Cinefranco 2020

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Category: Cinéma - Movies

Published: Sunday, 01 November 2020 15:15

Written by Gilbert Seah

Cinefranco 2020

Cinéfranco 23rd annual festival of International and Canadian Francophone cinema will be held online from Friday, November 20 – Saturday, November 28 with 17 features, 2 shorts programs, post-screening Conversations, and Panels, using the Eventine festival platform, accessed at www.cinefranco.com   Two new films will be added daily with 48 hr for a household to view once a stream is activated.  Closing Night on November 28 will see three new films on the platform.

Because of Covid-19, the films in Cinefranco this year will be screened virtually instead of in physical theatres.   This allows for the first time, Cinéfranco to expand its reach across all of Canada, where lovers of French language cinema can also discover the Cinéfranco community. 

Cinéfranco 2020’s program includes feature films from Belgium, Canada, France, Lebanon, Morocco, and Senegal reflecting the diversity of the Francophone world.  The festival also celebrates filmmakers from Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick with the return of the popular Courts toujours (In Short) programs.

“In a year to remember, full of challenges for everyone, we at Cinéfranco are blessed and privileged to be able to continue bringing the best of International and Canadian francophone cinema to our audiences”,  said Marcelle Lean, Artistic Director and Founder.  “During the pandemic we’ve stayed in touch with our community online, presenting films and conversations and are looking forward to embracing new audiences across Canada during the festival. The pandemic has given us all reason to pause and reflect as well as witness amplified inequities. We’ve curated this year’s film selection with that, as well as a need for some levity, in mind.”

Marcelle Lean, I am proud to say, is a personal friend of mine, whom I known since the festival’s inception.  She is always cheerful, helpful with an astonishing passion for film notably francophone films.

For complete information of the festival including descriptions of the films, please click the Link:

https://www.cinefranco.com/main-festival

CAPSULE REVIEWS OF SELECT FILMS:

(Keep checking the article for more updated reviews)

AU NOM DE LA TERRE (In the Name of the Land) (France/Belgium  2019) ****
Directed by Edouard Bergeon

A modern JEAN DE FLORETTE tale of farming the land, AU NON DE LA TERRE tells the hardship of a farmer and his family.  According to the film credits there is a farmer who commits suicide every 2 minutes in France.  The film is based on a true story which will literally jolt you out of your seat at the film’s climax when reading the tombstone.  The film begins with a young Pierre Jarjeau (Guillaume Canet) returning home from Wyoming at the age of 25 to marry his fiancee (Veerle Baetens) and take over the family farm, Les Grands Bois (the grand woods) which he purchases from his strict no-nonsense father (Rufus).  Pierre and family work extremely hard with their hired help with crops and goat breeding.  The goats and kids are extremely adorable and thank God the audience is spared from seeing these any of these creatures slaughtered.  It is the human beings that do the suffering as the farm goes into debt, followed by a huge fire that destroys the farm buildings.  Director Bergeon captures the beauty and hardships of farm life aided by superb performances all around with newcomer Anthony Bajon as the young son deserving mention.  Not an easy watch, seeing human beings suffer so much but the Jarjeau family story is a story that needs to be told.

Trailer:

BAAMUM NAFI (Nafi’s Father) (Senegal 2019) ***1/2

Directed ny Mamadou Dia

From theAfrican country of Senegal comes this Shakespearean ROMEO AND JULIET tragedy of a couple in love amidst warring families.  The families in this case are two brothers, who live in a small town, one, Tierno, the acting imam and the other, his rich brother Ousmane who wishes to control the two by means of controlling the people by means of bribing them with money from who Tierno terms a terrorist.  Nafi is Tierno’s only high spirited daughter who is engaged to be married against his wishes to Ousmane’s son.  Tierno is totally against the marriage despite his wife and daughter’s wishes.  Politics get ugly and everyone suffers especially the young couple.   The two brothers have affiliations to two different forms of Islam.  Director Dia’s drama is a slow burn but no less effective as he engages his audience to examine the detrimental effects of personal differences an personal and political gain.  The film also provides a welcome change of an unfamiliar Senegal setting with a universal story with a strong message.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpv49NtiHEo

LA BELLE EPOQUE (France 2019) ***

Directed by Nicolas Bedos

A high concept comedy that turns out too smart for its execution. This French comedy follows an old fashioned cartoonist, Victor (Daniel Auteuil) now out of work with print making way to websites that do not favour cartoons.  To make matters worse, his wife, Marianne (Fanny Ardant) is totally modern with her self driving Tesla, virtual reality and artificial intelligence.  She is bored with him.  Victor engages in a service called ‘Time Travellers’ that takes clients to their desired past historical moments.  Victor picks 1974 the time he had first met and fallen in love with his wife.  Writer/director Bedos (MR. & MRS ADELMAN) creates an original premise blending modern technology with old-fashioned French romance.  Bedos edits his film at quite the manic pace so that the audience has hardly any time to breathe, thus often missing the simplicity of comedy.   Still this is Bedos’ unique style that is still entertaining, nevertheless.  Auteuil and Ardant are a delight to watch on screen.

Trailer:

LA BONNE EPOUSE (HOW TO BE A GOOD WIFE)(France/Belgique 2020) ****

Directed by Martin Provost

French director Martin Provost returns with his SERAPHINE star Yolande Moreau in a more playful yet no less engrossing piece centred on the role of the female in society.  The society here is set in the year 1969 when life in France expects females to be selfless, obedient and docile.   These ‘ideal’ traits are taught to young girls in an institute founded by Van Der Beck (François Berléand) who has a keen eye for young flesh.  L’ecole is run by his wife, Paulette (Juliette Binoche), sister (Moreau) and a ultra-strict disciplinarian nun (Noémie Lvovsky).  The girls are less than thrilled and like most girls of their age are more interested in mischief and sex.  Binoche, Moreau and Lvivsky are so entertaining to watch that they cloud any appearance of the students and their antics.  The film also questions when a good wife can become her own woman when the husband dies from choking from his sister’s rabbit dish and she has to take control.   Director Provost is here in lighter vein and in control of the subtle hilarity.

Trailer: https://www.allocine.fr/video/player_gen_cmedia=19585872&cfilm=271733.html

ÉNORME (France 2019) ***

Directed by Sophie Letourneur

   ÉNORME stars Jonathan Cohen and Marina Foïs s a couple expecting their first baby.  Foïs plays the world famous concert pianist while Cohen plays her husband who also acts as her PR, assistant, manager.  a baby is out of there question for the busy couple.  But when the husband changes his mind after delivering a baby on board a plane, he tricks her into a pregnancy.  She grew totally enormous as a result while he gains weight in the process.  Sounds funny, and at times it is, especially for couples who have had a baby since they can relate to this kind of comedy.  To her credit, Director Letourneur tries everything in her power to make her film funny, from gross jokes like smelling the water when the water is broken, to her actors hamming it out to the fullest.  The camera angles showing the enormity of the wife’s pregnancy are at times overdone but funny.  Sometimes the humour works, and at other times it does not.

Trailer: https://www.allocine.fr/video/player_gen_cmedia=19585671&cfilm=258205.html

NADIA, BUTTERFLY (Canada 2019) ***
Directed by Pascal Plante

NADIA, BUTTERFLY begins with a lengthy 20 minute swimming session that introduces Olympic swimmer Nadia (Laterine Savard) ending with the race itself when her team of four win the bronze medal.  The segment shows her doing laps, her arms plunging into the pool water, her arguments with her trainer and interview with the press.  NADIA, BUTTERFLY has its setting in Tokyo 2020 where the Summer Olympics is held, according to the film.  With all of Plante’s efforts to give his film the feel of authenticity, the efforts fall flat since the Olympics in Tokyo had been postponed indefinitely.  Plante could have changed its setting to the Olympics to the 4 years prior.  The heart of the film is Nadia dilemma’s of whether to continue or quit swimming.  If she quits, she goes against the grain of her teammates and coach and if she continues, she will be untrue to herself.  The success of the film also rests on the lead performance by Savard.  Fortunately, being a Bronze medal swimmer herself, she looks the part and also must have given a lot of consideration to her role.

Trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWJQ_kQQLPo 

TOUT SIMPLEMENT NOIR (Simply Black) (France 2020) ***1/2
Directed by Jean-Pascal Zadi and John Wax

The funniest film screened at Cinefranco, the documentary has the protagonist, a black Parisien, JP organizing a “Black Lives Matter’ type protest in the heart of the city, at the Place de la Republique.  There is one problem.  He is not very bright and hence having lots of trouble trying to recruit anyone to show up for the protest.  It does not help that he is not that good looking either, with his buck teeth that many insult him with, after her offends them with his personal views.  Oddly he is himself racist only recognizing himself as black and others as not being black enough or mixed (black) raced.  The film is extremely funny when he is filmed on camera or when he has altercations with those that do to agree with him.  The film lags a little in the middle unable o keep up with the hilarious humour at the start.  Omar Sy, the most famous back actor in France has a cameo at the end, though Sy’s scene does not match up to the build up to his appearance.  Still, TOUT SIMPLEMENT NOIR is an entertaining film allowing audiences to laugh at themselves in this politically incorrect rendering of current black matters.  Cinefranco’s Marcelle Lean told me she fought really hard to get this movie, so put this on your must-see list.

Trailer: https://www.cinefranco.com/tout-simplement-noir

QUEBEXIT (Canada 2020) ***
Directed by Joshua Demers

Hot on the heals of BREXIT news, comes director Joshua Demers ambitious comedy about Quebec trying to exit Canada as the province tried to in real life in many unsuccessful referendums.  QUEBEXIT adds an additional element of the indigenous people.  So there is the sovereign question of land as argued upon by the Quebecois, the Canadians (in this case New Brunswick) and the Cree indigenous people. The film requires the dialogue to be spoked in three different languages with actions that will show the diversity of Canada.  All this takes place when the construction of an interprovincial pipeline results in a successful third Québec sovereignty referendum, a small road at the Québec-New Brunswick border becomes a lightning of conflict between the new Québec military, the Canadian Armed Forces and two indigenous women who cross the border frequently.  The film is quite funny and relevant, typically for Canadians.  In the film, the groups are loud and intolerant of each other, making cooperation an almost impossible task.

Trailer:

Blood in the Snow (BiTS) Film Festival 2020

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Category: Cinéma - Movies

Published: Wednesday, 21 October 2020 17:12

Written by Gilbert Seah

BLOOD IN THE SNOW (2020) Film Festival

The Blood in the Snow Film Festival is a unique and imaginative showcase of contemporary Canadian horror, genre and underground cinema that exists to challenge social boundaries, explore artistic taboos and support and exhibit independent Canadian genre media artists.  BITS takes place in Toronto near the end of October, and brings together audiences, media coverage, community partnerships and the filmmaking industry to exhibit and celebrate Canadian genre film. BITS began in 2012 and was registered as a not-for-profit in 2015.

A good chance to see blood in the snow and horror films made in Canada.

Below are casual reviews of select films, a few of them well worth a viewing.

CAPSULE REVIEWS (of select feature films):

ANYTHING FOR JACKSON (Canada 2020) ***1/2

Directed by Justin G. Dyck

Premiering at Montreal’s FANTASIA film festival, ANYTHING FOR JACKSON refers to whatever it takes for a bereaved elderly couple to bring back to life their grandson who had been killed in an accident.  The couple, Audrey (Sheila McCarthy) and Henry (Julian Richings) are Satanists who have devised a very detailed and somewhat foolproof plan to kidnap a pregnant woman and have the spirit of the grandson inhabit the new yet to be born baby.  Audrey and Henry are no spirit conjuring experts and they end up summoning more than they bargained for.   Writer Keith Cooper and director Dyck realizes the potential of the premise including the possibility of injecting some scary humour into the proceedings.  McCarthy best remembered as the organizationally impaired secretary in Patricia Rozema’s I’VE HEARD THE MERMAIDS SINGING is back in top form here.  Totally entertaining and totally watchable, ANYTHING FOR JACKSON, scary, funny and exciting was a hit at Fantasia and should do well at BIT and when it finally opens.  The film comes with the clever caption: “Fear your Elders”.

Trailer: (unavailable)

BLEED WITH ME (Canada 2020) ***1/2

Directed by Amelia Moses

A 90 minute slow burn psychological thriller/horror in which not much happens in the first half, which is a good thing as director Moses builds up her audience’s anticipation in which not much can be guessed regarding the horror that will occur.  Rowan (Lee Marshall), a shy and awkward young woman, struggles to integrate herself on a weekend getaway with her best friend, Emily (Lauren Beatty) and her boyfriend, Brendan (Aris Tyros).  Feeling like a lamp post, she drinks to calm her nerves, pushing her body and mind deep into a hazy trance, where she begins to witness nightmarish late-night visions that make her feel increasingly unwelcome, unsure and unstable.   Moses drops little hints of the horror that islet to come like a revelation that Emily has just recovered from some breakdown or the scene where Emily sucks the blood from the Rowan’s cut finger.  The best scene is when Emily serves Rowan tea that Rowan knows has been drugged and Emily says to her: “Don’t you trust me?”  A good old-fashioned satisfactory thriller that makes good use of suspense tactics that is worthy of Hitchcock.

Trailer:

BLOODTHIRSTY (Canada 2020) ***
Directed by Amelia Moses

Grey (Lauren Beatty) is an indie singer who has just had a successful first album out.  She is worried that her second album may be a flop.  Grey suffers from hallucinations and has to take pills for it.  She sees herself as a wolf eating human flesh.  She decides to work with a notorious music producer Vaughn Daniels (Greg Nryk).  Vaughn had been tried for murder of his wife but had been acquitted.  Vaughn invites her and her girlfriend, Charlie (Katherine King So) to his studio cottage in the woods to write the songs for second album .  Charlie is weary of Vaughn and the two clearly do not get along.  Vaughn is weird pushing Grey a lot in order to create superior songs for the second album.  Grey accepts it as she is desperate to succeed.  The things Vaughn says to push Grey are kind of odd: like asking her to run at top speed in the snow with him coming across like a weird asshole.  Charlie wants Grey and herself to leave.  But they stay.  At half point of the movie, the audience is yet to know where everything is leading.  Which is a good thing.  All the weird happenings are explained in the second half as director Moses turns her film into a horror story, with the horror convincing though not entirely logical.

Trailer: (unavailable)

HALL (Canada 2020) **

Directed by Francesco Giannini

When a debilitating sickness spreads across a long hotel hallway (the HALL of the film title), a few scattered victims fight for survival, and try to escape from the dark narrow stretch of isolated carnage.  The horror in this film comes from a Covid-19 like virus that affects human being.  The virus causes repository problems visible by ugly veins that pop up on the neck.  Apparently the villain of the film is Julian (Julian Richings), the man who spreads the virus believing he is creating a better world.  The story narrows down two two protagonists, two females, Val (Carolina Bartczak) and Naomi (Yumiko Shaku).    Naomi is a pregnant mother who gets infected.  In the same hotel is the other female, who is trying to escape with her daughter from her husband (Mark Gibson) who she does not get along with.  The husband becomes infected.  Too much moaning and groaning in this otherwise silly movie that took 3 writers to pen.

Trailer:

THE RETURN (Canada 2020) ***
Directed by BJ Verot

After the death of his father, a brilliant college student, Rodger (Richard Harmon) returns to his family home with his girl friend, Beth (Sara Thompson) and best friend Jordan (Echo Andersson).  His mother and younger sister have died and Rodger is determined to solve the mystery of the deaths.  The three encounter a scary ghost.  Rodger learns that the horrors from his childhood aren't as dead and gone as he once thought and that he is somewhat responsible.  This is the typical ghost coming through a portal and it must be destroyed.  The film delves deeper into the characters spinning a web of puzzles that only Rodger can reveal.  THE RETURN is an ok horror flick with sufficient scares (thongs that go bump int he dark) and with more character development than usually accompanies horror films.   Jordan, Rodger’s best friend confesses she loves him.  The film runs into trouble when it tries to give a logical explanation to the proceedings, when the film gets a bit confusing and tedious.  In the end the ghost has to be destroyed with the film turning into GHOSTBUSTERS without the comedy.

Trailer:

Reel Asian Film Festival 2020

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Category: Cinéma - Movies

Published: Wednesday, 28 October 2020 13:33

Written by Gilbert Seah

Capsule Reviews of Select Films:

DUST AND ASHES (South Korea 2019) ***
Directed by: Park Hee-kwon

Nothing much appears to be happening in this extremely slow burn of a movie, likely the slowest film to be screened at Reel Asian this year.  But careful concentration reveals that there is more than meets the eye.  As the camera follows a young woman (Ahn So-yo i) over 3 days (dividing the film into 3 chapters) on the course of her daily routine of work at the factory by day and at a restaurant kitchen at night, the audience learns that she is scamming (which the audience can assume, but never 100% sure) the insurance company with the help of her reluctant brother of the life insurance money from the death of their recently deceased mother.  Again, nothing is said whether the mother had died from natural causes or at the hands of her children.  The camera often shows the protagonist’s back, reminiscent of the Dardennes films.  DUST AND ASHES premiered at the Tallinn Film Festival and is an ok watch that demands lots of patience in its short running time of 83 minutes.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/361755386

GOODBYE MOTHER (Vietnam 2019) ***1/2

Directed by Trinh Dinh Le Minh

Nau is returning to his home country Vietnam from the United States with his boyfriend Van in tow.  They are to spend some time with Nau’s family.  Nau has not revealed Van to be his partner and the family pressures him to get settled with a wife and children.  The matriarch of the family is also suffering from angina and diabetes.  This all sounds too familiar a plot, and this story has been told countless times in gutless films.  But the American boyfriend is not white but Vietnamese.  The Vietnamese setting is new.  Director Trinh also has great sympathy for his character making each one of them very endearing and ones that the audience will care for.  The actors playing Van and Nau are also super cute.  An altogether endearing film that ends up showing what true love (the airport scene where the two sit together waiting fro their flight back to the U.S.) between a male couple.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/401822402

MOGUL MOWGLI (UK 2020) ***1/2

Directed by Bassam Tariq

Zed is a British-Pakistani rapper who is based in New York, given the chance of a lifetime, to open for a well known band in Europe.   Before his world tour begins, he gets an autoimmune disease.  He returns to see his Pakistani family in London.  MOGUL MOWGLI is a fierce film made even more intense from the angry rap songs performed by famous about to be more famous British rapper Zed, played by Riz Ahmed (JASON BOURNE, THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST), who also lent his hand in writing the film’s script.  This is evidently his movie, he giving the most to it, as can be seen performance-wise.  The most moving line is still an effective one though used in many films of this genre : “Why is this (sickness)  happening to me?” The title takes from the main character in Rudyard Kipling’s THE JUNGLE BOOK.  The film’s best segment is the one where the father tells the son who in sitting in his wheelchair about to try walking without aid.  “Show the doctors that you do not need their medicine.” the father tells the son after having his son treated on Pakistani cupping procedure.  Zed gets up takes up two small steps and remains standing before sliding back in the wheelchair.  The camera focuses on the face on Zed.  It is booth a sad and funny scene, a combination that is rarely captured together on film.  The film covers issues like  rap, illness, family religions and life in general.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-hFOqYUgcE

THE HORSE THIEVES.  ROADS OF TIME (Japan/Kazakhstan 2019) ****

Directors: Yerlan Nurmukhambetov and Lisa Takeba

A western set in the vast Central Asian plains with bad men and horse herding.  The hero of the piece is a stranger who suddenly appears to a family akin to the man with no name in the Sergio Leone westerns of perhaps akin to the classic SHANE by George Stevens.  The father of a family with mother and three children is killed by horse thieves when the stranger appears to help the mother and family as they move from their village to live with a relative.  The setting is spectacular with scenes seen that are uncommon to western audiences courtesy of cinematographer Aziz Zhambakiev.  The horse herding segments are grand to observe as in the way of life of these people.   Don’t let the slow pace fool you.  The film comes with suspense and exciting action scenes.  All the events are seen from the point of view of the 10-year old son, Olzhas who tells the stranger that he recognizes the watch with the cracked glass worn by his father’s killer at a tavern.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4rug5Qjd5s

Festival du Nouveau Cinema 2020 (Montreal)

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Category: Cinéma - Movies

Published: Thursday, 08 October 2020 17:07

Written by Gilbert Seah

FESTIVAL DU NOUVEAU CINEMA 2020 (Montreal)

The Festival du nouveau cinéma or FNC (meaning Festival of New Cinema) is an annual independent film festival held in Montreal and features independent films from around the world.  Over 160,000 people attend the festival each year, this year being the exception because of Covid-19.  It is one of the oldest film festivals in Canada.  This year the films can be accessed through purchase from their website:

https://nouveaucinema.ca/fr/

The festival runs from Wednesday October the 7th till the 17th in theatres but this has been changed because of Covid-19 second wave closings.   Below, please ind capsule reviews of self films screened at the festival.  Capsule reviews will be added daily till the festival ends.   But the majority of films can be rented for streaming beginning the 7th till the 31st of the month.

CAPSULE REVIEWS OF SELECT FILMS:

APPLES (Greece 2020) **

Directed by Christos Nikou

Director Nikou worked as the assistant director on Yorgos Lanthimos’s absurdist surreal comedy DOGTOOTH in 2009.  His debut film, APPLES direct from the Venice Film Festival,  obviously draws many similarities to Lanthimos’s style of direction.  APPLES, however is a drama rather than a comedy making it a much harder and slower watch.  The film opens with the main character played by Aris Servetalis being awoken on a bus, not remembering anything including who he is.  He is brought to a hospital for examination.  Apparently there is an epidemic going around where many are suffering amnesia out of the blue and for no reason.  The character eats an apple and is seen eating apples which is the reason the film is so called.  Nothing really happens except that the film visualizes the pain and suffering due to the unexplained illness.  The character is offered a new identity by the hospital to survive as his memory is not improving at all, as evident in the tests (very slow ones) conducted.  The film might be more current due to the Pandemic Covid-19 virus, but Nikou's film requires patience and goes nowhere.  An OK watch if you like this sort of Kafka-ish thing, otherwise this exercise will be totally boring.

Trailer: https://www.firstshowing.net/2020/promo-trailer-for-greek-comedy-apples-exploring-selective-memory/

ATLANTIS (Ukraine 2020) ***1/2
Directed by Valentyn Vasyanovych

The film setting is a dystopian society in the future of the year 202., a year after the war ended.  It is not a pretty sight to be living there but a marvellous sight, cinematography wise.   Director Vasyanovych’s film contains stark and stunning images.  The film is made up of vignettes that last around 10 - 15 minute each, where characters walk into the scene and move in and out the stationary frame.   The vignettes are connected, creating a narrative that involves an ex-soldier by the name of Sergiy (Andriy Rymaruk).  His mate jumps into the fire in factory in the beginning segment leaving Sergiy to run some errand involving travel into ‘the zone' where he meets a girl in the business of locating, identifying and properly burying soldiers and other war casualties found in unmarked, often mass graves.  A strange but remarkable film that won the top price in the Horizons Section at the Venice Film Festival 2020.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc5hZBzAfBs

DROWSY CITY (Vietnam 2019) ***
Directed by Dong Long Dinh

The film’s setting is a crowded city called DROWSY CITY in the country of Vietnam.  The lead charter is Tao, whose sole occupation is to slaughter chickens and the occasional duck for a living.  So, expect a lot of fowl abuse - such as the pouring of hot water from a kettle to kill the poor animals.  If this is not enough, there is is feather plucking off live chickens and the poisoning of adorable little chicks.  Tao’s quiet and uneventful life is rudely interrupted by three squatters, 3 gangsters who move in next door together with a prostitute who Tao gets involved with.  The film shows what happens when a quiet man is pushed far past his limit of endurance.  Tao turns nasty and exacts a cruel revenge.  Director Dong is fond of overhead shots which often depict both the poverty and hustle and bustle of the city.   One might wait patiently for some message in this film but there is none.

Trailer: https://www.dmovies.org/2019/11/22/drowsy-city-thanh-pho-ngu-gat-film/

CAUGHT IN THE NET (Czech 2019) ***
Directed by Barbora Chalupova and Vít Klusák

Three adult actresses pose as 12-year-old girls with three fake bedrooms, three cameras, three chat boxes with fake profiles.  A social experiment on the sexual abuse of young people online conducted live on camera is captured in this Czech doc.   The aim is to catch the child predators caught in the act (net).  It is scary to see how far the majority of these predators go - jerking off; blackmailing the girls; enticing them with money.  Only one on the net, a 20-year old is decent warning  one girl of the dangers of chatting.  The film went on to be number one at the Czechoslovakian box-office and is Grand Prize winner (Czech competition) at One World International Human Rights Film Festival.  But as the doc unfolds, it appears aimless as to what the filmmakers want to do with all the information received - besides shocking the world on the information.  The faces of the predators and blurred, except for the decent 20-year old who turns out to be good-looking.  Still, one of the film crew recognizes one of the predators as one working with kids int he city.

Trailer:

KILL IT AND LEAVE THIS TOWN (Poland 2020) ***
Directed by Mariusz Wilczynski

The difficult to follow story, if there is one is described by this line: Fleeing from despair after losing those dearest to him, the hero hides in a safe land of memories, where time stands still and all those dear to him are alive.  This animated feature from Poland is reported to have taken 6 yers in the making - a film about memories.  The animation is often squiggly and difficult to figure out, but the drawings are often grotesque and dreary,  often changing from one form to another.  Insects seem particularly the favourite of director Wilczynski, though spiders and others get squished along the way.  Other strange things like fish head bobbling up and down appear repetitively in the film.   An animated feature that is not for everyone, but an intriguing one, nevertheless with one trying to figure out what is in the mind of Wilczynski when he was making the film.

Trailer: https://www.imdb.com/video/vi642563609?playlistId=tt8387918&ref_=tt_ov_vi

NIGHT HAS COME (Belgium 2019) ***1/2

Directed by Peter van Goethem

This dreamy mainly black and white meditation is composed of scratchy archive footage retrieved from the Royal Belgian Film Archive.   The hour or so long film offers an interpretation to old images as it ponders memory and existence.  This is a disturbing and mesmerizing exercise that is definitely thought provoking.  The premise is a mysterious virus that causes amnesia in its victims that is on the loose in a dystopian Kafka looking society.  The people call it “night” because it infects the brain, eating away at memories and leaving nothing but darkness.  To protect its citizens, the State steps in with a program to harvest and archive their memories.   But all this appears to be actually happening today all over the world.  Virus or not, old age, dementia  or Alzheimer’s cause human beings to lose their memory and if memories are lost we have nothing.  As the voiceover goes:  “We live to forget everything to be forgotten very quietly.”

Trailer: https://www.youtube.co

OASIS (OAZA)(Serbia/France 2020) ****
Directed by Ivan Ikic

This deserving winner of the Best European Film at this year’s  2020 Venice Film Festival is a slow burn but an amazing look at mentally challenged teens.  The film opens with the note that in the past, children that are backward were often drowned in the river.  Maria and Dragana fall in love over Robert, all three in an institution in Serbia.  The manipulative Dragana ends up slitting her wrists while Maria ends up pregnant.  The authorities separate Robert and Maria while aborting the baby.  What starts as a love triangle ends up a social study of what it means to be challenged.  The challenged have feelings too and are as much human as anyone else and should be allowed to make decisions on their own, lest allowed to fall in love as well.  Director Ikic works his wonders with his winning grey looking feature making his audience eventually care about his characters.  The three are played by non-professional actor and they are either very good actors or act their part.  The heartbreaking drama is one of the best films I have seen at the festival so far!

Trailer: https://online.nouveaucinema.ca/film/oasis/

LE QUATOUR A CORNES - LA-HAUT SUE LA MONTAGNE

(Way Up the Mountain) (France/Belgium 2019) ***1/2

Directed by Benjamin Botello and Arnaud Demuynck

This absolutely charming and hilarious 37 minute animation follows 4 cows way up high in the mountain stuck in ice and snow.  The 4 cows Clarisse, Maggie, Aglaé and Rosine venture on the journey after accepting the invite from JB, a ram to discover the snowy peaks.  But when they learn from the sheep that JB has disappeared after leaving looking for edelweiss, the four heroines decide to go looking for him and save him from the terrifying bélébélé (bellybelly).   They meet however, an ibex who reluctantly helps them in their quest.  There is much to enjoy including the yodelling soundtrack, the imaginative animation, the goofy bovine antics and the laugh-out loud humour.  A total delight!  In French.

Trailer: http://www.allocine.fr/video/player_gen_cmedia=19589962&cfilm=283954.html

THALASSO (France 2019) ***

Directed by Guillaume Nicloux

As weird as films go during this festival, this weird one is rather ingenious in the way it mixes fiction and reality for the purpose of absurdity.  THALASSO refers to saltwater therapy and it is in such a saltwater therapy spa that audiences of this film find actor Gerard Depardieu and arguably the most important French literalist living today, Michel Houellebecq meet.  Michel is now recuperating after a kidnapping, supposedly orchestrated by ex-President Lalonde to prevent Michel for running for office.  Michel survives the kidnapping but will he survive the strict rules of the spa like no wine, no smokes and no more than 2 allowed in a room?  Depardieu helps him with smokes and bottles of wine which he sneaks in.  Things get weirder when Sylvester Stallone is rumoured to be frolicking naked on the nearby beach.  Stallone played by look-alike/impersonator Jade Roberts appear at the end of the film with a machine gun, RAMBO-style.  This film needs to be seen to be believed.  And, there is a hilarious segment of the discussion of pussy transplant rejection.

Trailer: https://www.imdb.com/video/vi913226777?playlistId=tt9699640&ref_=tt_ov_vi