Editor

The 26th MIFF Competition Films program will include:


ANGULIMALA
Director: Sutape Tunnirut, Thailand, 2003
Cast: Nopachai Jayanama, Stella Malucchi, John Rattanaveroj, Caterina Grosse
A parable based on the code of Buddhist morality. The story allegedly happened in India more than 2,500 years ago. Ahimsaka was born of Brahmin parents, the social group of high virtue in the Hindu caste system. Despite his noble birth, Ahimsaka was predestined to become a murderous bandit killing those people to whom he owed a debt of gratitude. The boy is sent to Sati, a famous guru who, his parents believe, could deliver their son from the predestined fate. But after reading the boy's horoscope the wise guru chooses to send the Brahmin's son to herd goats instead of cultivating his mind.

Sati is going to marry Nandha but discovering the secret of her background he decides to kill his bride. It happens so that Ahimsaka saves her life. This leads to rumors of their elopement and revengeful Sati reveals Ahimsaka's cursed horoscope. In his desire to prove the contrary and attain enlightenment Ahimsaka makes one wrong step after another and his predestination seems to be coming true...

Sutape Tunnirut
Scriptwriter and director. Born in 1966 in Bangkok. He studied in Institute of Technology. He has worked on different film projects as script advisor.


PORTUGAL S.A. / PORTUGAL LTD
Director: Ruy Guerra, Portugal, 2004
Cast: Diogo Infante,Cristina Camara, Henrique Viana, Ana Bustorff
A drama with some elements of social satire exposing the mores of the Portuguese high society. Politicians (both those who are in power and the others who are the opposition), the clergy, representatives of the business elite and the mass media tycoons get along very well with each other. They used to go to the same boarding schools and universities and now enjoy themselves together at the snobbish parties courting each other's wives, but each of them has their own interest. The rumors of a possible take-over of one of the largest industrial groups do not leave any of them indifferent. Doctor Jacinto Pereira Mendez, a high-ranking manager, knows a lot about the back-door goings-on. Many people might be interested in this confidential information. Is it worth keeping corporate secrets or is it better to share with a person who is interested? Especially if the person in question is a business woman, Fatima, seductive and sex appealing.

Ruy Guerra
Born in 1931 in Mozambique.

Ruy Guerra left his studies in Portugal to go to the School of Cinema in Paris. After having worked as assistant for various French directors he moved to Brazil and launching his first two films became one of the founders of the Brazilian "Cinema Novo". Those two films were "Os Cafajestes (1962)" and "Os Fuzis (1964)" which won some major international prizes, one of them being for "Os Fuzis" at the film festival in Berlin. In 1969, in France, he made "Sweet Hunters" which won a Golden medal in Venice. After the success he returned to Brazil and went on filming there.


OLGAS SOMMER / OLGA'S SUMMER
Director: Nina Grosse, Germany, 2003
Cast: Clemance Poesy, Bruno Todeschini, Katia Flint, Sebastian Blomberg
Olga is 16 and ready for life, love, adventure. Who wants to kennel in a small dull town just off the highway. Olga's got a dream: to leave for exotic Tangiers. And she's got principles: "Only wild men are for loving" is one of them, "Take everything you can get" is another. So when she finds an unconscious man in a wrecked car one day, it all just clicks. Daniel is the author of a comic book, For Olga he is the man who's come to take her away from Smallsville. So what that he says he killed his wife in a fit of rage? So what that he drove off the road to commit suicide? Olga is not going to give up her first and only chance. That is how their journey to the sea starts...

Nina Grosse
Nina Grosse began doing German, Philosophy and Theater Studies in Munich before transferring to the Academy for Television & Film in 1981. In 1987 her graduation film "Der glaserne Himmel" ("The Glass Sky") was nominated for a German Film Award the same year. Her collaboration in 1990 with Helmut Berger on "Nie im Leben" ("Never in Life") resulted in the Max-Ophuels Award in 1991.


SIGADE REVOLUTSIOON / REVOLUTION OF PIGS
Directors: Rene Reinumagi, Jaak Kilmi, Estonia, 2004
Cast: Jaas Seljamaa, Enelin Kuusk, Lilian Alto, Uku Uusberg
A go-go comedy about teenagers. In the summer of 1986 a big party of teenagers get together to spend three days living in a summer camp on the coast of a picturesque lake in the woods. 16-year-old Tanel is one of them. He has come to spend these three days with his girl-friend Helen; he hopes here he will lose his cherry at last. But the girl prefers another guy and, heartbroken, Tanel turns to Helen's friend Paike. That sets up a union of two broken hearts.

Living in a totalitarian system, the energy of youth is pressed into rigid frames of proper behavior. It leads to a teenager revolt against the system and the prejudice of the adults. The developments take place in a Woodstock-like environment. The film is radical, optimistic and amusing.

Jaak Kilmi
Born in 1973 in Tallinn.
After doing a course of film directing at Tallinn Pedagogical University made more than 50 commercials for the Baltic TV as well as a number of documentaries. Also, Jaak Kilmi is the author of critical essays on books and film. "Revolution of Pigs" is his feature debut.

Rene Reinumagi
Born in 1974 in Tallinn.
Actor, director and script writer. Graduated from the Estonian Academy of Music. Has been involved in making commercials for TV. Worked as a journalist. "Revolution of Pigs" is his directorial debut.


PRIMA DAMMI UN BACIO / KISS ME FIRST
Director: Ambrogio Lo Giudice, Italy, 2003
Cast: Stefania Rocca, Marco Cocci, Luca Zingaretti
Reality sometimes look more like a fair tale. Adele and Marcello were marked by fate at birth: they were born on the 16th of April 1927, at the same moment, delivered by their mothers just a few inches from each other.

From that moment on their lives were destined to meet each other. The narrator is Loris, their friend just a few years older, a participant and witness of their early romance. Still children they used to pretend to be a bride and bridegroom. Inside a small abandoned chapel they swore eternal love and exchangeed two rubber rings made from a bicycle inner tube. They lose sight of each other not long afterwards, separated by the events of the Second World War, but their dream, fed with hope and memories, will continue. Adele's and Marcello's lives run parallel for long years, overlapping at times by a destiny that lets them brush close to each other for a few seconds, for a few yards, or for a word or two...

Ambrogio Lo Giudice
Known to have been making publicity films and music video clips. Twice he has participated in the festival of commercials in Cannes. In 1997 he shot the short film "13 stories of love". That was awaded the Best Film and the Best Director at the national film festival in Italy. He has worked for the Italian television. "Kiss me first" is his first feature film.


NATIONAL BOMB
Director: Vagif Mustafaev, Azerbaijan, Russia, 2004
Cast: Avtandil Makharadze, Yashar Nuri, Saida Kulieva, Nuria Akhmedova
A film about life in the Soviet-time Azerbaijan is being made. As it always happens, the money raised for the shooting runs out before the work is done and the filmmakers find themselves in a funny and desperate situation. An elderly respectable film editor and his young colleague, an ambitious film director, do their best to find a way and complete the film; they sometimes have to resort to rather unconventional means.

Vagif Mustafaev
A career film director, he was awarded the State Award of Azerbaijan, was named the Honorary Worker of Arts, became Fellow of the European Academy of Film and Television. Nowadays Vagif Mustafaev occupies the post of Deputy Minister of Culture of Azerbaijan.


A DIFFERENT LOYALTY
Director: Marek Kanievska, USA, Canada, UK, 2004
Cast: Sharon Stone, Rupert Everett, Mark Rendall
The story develops against the background of the military campaign in Beirut. Eleanor, a US war correspondent, meets Kim, her colleague from Britain. That meeting knocks the bottom out of her life: forgetting herself Eleanor is overmastered by love. But the bliss stops abruptly when Kim suddenly disappears and Eleanor finds out that her lover is a KGB man. Chased by the CIA, the woman starts her quest for Kim, which brings her to the Soviet Union, behind the "Iron Curtain" at the time. Here her love and loyalty are to undergo severe tests.

Marek Kanievska
He is well-known for his work in film and television in both Great Britain and the United States. His feature film directorial debut, Another Country, won awards at the 1984 Cannes and Florence Film Festivals. His next feature film was Less Than Zero, the 1987 adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis' controversial novel. In 2000, Kanievska directed Where The Money Is, a heist film.

Kanievska's television work includes both documentaries and dramas. His extensive work as a director of television commercials has earned him several Golden Lions from the British Advertising Awards.


YA GUANYIN / GODDESS OF MERCY, THE
Director: Ann Hui , China, 2003
Cast: Zhao Wei, Nicholas Tse, Chen Jian-bin, Liu Yun-long
The film has been made after a popular novel that is devoted to the everyday work of a drug police team. The protagonist is a courageous police woman whose relations with three men in her life make up the plot of the film. She is always faced with a difficult choice between sentiments and duty, law and her own understanding of what is just and fair.

Ann Hui
Born in China , 1947. Moving to Hong Kong, she went to and graduated from Hong Kong University. Later she did a two-year course at London Film School. Ann Hui has worked for television and made her first feature film in 1979.


LA PIEL DE LA TIERRA / EARTH'S SKIN
Director: Manuel Fernandez, Spain, 2004
Cast: Sergio Peris Mencheta, Pilar Barrera, Carmen del Valle, Manuel Galiana
A young deserter promises to restore a bell. An old legend says that a specific note from this bronze bell would move away storms. To clear the sky of clouds will give God a view of the war.

Manuel Fernandez
Born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1959.
Back in Spain, he got a degree in Audiovisual Arts from the Faculty of Information at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid. He was granted with a scholarship for his academic excellence and worked for the Spanish Public Television (TVE), where he directed the children educational programs, worked as a TV director of music related shows for the local television of Madrid (Telemadrid), directed music videoclips and documentaries. In 1995 he made his first short movie "El Artista del Hambre" ("A Hunger Artist"), a free adaptation of the short story by Frank Kafka. "Earth's Skin" is his first feature film.


HABIOGRAPHIA SHEL BEN / BEN'S BIOGRAPHY
Director: Dan Wolman, Israel, 2003
Cast: Gal Zaid, Shron Alexander, Avigeil Arieli, Gani Tamir
Ben is strange: he walks around with gloves and is always carrying shopping bags in both hands. He meets Tamar, who is intrigued by his secret. Slowly, they become friends. Ben doesn't want anyone to pity him. His way of dealing with his pain is through his imagination, zany humor and laughter. At one point he says to Tamar: "My parents didn't want to have any children. They did everything they could so that I wouldn't be born. But, I don't take it personally - they didn't know me at the time...". "Ben's Biography" deals with the very sensitive subject of child abuse. Sounds grim? It's not! The film is moving and unusually funny.

Dan Wolman
Born in Jerusalem in 1941, Wolman spent his early years in Ethiopia. After finishing high school in Jerusalem and serving in the army, Dan studied film in the U.S.: from 1962 to 1965 - at the Film Institute of City College, New York; from 1965 to 1968 - at New York University. In 1968 Dan returned to Israel and shot his first feature, "The Dreamer", which was an official entry at Cannes Film Festival in 1970. He also made a number of shorts and documentaries, worked for the theatre.


CONVERSACIONES CON MAMA / TALKING WITH MOM
Director: Santiago Carlos Oves, Argentina, Spain, 2003
Cast: China Zorilla, Eduardo Blanco, Ulises, Silvina Bosco
Mom is 82 and Jaime, her son, is 50. Jaime has a wife. Mom lives alone and manages by herself. But one day Jaime gets fired and his world collapses. The hard moment leads him to a drastic decision: as the only thing Jaime owns is his mother's apartment, he makes up his mind to talk her into mortgaging it. But when he comes to talk, he finds something that makes all his expectations futile: mom has a boyfriend and they have just become steady. Mom is planning to live with him in the apartment against all odds.


THE HARVEST TIME
Director: Marina Razbezhkina, Russia, 2004
Cast: Ludmila Motornaya, Vyacheslav Batrakov, Dima Yakovlev, Dima Yermakov
"The Harvest Time" is an absurdist story based on the realities of Russian life. The events develop in a post-war Chuvash village.

Tosya works on a farm operating a harvester just up to any man. She has a family of two small children and a disabled husband who lost both his legs at the front. At the end of the year she comes out first at the regional socialist emulation; she has won the right to keep the challenge Red Banner until the next year's results are announced. From this moment on, the life of this village family changes drastically. The velvet banner becomes the most important thing in their house and its curse too, since the house is infested with mice. Tosya, her husband, and children are obsessed with the only thought - how to rescue the banner from the rodents. Yet, the mice manage to gnaw through the cloth. Tosya makes the only decision she thinks appropriate under the circumstances: from now on she has to win every year, so that no one would find out about the damaged banner...

Marina Razbezhkina
Born in 1956.
She graduated from Kazan University as BA in philology. Later she wrote for newspapers, at home and abroad. From 1986 she wrote film scripts, and in 1989 she made her first documentary. Her documentaries have been prize winners at both national and international film festivals. Marina Razbezhkina has also made films for television. She is member of the Russian Union of Filmmakers, Fellow of the Russian Film Academy. "The Harvest Time" is her first feature film.


VAREA ANTHIGINA / HAZARDOUS AND UNHEALTHY
Director: Antonis Papadopoulos, Greece, 2003
Cast: Paschalis Tsarouchas, Nena Mendi, Antonis Antoniou, Regina Pantelidi
In October 1944, Balis, a guerilla, saves 70 hostages from a German firing squad in a daring feat. But Balis himself is wounded and falls into the Great Ravine. Certain of his death and in a show of gratitude the inhabitants erect his statue in the village square. Thirty years later Balis happens to visit this particular village and discovers his memorial. Yet, an unpleasant surprise lies in store for him when the local authorities turn hostile upon hearing his name...

Antonis Papadopoulos
Born in Athens in 1956.
Antonis Papadopoulos studied film directing in Kiev, Ukraine. Apart from his work in film he has also directed the documentary series entitled "Visual forms (3x30)" that has won numerous awards.


DETALJER / DETAILS
Director: Kristian Petri, Sweeden, 2003
Cast: Pernilla August, Michael Nyqvist, Rebecka Hemse, Jonas Karsson
Drama. Emma, a young author, goes to see Erik, the publishing editor whom she's sent her debut novel. Their meeting leads to a love affair. The middle-aged Erik leaves his wife. What Erik doesn't know is that Emma recently began a relationship with the dramatist Stefan, whose play is also being published by Erik's company. One day Stefan overdoses and is brought to the emergency ward where Erik's wife Ann works as a doctor. These incident is the start of the story about how four people's lives are crossed during ten years, until the four of them finally end up in the same loneliness they started.

Kristian Petri
Born in 1956.
Director and writer, Kristian Petri has directed several documentaries and features. He has also published several books, some of them travel books. Petri's two shorts, "Once Upon a Time" and "The Crack", were selected for the Semaine de la Critique competition in Cannes in 1991 and 1992 respectively. "Between Summers", Kristian Petri's first feature, was selected for the prestigious Quinzaine des Realisateurs in Cannes in 1995 and awarded at a number of other international festivals.


KUL YEO WO / SO CUTE
Director: Kim Soo-hyun, Republic of Korea, 2004
Cast: Kim Suk-hoon, Ye Ji-won, Jung Jae-hyung, Jang Sun-woo
A shaman named Jang Su-ro has three sons, all by different mothers and all of the same age. His first son is a delivery man nicknamed 963. The second son is a truck driver named Gaeko, but nicknamed Dog Nose. The third son is a gangster.

The infamous "sex god" Jang Su-ro no longer possesses the sexual powers he once had, and has to live with his sons now. One day, Gaeko picks up a girl named Soony and presents her to his father. Jang Su-ro and all his sons fall in love with her. The race to win her heart is on.

Kim Soo-hyun
Like the young male characters of his first feature film "So Cute", Kim has worked as a delivery man and a tow-truck driver, so he has a first-hand experience of their life.


US
Director: Dimitry Meskhiev, Russia, 2004
Cast: Bogdan Stupka, Konstantin Khabensky, Sergei Garmash, Mikhail Yevlanov
It is August 1941. With the battle line far away in the east, three soldiers who have managed to escape from captivity find it difficult to hide: the territory is occupied by the enemy. The local woods are not safe: you can easily get embogged. Are the villagers loyal? Nobody can say. There is an old man who offers to help them. Is he reliable enough? He may kill them or report them to the local German authorities. Anything may happen, but one of them, the sniper, is his son who is his youngest, his dearest.

Dimitry Meskhiev
Born in 1963. Dimitry Meslhiev graduated from the film direction department of the All-Rissia State Film Institute (VGIK) in 1988 (workshop of Marlen Khutsiev). His filmography includes: "Line of Fortune" (2003), "Diary of a Kamikaze"(2002), "The Mechanical Suite"(2001), "Peculiarities of National Politics"(1999), "Women's Property" (2000), "The American Bet" (1998), "Exercise # 5" (1995), "Over the Dark Water" (1993), "Cynics" (1991), "Gambrinus"(1990), Fellow Worker"(1988).


PAPA / DADDY
Director: Vladimir Mashkov, Russia, 2004
Cast: Vladimir Mashkov, Yegor Beroev, Andrei Rozendent, Sergei Dreiden
For Abram Schwartz the career of his extraordinarily gifted son has become his aim in life. The violin in the boy's hands makes people cry with joy, awakes Father's dreams about big halls full of people applauding and cheering his David. All that Father can do is lead his son to the realization of the dream the way he understands it - carefully, persistently and cruelly sometimes. But when the grown-up son becomes the first pupil on the Conservatory list, all that his old father wants is to look at his boy at the moment of his glory. Old Schwartz goes to Moscow, but instead of gratitude that he might expect he has to face abuse. His son feels mean in the presence of his father. Years are to pass before David understands that his father has forgiven him, because father's love knows no bygones. It is here forever...

The film is based on the play by Alexander Galich "Matrosskaya Tishina".

Vladimir Mashkov
Born in 1963.
A graduate of the Moscow Art Theatre School (Oleg Tabakov's workshop) in 1990, Vladimir Mashkov is now Honorary Actor of Russia. His stage productions include "His Moment By Local Time", "Bumbarash", "Terminal Stunt", "A Three-Penny Novel", "Room Number 13". He has also made one feature, " Sympathy Seeker".