53rd San Francisco International Film Festival 22 April - 6 May 2010
FILMS
- Alamar
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The Mexican Caribbean’s stunning Banco Chinchorro, home to the world’s second largest coral reef, provides setting and inspiration for this effortlessly beautiful film, which follows a Mayan father and young son as they spend a summer working (and playing) along the coast.
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- Pedro González-Rubio
- New Directors
- Mexico
- 2009
- Animal Heart
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This potent first feature, set on a small two-person dairy farm deep in the Swiss Alps, is a courageously clear-eyed and forgiving look at the wildly dysfunctional marriage of a brutish dairy farmer and his beleaguered wife.
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- Séverine Cornamusaz
- New Directors
- France/Switzerland
- 2009
- Between Two Worlds
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The lingering psychic, physical and spiritual effects of over 20 years of civil war in Sri Lanka provide the context for this poetic and revelatory second feature from the maker of The Forsaken Land (SFIFF 2008).
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- Vimukthi Jayasundara
- New Directors
- Sri Lanka
- 2009
- A Brand New Life
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Drawing on her childhood memories, director Lecomte creates an intimate portrait of an emotionally bereft nine-year-old and her irrepressible cohort at a South Korean Catholic orphanage, featuring an unforgettable performance by the film’s young lead.
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- Ounie Lecomte
- New Directors
- South Korea/France
- 2009
- Cracks
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At a British girls’ boarding school, a glamorous and provocative teacher captures the imagination of a group of students until a new girl from Spain reveals the darker side of a secluded society where obsession, rivalry and sexual awakening collide.
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- Jordan Scott
- New Directors
- England/Ireland
- 2009
- The Day God Walked Away
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A young Tutsi woman, abandoned by the Belgian family she worked for, must fend for herself amid the Rwandan genocide in this potent psychological study of survival, featuring a remarkably vital performance from singer and survivor Ruth Nirere.
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- Philippe van Leeuw
- New Directors
- France/Belgium
- 2009
- Domain
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This moody, contemplative, superbly acted drama explores the unusual and unusually intimate relationship between a magnetic and alcoholic aunt and her 17-year-old nephew who is coming to terms with his sexuality.
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- Patric Chiha
- New Directors
- France/Austria
- 2009
- Everyone Else
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A newly in-love German couple slowly realizes that their relationship may not survive a holiday in Sardinia. Maren Ade’s brilliant sophomore effort should be placed alongside Scenes from a Marriage for its piercingly intelligent examination of a relationship hovering in the netherworld between commitment and dissolution.
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- Maren Ade
- New Directors
- Germany
- 2009
- The Famous and the Dead
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A 16-year-old Bob Dylan fan becomes obsessed by the Internet images and murky fate of a local girl, his fascination growing with the reappearance in town of her charismatic, sinister boyfriend, in this enigmatic coming-of-age drama.
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- Esmir Filho
- New Directors
- Brazil/France
- 2009
- Father of My Children
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A wheeling-dealing French film producer juggles career ambition, familial demands and the prospect of financial ruin in this deftly unfolding narrative by the writer/director of All Is Forgiven (SFIFF 2008), once again proving herself a nuanced observer of complex relationships within the world of cinema and beyond its blissful escape.
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- Mia Hansen-Lřve
- New Directors
- France/Germany
- 2009
