feature-length films

Lemon Tree

 

Showtime: Monday, January 18, 2010, 2:00pm

Lemon TreeDirector: Eran Riklis
Original Title: Etz Limon
Country: Israel

Salma, a Palestinian widow - living there for decades - , has to stand up against her new neighbor, the Israeli Defense Minister, when he moves into his new house opposite her lemon grove, on the green line border between Israel and the West Bank. The Israeli security forces are quick to declare that Salma's trees pose a threat to the Ministers safety and issue orders to uproot them. Together with Ziad Daud, a young Palestinian lawyer, Salma goes all the way to the Israeli Supreme Court to try and save her trees. Her struggle raises the interest of Mira Navon, the Defense ministers wife, trapped in her new home and in an unhappy life. Read more »

Ramchand Pakistani

 

Showtime: Monday, January 18, 2010, 10:00am

Ramchand PakistaniDirector: Mehreen Jabbar
Country: Pakistan

Ramchand Pakistani is derived from a true story concerning the accidental crossing of the Pakistan-Indian border during a period (June 2002) of extreme, war-like tension between the two countries by two members of a Pakistani Hindu family belonging to the 'untouchable' (Dalit) caste, and the extraordinary consequences of this unintended action upon the lives of a woman, a man, and their son. Read more »

Kabei: Our Mother

 

Showtime: Sunday, January 17, 2010, 7:00pm

Kabei: Our Mother Director: Yoji Yamada
Country: Japan

Veteran Japanese filmmaker Yoji Yamada's 80th feature film concerns a mother living in 1940s-era Tokyo who is forced to care for her two daughters alone after her husband is jailed for expressing reformist views on the Japanese invasion of China. Professor Shigeru Nogami (Mitsugoro Bando) is an outspoken man with some particularly unpopular political views, and for his role in speaking out against the Japanese invasion of China he is promptly jailed. In the wake of his imprisonment, Professor Nogami's devoted wife, Kayo (aka Kabei, played by Sayuri Yoshinaga), is suddenly relegated to the status of single mother. Read more »

The Window

 

Showtime: Sunday, January 17, 2010, 1:00pm

The Empty NestDirector: Carlos Sorín
Original Title: La ventana
Country: Argentina

It is a significant day for 80 year old Antonio. After an absence of many years, his estranged son is coming to visit. All must be perfect. There will be a toast with a very special champagne; an embrace; warm words that may finally bridge the gap between them… But before, Antonio must wait. Bedridden, he looks out his window at the Patagonian landscape and sees light and life, the past and the present, while sensing the future. He decides to secretly leave the house, unseen by his faithful caretakers, to take what might be a last walk in his fields, breathing the air, treading the earth, Read more »

The Empty Nest

 

Showtime: Saturday, January 16, 2010, 7:00pm

The Empty NestDirector: Daniel Burman
Original Title: El Nido Vacío
Country: Argentina

This film explores the emptiness experienced when children grow up and leave the family home, suddenly revealing the cracks in a marriage. Leonardo, a successful if somewhat tedious author, behaves like a man on the verge of a middle-age crisis, indulgent towards his neurosis and phobic towards the changes taking place around him. Unlike his wife, Martha, who launches herself into any activity that will take her mind off things, Leonardo prefers introversion. Only when he accepts his situation, Read more »

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