53rd San Francisco International Film Festival 22 April - 6 May 2010
FILMS
- Port of Memory
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A Palestinian family awaits expulsion from their house by Israeli authorities in a crumbling district now being gentrified in the ancient port city of Jaffa. Personal and cinematic memories, and a very uncertain future, weigh heavily over the residents’ everyday rituals.
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- Kamal Aljafari
- New Directors
- Palestinian Territories/United Arab Emirates/Germany/France
- 2009
- Shirley Adams
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This powerful social realist drama boasts Denise Newman’s remarkable performance as Shirley, a poor South African colored woman whose pride and work ethic are all she has left in the wake of her son’s debilitating shooting injury.
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- Oliver Hermanus
- New Directors
- South Africa/USA
- 2009
- Son of Babylon
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A willful young Kurdish boy and his just-as-obstinate grandmother journey across a chaotic Iraq in search of their missing loved one, a former political prisoner, in this neorealist, utterly heartfelt testament to that country’s continuing search for justice, closure and peace.
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- Mohamed Al-Daradji
- New Directors
- Iraq/England/France/Palestinian Territories/Netherlands/United Arab Emirates/Egypt
- 2010
- Susa
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A 12-year-old Georgian boy ground down by his impoverished environment allows a glimmer of hope to enter his life in this neorealist-style feature debut that shrewdly avoids pathos for a more genuine and wrenching catharsis.
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- Rusudan Pirveli
- New Directors
- Georgia
- 2010
- Tehroun
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When a beggar from Tehran’s slums loses the infant he rented from a local ganglord to a conniving prostitute, he must find a way to pay the difference. Anchored by nuanced characters and a gripping story, Tehroun reveals a humanistic core in its portrayal of a class of people in ruin.
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- Nader Takmil Homayoun
- New Directors
- France/Iran
- 2009
- The Wind Journeys
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A lonely, widowed musician and his overeager teenage apprentice try to return an accordion to its rightful owner in this savory, gorgeously scenic road trip through the popular music, breathtaking landscapes and colorful legends of Colombia’s coastal culture.
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- Ciro Guerra
- New Directors
- Colombia/Netherlands/Argentina/Germany
- 2009
- Winter’s Bone
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When it looks like her missing, crystal meth–cooking father is about to jump bail at the cost of the family home, a Missouri teenager upsets her drug-dealing kin by embarking on a hellish quest to find him.
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- Debra Granik
- New Directors
- USA
- 2009
- You Think You’re the Prettiest, but You Are the Sluttiest
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Flirtatious, narcissistic teenager Javier makes a game of seducing girls. But when he gets dumped, his self-esteem takes a nosedive, and we learn that his apparent frivolousness masks a deeper complexity of character in this astute comedic study by 25-year-old Ché Sandoval.
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- Ché Sandoval
- New Directors
- Chile
- 2009
