, Gloria visits her favourite clubs, filled with other middle-aged singles grooving on the dance floor. When she meets the recently separated Rodolfo (Sergio Hernández), it seems that she has found one last chance at love.TIFF

http://youtu.be/h9PrVESAYeA

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