WEST VIRGINIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL |
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The 21st Annual Fall Film Festival is made possible with major support from the following:
STUDENT FILMMAKING COMPETITION Held annually during the Spring Film Festival, this competition is open to students enrolled in any WV educational institution (home-schooled students are eligible). Entries are accepted in 3 divisions: K-8th, 9th-12th, and college. At least $1,000 in cash is up for grabs! Prizes are funded in part by the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Most video and film formats are acceptable. Submissions are due March 24, 2006. For entry forms and rules and regulations, visit the website at ww.wviff.org, or email wviff@yahoo.com.
SCHEDULE FRIDAY 7:00 p.m. CRASH GORDON 1 hour, 44 minutes, USA Spoofing the early Flash Gordon serials, and with a comedic sensibility that is a cross between Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, this action/comedy takes our heroes on a rambunctious roller coaster ride across the strange and quirky planet Mondo. To succeed, they must overcome silly robots, odd aliens, the minions of Emperor Bing and their own ineptitude. In the spirit of Woody Allen's "What's Up, Tiger Lily," director Bill Richardson's film takes the serial Flash Gordon Conquerors the Universe and turns it into something wholly different and funny. Richardson will be in attendance. 9:30 p.m. MURDERBALL 1 hour, 25 minutes, R (language and some sexual content) Documentary, USA
SATURDAY November 5th 1:00 p.m. THE WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL 83 minutes, GDocumentary, USA
3:00 p.m. DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE 107 minutes, Not ratedDocumentary, Austria (Russian and Swahili with English subtitles)
5:00 p.m. THE UNTOLD STORY OF EMMETT LOUIS TILL 1 hour, 10 minutes, Not ratedDocumentary, USA
7:00 p.m. BROKEN FLOWERS 1 hour, 46 minutes, Comedy/Drama, USA/FranceR (language, some graphic nudity & brief drug use)
9:00 p.m. ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW 1 hour, 30 minutes, R (disturbing sexual contentinvolving children, & language)Comedy, USA
SUNDAY November 6TH 3:00 p.m. GILANEH 1 hour 25 minutes, Not ratedDrama, Iran (Farsi with English subtitles)
5:00 p.m. ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM 1 hour, 40 minutes, Not ratedDocumentary, USA Based on the bestselling book of the same name by Fortune reporters Bethany McLeanand Peter Elkind, a multidimensional study of one of the biggest business scandals inAmerican history. The chronicle takes a look at one of the greatest corporate disastersin history, in which top executives from the 7th largest company in this country walkedaway with over one billion dollars, leaving investors and employees with nothing. Thefilm features insider accounts and rare corporate audio and video tapes that revealcolossal personal excesses of the Enron hierarchy and the utter moral vacuum thatposed as corporate philosophy. The human drama that unfolds within Enron’s wallsresembles a Greek tragedy and produces a domino effect that could shape the face ofour economy and ethical code for years to come. 7:00 p.m. BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS 1 hour, 20 minutes, Not ratedDrama, France/China (Mandarin and French with English subtitles)
MONDAY November 7th 7:00 p.m. THE EDUKATORS 2 hours, 7 minutes, R (for language, a scene of sexuality, and some drug use)Drama, Germany/Austria (German with English subtitles)
9:30 p.m. PERFECT CRIME 1 hour, 45 minutes, Not ratedComedy, Spain/Italy (Spanish with English subtitles)
TUESDAY November 8th 7:00 p.m. 2046 2 hours, 9 minutes, R (sexual content)China/France (Cantonese, Japanese, and Mandarin with English subtitles)
9:30 p.m. TROPICAL MALADY 1 hour, 58 minutes, Not ratedDrama, Thailand/France (Thai with English subtitles)
WEDNESDAY November 9th 7:00 p.m. SARABAND 2 hours, DramaR (for brief nudity, language and a violent image)Sweden (Swedish with English subtitles) An “intense emotional stew” that has been called“the best-crafted, least self-indulgent film” in years, SARABAND may be Ingmar Bergman’slast film, but it is definitely among his finest. In this sequel to the 1973 film “Scenes from aMarriage,” Marianne and Johan meet again after thirty years without contact, when Mariannesuddenly feels a need to see her ex-husband. She decides to visit Johan at his old summerhouse in the western province of Dalarna, Sweden. And so, one beautiful autumn day, thereshe is, beside his reclining chair, waking him with a light kiss. The film’s stark family dramaand visual intensity “feels like a blast of cold Scandinavian air from a suddenly open window.” 9:00 p.m. Murderball (see 11/4 description)
THURSDAY November 10th 6:30 p.m. KINGS AND QUEEN 2 hours, 25 minutes, Not rated (profanity, sexual situations, nudity)Drama, France (French with English subtitles)
9:30 p.m. THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED 1 hour, 47 minutes, Not ratedDrama, France (French with English subtitles)
FRIDAY November 11th 7:00 p.m. THE WARRIOR 1 hour, 25 minutes, R (some violence)Action/Drama, UK/France (Hindi with English subtitles)
9:00 p.m. MAD HOT BALLROOM 1 hour, 50 minutes, PG (some thematic elements)Documentary, USA
SATURDAY November 12th 1:00 p.m. MAD HOT BALLROOM 1 hour, 50 minutes, PG (some thematic elements)Documentary, USA
3:00 p.m. HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE 1 hour, 59 minutes, PG (frightening images and brief mild language)Anime, Japan (dubbed in English)
5:30 p.m. CRÓNICAS 1 hour, 48 minutes, R (violence, a scene of sexuality, and language),Drama/Suspense, Mexico/Ecuador (Spanish with English subtitles)
7:30 p.m. JUNEBUG 1 hour, 47 minutes, Drama, USA R (for sexual content and language)
9:30 p.m. THE ARISTOCRATS 1 hour, 26 minutes, Not ratedDocumentary/Comedy, USA
NOTE: Film schedule, times may change without notice. WVIFF reserves the right to hold an event which may require purchase of a separate ticket. WVIFF reserves the right to screen short films before feature films, which will be included with the price of admission to the subsequent feature film. If you would like to receive an email to be notified of the schedule, please click here. WVIFF@AOL.COM
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Featuring fierce rivalry, stopwatch suspense, and larger-than-life personalities, MURDERBALL is a film about tough, highly competitive, wheelchair-bound rugby players. In their own version of the full-contact sport, these men smash the hell out of each other in their custom-made gladiator-like wheelchairs. In addition to smashing chairs, it will smash every stereotype you ever had about the disabled. But most of all, it is a film about standing up, even after your sprit---and your spine---has been crushed.
This beautiful film tells the true story of a Bohemian St. Francis and his remarkable relationshipwith a flock of wild red-and-green parrots. Mark Bittner, a dharma bum and frustrated,homeless street musician in San Francisco, falls in with the flock as he searches for meaningin his life, unaware that the wild parrots will bring him everything he needs and change his lifeforever.
Sometime in the 1960’s, in the heart of Africa, a new animal was introduced into Lake Victoriaas an experiment. The Nile Perch, a voracious predator, extinguished almost the entire stockof native fish species. However, the new fish multiplied so fast that its white fillets are todayexported all around the world. Huge ex-Soviet cargo planes come daily to collect the latestcatch in exchange for their southbound cargo—weapons for the countless wars in the darkcenter of the continent. This booming multinational industry of fish & weapons has createdan ungodly global alliance on the shores of the world’s biggest tropical lake.
The murder of Emmett Louis Till, an African-American teenager—and the sham trial thatfollowed in 1955 Mississippi—helped spark America’s civil rights movement. Fifty years later,filmmaker Beauchamp has reconstructed the case and found that responsibility for the murderextends beyond the two good ol’ boys acquitted by an all-white jury. Beauchamp interviewseyewitnesses whose stories have never been told, and discovers potentially guilty partiesstill living and liable for prosecution. This groundbreaking movie has already had a tangibleimpact: the U.S. Justice Department has reopened this infamous case as a result of the film’srevelations.
In the new film from acclaimed writer/director JimJarmusch, Bill Murray stars as Don Johnston. Theresolutely single Don has just been dumped by his latest lover, Sherry (Julie Delpy).Don yet again resigns himself to being alone and left to his own devices. Instead, he iscompelled to reflect on his past when he receives by mail a mysterious pink letter. It isfrom an anonymous former lover and informs him that he has a 19-year-old son whomay now be looking for his father. Hesitant to travel at all, Don nonetheless embarks ona cross-country trek in search of clues from four former flames (Frances Conroy, JessicaLange, Sharon Stone, and Tilda Swinton). Unannounced visits to each of these uniquewomen hold new surprises for Don as he haphazardly confronts both his past and,consequently, his present.
ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW is a poetic and penetrating observation ofpeople struggling to connect with one another in an isolating and contemporary world.Christine (Miranda July) is a lonely artist who uses her fantastical artistic visions todraw her aspirations and objects of desire closer to her. Richard (John Hawkes), anewly single shoe salesman and father of two boys, is prepared for amazing things tohappen. But when he meets the captivating Christine, he panics. Life is not so obliquefor Richard’s seven-year-old Robby, who is having a risqué Internet romance with astranger, and his fourteen-year-old brother Peter who becomes the guinea pig forneighborhood girls—practicing for their future of romance and marriage.
Directed by Rakhshan Bani-Etemad & Mohsen AbdolvahabIt is the Iranian New Year, 1988. Sadaam is bombing Tehran, and Gilaneh’s family isbeing ripped apart by the war. Her son-in-law is missing after deserting the army. Hercharming son, Ishmael, is heading off to fight for his country. Fifteen years later, on theeve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Gilaneh is alone in her village home, taking care ofIshmael, now an invalid veteran. This beautifully shot, timely film overflows withunwavering pain, suffering and hope.
China, in the lingering grip of the cultural revolution, two university students, Luoand Ma, are sent to a mountain mining village as part of their reeducation to purge them oftheir classical western-oriented education. Amid the backbreaking work and stifling ignoranceof the community, the two boys find that music, and the presence of the beautiful localyoung women are the only pleasant things in their miserable life. However, none compare tothe young seamstress granddaughter of the local tailor. Stealing a secret cache of forbiddenbooks such as the works of Honore de Balzac, they set about to teach her things she hadnever imagined. In doing so, they start a journey that would profoundly change herperspective on her world and teach the boys about the power of literature and their ownability to change their world in truly revolutionary ways.
Three young German radicals enjoy breaking into the homes of the wealthy as an act ofpolitical rebellion. When they are forced to deal with a businessman who has caught them inthe act, the trio makes a rash decision and their futures are quaked. Ideals are tested asgenerations collide, passions rage, and loyalties shatter.
This black comedy is about a man who was so obsessed with living a perfect life that it wasbound to cause problems. Guillermo Toledo (THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BED) stars as theDon Juan of a big Madrid department store—an ambitious ladies department clerk wholongs to become floor manager. Rafael will do anything to ace out the competition for theposition, spending time with the sexy salesgirls along the way.
Picking up where “In the Mood for Love” left off, 2046 is a visually seductive reverie ofmemory and regret, refracted through a serial womanizer’s experiences with six women. Hewas a writer. He thought he wrote about the future but it really was the past. In his novel, amysterious train left for 2046 every once in a while. Everyone who went there had the sameintention—to recapture their lost memories. It was said that in 2046, nothing ever changed.Nobody knew for sure if it was true, because nobody who went there had ever come back—except for one. He was there. He chose to leave. He wanted to change.
Winner of the Special Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and an official selection of the NewYork Film Festival, TROPICAL MALADY is the lyrical and mysterious new film by maverick Thai director,Apichatpong Weerasethakul, (BLISSFULLY YOURS), one of the most prominent young directors ofthe Thai New Wave. TROPICAL MALADY chronicles the mystical love affair between a young soldierand the country boy he seduces, soon to be disrupted by the boy’s sudden disappearance. Locallegends claim the boy was transformed into a mythic wild beast, and the soldier journeys alone intothe heart of the Thai jungle in search of him.
The exhilarating new film from Arnaud Desplechin, and starring two of France’s greatestyoung actors, KINGS AND QUEEN expertly mixes comedy, tragedy and melodrama to tell theemotionally gripping story of the intersecting lives of two former lovers. Parallel storylinestell the current state of affairs for the two: Nora’s a single mother who comes to care forher terminally ill father; Ismael, a brilliant musician holed in up in a mental ward, plots anescape. Desplechin draws inspiration from mythology, Shakespeare and the grand novelsof the past to tell this very modern tale of human relationships. The bold sensibility ondisplay in KINGS AND QUEEN—-fearlessly traversing between heart-wrenching drama andburlesque hilarity—-firmly establishes Desplechin as one of the most exciting young directorsworking in cinema today.
In this follow-up to his critical smash READ MY LIPS, Jacques Audiard has adapted andupdated James Toback’s cult 1978 noir FINGERS to come up with this memorable characterstudy about a young man torn between a life of crime and classical music. Romain Duris(L’AUBERGE ESPAGNOL), in a standout performance, portrays the 28-year-old Tom whoseems destined to follow in his father’s footsteps as a Parisian property shark working in asleazy and sometimes brutal milieu. However, a chance encounter with his late mother’smusic agent rekindles a desire for a musical career and hope for a better life. Like READ MYLIPS, Audiard has fused two unlikely worlds into a stunning vision, featuring a menacing anddangerous Paris rarely seen on screen.
This “an auspicious feature debut” from acclaimed British director Asif Kapadia is reminiscentof Akira Kurosawa’s work. THE WARRIOR follows the visually stunning and emotionallyexhilarating journey of an ancient Indian warrior who travels from the golden deserts of Rajasthan to the snowcapped peaks of the Himalaya in search of the one thing he hasnever known—peace—only to be chased by the forces of violence. The film features anunconventional mix of samurai-style movie action, stirring performances, sumptuouslandscapes and a mystical tale of personal redemption of the human spirit and its evolutionfrom primal revenge to the transcendent.
An inspiring look inside the lives of New York City schoolkids on a journey into the world of ballroom dancing, anunexpected arena where they discover new frontiers about attitude, movement, style andcommitment. Told from the candid, sometimes hilarious perspective of the boys and girlsthemselves, the picture chronicles their transformation from typical urban kids to “ladiesand gentlemen,” as their school teams strive toward a final citywide competition. Shootingin neighborhoods, classrooms and in the fifth-graders’ homes, the filmmakers show allthe contradictions of this dynamic and intriguing age, when growing pressure to becomea “cool” teenager vies with rambunctious childlike innocence.
An amazing new adventure, this animated film celebrates the power of love to transformand the resiliency of the human spirit in the face of adversity. When Sophie, a youngwoman, is cursed with an old body by a spiteful witch, her only chance of breaking thespell lies with a self-indulgent, mysterious young wizard named Howl. Embarking on anincredible odyssey to lift the curse, Sophie finds refuge in Howl’s magical moving castle,and her love and support has a major impact on the wizard. Extraordinary characters,inventive imagery, and stunning artistry make this latest masterpiece from the visionaryHayao Miyazaki an unforgettable film-going experience.
Journalists in movies tend to come in two flavors: idealistic or sleazy. The intrigue ofCRÓNICAS is that John Leguizamo plays a tabloid TV reporter who is both at once. CRÓNICASis a suspense thriller about Manolo Bonilla, a reporter from Miami who travels to Ecuadorin pursuit of a story about a serial killer known as the “Monster of Babahoyo.” As thisreporter bends the rules to get the facts, his personal ambition gets out of hand, and hispursuit of a moment of glory carries tragic consequences. The closer he gets to uncoveringthe truth, the more Bonilla finds his carefully planned story spinning dangerously out ofcontrol.
When Madeleine, a British-born dealer in regional, “outsider”art, travels from Chicago to North Carolina to pursue a local painter for her gallery, she and her brand-new, younger husband George extend the trip to include an introduction tohis family: his prickly mother Peg, his taciturn father Eugene, his angry younger brotherJohnny, and the younger brother’s pregnant wife Ashley. Although Ashley immediatelytakes to the sophisticated Madeleine, the rest of the family is less than receptive. Tensionsmount as Ashley goes into labor. Madeleine confronts the difficulty of two cultures colliding,and discovers the tumultuous outcome as these separate ways of life must coexist.
Comedy veterans and co-creators Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza capitalize on theirinsider status and invite over 100 of their closest friends (who happen to be some of thebiggest names in entertainment, from George Carlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Carey toGilbert Gottfried, Bob Saget, Paul Reiser and Sarah Silverman) to reminisce, analyze,deconstruct and deliver their own versions of the world’s dirtiest joke, an old burlesqueroutine, too extreme to be performed in public, called “The Aristocrats.”