Theatre

MADRIGAL is dedicated to René Clair. Why? In 1955, this French director made LES GRANDES MANOEUVRES (SUMMER MANOEUVRES), in which Gérard Philipe plays a young officer who accepts a bet that he can win the heart of Michèle Morgan, who plays the most beautiful and mysterious woman in town. Something that begins as a game for this rakish charmer, soon develops into a full-blown passion on both sides that ends dramatically as soon as the woman learns of the deception. Now genuinely in love with her, Gérard Philipe begs her forgiveness. More

While much of Cambodia's cultural heritage was eradicated through the deaths of many artists during the Khmer Rouge era, the country's main theatrical structure, Preah Suramarit National Theatre remained standing throughout the Cambodian Civil War, even occasionally being used by the communist regime for official visits and propaganda pageants. Ironically, it was while the theatre was undergoing repairs in 1994 that it caught fire, was heavily damaged and has never been restored. More

It might take two viewings to grasp fully what Fernando Pérez is doing in "Suite Habana," an elusive but intermittently beautiful tone poem on film. There is virtually no dialogue. There are no story lines that build to a climax, no documentary-style voice-overs. There are just snippets from a day in Havana, so disjointed and seemingly random that it takes a while to realize that Mr. Pérez is focusing on 10 specific individuals, tracking them through 24 hours in their painfully ordinary lives. More

A film shot in on shot with no break. On a winter's day, a small party of men and women arrive by horse-drawn carriage to a minor, side entrance of the Winter Palace. The narrator meets another spectral but visible outsider, "the European", and follows him through numerous rooms of the palace. Each room manifests a different period of Russian history, but the periods are not in chronological order. More

In 1979, in a China undergoing rapid changes, it is still forbidden to listen to pop music. Platform is a record young people listen to in secret. Minliang and his friends, an official theatre company, present a play in praise of Mao Zedong. With the 1980s, the theatrical troupe’s life changes: pop music, permed hair, cigarettes… This feature film follows the artistic and emotional tribulations of the young artistes over a ten-year period against a backdrop of revolutionary disappointment, a bygone past and privatisation. More

Maids presents audiences with a glimpse of life in Latin America's most dynamic urban center, São Paulo. The poor women within their local spaces defy easy definition, but both films explore the limits and possibilities of their respective subjects. More

SANDUICHE (SANDWICH, in Portuguese) is a mind-bender mix of detailed character profiles, multiple points of view, and the art of cooking. But most of all, SANDWICH is wonderful because of Jorge Furtado's ability to tell a story in a way that changes entirely our perspective in each turn of the story. Here this master proves that making a movie could be just like cooking a meal - you blend flavors to create something unique. That's what makes SANDWICH so appealing - the way Furtado creates a story that changes its "flavor" every time. More

An eclectic group of actors struggle to save their theater from being demolished and replaced with a shopping mall. Max, the leader of the troupe, is a workaholic director who abandoned his family to build his career and is forced to confront the daughter he deserted. Then there is Enrique, the playwright-poet who is reduced to pawning his belongings to sustain his livelihood when his state pension is severed. Finally, there is Fulo who is driven to succeed so that she can bring her daughter from Rio de Janeiro. (L. Wong) More

Three different characters in a Havana, that always seems to be like today, must choose between clinging to their self-restricting beliefs, or getting rid of them to live more freely. Ballerina Mariana has recently promised God celibacy, if she gets the main role of "Giselle"; Social-worker Julia always faints after hearing a certain word, like other people do in the streets to different words; and percussionist Elpidio was abandoned by his mother named Cuba quite some time ago and has not yet gotten over the loss. Now he fells in love with an northern activist. More

There is an old Indian tradition according to which the parents teach their children the songs of wisdom, in order to enable them to bear their fate and their lives with more calmness. Pallavi - acted by India's most successful TV-star Kitu Gidwani - is a young, successful singer who has learnt her art with the help of her mother. She's convinced that she'd still had to learn a lot of her, whereas the mother thinks her already talented enough to keep the tradition of making music and oral deliverance alive herself. More

The seven young Cambodian actresses who were chosen to play the main parts of The Rice People were all born during the Khmer Rouge genocide between 1975 and 1979 or under the subsequent occupation. When they are not on the set, they are all practicing the art of choreography between the walls of the former royal palace of Phnom Penh. More

Dat and his sister live with their eternally drunk father in a small village in the Vietnamese mountains. One day a travelling circus appears. Dat makes friends with the girl from the circus: He hopes to get behind the trick with which the jugglers suddenly conjure up rice for everyone from an empty basket. Could Dat and his sister, could all the starving people from now on have enough to eat through this incredible miracle? Dat is bitterly disappointed: everything was just dizziness and lazy magic. More

To the dusty streets of Colobane, a once charming village now devastated by poverty, Linguère Ramatou returns with fabulous wealth and a promise to save her people. But, tied to this promise is a deadly bargain: Draman Drameh — the lover who had betrayed a 16-year-old, pregnant Linguère — must be executed. The announcement is made during a celebratory banquet in honour of her return. The villagers, who had long forgotten the incident, are at once confused, horrified and outraged. More

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Fernando Solanas had to spend several years in exile, some of them in Paris. There he tells us the story of people from Argentina spending their time in Paris and longing for Buenos Aires. It's a dancing groupe that works on a piece of an Argentinian composer, and music and dance play an important role. Politics of course too. One of the strongest movies about living in exile.  More

THE TRAVELLING PLAYERS is a film of epic proportions. The action takes place during the years 1939-52 and is seen as a series of individual, often inexplicable events or tableaux, commentated by monologues, by slogans written on the walls, or by songs. It reveals the period's turbulent history while focusing on a travelling company of actors who spend those fourteen years wandering through provinces, cities and villages, performing, in increasingly threadbare circumstances, a 19th century pastoral melodrama, Persiadis' Golfo the Shepherdess. More

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