IFFR 2009 (the middle range)

The Storm (TR 156')
For eighteen-year-old Cemal, being accepted to the University of Istanbul is more than just an opportunity to continue his studies, it is his big chance to leave his remote Kurdish village in Southeast Turkey once and for all. Getting off the bus, he is overwhelmed by the grandeur of the big city, but the historic campus is a whole different story. This is the early 90s; radical student activities are at their peak and cops patrol the grounds. Our naive protagonist quietly attends classes and keeps his head down, but soon, Queen Bee Helin will cajole him and two other Kurdish classmates, Orhan and Rojda, into joining her anti-system revolutionary group. This is a precious time for self-discovery. The three friends start questioning the status quo and embracing their cultural identities. They form new friendships, fall in love, read Marx, talk about their dreams and get carried away anticipating the revolution. But all isn’t rosy; conflicts rise within the group and the police encircle them like vultures. Kazim Öz, known for his captivating documentaries of Kurdish life, presents a masterful second feature in the form of an epic that realistically depicts the social uprising and urgency of Turkey’s student movement of the past decade. Hardcore and heart-wrenching, The Storm has already started to gain cult status among young audiences in Turkey.

Unspoken (BE 97')
Unspoken is a character study of few words - or better, of a lot of unspoken words - about the inability to communicate of the parents of a daughter who disappeared without trace five years before.
The mother, played by Emmanuelle Devos, who is nearly bursting out of her seams from pent-up emotion, regularly sees a girl in the underground who looks a little like her daughter. And the father (played by Bruno Todeschini), who is wasting away from self-torment, receives mysterious telephone calls that may point towards the girl. Until the father/husband disappears without trace too. From that day on, the mother/wife is all on her own twice over, which may seem less lonely in some ways.
Fien Troch made her feature début in 2005 with the prize-winning Someone Else’s Happiness. Her second feature is about coming to terms with a loss that can't really be coped with, because there is no certainty about the nature of the loss. It's not about unravelling the fate of the daughter, but the question of what the loss does to those left behind, who after a time are confronted with people in their surroundings who expect them to have come to terms with the loss. This hidden tension cuts through the soul like a scalpel, not lastly through the delightful play with depth of focus by cameraman Frank Van den Eeden.

Bronson (GB 92')
Michael Gordon Peterson has published 11 books, writes poetry, is an idiosyncratic and talented painter and does 2,500 push-ups each day - in prison, where the most violent prisoners of England are held for life, even though he has never killed or fatally wounded anyone. He was sentenced in 1974 to 7 years at the age of 19 for a raid on a post office and has become the longest serving prisoner in the United Kingdom. With a history of hostage-taking and violence against prison personnel, the incredibly strong 'Bronson' - a nickname he earned during his short career as a free fighter in the very brief periods he was a free man - spends most of his time in isolation.
Nicolas Winding Refn allows Bronson to tell his life story, dressed as a variety artist. But it isn't a literal biography: Refn, who as a Dane was unfamiliar with Bronson's status, is more interested in his personality. The actor Tom Hardy, responsible for the spectacularly intense leading role, had been fascinated by Bronson for years. He also provides an amazing performance: as an actor and as a trained sportsmen.

Élève Libre (BE/FR 105)
An élève libre is someone who receives private lessons. But the title has layers, because what is ‘freedom’ for Jonas? He is kicked out of school after failing his exams. Game stress puts an end to his hope of professional tennis. His parents are divorced and have largely disappeared from sight (Flemish actor Johan Leysen has a bit part as the father); Jonas is staying with friends of his mother. A friend of theirs offers to give him free private lessons for an exam which will help Jonas to catch up three years. He has to spend some time with the man, and they talk about algebra and literature, but also about sex and relationships. Like the couple with whom Jonas lives, the man is outspokenly direct. When Jonas talks about his first time, they ask him all the details. ‘Did she suck you ?’ ‘Is she vaginal or clitoral?’ ‘And inside, is she tight?’ At first their 70s openness and his blushing butchness are funny, but the sexual candidness gradually shifts to uneasy territory. The lady of the house wouldn't mind demonstrating a blow job - and otherwise he can watch her and her boyfriend? Jonas is especially confused by his private teacher.
Lafosse adopts a modest approach. With little music and a registering camera, he avoids imposing judgement. His film asks: where is the boundary between teaching and forcing something on someone, in word and deed?

Black Dogs Barking (TR 88')
Restless and young, best buddies Selim and Çaça live a meagre existence on the outskirts of Istanbul. Their neighbourhood's view of the city's gigantic business towers accelerates their ambitions. By day they grow pigeons on the roof, by night they drive their pimped-up car, 'My Orange Angel', and roam the mean streets with their entourage. The two buddies want to open up their own parking-lot business near a gigantic mall, and they just might get lucky, since they’re supported by the local mafia boss. But everyone wants a slice of the cake and the mall’s dodgy security contractor, Sait, is not so willing to let his 'turf' slide to these up-and-coming lads. Plus, the cops are on the boys’ tail to gather evidence against the mafia’s now 'legalized' activities. It isn’t long before Selim and Çaça’s dreams will be shattered when they find themselves in water over their heads. This sizzling début feature from Mehmet Bahadir Er and Maryna Gorbach, shot in a verité style, captures a verisimilitude representative of the many unemployed young Turkish men who just want to make a better life for themselves. Submerged in poverty and the prevailing macho culture, it is no surprise that they become victims of violence. Bustling with energy with its in-yer-face attitude, Black Dogs Barking proudly takes over On Board's (1988) legacy of the working class anti-heroes.

Dogging: a Love Story (GB 103')
In the north-east of England an ensemble of characters united by amorous misadventure search for love in all the wrong places. Dan is a university graduate who, having so far failed to secure work as a journalist, sleeps on the sofa of his cousin’s plush city centre flat. He investigates the phenomenon of dogging (sex in cars) via the Internet. While browsing the chat rooms he makes the acquaintance of ‘HORNY GEORDIE LASS’ and finds himself pretending to be the dogging expert that he clearly is not.
His career-minded girlfriend Tanya is tired of his lack of ambition. Dan's cousin Rob is an overconfident estate agent who boasts of dogging experience and, like Tanya, takes great pleasure in ridiculing the Internet approach to journalism. Convinced that Dan needs to ditch Tanya and start living, he wastes no time in suggesting he experience the dogging scene for himself. Rob’s current partner Sarah also enjoys carefree, al fresco sex. Living nearby with her over-protective father, Laura lives an exciting life via Internet chat rooms as ‘HORNY GEORDIE LASS’. She is meanwhile pursued by Jim. Charismatically persistent, he thinks nothing of haplessly approaching girls for a phone number and maybe a kiss or a cuddle.
Dogging: A Love Story is a quietly comic take on sex, danger, jealousy and 21st century romance in the great dark outdoors.

Autumn (TR 106')
Autumn is an intricately woven inner journey covering the insuppressible past, the fleeting present and the lack of a promising future. But despite all, it is the hope for change, which once drove, and still drives, the characters to firmly grip their lives. Such is Yusuf: in 1997 he was a politically active left-wing student; in 2007, he is a disillusioned misfit. After a decade of imprisonment for his lost cause, he returns to his native village in the eastern Black Sea region. His widowed mother is more than happy to welcome him, but the overbearingly beautiful mountains of his homeland only deepen his self-doubt and isolation. One day, meandering in a tavern with his childhood friend Mikail, Yusuf encounters a similarly wounded soul. She is the ethereal Eka, a Georgian prostitute who yearns for the day she can reunite with her daughter across the border. These kindred spirits will help each other to confront their darkest fears.
Autumn is one of those long-awaited, magical yet brutal films that acutely tackle the issues of forsaken young generations in Turkey whose struggle for social change has cost them dearly - physically and emotionally. Alper’s evocative and sublime images of the present, mixed with intense raw footages of the recent past, brings to life a riveting reflection of a man in search of his deepest core.

33 Scenes from Life (PL 95')
Julia has everything one could dream of: a great and warm home, a loving husband, good parents and a successful career as an artist-photographer. But all of a sudden her world collapses when her mother becomes sick with cancer. In the following months she struggles with her mother's illness, the continuity of her career and the absence of her husband, who is also successful. The sickness and death of Julia's mother are very different and more absurd from a close perspective than one would expect. As if all of this weren't hard enough, her father can't deal with his wife's death and drowns himself in alcohol. Julia looks for comfort in the arms of an unexpected person...
A valuable film with high artistic quality, this is about the ridiculous turns that life can unexpectedly take, about loosing the people dearest to you and becoming a part of the adult world. Malgoska Szumowska has excelled in presenting not a tear-jerking drama but a true mirror of the vulnerability of life. Human, intensive, realistic. Tragic and sometimes funny, with a lot of cigarettes and booze. A film that will stay with you forever and make a place for itself in international film history.

Among the Clouds (IR 83')
Among the Clouds is a first feature film by the Iranian director Rouhollah Hejazi that was shown and awarded at the Fajr Film Festival in Teheran in 2008. The story takes place at an Iranian-Iraqi border and presents an unforgettable picture of this far-away world.
Malek is a teenage boy who earns extra money carrying luggage for tourists and religious pilgrims at the Iran-Iraq check-point. One day he spots the beautiful young Iraqi woman Noura, who earns her living helping Arab pilgrims from Iraq cross the border and find their way around in the nearest Iranian city. Malek cannot keep his eyes off Noura and regularly looks for ways of catching a glimpse of this beauty. He does this while he is working, trying to keep his feelings private.
Noura takes advantage of Malek's naivety and his emotions and asks him for help: Can he carry some bags for her clients? Malek does not hesitate. But this is only the beginning of Noura's plans. The boy embarks upon the dangerous activity of smuggling things (and people), which could get him into big trouble. When Noura disappears, he decides to go search for her in Iraq, in the town closest to the border. Dangerous situations and sobering discoveries follow.

I Sell the Dead (US 85')
Glenn McQuaid was fascinated as a child by British horror costume films made by Amicus Films and Hammer Films, in which genre stars such as Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were gloriously sanguine. This début can also be regarded as a homage to these production houses.
I Sell the Dead is a genuine buddy movie, but then about grave robbers, body snatchers and living dead. The story is situated on the misty and grimy 19th-century British Isles. Thanks to McQuaid's background in post-production and special effects, the fact that this low-budget film was shot on location around New York cannot be seen.
Partly because of the comic-strip adaptation of his story (made by Brahm Revel) McQuaid attracted a star cast. Ron Perlman (The Name of the Rose, Hellboy) is on fine form as a very unconventional priest and Dominic Monaghan, well known as Charlie from the TV series Lost, plays the sympathetic body snatcher Arthur.
When Arthur waits in a dark dungeon for the execution of his sentence, he receives a visit from Father Duffy. Arthur's buddy Willie ended on the scaffold and he awaits the same fate. So it's high time to confess to Father Duffy. While enjoying a bottle of whisky, Arthur describes with delight how the business of grave robbing works. Father Duffy is extremely interested, especially in the part about bringing the dead back to life...

Un Autre Homme (CH 89')
The third feature by Lionel Baier is an intellectual satire on the profession of film critic through the entertaining adventures of an aimless young man. François moves with his respectable girlfriend to Vallée de Joux, where she teaches at a secondary school. He finds a job as film critic with the local paper, where he thinks he can raise the level of reporting by writing film reviews with a high level of analysis. In reality, he copies them from a highbrow Paris magazine and is guilty of plagiarism. Then he meets Rosa, a celebrated film reviewer with a respected newspaper who is out to get the newcomer. An erotic game starts in which Rosa is the manipulative spider spinning a merciless web for him.
Baier, who says that this film is his most personal, resorts to film noir, but gives his own turn to this game of desire and deception. Inspired by a book by the Swiss painter Félix Vallotton about an art critic annex murderer, he is primarily interested in the harsh, insensitive sides of desire, which are expressed in the film in sharp contrasts between city and countryside, truth and lies, lust and love. In the end, he has the young man travel to Paris in order to meet as apotheosis Bulle Ogier, the queen of French cinema.