The 2015 BFI London Film Festival will screen a total of 238 fiction and documentary features, including 16 World Premieres, 8 International Premieres, 40 European Premieres and 11 Archive films including 5 Restoration World Premieres.
As
previously announced, the Festival opens with the European Premiere of SUFFRAGETTE, and the
European Premiere of STEVE JOBS will close the Festival.
The other Galas include the
previously announced American Express Gala of Todd Haynes’ CAROL, starring Academy Award® winner Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
The Accenture Gala is the European premiere of TRUMBO, directed by Jay Roach and starring Bryan Cranston in a cracking performance as Dalton Trumbo, the Hollywood screenwriter who was blacklisted after refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947. Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, Elle Fanning, Louis C.K. and John Goodman round out the cast.
Virgin Atlantic will present Scott Cooper’s chilling crime drama BLACK MASS starring Johnny Depp, Benedict Cumberbatch and Joel Edgerton.
The May Fair Hotel Gala is the European Premiere of the stirring drama BROOKLYN starring Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson and Emory Cohen, adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby from Colm Tóibin’s best-selling novel about the exquisite pain of choosing between an Irish homeland and the new promise of America.
The Centerpiece Gala supported by the Mayor of London is the European Premiere of director Nicholas Hytner’s THE LADY IN THE VAN (pictured in main image above) adapted from writer Alan Bennett’s play and starring Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Jim Broadbent, Frances De La Tour and Roger Allam.
The Festival Gala is Ben Wheatley’s HIGH-RISE starring Tom Hiddleston as Dr. Robert Laing, a man who has just taken ownership of a luxurious apartment in this brilliant satire based on JG Ballard’s classic novel.
The Archive Gala is the
previously announced World Premiere of the BFI National Archive restoration of SHOOTING STARS, directed by A.V. Bramble and Anthony Asquith (1928).
This year, the Festival introduces three Special Presentations, they are: the Experimenta Special Presentation, Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson’s “phantasmagoric opus” THE FORBIDDEN ROOM; the Documentary Special Presentation, Davis Guggenheim’s HE NAMED ME MALALA an inspiring portrait of an incredibly brave and resilient young woman who carries a message of hope for women in the world; and the
previously announced Fellowship Special Presentation of James Vanderbilt’s TRUTH starring Cate Blanchett in honor of the actress receiving the BFI Fellowship at this year’s LFF Awards Ceremony.
The nine program strands are each headlined with a gala, they are: the Love Gala, Luca Guadagnino’s A BIGGER SPLASH; the Debate Gala, Stephen Frears’ THE PROGRAM; the Dare Gala, Yorgos Lanthimos’ THE LOBSTER; the Laugh Gala, Ondi Timoner’s BRAND: A SECOND COMING (European Premiere); the Thrill Gala, Deepa Mehta’s BEEBA BOYS (International Premiere); the Cult Gala, S. Craig Zahler’s BONE TOMAHAWK (International Premiere); the Journey Gala, Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s THE ASSASSIN; the Sonic Gala, Hany Abu-Assad’s THE IDOL (European Premiere) and the Family Gala is Rob Letterman’s GOOSEBUMPS (European Premiere).
OFFICIAL COMPETITION
Jerzy Skolimowski, 11 MINUTES
Cary Fukunaga, BEASTS OF NO NATION
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR
Athina Rachel Tsangari, CHEVALIER
Simon Stone, THE DAUGHTER
Jonás Cuarón, DESIERTO (European Premiere)
Lucile Hadžihalilović, EVOLUTION
Johnnie To, OFFICE (European Premiere)
Lenny Abrahamson, ROOM
László Nemes, SON OF SAUL
Terence Davies, SUNSET SONG
Sean Baker, TANGERINE
Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya, VERY BIG SHOT (European Premiere)
FIRST FEATURE COMPETITION
Mai Masri, 3000 NIGHTS (European Premiere)
Eva Husson, BANG GANG (A MODERN LOVE STORY)
Magnus von Horn, THE HERE AFTER
Trey Edward Shults, KRISHA
Yared Zeleke, LAMB
Esther May Campbell, LIGHT YEARS
Ariel Kleiman, PARTISAN
Eugenio Canevari, PAULA
Bentley Dean, Martin Butler, TANNA
Piero Messina, THE WAIT
Nitzan Gilady, WEDDING DOLL (European Premiere)
Robert Eggers, THE WITCH
DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
João Pedro Plácido, (BE)LONGING
Mor Loushy, CENSORED VOICES
David Sington, THE FEAR OF 13 (World Premiere)
Alexandria Bombach, Mo Scarpelli, FRAME BY FRAME (European Premiere)
Alexander Sokurov, FRANCOFONIA
Frederick Wiseman, IN JACKSON HEIGHTS
Walter Salles, JIA ZHANGKE, A GUY FROM FENYANG
Tomer Heymann, MR. GAGA (International Premiere)
Patricio Guzmán, THE PEARL BUTTON
Sarah Turner, PUBLIC HOUSE (World Premiere)
Jennifer Peedom, SHERPA (European Premiere)
Hanna Polak, SOMETHING BETTER TO COME
SHORT FILM AWARD
João Paulo Miranda Maria, COMMAND ACTION
Till Nowak, DISSONANCE
Nina Gantz, EDMOND
Peter Tscherkassky, THE EXQUISITE CORPUS
Mees Peijnenburg, A HOLE IN MY HEART
An van Dienderen, LILI (International Premiere)
Maïmouna Doucouré, MOTHER(S)
Shai Heredia, Shumona Goel, AN OLD DOG’S DIARY (European Premiere)
Caroline Bartleet, OPERATOR (World Premiere)
Jörn Threlfall, OVER
Vivienne Dick, RED MOON RISING (World Premiere)
Ziya Demirel, TUESDAY
The Festival program is organized into categories organized around the themes of Love, Debate, Dare, Laugh, Thrill, Cult, Journey, Sonic, Family and Experimenta.
LOVE
The Love Gala is Luca Guadagnino’s feature A BIGGER SPLASH set on the volcanic, windswept Sicilian island of Pantelleria and starring Tilda Swinton as a rock star, Matthias Schoenaerts as her filmmaker lover, Ralph Fiennes as a cocky music producer and Dakota Johnson as his petulant, sexy daughter.
Other titles in this section include: Naomi Kawase’s sweet, light and leisurely AN; Tom Geens’ COUPLE IN A HOLE, about a couple living in an underground forest dwelling to be left alone to deal with their mysterious grief; DEPARTURE, Andrew Steggall’s delicate first feature about longing, loneliness and nostalgia for a sense of family that may have never existed; Jacques Audiard’s Palme d’Or-winner about a makeshift family trying to cement their bonds, DHEEPAN; the World Premiere of Biyi Bandele’s FIFTY, a riveting exploration of love and lust, power and rivalry and seduction and infidelity in Lagos; the European Premiere of Maya Newell’s documentary GAYBY BABY, following the lives of four Australian children whose parents all happen to be gay; Mark Cousins returns to LFF with his metaphysical essay film I AM BELFAST, Stig Björkman’s documentary INGRID BERGMAN – IN HER OWN WORDS, a treasure trove of Bergman’s never-before-seen home movies, personal letters and diary extracts alongside archive footage; Hirokazu Kore-eda’s beautiful OUR LITTLE SISTER, focusing on the lives of four young women related through their late father in provincial Japan; the European Premiere of Mabel Cheung’s sweeping Chinese epic based on the true story of Jackie Chan’s parents A TALE OF THREE CITIES and Guillaume Nicloux’s VALLEY OF LOVE starring Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu in a tale of love, loss, memory and the mystical.
DEBATE
This year’s Debate Gala is Stephen Frears’s THE PROGRAM starring Ben Foster as cyclist Lance Armstrong, charting his rise to near canonization and his subsequent fall from grace.
Other highlights in this section include: Pablo Larraín’s THE CLUB, a mordant morality tale set in a sleepy Chilean coastal town, which won Berlin’s Grand Jury Prize; CHRONIC, Michel Franco’s uncompromising study of grief and isolation, featuring a revelatory performance by Tim Roth; brothers Tarzan and Arab Nasser’s feature directorial debut, DÉGRADÉ, a smart drama that moves seamlessly between humour and despair, set in a women’s hair salon in Gaza; the European Premiere of George Amponsah’s intimate documentary THE HARD STOP, revealing the story of Mark Duggan’s friends and family following his death after being shot in a ‘Hard Stop’ police procedure in 2011; Jonas Carpignano’s engrossing feature debut, THE MEASURE OF A MAN which won Vincent Lindon Best Actor at Cannes Film Festival, MEDITERRANEA, an ultra-topical tale of two young African men from Burkina Faso who, in search of a better life, make the difficult and dangerous trip across the Sahara desert and Mediterranean Sea to reach Italy; the drama MUCH LOVED, Nabil Ayouch’s searing, no-holds-barred look at the world of prostitution in Morocco; David Evans’ thought-provoking documentary MY NAZI LEGACY, which raises the harrowing question, ‘What if your father was a Nazi?’; the World Premiere of John Dower’s MY SCIENTOLOGY MOVIE which features Louis Theroux as he heads to Los Angeles to explore the Church of Scientology; Sebastián Silva’s beguiling, seductive and confrontational NASTY BABY; PAULINA, Santiago Mitre’s intelligent parable for contemporary Argentina, which won the Critics Week Grand Prize in Cannes; TAKLUB, Brillante Ma Mendoza’s riveting ode to a Filipino city wreaked by a typhoon; and Jafar Panahi’s latest film, TAXI TEHRAN, winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale and set and shot from inside a car.
DARE
The Dare Gala is Yorgos Lanthimos’ THE LOBSTER which stars Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Coleman, John C. Reilly, Léa Sedoux and Ben Whishaw in a bleakly hilarious skewering of fundamentalist diktats and rituals that is also a tender plea for genuine intimacy amid society’s self-imposed absurdities.
Other highlights in this strand include: Miguel Gomes’ mixes fantasy, documentary, docu-fiction, Brechtian pantomime and echoes of MGM musical in the epic ARABIAN NIGHTS; the World Premiere of William Fairman and Max Gogarty’s CHEMSEX, an unflinching, powerful documentary about the pleasures and perils associated with the ‘chemsex’ scene that’s far more than a sensationalist exposé; the European Premiere of CLOSET MONSTER, Stephen Dunn’s remarkable debut feature about an artistic, sexually confused teen who has conversations with his pet hamster, voiced by Isabella Rossellini; THE ENDLESS RIVER a devasting new film set in small-town South Africa from Oliver Hermanus, Diep Hoang Nguyen’s beautiful debut, FLAPPING IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, a wry, weird socially probing take on the teen pregnancy scenario that focuses on a girl whose escape from village life to pursue an urban education has her frozen in mid-flight; LUCIFER, Gust Van den Berghe’s thrillingly cinematic tale of Lucifer as an angel who visits a Mexican village, filmed in ‘Tondoscope’ – a circular frame in the centre of the screen; the European premiere of KOTHANODI a compelling, unsettling fairytale from India; veteran Algerian director Merzak Allouache’s gritty and delicate portrait of a drug addicted petty thief in MADAME COURAGE; Radu Muntean’s excellent ONE FLOOR BELOW, which combines taut, low-key realism with incisive psychological and ethical insights in a drama centering on a man, his wife and a neighbor; and QUEEN OF EARTH, Alex Ross Perry’s devilish study of mental breakdown and dysfunctional power dynamics between female best friends, starring Elisabeth Moss.
LAUGH
This year’s Laugh Gala is the European Premiere of BRAND: A SECOND COMING, an energetic, complex and frequently hilarious documentary about Russell Brand directed by Ondi Timoner.
Other titles in this strand include: comic visionary Jaco Van Dormael’s scabrously provocative, philosophically asute parable THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT, which poses the question ‘What if God were Belgian and a cantankerous, vindicative slob who runs the whole show from a dilapidated apartment in Brussels?’; the World Premiere of Chanya Button’s debut feature BURN BURN BURN starring Downton Abbey’s Laura Carmichael, which takes the road trip buddy movie on its own smart, female-centric spin; Ali F. Mostafa’s FROM A TO B, a ‘dramedy’ following three estranged childhood companions who embark on a road trip to commemorate the fifth anniversary of a friend’s death and offers a new perspective on life in the Gulf and Middle East; Paul Weitz’s GRANDMA, a supremelyenjoyable ‘road movie’ starring Lily Tomlin as the gloriously profane septuagenarian whose curt words and emotional armour can’t quite mask her broken heart; Bao Nguyen’s Saturday Night Live documentary LIVE FROM NEW YORK!; MEN AND CHICKEN, Anders Thomas Jensen’s dark, twisted and extremely animalistic comedy as black as pitch, but with the sweetest heart, starring Mads Mikkelsen; Fernando León de Aranoa’s black comedy A PERFECT DAY, a freewheeling tale centering on two veteran aid workers starring Benico Del Toro and Tim Robbins; the International Premiere of Brendan Cowell’s debut RUBEN GUTHRIE about an advertising exec trying to quit the booze, which spikes social observations with dark, wounded humour and the European Premiere of Japanese auteur/icon Takeshi Kitano’s latest comedy, RYUZO AND HIS SEVEN HENCHMEN, about a group of elderly, retired Yakuza who reteam to take revenge on a younger rival gang.
THRILL
The Gala presentation for this strand is the International Premiere of Deepa Mehta’s BEEBA BOYS, an energetic gangster movie that also explores South Asian family values set in Vancouver’s Sikh immigrant badlands and starring Randeep Hooda.
Other highlights in this section include: the European Premiere of Choi Dong-hoon’s colourful period bullet opera, ASSASSINATION; the European Premiere of Daniel Junge’s thrill-a-minute BEING EVEL about the legendary daredevil Robert Craig ‘Evel’ Knievel; the European Premiere of David Farr’s crafty and suspenseful study in paranoia, THE ONES BELOW starring David Morrissey and Clémence Poésy; Atom Egoyan’s latest drama REMEMBER, offering a provocative study of the nature of evil as well as serving as a stark reminder of the atrocities of 20th century history, starring Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau; Gabriel Clarke and John McKenna’s gripping documentary STEVE MCQUEEN: THE MAN & LE MANS, featuring unseen archive footage, contemporary interviews and previously unheard commentary from McQueen himself; Stephen Fingleton’s thrilling, post-apocalyptic debut THE SURVIVALIST; Sebastian Schipper’s exhilarating one-shot sensation, VICTORIA; and THE WAVE, Roar Uthaug’s highoctane and nerve-shredding portrayal of a potential catastrophe.
CULT
The Cult Gala is the International Premiere of S. Craig Zahler’s gloriously imaginative genre hybrid BONE TOMAHAWK starring Kurt Russell in a film with enough surprises to satisfy even the most jaded horror hounds and western fans.
Other highlights in this strand include: the World Premiere of Thierry Poiraud’s DON’T GROW UP, a stylish and inventive film about a group of teens on an unnamed island who wake up to find their youth facility eerily abandoned; the World Premiere of Jon Spira’s affectionate documentary ELSTREE 1976 about the bit performers who appeared in George Lucas’ box office behemoth Star Wars; GHOST THEATER, the latest film from director Hideo Nakata, the forerunner of J-horror; GREEN ROOM, Jeremy Saulnier’s latest exercise in edge of the seat suspense, starring Patrick Stewart, Imogen Poots and Anton Yelchin; returning for the third year running, Sion Sono screens LOVE AND PEACE, his tale of punk rock and talking turtles; and the fantastically prolific Takashi Miike’s riotous, unruly gangster vampire concoction YAKUZA APOCALYPSE.
JOURNEY
This year’s Journey Gala is Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s breathtakingly elegant and mesmerizing first foray into wuxia (martial arts), THE ASSASSIN, which won him the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Hou Hsiao-Hsien is the subject of retrospective – Also Like Life – at BFI Southbank this month in the lead-up to the Festival and will participate in a career interview on Monday 14 September at BFI Southbank.
Other titles in this section include: Radu Jude’s vivid, Wallachian western AFERIM!, COWBOYS, the directorial debut of Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet and Rust and Bone co-writer Thomas Bidegain; the breathtaking ethnographic Colombian Amazon odyssey EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT; James Ponsoldt’s THE END OF THE TOUR starring Jason Segel as writer David Foster Wallace and Jesse Eisenberg as Rolling Stone journalist David Lipsky in this engrossing two-hander; Writer-Director Jayro Bustamante’s IXCANUL VOLCANO, the European Premiere Stevan Riley’s enthralling Marlon Brando documentary LISTEN TO ME MARLON; Jia Zhangke’s ambitious, astute and humane MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART; the European Premiere of Sylvia Chang’s often-ethereal magic-realist drama love story, MURMUR OF THE HEARTS; the European Premiere of THE NEW CLASSMATE about a single mum in India battling to ensure her daughter’s future; SEMBÈNE!, Samba Gadjigo and Jason Silverman’s incisive documentary on acclaimed African filmmaker Ousmane Sembène; Chloé Zhao’s SONGS MY BROTHERS TAUGHT ME; and Paolo Sorrentino’s deliciously bittersweet drama YOUTH, starring Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano and Jane Fonda.
SONIC
The Sonic Gala is the European Premiere of two-time Oscar-nominated director Hany Abu-Assad’s new film THE IDOL, based on the incredible true story of Mohammad Assaf, winner of ‘Arab Idol’.
Other highlights in this strand include: the World Premiere of Bernard MacMahon’s documentary THE AMERICAN EPIC SESSIONS, a haunting collision of past and present, presided over by the high priests of the great tradition of American music, Jack White and T Bone Burnett; the World Premiere of James Caddick and James Cronin’s documentary ELEPHANT DAYS, which charts The Maccabees creative process as they record their 4th album Marks To Prove It in an anonymous studio in Elephant and Castle; JANIS: LITTLE GIRL BLUE, Oscar-nominated director Amy Berg’s Janis Joplin documentary drawing on archival footage, contemporary interviews and the singer’s personal correspondences; punk filmmaker Khavn De La Cruz’s RUINED HEART: ANOTHER LOVE STORY BETWEEN A CRIMINAL AND A WHORE, an irreverent orgy of sex and crime with a banging soundtrack at its core; the International Premiere of Bobbito Garcia’s STRETCH AND BOBBITO: RADIO THAT CHANGED LIVES, a documentary about The Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show which broadcasted on New York’s WKCP radio in the 1990’s and featured unsigned at the time artists such as Jay Z, Nas and Eminem; and the European Premiere of THEY WILL HAVE TO KILL US FIRST: MALIAN MUSIC IN EXILE, Johanna Schwartz’s debut feature which intelligently captures the complexity and emotion of the life of musicians forced into exile and desperate to keep their music alive.
FAMILY
This year’s Family section is a truly international affair, kicking off with the Family Gala, the European Premiere of Rob Letterman’s GOOSEBUMPS, featuring Jack Black.
Other highlights are ADAMA a deeply moving animation about the life of a young boy in West Africa in 1914; Mamoru Hosoda’s THE BOY AND THE BEAST, an exquisitely animated fable about a boy who has run away from home and is alone in the human world following the passing of his mother; Jury Feting’s CELESTIAL CAMEL, a fascinating and thrilling tale about a 12 year old herder whose father has sold a young colt who may be the fabled ‘celestial camel’; Academy Award® winner Gabriele Salvatores’ THE INVISIBLE BOY, a charming coming of age tale about a shy boy, picked on by his peers, who gets his wish to hide from the world when he discovers a Halloween outfit that makes him invisible; Alexandre Heboyan and Benoît Philippon’s hugely enjoyable CGI animated adventure MUNE, about a faun who lives in a faraway world; Studio Ghibli’s beautiful drama WHEN MARNIE WAS THERE, directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi; and the World Premiere of Tim Clague and Danny Stark’s WHO KILLED NELSON NUTMEG?, featuring Bonnie Wright from the Harry Potter series.
There is a dedicated section for animated shorts for younger audiences which bring together eclectic, exciting and colourful films from all around the globe. English language and subtitled, suitable for all ages. Amongst the highlights of this year’s 14 titles is director Sanjay Patel’s SANJAY’S SUPER TEAM from Pixar.
EXPERIMENTA
Focused on films and videos by artists, it aims to screen films that use the moving image to change the way we think of film and how it functions. The Experimenta Special Presentation is THE FORBIDDEN ROOM, a gleeful, hypnotic and totally deranged epic directed by Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson.
An extensive selection of work from across the world is presented including the World Premieres of William English’s HEATED GLOVES and THE HOST, in which director Miranda Pennell delves deeper into her past and her late parents’ involvement with the Anglo Iranian Oil Company (BP); Ben Rivers’ THE SKY TREMBLES AND THE EARTH IS AFRAID AND THE TWO EYES ARE NOT BROTHERS, the feature element of Ben’s current Artangel installation at BBC White City; EVENT FOR A STAGE by Tacita Dean, a filmed presentation of her live theatrical happening in collaboration with actor Stephen Dillane at the 2014 Sydney Biennial; the European Premiere of Omer Fast’s REMAINDER, a London-set thriller adapted from Tom McCarthy’s acclaimed novel of the same name; the European Premiere of INVENTION which highlights the possibilities of camera movement and the development of artistic apparatus and Kevin Jerome Everson’s PARK LANES, set in an American bowling alley over the course of a day.
SHORTS
Films of Love and Devotion explores and attempts to explain the old adage that the course of true love never did run smooth with Rob Savage’s ABSENCE starring Paul McGann as a grieving man and OFFLINE DATING, a documentary about a single man’s search for love without the use of the internet. The Last Man Standing is a Girl programme explores the role of young women in society with GROOVE IS IN THE HEART, a tale of music and memory revealed through a school girl’s mixtape and A GIRL’S DAY from German director Hannah Ziegler. The Family at War shorts attempts to show what families are really like and how we survive them with TAMARA by Sofia Safonova and VIDEO where we see Elaine having trouble balancing life between her teenage daughter and a secret evening job. Funny How? How am I Funny? explores the comedy in cultural misunderstanding with OTHRWISE ENGAGED and black comedy KUNG FURY. The Fight or Flight programme charts the human response to extreme situations and Wild at Heart and Weird on Top presents eleven shorts that explore the history of film. In the Neighborhood is human stories of love, death and life-changing moments and includes Oscar Hudson’s LORD AND LIDL, where God unexpectedly shows up at the supermarket. London Calling is a selection of shorts from some of the capital’s most exciting new filmmakers and is supported by Film London. Sound Mirrors features nine diverse shorts all on a musical theme and Animated Shorts for Younger Audiences bring together a mix of exciting stories from around the world to surprise and delight children and adults alike.
TREASURES
Treasures bring recently restored cinematic riches from archives around the world to the Festival in London. The
previously announced Archive Gala is the World Premiere of the BFI National Archive restoration of A.V. Bramble and Anthony Asquith’s silent film SHOOTING STARS (1928), presented with a new live score by John Altman, BAFTA and Emmy award-winning composer whose work includes Titanic and Goldeneye. Asquith’s feature debut not only announced the arrival of a significant new director, it is an exuberant, joyful pastiche of the movie industry and is a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse and searing comment on the shallowness of the star system. The film restoration and new score is supported by a number of generous individuals, trusts and organizations.
A number of other major restorations will have their World Premieres at the Festival: Carol Reed’s atmospheric Graham Greene adaptation of OUR MAN IN HAVANA (1959), set in Cuba at the start of the Cold War, makes timely viewing as US/Cuba relations thaw; Ken Russell’s reworking of D.H. Lawrence scandalous classic WOMEN IN LOVE (1970) stars Oliver Reed, Alan Bates and Glenda Jackson and shows two couple’s contrasting searches for love, and was restored by the BFI National Archive working alongside cinematographer Billy Williams; A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (1966) is directed by Fred Zinnemann from a script by great British screenwriter, Robert Bolt from Bolt’s play about Sir Thomas More, a perfect companion piece to Wolf Hall; Henry Fonda stars in the ripe-for-discovery WARLOCK (1959), a seething study of vengeance and repressed sexuality in a Utah mining outpost; and Bryan Forbes’ THE RAGING MOON (1971) starring Malcolm McDowell and Nanette Newman in a tender story between two young people in wheelchairs which was ahead of its time in its attempts to change attitudes to disability.
From newsreels to comedy sketches, the 21 films that make up MAKE MORE NOISE! SUFFRAGETTES IN FILM (1934) are a historical accompaniment to our Opening Night film and a fascinating representation of women at the time that the battle for universal suffrage was being fought on the streets.
Martin Scorsese said of Ousmane Sembène’s BLACK GIRL (1966): ‘An astonishing movie – so ferocious, so haunting and so unlike anything we’d ever seen. ’Sembène’s first feature, which tells the tragic story of Diouana, a young Senegalese women eager to find a better life, draws from the Nouvelle Vague, but the film’s heart and soul is definitely African. It is the perfect companion to Samba Gadjigo’s documentary SEMBÈNE!
And for a lighter-hearted but no less majestic cinema experience, George Sidney’s breathlessly delightful KISS ME KATE (1953) brings the Cole Porter penned musical to screen, here in magnificent 3D.
Rock and roll hall-of-famer Leon Russell is the heart of an ineffable, joyous collage of mesmerising live performance and vérité realism in A POEM IS A NAKED PERSON (1974), filmed between 1972-1974 by director Les Blank. Previously unavailable theatrically in the four decades since it was made.
Other highlights include Mira Nair’s Oscar-nominated debut feature SALAAM BOMBAY! (1988); the Holy Grail of silent comedy shorts, a previously-thought-lost Laurel and Hardy THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY (1927), and Luchino Visconti’s fully restored masterpiece ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (1960), starring Alain Delon in a grand emotional opus on imploding fraternal tensions.
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The 2015 Milwaukee Film Festival unveiled its entire film lineup of 303 films (27 more than in 2014) – 118 features and 185 shorts – from 50 different countries. Opening the festival is Youth (pictured above), the most recent work from Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, who earned the 2014 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film with his film The Great Beauty. A beautifully shot drama, Youth follows Fred (Michael Caine), a retired longtime composer and conductor, who brings along his daughter (Rachel Weisz) and his best friend, renowned filmmaker, Mick (Harvey Keitel) who is working on his last screenplay, for a brief sojourn in the Swiss Alps.
Recipient of both the Documentary Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival, the Milwaukee Film Festival Centerpiece film, Peace Officer (pictured above), is one of several highly timely documentaries in this year’s festival. The film follows the personal narrative of former Utah Sheriff William “Dub” Lawrence as he reels from the death of his son-in-law at the hands of Utah’s SWAT Team, a unit Dub himself created. His personal story provides a lens through which larger issues of police militarization and the role of police officers are examined. Both the subject and filmmaking team are scheduled to attend.
Closing the festival is Raiders! (pictured above), a hilarious documentary about Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala, who spent their teenage years creating a shot-by-shot remake of the landmark 1981 Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Scheduled to attend are both director Jeremy Coon and the film’s editor, Milwaukee’s own Barry Poltermann, who also edited the cult favorite American Movie.
2015 MILWAUKEE FILM FESTIVAL
SPOTLIGHT PRESENTATIONS – OPENING NIGHT, CENTERPIECE & CLOSING NIGHT
OPENING NIGHT
Youth
(Italy, France, Switzerland, United Kingdom / 2015 / Director: Paolo Sorrentino)
An early Oscar front-runner, Youth combines an amazing cast (Michael Caine, Rachel Weisz, and Harvey Keitel) and director (Paolo Sorrentino, whose The Great Beauty was the 2014 Foreign Language Oscar winner and 2013 Milwaukee Film Members-Only screening) for a deeply moving meditation on life and love. Filled with exquisite imagery, the film follows Fred (Caine), a retired longtime composer and conductor, who brings along his daughter (Weisz) and best friend, renowned filmmaker, Mick (Keitel) who is working on his last screenplay, for a brief sojourn in the Swiss Alps. As they reflect on their shared past, the men realize some of the most formative experiences can come later in life. Caine and Keitel give two of their finest performances.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T7CM4di_0c
FESTIVAL CENTERPIECE
Peace Officer
(USA / 2015 / Directors: Brad Barber, Scott Christopherson)
Former Utah sheriff William “Dub” Lawrence is as familiar with the militarization of law enforcement as one could possibly be—founder of Utah’s first SWAT team, he presided over numerous drug busts and raids. But in a cruel twist of fate, he bared witness 30 years later to his son-in-law’s controversial death at the hands of the very unit he created. Utterly of the moment, Peace Officer follows Dub’s efforts to uncover the truth behind his tragedy while researching officer-related shootings that happened nearby. This Oscar-worthy exposé that shows the ever-widening gulf between the police and those they’re sworn to protect is appointment viewing in a country where unarmed protesters and innocent civilians are often being seen as threats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I_zlN63LTs
CLOSING NIGHT
Raiders!
(USA / 2015 / Directors: Jeremy Coon, Tim Skousen)
In 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark dropped onto impressionable youngsters like a pulp-fueled megaton bomb, and while every kid wanted to be like Indiana Jones, teenagers Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala were determined to become him. What transpired over the next seven years as they remade Raiders shot for shot was the perfect storm of teen angst, creative determination, and lack of parental oversight as they hung from moving vehicles, recorded their first kisses, and set their mother’s basement on fire. Yet, they were unable to create the classic airplane hangar sequence. Uproariously funny and achingly sweet, Raiders! is the must-be-seen-to-be-believed documentary chronicle of their effort, extended 30 years as the now-grown men try to record that elusive sequence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4UYBhDVm9k
2015 MILWAUKEE FILM FESTIVAL
DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL FAVORITES
The Armor of Light
(USA / 2015 / Director: Abigail E. Disney)
The Armor of Light is the story of one evangelical minister’s realization that his pro-life stance cannot exist in good conscience alongside a pro-gun one. Reverend Rob Schenck makes the bold decision to team with a grieving mother whose unarmed son was killed as a result of “stand your ground” laws and advocate for more strident gun control, despite his congregation’s heavy support of the NRA. These unlikely allies (Schenck is an anti-abortion activist, while the mother is pro-choice) undertake a tumultuous journey in this thoughtful and complex documentary that proves moral lines need not be drawn by party lines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSP0Soy8ACk
Dreamcatcher
(United Kingdom / 2015 / Director: Kim Longinotto)
If anyone can prove capable of getting through to the prostitutes, female prisoners, and at-risk teenagers in Chicago’s inner city, it will be the remarkable real-life heroine Brenda Myers-Powell. Having spent her teenage years in a drug-induced haze and 25 years as a prostitute herself, Myers-Powell knows just how powerful providing support and rehabilitation to these women can prove to be. Dreamcatcher is a critically acclaimed, award-winning, street-level view of this truly inspirational woman and her incredible efforts to break the cycle of physical abuse and poverty. Fans of The Interrupters (MFF2011) shouldn’t miss this!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMPXhevhw0U
Finders Keepers
(USA / 2015 / Directors: Bryan Carberry, Clay Tweel)
Your standard story of boy meets grill, Finders Keepers is equal parts absurd and empathetic, yet always hysterically funny. After winning a smoker at auction only to discover it contained the amputated leg of its former owner, a fame-hungry bargain hunter sees this grisly surprise as an opportunity to earn a little cash—but now the previous owner requests its safe return. A media frenzy erupts around this small-town feud, culminating in a courtroom battle as plaintiff and defendant go out on a limb to argue ownership in this uniquely American portrait of greed, fame, and redemption.
https://vimeo.com/115297331
Havana Motor Club
(USA, Cuba / 2015 / Director: Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt)
The once-vibrant tradition of auto racing in Cuba has been underground for more than 50 years, with Fidel Castro having outlawed the act as an elitist practice in 1959. But national reforms are allowing Cuba’s underground drag racing community to step out of the shadows and, hopefully, compete in the first sanctioned competition in over 50 years. Buoyed by a lively soundtrack, this character-driven documentary follows Cuba’s best racers as they scrap and scrape together the parts to augment their classic American hot rods in the hopes of having the ingenuity to be the first to cross the finish line.
https://vimeo.com/123633476
He Named Me Malala
(USA / 2015 / Director: Davis Guggenheim)
This is an intimate portrait of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was targeted by the Taliban and severely wounded by a gunshot in Pakistan. The then-fifteen-year-old (she just turned eighteen) was singled out for advocating for girls’ education, and the attack on her sparked an outcry from supporters around the world. She miraculously survived and is now a leading campaigner for girls’ education globally as co-founder of the Malala Fund. Acclaimed documentarian Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for ‘Superman’) shows us how Malala, her father, Zia, and her family are committed to fighting for education for all girls worldwide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtROMdwltJE
Hip Hop-eration
(New Zealand / 2014 / Director: Bryn Evans)
In New Zealand, a group of elderly Kiwis (ages ranging from 68 to 95) are putting their best dancing feet forward with one goal in mind: competing in Las Vegas at a worldwide hip-hop dance competition. Branded The Hip Op-eration, these spirited dancers are aiming to prove that, at their age, popping and locking isn’t just confined to their joints. This is an inspirational, wildly funny, and altogether refreshing look at a brave group of people determined to prove the adage that age is just a number as they bump and grind their way into your heart.
https://vimeo.com/101680486
How to Dance in Ohio
(USA / 2015 / Director: Alexandra Shiva)
First kisses and school dances are considered traditional points of transition for American teenagers, but for those on the autism spectrum, these intimate rites of passage can prove terrifying exercises in social anxiety. Into this hormonal minefield steps a group of courageous kids from Columbus, OH, who, despite an array of developmental challenges, set out to have their own spring formal. A coming-of-age journey proving the miracle of human connection, How to Dance in Ohio is surprisingly funny and, at other times, heartbreaking as it takes us into the group therapy sessions and private lives of some remarkable young people.
Landfill Harmonic
(USA, Paraguay, Brazil / 2015 / Directors: Brad Allgood, Graham Townsley)
Taking the notion that one person’s trash is another’s treasure beyond one’s wildest imagination, members of Paraguay’s Recycled Orchestra of Cateura have forged all of their musical instruments out of repurposed goods from the massive landfill that looms over their neighborhood. Armed with a beautiful mission statement (“The world sends us garbage, we send back music”) and newfound fame after their performance footage goes viral, the orchestra takes to the world stage, performing sold-out shows and spreading their joyful idealism. But when natural disaster strikes back home, the orchestra must band together and provide a message of hope to their beleaguered town in this inspirational portrait of perseverance.
https://vimeo.com/122542602
The Look of Silence
(Denmark, Finland, Indonesia, Norway, United Kingdom / 2014 / Director: Joshua Oppenheimer)
A critically acclaimed companion piece to the breathtaking look into the heart of darkness that was The Act of Killing (the sensation of MFF2013), The Look of Silence approaches the 1960s Indonesian genocide not from the perspective of its perpetrators but the survivors. It is an unflinching glimpse into forgiveness and denial, every bit the equal of its Oscar-nominated predecessor. Refusing to raise his children in a society cowed into silence, a young man returns to the scene of these atrocities to confront what murderers remain and make them look at the past—a dangerous proposition when they remain in power.
https://vimeo.com/127067516
Mala Mala
(USA, Puerto Rico / 2014 / Directors: Antonio Santini, Dan Sickles)
A beautifully shot exaltation of Puerto Rico’s transgender community, Mala Mala is an exuberant look into gender identity in an evolving era. We follow drag queens (not least of which is April Carrión from RuPaul’s Drag Race), prostitutes, business owners, and others as they find themselves on the simultaneous frontlines of self-discovery and political activism and as they fight for equal treatment and acceptance from society. A candy-colored celebration that takes the time to sensitively and intimately explore the dark personal experiences that have shaped these trans folk, this is a timely portrait of a community on the rise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3Gn_b38B6Q
My Love, Don’t Cross That River
(South Korea / 2014 / Director: Moyoung Jin)
In what may be the most romantic documentary ever made (and the most successful Korean indie film of all time), we stay in a South Korean mountain village with 89-year-old Gyeyeul Kang and her husband, 98-year-old Byongman Jo, married for 76 years. We follow them over the course of a year, watching their intimate day-to-day routine (he picks flowers for her, she warms him by the hearth, they fall asleep with hands clasped tightly each night). But not even love can slow the passage of time, and this couple known locally as “100-year-old lovebirds” realizes their time together may be winding to a close.
https://vimeo.com/109219991
Paper Tigers
(USA / 2015 / Director: James Redford)
An attempt to heal a broken system, Paper Tigers documents one rural community’s effort to do right by some of its at-risk youth. Walla Walla, Washington’s Lincoln Alternative High School is set at the epicenter of the community’s problems, right at the intersection of drug abuse, gang activity, and violence. When the school principal learns new information about the effects of childhood trauma on developing brains, he implements a new strategy to help the students heal. Following six students (armed with personal diary cams) throughout the year, we see the value of an educational system based in love, understanding, and healing.
https://vimeo.com/110821029
Radical Grace
(USA / 2015 / Directors: Rebecca Parrish)
Following three fearless nuns who champion social justice and the equal treatment of women in the Catholic church at the risk of their placement in it, Radical Grace places us at the center of this struggle for the future of the church. When their platform of support for social and economic reform, the Affordable Care Act, and reintegration of ex-cons into society puts them directly in the crosshairs of the Vatican, these remarkable women refuse to back down—challenging the patriarchal system that values rules over people and winning over new converts (and a new pope) along the way.
https://www.youtu.be/cFyLKlpVvYk
Romeo is Bleeding
(USA / 2015 / Director: Jason Zeldes)
With gang warfare threatening to envelop the communities of Central and North Richmond, California, and his RAW Talent program being threatened with budget cuts, poet/mentor/creative director Donte Clark (himself mentored by educator Molly Raynor) channels all of the fears, anger, and unease he’s feeling into an explosive adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. An inspirational look at the power of art to imitate as well as transform lives and communities, Romeo is Bleeding is the story of a city on fire and how a group of young spoken-word artists band together to forge a new pathway beyond cyclical and senseless violence.
https://vimeo.com/124903175
Sex(Ed): The Movie
(USA / 2014 / Director: Brenda Goodman)
A hilarious history of a severely sticky subject, Sex(Ed): The Movie charts the evolution of sex education videos in our classrooms, with guides ranging from Donald Duck to Marcia Brady and videos ranging from embarrassing to… well, more embarrassing. The film documents an ever-changing landscape of shifting moral, cultural, and political values over 100 years of intimate advice regarding copulating, be it the permissive swinging ’70s or the rigid abstinence-only campaigns of the ’80s, as part of our culture’s never-ending tradition of mortifying young kids in an effort to make sure they’re informed. This is an essential look at our history of sex (mis-)education.
https://www.youtu.be/qZKksumq8qA
T-Rex
(USA / 2015 / Directors: Zackary Canepari, Drea Cooper)
Meet the fiercest teenager in America: boxing phenom Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, on the hunt for Olympic gold in 2012 (the first year women’s boxing was included in the Summer Games). Determined to bring her family with her out of their challenging circumstances (her hometown is the economically depressed Flint, MI), Shields is the center of this crowd-pleasing story of female empowerment in the very non-feminine context of Olympic-level boxing. T-Rex is a stirring underdog story tracking one superlative athlete’s dream and her steadfast determination to achieve it even in the face of insurmountable odds. Meet a new kind of American heroine.
https://vimeo.com/45863496
TransFatty Lives
(USA / 2015 / Director: Patrick O’Brien)
Patrick O’Brien, aka charismatic Internet sensation TransFatty, spent his days partying and making bizarre art films. But a sudden diagnosis of ALS left him with a stark timeline: two to five years to live. Instead of accepting his fate, O’Brien pushed forward, finding love and embracing fatherhood even as physical faculties failed him one by one (10 years later, he communicated his editing instructions on this film through movement of his pupils). An unabashed self-portrait of a man’s spirit growing as his body wilts, this Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award-winning documentary is a life-affirming look at one man’s incredible will to live.
https://vimeo.com/123999591
Unbranded
(USA / 2015 / Director: Phillip Baribeau)
Four men look to herd sixteen horses over 3,000 miles of the American West’s toughest terrain of public lands (from Mexico to Canada) in the documentary adventure of a lifetime that is as exciting as the most action-packed Western. Out to prove the worth of their adopted mustangs and follow in the footsteps of the frontiersmen who preceded them, these best friends travel across exquisite landscapes and incur amazing peril on their journey across a vanishing frontier encroached upon by development and tourism. Unbranded is a throwback in every regard, a stirring celebration of those who run wild and free.
https://vimeo.com/118964179
We Come as Friends
(France, Austria / 2014 / Director: Hubert Sauper)
The director of the Oscar-nominated Darwin’s Nightmare takes us on this modern odyssey, a dizzying, science fiction-like journey into the heart of Africa. At the moment when the Sudan, the continent’s biggest country, is being divided into two nations, an old “civilizing” pathology re-emerges— that of colonialism, clash of empires, and new episodes of bloody (and holy) wars over land and resources. Chinese oil workers, U.N. peacekeepers, Sudanese warlords, and American evangelists ironically weave common ground in this documentary voyage made possible by the director’s tiny, self-made flying machine built from tin and canvas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0MgQLk2OCQ
Welcome to Leith
(USA / 2015 / Directors: Michael Beach Nichols, Christopher K. Walker)
The North Dakota town of Leith (population: 24) sees its community grow by one with the arrival of notorious white supremacist Craig Cobb, who begins buying up plots of land with the goal of taking over the local government and making the town a white nationalist stronghold. Tensions rise as free speech is put to the test by this attempted takeover, with the citizens of Leith scrambling to make sure their unwanted neighbor doesn’t fulfill his chilling vision. An unsettling look at extremist views that still persist, Welcome to Leith is documentary as thriller, a pulse-pounding portrait of our melting pot brought to its boiling point.
https://vimeo.com/85668727
2015 MILWAUKEE FILM FESTIVAL WORLDVIEWS
Amour Fou
(Austria, Luxembourg, Germany / 2014 / Director: Jessica Hausner)
Berlin, the Romantic Era. Poet Heinrich von Kleist is desperately searching for someone to enter into a pact with—one both of love and of death. But his desire to enter into such a suicide pact remains unrequited until he meets the enchanting Henriette, a woman whose terminal illness makes for a perfect match in this dark romantic comedy. Impeccably lensed and exquisitely designed, Amour Fou is an artfully crafted and wholly unusual examination of love and death, a remarkable recreation of this real-life figure’s final days and a morbidly beautiful tragicomedy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLsFy343V8g
Behavior (Conducta)
(Cuba / 2014 / Director: Ernesto Daranas)
A spirited septuagenarian teacher stands in defiance of an education system overrun by bureaucracy that threatens to sweep a troubled young student under the rug in this daring Cuban drama. The only hope macho eleven-year-old Chala has of overcoming his poverty-stricken upbringing (he trains fighting dogs to make money for his drug-addict mother) is through school and his sixth-grade teacher, Carmela, who has earned his begrudging respect and tentative friendship. But when misunderstood Chala is sent to reeducation school, Carmela must fight to preserve his future in this crowd-pleasing festival hit.
https://www.youtu.be/0_UyFZOeh3c
The Club
(Chile / 2015 / Director: Pablo Larraín)
Oscar-nominated director Pablo Larraín’s (Tony Manero, Post Mortem, No) latest is a searing chamber drama that sets its sights not on oppression, but suppression—four exiled priests are living out their lives in anonymity (mostly training and betting on a racing greyhound) in a small seaside town until the arrival of a fifth triggers an unraveling of their quiet existence, forcing them to come to terms with their sins. A Chilean film that handles its ultra-serious material with precise, darkly comic execution, The Club fills the increasingly claustrophobic setting with grimy atmosphere, a provocative allegory that won’t soon leave your thoughts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8c2DYoF7lA
Court
(India / 2014 / Director: Chaitanya Tamhane)
A naturalistic courtroom drama that has racked up awards at nearly every festival it has played, Court is a fiercely intelligent look at India’s broken judiciary system and the bureaucracy that perpetuates it. Narayan Kamble is a traveling troubadour who takes his socially activist folk songs around working-class communities in an effort to wake them to the wholesale inequality of their day-to-day lives, only to be brought to trial on trumped-up charges accusing him of inspiring a menial worker to commit suicide, setting the stage for class politics writ large.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0I6jtTXVco
Dearest (Qin ai de)
(China, Hong Kong / 2014 / Director: Peter Ho-Sun Chan)
Acclaimed Hong Kong director Peter Ho-Sun Chan (Perhaps Love) brings us this complex, suspense-filled melodrama of child abduction in China. Wen Jun, the proprietor of an Internet café in the huge southern city of Shenzhen, and his ex-wife, Xiaojuan, are bitterly divorced, busy parents. One day, kidnappers snatch their young son as he plays in the streets with his friends, leaving the parents distraught. With extraordinary commitment, they set out to find their lost son. Based on a child abduction that happened in Shenzhen in 2009, Dearest expertly dramatizes China’s high rate of child kidnapping.
https://vimeo.com/104221333
Difret
(Ethiopia / 2014 / Director: Zeresenay Berhane Mehari)
In rural Ethiopia, it is not out of the ordinary for young women to be subjected to marriage abduction—a process by which their kidnappers become their husbands. Fourteen-year-old Hirut takes matters into her own hands, however, escaping her captors and shooting her would-be suitor dead. This would normally be a death sentence for a woman, but news of her brave actions reaches a fiercely independent female lawyer who aims to argue self-defense. Presented by Angelina Jolie, this riveting drama that won the audience award at Sundance and Berlin is a powerful reminder that gender equality is sometimes still a life-and-death struggle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO5dXzTU_cY
Excuse My French (Lamoakhzaa)
(Egypt / 2014 / Director: Amr Salama)
Precocious youngster Hany’s upper-class existence is thrown into disarray when his father drops dead at dinner. With his mother no longer able to afford his private Christian school, Hany is thrown into the culture shock of public school, where he’s mistaken for Muslim and does nothing to dissuade his classmates, seeing it as an opportunity to fit in. A hilarious coming-of-age comedy that tackles social discrimination and satirizes the Egyptian education system, it’s no wonder the script for Excuse My French was held up by Egyptian censors for four years. Luckily for us, this warmly comic film now sees the light of day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH2xmxE8FUg
The Farewell Party (Mita tova)
(Israel, Germany / 2014 / Directors: Tal Granit, Sharon Maymon)
A group of friends at a Jerusalem retirement home bands together to help their terminally ill friend end life on his own terms in this provocative dramedy that has proved a hit on the festival circuit. When the self-euthanizing device created by Ezekiel and his pensioner cohorts is used successfully, word leaks out among their peers, embroiling them in an ethical morass that only becomes greater when one in their own ranks seeks out its use. Witty and affecting, affording its elderly characters agency we rarely see in mainstream cinema, The Farewell Party tackles its controversial subject matter with good humor and poignancy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU26gsCHtfc
Güeros
(Mexico / 2014 / Director: Alonso Ruizpalacios)
An ill-timed water balloon deployment finds Tomas sent away to stay with his older brother Federico in Mexico City, with only a battered tape player and lone cassette. Upon arrival, Tomas is introduced to Fede’s derelict lifestyle alongside roommate Santos. This includes siphoning electricity from their downstairs neighbor to pass the time when school is halted by a student strike. When Tomas learns of his rock idol’s precarious health and physical proximity, it sends the trio on a whirlwind journey through the city in the hopes of meeting him. This is a delightful lark, riffing on the French New Wave movement and filled with sumptuous black-and-white photography.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm49CH4qtSg
A Hard Day (Kkeut-kka-ji-gan-da)
(South Korea / 2014 / Director: Kim Seong-Hun)
A thrilling “master class in throat-squeezing, stomach-knotting suspense” (Hollywood Reporter) that nonetheless takes the time to craft exquisite set pieces of macabre comedy, A Hard Day follows harried detective Ko’s titular day that begins with his mother’s funeral and only gets worse from there. A hit-and-run accident coupled with an Internal Affairs investigation into his corrupt department’s criminal activity tighten the vise grip on Ko’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day in this breathlessly paced and expertly edited film. Trust us when we say you’ll want to experience the wild twists of A Hard Day while shrieking and laughing alongside an audience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMHH08BRAOg
The Kindergarten Teacher (Haganenet)
(Israel, France / 2014 / Director: Nadav Lapid)
From festival alum Nadav Lapid (Policeman, MFF2012) comes this unsettling portrait of fascination curdled into obsession, as we follow a woman determined to nurture her five-year-old student’s artistic talent no matter the personal cost. Nira, the titular teacher, is stunned by her student’s poetry and wishes to cultivate his rare gift. But as her lessons begin to cross personal and professional boundaries, her determination to value beauty and poetry in a society that ignores it threatens to unravel her life in this bizarre and engrossing drama from one of the stalwarts of the new wave of Israeli cinema.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjEsKb2slZY
Margarita, with a Straw
(India / 2014 / Directors: Shonali Bose, Nilesh Maniyar)
Laila (an astonishing turn from French-Indian actress Kalki Koechlin) is a spirited university student, undeterred by her cerebral palsy from having the traditional college experience, romance and all. A transfer from Delhi University to NYU, she finds herself in an entirely new world in more ways than one. A relationship is struck with a fiery female activist on campus, one that allows for an awakening both creatively and sexually. An inspirational love story tackling subject matter rarely explored with lightheartedness, director Shonali Bose’s Toronto International Film Festival award-winning drama is joyous cinema that is bound to win your heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDh7n6bte-c
One for the Road (En el último trago)
(Mexico / 2014 / Director: Jack Zagha Kababie)
Three octogenarian friends embark on a road trip to fulfill their friend’s final wish in this heartfelt Spanish comedy. He wishes for his prized possession—a napkin with a draft of a song by legendary Ranchera singer José Alfredo Jiménez—to be bequeathed to Jiménez’s official museum. The trio embarks on a journey in defiance of loved ones and fears for their safety, engaging in a series of comic adventures that remind them that their golden years need not be spent solely reflecting on past memories. They can, in fact, be an opportunity to create entirely new ones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0nH7_iL6tA
Run Boy Run (Lauf junge lauf)
(Germany, France / 2014 / Director: Pepe Danquart)
The remarkable true story of a Polish boy’s solitary struggle to outlast the Nazi occupation is given the epic treatment it deserves in Run Boy Run. Young Srulik (stirringly portrayed by twin brothers Andrzej and Kamil Tkacz) escapes the Warsaw ghetto into the woods, where he learns to evade capture and subsist on scraps. But a harsh winter forces him into civilization, where he must rely on the kindness of strangers and overcome betrayal if he intends to survive. Based on a best-selling book and brought to vivid life by Oscar-winning director Pepe Danquart, this Holocaust drama has won festival awards worldwide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njjdP3gZ_pk
The Second Mother (Que Horas Ela Volta?)
(Brazil / 2015 / Director: Anna Muylaert)
A contemporary take on the upstairs-downstairs melodrama, The Second Mother is a warmly humorous character study of a live-in housekeeper in Sao Paulo and the estranged daughter who comes to stay with her and the family she tends to. While working-class heroine Val is proud of the work she does for her employer, her daughter Jessica (in town to enroll in university) is less than impressed, upsetting the household status quo and throwing into question hierarchies and social structures long since established. Val is led to question where her loyalty resides—with her proxy family or with her own flesh and blood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOrbWcObwR4
Theeb
(United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, United Kingdom / 2014 / Director: Naji Abu Nowar)
It is 1916, in a remote province of the Ottoman Empire, with dangers encroaching from all sides (the First World War and the Great Arab Revolt, to name two). Young Bedouin Theeb undertakes a crash course in survival when he stows away on his brother Hussein’s journey of escorting a British soldier through dangerous desert terrain to a distant wellspring in this modern classic adventure film. Shot on many of the same locations as the David Lean masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia, Theeb doesn’t wilt under such comparisons. This is a rousing adventure/coming-of-age story that provides epic drama without losing sight of its human focus.
https://vimeo.com/137044587
Viktoria
(Romania, Bulgaria / 2014 / Director: Maya Vitkova)
A woman’s desire to escape the throes of Communist Bulgaria is thwarted by the birth of her daughter, Viktoria, who, despite being born without a belly button, is declared the “Socialist Bulgaria Baby of the Decade,” becoming an immediate cause célèbre of the apparatchiki. We follow them through this darkly comic absurdist epic, as both familial and political terrain shift under their feet with the collapse of the Communist regime, possibly allowing for mother and daughter to reconcile. Maya Vitkova’s directorial debut is a surrealist, visually driven marvel stacked with indelible imagery and a perfectly calibrated sense of the absurd.
https://vimeo.com/124553076
Villa Touma
(Palestine / 2014 / Director: Suha Arraf)
A Palestinian household trapped in amber is awoken by the arrival of an orphaned niece in this family drama, from the co-writer of Lemon Tree (MFF2009) and The Syrian Bride. Teenaged Badia is made to live with her three aunts, women whose fashion and behavior are relics of the past, and their plans to make her a proper lady and marry her off prove disastrous. Villa Touma comes to our festival as a “stateless picture,” a Palestinian story funded by Israel and disowned by both—an example of life imitating art in the case of a movie steeped in Arab-Israeli conflict.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMg-SWePBgw
The Wonders (Le meraviglie)
(Italy, Switzerland, Germany / 2014 / Director: Alice Rohrwacher)
An evocative coming-of-age tale set on the fringes of society, The Wonders (winner of the Cannes Grand Prize) is a Fellini-esque portrait of the magical thinking of adolescence. Young Gelsomina is being groomed to take over her father’s simple beekeeping and honey production business (in addition to caring for her younger sisters), with little consideration given to her feelings on the matter. An incursion from a garish and surreal reality TV show competition in search of Italy’s “Most Traditional Family” (hosted by a wonderful Monica Bellucci) only serves to exacerbate the push and pull between their simple life and fast-encroaching modernity.
https://vimeo.com/119395803
Zouzou
(France / 2014 / Director: Blandine Lenoir)
Family matriarch Solange welcomes her three adult daughters home for a weekend of revelry and catching up (and also maybe introducing the kids to her stodgy new beau). This de facto family reunion turns into a manhunt when 14-year-old granddaughter Zouzou skips out after being caught in flagrante delicto with her young love. An unapologetic examination of female desire, this bawdy French comedy tackles head-on the friction of family tradition colliding with modernity, as this family learns a little too much about one another’s love lives while also enacting compromise, forgiveness, and acceptance over the course of one crazy night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWH8In39wvk
German-Austrian actor Christoph Waltz (pictured above in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS) will preside over the jury for Filmmaker Award at the 2015 Zurich Film Festival. Waltz will also hold a keynote conversation at the Zurich Summit, and strut the Green Carpet for press and public before presenting the screening of Quentin Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS at the corso cinema. The four finalists competing for the Filmmaker Award are: EUROPE, SHE LOVES; GOLIATH; UND MORGEN SEID IHR TOT; and WAFFENLÄUFER.
The Four Nominees and Their Projects
EUROPE, SHE LOVES
Producer: Lisa Blatter (2:1 Film GmbH), Andreas Hörl (lüthje schneider hörl | FILM) Director: Jan Gassmann
Director Jan Gassmann and his small team travelled 20,000 kilometres in a bus to film portraits of couples in Seville, Dublin, Tallinn, Zagreb and Thessaloniki. The result is a semi-fictional political documentary about Europe during the economic crisis, and portrays the daily struggle for survival of five couples who use their reserves of wit and love. The storyline of the film, which is now in post-production, moves cleverly between fiction and documentary. The intimate camerawork and the bleak atmosphere are striking.
GOLIATH
Producers: Dario Schoch, Rajko Jazbec (Cognito Films)
Director: Dominik Locher
Goliath tells the tale of the young David, who is mugged while on the way home with his pregnant girlfriend. This leaves him feeling like a weakling. Rendered insecure in his role as a man and father-to-be, he pumps himself full of anabolic steroids – only to turn into a threat to his family, who he had actually wanted to impress and protect. Goliath began shooting in July 2015, and is directed by Dominik Locher, who trained at Zurich University of the Arts and the American Film Institute and is considered to be one of Switzerland’s most promising directors.
UND MORGEN SEID IHR TOT (TOMORROW YOU’LL BE DEAD)
Producer: Bernhard Burgener, Norbert Preuss (Kontraproduktion AG)
Director: Michael Steiner
This film tells the true story of Daniela Widmer and David Och, two Swiss citizens kidnapped by the Taliban in July 2011 while on a trip along Pakistan’s historic Silk Road. After eight months in captivity they managed to make their escape. According to the gripping script, the film will tackle the difficult time after their return to Switzerland and examine the events that took place in Pakistan. Shooting is planned to start in India in February 2016. The film will be directed by well-known Swiss director Michael Steiner (Grounding, Mein Name ist Eugen).
WAFFENLÄUFER (THE GUN RUNNER)
Producers: Stefan Eichenberger, Ivan Madeo (CONTRAST FILM)
Director: Hannes Baumgartner
Zurich-based director and winner of the Zurich Film Award Hannes Baumgartner chose a controversial topic for his first movie: his story of Jonas Fischer is based on the real-life tragedy of a famous Swiss long-distance runner. At the peak of his sporting career, it is revealed that he has been living an ill-fated double life and is in fact wanted across Switzerland for over two-dozen attacks on women, who he robbed, injured or murdered. The Waffenläufer project is currently in the financing stage.
The 
The perfect program for people who only watch the Super Bowl for the commercials, the British Arrows Awards are a celebration of the very best in British advertising, a potent combination of daffy humor and high-tech invention. From Marmite jar rescue operations to moon-walking ponies, these are an eclectic mix of riveting mini-dramas, outrageous wit, and awe-inspiring innovation, even making room for a celebrity cameo or two (hello, Jason Sudeikis).
The Great Alone
(USA / 2015 / Director: Greg Kohs)
The Iditarod is a treacherous 1,200-mile sled dog race on Alaska’s icescapes—few complete the punishing endurance test, let alone win. Into this great alone steps Lance Mackey, a man with racing in his blood (his mother was mushing with him still in the womb, his father the 1978 champion), who is determined to equal his parents’ accomplishments with his ragtag crew of beloved rescue dogs. After a bout with throat cancer threatens to permanently sideline Lance’s aspirations, he begins his inspiring comeback—archival footage deftly blends with astonishing race footage to capture the ultimate underdog story in this inspiring documentary.
https://vimeo.com/112869322
I Can Quit Whenever I Want (Smetto quando voglio)
(Italy / 2014 / Director: Sydney Sibilia)
A group of out-of-work academics break bad and decide to join the drug trade in this hilarious cross of Ocean’s Eleven and Breaking Bad. Out-of-work professor Pietro, alongside his team of fellow underemployed academics, develops a marvelous new narcotic concoction that is able to circumvent Italian law by using substances not yet banned. This smash commercial hit and critical success back home in Italy follows Pietro and his friends as they soon find themselves in over their head and being pursued by parties on either side of the law in a whip-smart slice of social satire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6rIaWl3EBw
Most Likely to Succeed
(USA / 2015 / Director: Greg Whiteley)
This forward-facing documentary inspires reform to an antiquated education system that is leaving nearly half of our college graduates unable to find employment. Most Likely to Succeed points toward a future of innovation and revitalizes teachers and students alike. Our education system was perfectly designed to prepare workers for jobs that no longer exist, and as we try to out-drill and out-test Korea, we leave millions of young adults ill-prepared, uninspired, and lacking the skills they need in our modern era. After seeing these unorthodox trailblazers at the forefront of project-based learning, you’ll be itching to enroll yourselves!
https://vimeo.com/122502930
Safety Last!
(USA / 1923 / Directors: Fred Newmeyer, Sam Taylor)
Live music accompaniment is an annual must-see at our festival, and for 2015, we are featuring America’s largest theater organ—over 3,000 pipes— the Oriental’s own Kimball organ! Acclaimed accompanist Scott Foppiano will play along on the organ, complete with sound effects, for two unquestioned classics of silent comedy: Buster Keaton’s story of a botanist who is confused with an electrician, The Electric House, followed by the Harold Lloyd feature Safety Last!, a laugh-out-loud funny and jaw-dropping film following a small-town bumpkin who is trying to make it in the big city.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhNtSU8ubf0
Uncle John
(USA / 2015 / Director: Steven Piet)
Nobody would expect beloved Wisconsin farmer John (a phenomenal performance from veteran character actor John Ashton) to be party to the sudden disappearance of born-again, reformed-bully Dutch. And John would prefer it stay that way, but Dutch’s brother is asking a lot of uncomfortable questions. Meanwhile, in Chicago, John’s nephew engages in a tentative courtship of his boss, eventually embarking on a road trip to show her the family farm. Filmed largely in Prairie du Sac and Lodi, WI, Uncle John builds tension with every scene, a pitch-perfect thriller that careens toward an expectation-confounding finale.
https://vimeo.com/123664217
The 
South Korean director Soon-Mi Yoo’s award-winning documentary SONGS FROM THE NORTH about North Korea 
The 5th Annual Montclair Film Festival taking place April 29 to May 8th, 2016 announced the opening of its annual film submission process.
With three competitive categories in fiction, documentary, and low-budget independent filmmaking, as well as programs in six non-competitive categories including fiction, documentary, world cinema, short films, New Jersey films, and student filmmaking, the Montclair Film Festival is seeking diverse films that represent a wide-range of stories, styles, and experiences.
The MFF’s 2015 attendees included Jonathan Alter, Stephen Colbert, Barry Crimmins, Jonathan Demme, Abigail Disney, Elise DuRant, Jessica Edwards, Richard Gere, Bobcat Goldthwait, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Sam Green and Yo La Tengo, Barbara Kopple, Oren Moverman, Stanley Nelson, Michael Showalter, Nathan Silver, Mavis Staples, James Strouse, Patrick Wilson, Alex Winter, and many more.
The 2016 Montclair Film Festival early bird deadline is November 20th, 2015, the regular deadline is December 14th, 2015, the late deadline is January 8th, 2016 and the extended deadline is January 15th, 2016.
“We are excited to begin our annual programming process,” said Montclair Film Festival Executive Director Tom Hall. “As the Montclair Film Festival continues to grow, we remain dedicated to our mission of introducing our audiences, press, and industry guests to the work of great filmmakers from around the world.”
Interested filmmakers may visit the 
Mad Max: Fury Road directed by George Miller, has been voted best film by the International Federation of Film Critics, FIPRESCI. The vote for the FIPRESCI Gran Prix 2015 saw the participation of 493 Federation members around the world, who made their choice from among films to have premiered after 1 July 2014. The four finalists included Saul Fia / Son of Saul, Nie yinniang/ The Assassin, Taxi Téhéran and Mad Max: Fury Road.
Mad Max: Fury Road was screened in the Official Selection out of competition at the last Cannes Festival. This is the first time that a film by George Miller has won the FIPRESCI Grand Prix, presented since its creation in 1999 to Richard Linklater, Michael Haneke, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jafar Panahi, Pedro Almodóvar, Jean-Luc Godard and Nuri Bilge Ceylan, among others.
Director George Miller (pictured above) says: “You could have knocked me over with a feather! It’s lovely to have this great cohort of critics acknowledge our collective labours in this way”
Mad Max: Fury Road will have a special screening on 
Hotel Transylvania 2, the new film from Sony Pictures Animation, directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, will be screened at the upcoming 2015 San Sebastian Festival, as part of the Velodrome Section.
Hotel Transylvania 2 will open in cinemas throughout Spain on October 23 and in the US on September 25.
The 7th Annual Milwaukee Film Festival’s lineup for the Competition Program will feature eight feature films including three documentary and five fiction. Highlights of this year’s program include The Russian Woodpecker, winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s 2015 World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for Documentary. The debut film for writer, producer and director Chad Gracia, it follows Ukrainian Fedor Alexandrovich as he investigates the political and personal history surrounding his survival of Ukraine’s 1986 Chernobyl disaster. A native of South Milwaukee, Gracia is scheduled to attend the festival.
Other Competition films include the documentary Uncertain, winner of the Best New Documentary Director award at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, and the fiction feature Embrace of the Serpent (El abrazo de la serpiente), winner of the Art Cinema Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015.
Also of note is director Malik Vitthal’s film Imperial Dreams, which teeters between the Milwaukee Film Festival’s Competition and Black Lens programs, opened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014 where it received the Best of NEXT Audience Award. The film has gone on to screen at numerous other festivals and has garnered additional awards, including the Audience Award at the Mill Valley Film Festival and the New Orleans Film Festival. Following Bambi (Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens actor John Boyega) as he is released from prison and returns to Watts, this fiction film tells the story of a man determined to earn a living and provide for his young son. Vitthal is scheduled to attend the festival.
2015 MILWAUKEE FILM FESTIVAL COMPETITION PROGRAM
Cartel Land
(USA, Mexico / 2015 / Director: Matthew Heineman)
A gut-churning documentary following the drug war from both sides of the border, Cartel Land gives unprecedented access to the frightening cycle of violence enacted by the powerful drug cartels and the brave citizens fighting against it. South of the border, a small-town physician and his Autodefensas vigilante group wage war against the Knights Templar cartel, while in the 52-mile stretch of Arizona desert known as Cocaine Alley, the paramilitary group Arizona Border Recon tries to stop the drug war from crossing over. This is a sobering, visceral experience (it was executive produced by The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow) you won’t believe was caught on film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JD7hPM_yxg
Embrace of the Serpent (El abrazo de la serpiente)
(Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina / 2015 / Director: Ciro Guerra)
An epic adventure story filled with breathtaking landscapes and pristine black-and-white cinematography, Embrace of the Serpent is the wildly original story of one shaman and the two momentous journeys he made upriver three decades apart. Tackling colonialism from the indigenous point of view, the film follows these two journeys as the shaman, the lone survivor of his tribe, travels with two explorers in search of a mystical flower with healing powers. We follow each fraught journey through a jungle landscape slowly being eroded by encroaching modernity, with echoes of Fitzcarraldo and Apocalypse Now as they burrow ever deeper into the heart of darkness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ff7TcnqHUc
Imperial Dreams
(USA / 2014 / Director: Malik Vitthal)
A redemption tale anchored by an amazing lead performance from John Boyega (star of the upcoming Star Wars film), Imperial Dreams is a family drama with an astonishingly realized father-son relationship at its core. Bambi (Boyega) is coming home to Watts; recently released from prison, he has designs on earning a living as a writer (having been published while incarcerated) to provide for his young son, Day. But he quickly realizes the deck is stacked against him and it’s going to take everything he has to achieve his dreams in this stunning, multiple award-winning drama.
Krisha
(USA / 2015 / Director: Trey Edward Shults)
A feature-length expansion of the short that played at last year’s MFF, Krisha is an explosive psychological exploration of family dynamics on the cutting edge of American independent cinema. A recovering alcoholic and black sheep of the family, 60-something Krisha returns to family over the Thanksgiving holiday, reuniting for the first time in over a decade. But as the night progresses, her confidence in her own rehabilitation begins to wane and her precarious emotional state begins to unravel. It is an extraordinary feature debut with a dizzying lead performance reminiscent of Gena Rowlands in the Cassavetes classic A Woman Under the Influence.
No One’s Child (Nicije dete)
(Serbia, Croatia / 2014 / Director: Vuk Ršumović)
Playing “like a bleakly beautiful fairy tale by the brothers Grimm” (International Federation of Film Critics), this film takes us deep into the mountains of Bosnia, where we’re introduced to a feral child living among the wolves. Upon his discovery in 1988, he is sent to a Belgrade orphanage. There, he struggles to relate to his peers until a friendship allows him to embrace humanity, only for the Balkan War to put pressure on his caretakers to return him to his homeland. Based on a remarkable true story, this gripping exploration of human nature is a compassionate look at personal and national identity.
https://vimeo.com/108777880
The Russian Woodpecker
(USA, Ukraine / 2015 / Director: Chad Gracia)
Eccentric Ukrainian Fedor Alexandrovich, endearing performance artist and childhood survivor of the Chernobyl disaster, has always suspected the truth behind the incident that left him irradiated was being kept from him. When a dark secret reveals a web of deceit extending into the roots of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party, he must decide if revealing this truth is worth the great personal risk it poses, with tensions between Russia and Ukraine once again at their breaking point. Cultural history, personal portrait, and conspiracy thriller combine in this thrilling and humorous documentary that captures history repeating itself before our very eyes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rd4ARsbg_0
Uncertain
(USA / 2015 / Directors: Ewan McNicol, Anna Sandilands)
Hauntingly evocative, Uncertain is a Southern gothic capturing life in the titular and tiniest of American towns (“You’d have to be lost in order to find it,” the local sheriff explains), a place so exotic it beggars belief. We follow three wayward souls looking to start over (Uncertain, TX exerts a magnetic pull over those fleeing their past) in a documentary told with a distinct lack of condescension. While Uncertain, TX may be on the brink of disappearing altogether (a natural weed is slowly choking off its water source), you’re sure to never forget it after viewing this astoundingly beautiful documentary debut.
https://vimeo.com/124721333
Violet
(Belgium, Netherlands / 2014 / Director: Bas Devos)
A senseless act of violence leaves 15-year-old Jesse bereft of his best friend and adrift in a sea of grief in this impressionistic debut feature. This is a uniquely cinematic experience, bending the audience’s perception to that of its grief-stricken protagonist (portions were shot on 65mm, immersing you in his world) as family and friends all struggle to cope with their loss. Culminating in a bravura eight-minute final shot, Violet is hard to watch yet ultimately rewarding—image, editing, and sound design working in perfect concert to bring to life the vivid sense of dislocation left in the wake of random violence.
https://vimeo.com/85068938