This page is dedicated to films we have already screened this year. In case you missed them, please visit the links provided to learn how you may obtain a personal copy.
Tuesday SEPTEMBER 25, 2012 – 7:00 PM
Nothing More (NADA +)
A film by Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti
Cuba, 2001 (90 minutes)
Red tape muddles up the lives of people worldwide, but in Cuba it may reach more ludicrous extremes than in many
other countries. Nothing More, Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti’s first feature film, takes a comical look at Cuban bureaucracy, presenting us with a story of the fictional shenanigans that go on in a Havana post office.
Carla (Thaïs Valdés) is a bored young postal clerk who dreams of leaving the country to join her parents in Miami. In the meantime, she steals and rewrites letters in order to brighten the lives of their addressees, however briefly. When her illegal subversion of the postal system is discovered by the office manager, the farce begins — a tornado of outrageously cartoonish characters, Keystone Kops-style chase sequences and even a comic nod to Jean-Luc Godard’s À bout de souffle, with Valdés striking poses à la Jean Seberg.
But alongside the bureaucratic lunacy, the film takes a serious look at themes of migration and separation that are specifically Cuban. Carla’s dissatisfaction with her life is offset by the pleasure she takes in helping those around her and by her developing relationship with a co-worker. With the United States always looming on the horizon of her dreams, Carla finds herself increasingly ambivalent about the thought of leaving her native country. Cremata Malberti makes a great paradox crystal clear: Cubans are torn between their desire to lead better lives elsewhere and a yearning to solve the problems at home.
Nothing More falls in line with other works of Cuban cinema — Humberto Solás’s Lucía comes to mind — by presenting an astute political message in a wonderfully engaging fashion. Cremata Malberti livens up the story with a frolicsome formal approach: the black-and-white images are occasionally flecked with intense colour, and silent film techniques boost the comic feel of the caper sequences. Thoughtful, cheerful and clever, Nothing More signals the arrival of an important new Cuban filmmaker.
— Diana Sanchez (2002 Toronto International Film Festival)
Tuesday AUGUST 28, 2012 – 7:00 PM
My Time Will Come (Cuando Me Toque A Mi)
A film by Víctor Arregui
Spanish, with subtitles in EnglishEcuador, 2008 (90 minutes) A predawn murder sets in motion a series of interlocking tragedies that eventually find their way to the city morgue’s
brooding Dr. Arturo Fernandez. Physically and emotionally isolated from the world around him, Arturo develops an oddly intimate relationship with the personal lives of his cases, gradually forcing him to confront his connection to the living, and the dead. Adapted from the novel De Que Nada Se Sabe, director Víctor Arregui’s serpentine tale is a dark but sympathetic portrait of one man’s solitude set against a richly textured rendering of Quito, Ecuador’s capital city.
Please note – subtitles in this film may be quick for some viewers.
Also screening with My Time Will Come
Knock Knock (Who’s Dead?)
Director: Grâce Nzeyiman
Sponsored by The Burundi Film Center – Burundi, Africa
This 11 minute comedy follows Rukwi’s botched attempts to earn a living by collecting the dead for the morgue. It has screened at film festivals around the world including The 2011 Clearwater Film & Music Festival.
Saturday JULY 28, 2012 – 7:00 PM
My Tehran For Sale
A film by Granaz Moussavi
Farsi and English , with subtitles in EnglishIran, 2009 (97 minutes) http://catalogue.globalfilm.org/my-tehran-for-sale.html In this riveting, insider’s perspective on life in Iran’s capital city, Marzieh—a terminally ill actress—wearily relates her
desperate quest for political asylum through a series of interviews with an unsympathetic government official. Beginning with details of her doomed relationship with an Iranian-born Australian and their plan to relocate to Adelaide, she recounts her struggle to work as an actress under Iran’s current regime, her hope for a future ultimately dashed by the devastating discovery of her illness, and her need to “escape” the only home she has ever known. Set against the backdrop of Tehran’s thriving arts culture, and framed through a series of artful and dramatic flashback sequences, poet-turned-filmmaker Granaz Moussavi boldly registers the trials of a modern woman struggling to flourish in Iran’s contemporary political climate.
Join us for a lively discussion immediately following the film hosted by our special guest, Iranian-born researcher, writer and political activist Amir H. Ladan.
Also screening with My Tehran For Sale
The Stain
Directed by Ron Segal
THE STAIN from Ron Segal on Vimeo.
Sponsored by The Sam Spiegel Film & TV School – Jerusalem (JSFS), IsraelThis 12 minute live-action with stop-motion animation is a headstrong adaptation of the familiar fable “The Scorpion and the Frog”. It has screened at film festivals around the world and enjoyed a North American premiere at The 2010 Clearwater Film Festival.
