Sátántangó

A film by Béla Tarr

The epic rendering of László Krasznahorkai's novel about the decline of Communism in Eastern Europe. Set in a struggling Hungarian agricultural collective in the 1980s, a group of lost souls reeling from the collapse of their Communist utopia face an uncertain future, until the arrival of a charismatic stranger in whom they believe lies their salvation. Within their small dilapidated village the collective's individual experiences and fates are gradually revealed to us and we follow the events in their lives over the course of one day. Their stories are told separately and from the perspective of each individual but with some of the events overlapping, which are seen again in the context of the particular perspective.

Life for the inhabitants of this rural community has come to a virtual standstill. The autumn rains have begun and the villagers are waiting, expecting to receive a large cash payment that evening, after which they plan to leave. But some want to abscond earlier with more than their fair share of the money. However, they hear that the smooth-talking Irimiás, whom they thought had died, is coming back and they are apprehensive that he will take all their money in one of his grandiose schemes to keep the community going.

First we meet Futaki, who whilst having an affair with Mrs Schmidt discovers that her husband is planning to make off with the money that eight villagers have come into through one of Irimiás's schemes. Then we see Irimiás and Petrina who are trying to evade trouble with the law. Next we follow the overweight and frail Doctor who observes and documents the actions of the villagers, recording everything he experiences in his journals. The fourth story involves Estike, a young girl who, ignored by her mother and cheated by her brother, tortures and kills a cat and then commits suicide – a tragedy which will later be exploited by Irimiás. The fifth gathers all the pertinent villagers together in the village bar, drinking and dancing Satan's Tango until they fall into a drunken stupor.

We then follow the villagers as they make their exodus, journeying on foot through the night to the abandoned manor house where Irimiás has told them they will begin a new and successful life. Having left everything behind they could not carry and having given him all their money, they place their implicit trust in him with little real idea of what his plans for them are. But soon they find themselves unable to ignore the doubts they have about Irimiás's great scheme and we begin to see what lies behind his clever deception – and understand the fate that awaits them all.

A dark portrayal of human nature, forlorn desolation and false hope. The film's compelling images of bleakness and despair are a unique, visionary and entirely captivating experience, perfectly accompanied by composer Mihály Víg's haunting and hypnotic musical score.

The Man From London

A Londoni férfi
a film by Béla Tarr based on the novel L'homme de Londres by Georges Simenon.

Maloin leads a simple, humdrum life with no prospects, working as a night signalman at a railway station situated by a ferry harbour. He barely notices the outside world, accepting the slow and inevitable deterioration of life around him and his all but complete loneliness. His life takes a sudden turn, however, when he becomes a witness to a murder and is forced to confront issues of morality, sin, punishment and the line between innocence and complicity in a crime. This state of scepsis leads him to the ontological question of the meaning and worth of existence.

One night, from inside his control tower, Maloin is watching the arrival of the last ferry. On the bow of the ship before him two passengers are in conversation and a suitcase is passed between them. Joining the line of disembarking passengers, one of the two men, after passing through the customs check, walks around the dock and stands at the edge of the quay. The other passenger who has been waiting on the deck of the ship then throws a suitcase towards the man on the shore. The man on the shore picks up the suitcase and retreats into the shadows. Some minutes later Maloin hears raised voices and looking out from his window sees the man with the suitcase has now been confronted by the other man. The quarrel develops into a fight in which one of them is struck, and falling from the quay into the water still clutching the suitcase, his body sinks. The other man, unable to retrieve the lost suitcase then walks away from the scene and enters a nearby hotel.

Astonished at what he has just witnessed, Maloin then climbs down from his tower with a boat-hook, and realising there is little he can do for the victim, retrieves the suitcase from the water. Taking the case back to his control room, he opens it to find it is packed full with bank notes. Incredulous, he slowly he takes the notes out of the suitcase, placing them on the top of his stove to dry. At the end of his shift, Maloin returns home to his wife, Camélia, saying nothing to anyone about the events of the night, or the money. But his innocent, if opportunist actions will begin a course of events in his life bringing guilt and fear from which he is unable to extricate himself.

Exploring themes of desire, greed and man's indestructible longing for freedom and happiness, the film is an examination of illusions never to be realised – the things that give us the energy to continue living and to question our own existence. Its austere minimalism and the symbolism used allows us to contemplate and empathise with the motivations and emotions of the characters more deeply. Its major strength is its visuals – the stunning noir imagery, with chiaroscuro deep-shadows lighting and oblique angles, evoking an intense sense of dread. The camera work is slow, fluid and dynamic, with long takes following the characters wherever they go, creating a mood of ever-growing suspense and menace. With the sparse dialogue throughout, we instead experience a heightened awareness of the environmental sounds which accompany the monochromatic imagery, many with sharply intrusive staccato rhythms which build on our sense of unease. A compelling, hypnotic and visually intensive film with a hauntingly beautiful score by Mihály Víg.

The Wind Will Carry Us

Bad ma ra khahad bord
a film by Abbas Kiarostami

Three men journey from Tehran to a tiny, remote village in Iranian Kurdistan. Assumed by the locals, with whom they form an ambivalent relationship, to be archaeologists or telecom engineers, the visitors' behaviour and keen interest in the health of an ailing old woman appear strange and their true motives are shrouded in mystery. They have journeyed there for the funeral of the ancient matriarch who then confounds their expectations by not dying.

The film narrowly revolves around the Engineer, the leader of the three men, relating everything to his solitary universe at the same time as encompassing the full scope of a world independent of him. Out of time and place, he is forced to wait, idle and deprived of most of his customary modern distractions, while his anxiety, emptiness, and his unease constantly surface. But gradually as his resistance lessens, he is tugged by and eventually succumbs to the slow, natural rhythms of life around him.

Haunting and visually stunning, minimalist and panoramic, it is an absorbing, abstract meditation on life and death and the divisions between tradition and modernity. Unhurried, and yet perfectly paced, the film captures one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.

The Banishment

Izgnanie
a film by Andrey Zvyagintsev

The story takes place in an unspecified time and country, set partly in an old, neglected and isolated rural house, and partly in an austere, heavily industrialised city. Alex and Mark are two brothers sharing a mutual respect and understanding, even if there seems no outward expression of affection between them. They appear also to share a background with a sense of criminality. When Mark arrives at Alex's house in the middle of the night after being shot, and refusing to see a doctor, Alex agrees to remove the bullet from his arm, asking no questions.

Alex and his wife Vera then leave the city with their children to spend a few weeks in the remote but seemingly idyllic country house belonging to his late father, where he and Mark spent their childhood. But the tranquillity is broken one day when Vera makes the shocking confession that she is pregnant and that the child is not his. Alex is completely stunned and withdraws into himself. Unable to communicate with Vera, despite her attempts at an explanation, he refuses to listen. He insists that they keep up appearances for the sake of the children, but when their friends visit one day with their family, it becomes clear to them that something is deeply wrong.

Alex's son Kir reveals that his father's friend Robert was at their house one day while he was away for two months working, and Alex concludes that Robert is the baby's father. At a complete loss as to what he should do, Alex turns to his brother Mark for help. Mark's own marriage ended years before and he has since overcome the loss of his children by simply pretending they do not exist. Mark tells Alex that whatever his decision is, it will be right, and Alex finally decides that Vera's pregnancy must be terminated. Mark gives Alex some money and also tells him about a gun he left behind in a drawer of the dresser in the house.

When Alex eventually begins to speak to Vera, it is to inform her of his decision, offering her no choice or possibility of further discussion. He tells her that once it is done their lives can return to normal. While Vera is shocked by his callous and selfish approach, she accepts his decision. Alex believes that the moral responsibility rests with him, giving him the authority to make such a decision alone. But having done so, he then withdraws into an even greater isolation from the immediate situation, leaving all the practical arrangements to Mark.

The children are invited to stay overnight with the family friends. Mark finds two abortionists who come to the house where they perform the operation and leave Vera resting in bed. But beginning to have serious doubts about what he has done, Alex then becomes worried about Vera. Mark at first tries to reassure him that she will be fine, until he realises that she has fallen into a coma, when he calls a doctor friend for assistance. After examining her the doctor tells Mark that Vera is dead. When Alex realises what has happened he is filled with remorse, seeing the tragic outcome of his action over the pregnancy, which already seems insignificant compared with the loss he now faces.

Mark quickly makes the arrangements for Vera's funeral so that the abortion can be covered up to avoid any incriminations or local gossip. But after their return to the house he suffers a heart attack and is forbidden by the doctor to leave his bed. The doctor then tells Mark that Vera had died not as a result of the abortion but from a massive dose of opiates she had taken intentionally to kill herself and he gives Mark a letter she had written on the back of a pregnancy test result. Mark reads the letter but decides to keep this revelation from Alex.

Despite the doctor's warning, Mark attends Vera's funeral but as a result, dies on the journey home from the church. Alex returns alone to the city, taking with him the gun from the dresser. He drives to Robert's house intending to kill him, but finding no one at home, falls asleep in the car until Robert returns when he invites Alex indoors. As Alex retrieves the gun from the glove box of the car, he discovers the envelope, placed there by Mark, containing the results of Vera's pregnancy test with her letter written on the back.

The film then cuts seamlessly to a flashback of the time Robert came to Alex's home while he was away working. It is revealed that the day before, Vera had attempted to commit suicide by overdosing but had been saved by Robert. The following day, Vera received the letter confirming her pregnancy and had confided this to Robert, also revealing that she had not had an affair with him and that the baby was in fact Alex's. Vera had tried to explain to Robert how Alex only loved her and the children for himself, like possessions. She was scared that if it were to continue that way, everything would die, and she did not want to give birth to the dying. Alex is left with this knowledge and that Vera had chosen instead to take her own life.

Exploring the isolation of individuals and the tragic consequences of their failure to make emotional contact, the tale is a stark, grave allegory of masculine pride, morality and betrayal. Biblical references abound, but with a greater significance and poignancy than we are perhaps aware of initially – as with the child's bedtime reading from I Corinthians 13, whilst Vera is dying alone, unable to endure a life in which love and hope are entirely absent. The cinematography is outstanding, with a stunning use of colour and texture, every shot lit and framed to breathtaking perfection. The almost predatory camera continually moves and pans, following the characters' every thought, exposing their deepest secrets. The hauntingly powerful soundtrack, which includes the music of Andrey Dergatchev and Arvo Pärt, accentuates the film's sense of impending tragedy, drawing us ever deeper in our entrancement.

The Return

Vozvrashcheniye
a film by Andrey Zvyagintsev

The story of two young brothers, Andrey and Vanya, who live with their mother and grandmother in a small coastal town in northern Russia. The pair have an especially close bond, compensating in their own way for a childhood spent growing up without a father. One day, running home after a fight with neighbourhood kids, the boys are shocked to discover their father has returned after a twelve year absence. The following day, with their mother's uneasy blessing, Andrey and Vanya set out on what they believe will be a fishing holiday with this enigmatic stranger.

Andrey, the elder brother, is desperate for a father figure in his life, openly seeking his father's approval at all times and accepting of his unpredictable, dominating and often dangerous tendencies. Vanya however is rebellious, seething with barely disguised rage at the man who now presumes to enter their lives and assert his authority, the younger son resists and defies his father at every opportunity.

Throughout their week spent together, the mood is ominous and the father's motives remain unclear. The mystery surrounding his history and the underlying purpose of their journey to a remote island is never explained to Andrey and Vanya. Their father has some nefarious business to conclude involving the retrieval of a buried strong box from a ruined building within the island's interior, although this is of no significance to the children. But as their suppressed emotions begin to rise to the surface, the story reaches a shocking and unexpected conclusion leaving the two brothers in a situation which, to some extent, their journey has prepared them for.

In his outstanding and beautifully captured first feature, Andrey Zvyagintsev explores the complex bonds between a father and his two sons under intense pressures and in unusual circumstances. A multi-layered tale of love and trust, estrangement and betrayal, on the uncharted and often painful journey into adulthood.

Beautiful Kate

A film by Rachel Ward

Set in a forbidding landscape on a homestead in the majestic Flinders Ranges in remote South Australia, it is the story of writer Ned Kendall, his relationship as a teenager with his twin sister Kate, and the emotional aftermath of a series of tragic events which unfold when he is sixteen.

Told in parallel narratives of past and present, the story follows the adult Ned's return to the family home after an absence of twenty years at the request of his dying father, Bruce. He hasn't seen his estranged father since he left home following Kate's tragic death in a car accident and the subsequent suicide of his brother, Cliff. Ned starts to recall memories of his beautiful twin sister and himself when they were children which awaken long-buried secrets from the family's past.

Ned is accompanied by his young fiancée Toni, who knows nothing about his family and is surprised to learn of the existence of his twin. When Toni stumbles on Ned's teen diary, which recounts the three siblings' struggles growing up in isolation, she is astonished by the revelations and flees back to the city, leaving father and son alone together. Under the watchful eye of the vast, imposing mountains past events become clearer to Ned and he realises, almost too late, that he has wrongly held his father responsible for what happened all those years ago. With the help of younger sister Sally, Ned sees the truth for the first time and is finally able to let go of his beloved twin sister and begin the emotional journey of reconciliation with his estranged father.

Rachel Ward's directorial debut is an evocative, haunting and confrontational gothic drama of family conflict, taboo relationships and unresolved guilt.

Les biches

A film by Claude Chabrol

Frédérique is a rich and glamourous woman who, on a whim picks up Why, a young and impoverished Parisian girl who makes a living as a pavement artist drawing pictures of does. She promptly seduces Why and whisks her away to a new life of luxuriant bohemia in Saint-Tropez. At first a little hesitant, Why then quickly assumes the role of Frédérique's protegée and lover, despite being really little more than an object for the older woman's frivolous amusement.

It is December and Saint-Tropez is empty. When the young architect, Paul Thomas, comes to a party at Frédérique's lavish villa he has eyes only for Why. She in turn is enticed by his attention and the two wander out for a walk, eventually spending the night together at Paul's house. Frédérique however, has dispatched Robèque and Riais, an eccentric gay couple staying at her home, to follow the pair and report back to her. When Frédérique learns of the events of their night together, she appears amused by the development but is already plotting a counter-attack in the callous game she plays.

Frédérique goes to meet Paul where he is working and confronts him about Why. He is dismissive of the affair, attempting to demonstrate that he has no wish to take Why from her. Frédérique however, seduces Paul and when they return to her house it is clear to Why what Frédérique has done, and that the game has moved on. Knowing that her very existence in Frédérique's world now hangs by a thread, Why has to accept her new status as she quietly awaits the chance to regain Paul's affection. As a rather awkward and volatile ménage-à-trois results, Frédérique, malicious and all-conquering, ensures that Why's hopes of sharing Paul as a lover are dashed at every opportunity.

As Why spends more time alone, she begins to adopt the persona of Frédérique, dressing in her clothes and jewellery, using make-up to take on her appearance, and by impersonating her voice. But when Paul encounters Why, dressed and made up to look, extremely convincingly, like a younger version of Frédérique, Paul is shocked and fails to respond in the intended way.

Frédérique and Paul then leave for Paris and although she is told she can stay at the villa alone, Why knows that her relationship with both of them has come to an end. There is only one course of action left to her, and the voices in her head tell her exactly what she must do.

A tense, suspenseful and hypnotic character study exploring a theme of jealousy and obsession.

One Deadly Summer

L'été meurtrier
a film by Jean Becker

Eliane Wieck, an attractive and extremely provocative nineteen-year-old, returns to her Provençal village home with her crippled father, Gabriel Devigne, and German mother, Paula. The normally sleepy village is jolted by her arrival, especially the menfolk who are mesmerised by her looks, and Elle is not shy of all the attention. But gradually her true personality and purpose emerges.

As a nine-year-old child Elle had learned by accident that her beloved father, for whom she had a very deep and close affection, was not her real father. She also discovered that her mother had been the victim of a brutal rape by three men, which subsequently led to her birth. The secret, severely traumatising her and making her suspicious about the nature of the love of her adopted father, led her to attack him when she was fourteen, beating him repeatedly about the head and leaving him paraplegic. Immediately afterwards, she became remorseful and even more affected, but since that time her entire existence has become an obsession with vengeance, with the belief that once accomplished, she will recover the love and affection from and for her father, and everything in her life will be put right.

Fiorimonto Montecciari, known as Pin Pon, is a decent and simple man, his family are proud of their Italian descent. In their barn stands the barrel organ which played "Roses de Picardie" during the rape, and this Italian organ-grinder's instrument becomes, for Elle, the symbol of her sense of injustice. She schemes to entrap Pin Pon into marrying her, in order to get close to the heart of his family. But it quickly becomes clear that Elle is mentally unstable. Her behaviour in a restaurant embarrasses Pin Pon, with her outbursts and tears, and her relationship with her mother is difficult and quasi-sexual. At times she regresses into a child-like vulnerability, and at others she is wantonly malicious and unruly. A master manipulator, Elle manages to turn friend against friend and brother against brother, until her dark secret is discovered. But finally, when the truth of what subsequently happened is revealed to her by her father, it results in the most unexpected and violent conclusion.

At first appearing to be a light romantic comedy, this very unusual film develops into a disturbing and compelling, complex psychological thriller.

Katyń

A film by Andrzej Wajda

The Katyń massacre was a mass murder of thousands of Polish military officers, policemen, intellectuals and civilian prisoners of war by the Soviet NKVD during World War II.

On 17 September 1939, on the strength of the agreements included in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Red Army crossed the Polish eastern border. By the end of the month all Polish eastern provinces had been occupied and nearly 18,000 officers, 230,000 soldiers, and about 12,000 police officers had been taken prisoner. Among the POWs were officers of all ranks and a dozen generals. A majority of the POWs were officers of the reserve, most of whom came from the Polish intelligentsia, and also military chaplains of different denominations. By the end of October the detained officers had been imprisoned in the camps of Kosielsk, Starobielsk, and Ostashkovo. An official document, based on Beria's proposal to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps, was approved by the entire Politburo on 5 March 1940. An estimated 22,000 Polish prisoners were murdered in the spring of 1940 in the NKVD centres in the Katyń Forest, Tver, and Kharkov.

The German army moving east discovered the Katyń graves in April 1943. The USSR authorities denied the German charges about committing the crime on Polish POWs, declaring that the murder had been committed in 1941 by the Germans. The Western Allies had an implicit, if unwilling, hand in the ensuing cover-up in their endeavour not to antagonise a then ally, the Soviet Union. Throughout the existence of the People's Republic of Poland, the truth about the Katyń crime was decisively and unscrupulously falsified. The subject of Katyń was off limits and the advocates of the truth were persecuted and severely punished. Families of the murdered could not even light candles on the symbolic graves of their kinsmen. Only as recently as 1989 has the truth of Katyń emerged, with the USSR authorities admitting for the first time in 1990 that the crime was committed by the Soviet NKVD.

The film takes the perspective of women caught up in the atrocity and its aftermath, who, unaware of the crime, were still waiting for their husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers to return. It is a film about the continuing struggle over history and memory, and an uncompromising exploration of the cover-up of the massacre that prevented the Polish people from commemorating those who had been killed.

Pandora's Box

A film by Yeşim Ustaoğlu

Two sisters and a brother live in the centre of contemporary İstanbul. They are in their thirties and forties, and lead very different lives, self-centred with their upper middle class preoccupations. One day, a phone call brings them together on a voyage through Turkey's suburbs and villages to the small town in the Black Sea mountains where they were born. Their ageing mother, Nusret, has disappeared. As the siblings start reminiscing about her, the tensions between them quickly become apparent, like a Pandora's box which is spilled open, scattering all the unresolved disputes, and opening up old wounds again.

When they find their mother and bring her to İstanbul they soon understand that she is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and the confrontation with Nusret's condition makes them realise how poor their own lives are. It is only Nesrin's rebellious son Murat who empathises with Nusret, sneaking her out of the institution where her daughters have committed her, and leading his grandmother back to her home in the mountains to which she is desperate to return.

The story begins with everyday life in central İstanbul, a city in which the very modern and the very traditional are completely intertwined. It then continues as the journey of three people to the western part of the Black Sea region, characterised by coal mining and a working class way of life. This journey becomes an inner journey where each of the three siblings must confront the conflicts, long buried in their subconscious, and accept the reality of themselves.

The dramatic structure of the story delves into the inner worlds of the individuals and is reinforced by the landscape images that pass by them, mirroring their psychological states. As the images of their journey in the external world begin to change from the large metropolitan city to the desolate country landscapes, with details of ordinary but innocent smaller lives in the countryside, it is these details that lead the characters to unravel the problems that they have always tried to cover up.

Yeşim Ustaoğlu, the director of Pandora'nın Kutusu, describes her award-winning feature as a story of alienation and isolation. It is a story of individuals whose lives have been shaped by a sterile, middle class morality, a story that many people touched by the inevitable combination of capitalism and modernity can identify with. It is a kind of human landscape, both universal and singular at the same time.

The Spirit of the Beehive

El espíritu de la colmena
a film by Víctor Erice

Hailed as an audacious critique of the disastrous legacy of the Spanish Civil War, the film is set in a rural 1940s Spanish village haunted by betrayal and regret.

Ana, a sensitive seven-year-old girl and her sister Isabel, go to watch a travelling cinema's screening of James Whale's Frankenstein. Ana becomes fascinated by Boris Karloff's monster, an experience that forever alters her perception of the world around her, and her ability to mold reality to her own imaginative purposes. Profoundly disturbed by the scenes in which the monster murders the little girl and is later killed himself by the villagers, Ana questions Isabel about the profundities of life and death. She believes her older sibling when Isabel tells her that the monster is not dead, but exists as a spirit inhabiting a nearby abandoned barn, adding that the spirit can be contacted at any time by closing her eyes and calling "I'm Ana". Isabel takes Ana to the barn after school, making her wait outside while she explores inside the building. Amused and intrigued by Ana's naivety, Isabel then teases her sister by feigning death, suggesting a likeness to the fate of the little girl in the film, but Ana feeling betrayed, retreats into herself.

While her emotionally exhausted parents go about their mundane daily affairs, having little impact on Ana's internal world, she becomes obsessed with meeting the initially gentle monster and visits the barn alone several times after school to seek him. One night she finds the courage to summon the monster, and going out into the moonlight, she closes her eyes and calls to him. As she does so, a fugitive republican soldier leaps from a passing train and limps across the fields to hide in the abandoned barn. The next day Ana encounters the fugitive there. For her, he is the spirit of the monster who has answered her summons and she accepts his presence without question, returning with food and clothing for him from the house.

The fugitive is then found by the civil guard and shot dead, his body taken to the village. The clothes he was wearing and a pocket watch he carried are identified as being the property of Ana's father. When she again returns to the barn, Ana finds that her monster is no longer there, only the blood from his gunshot wounds remains. Her father, sensing Ana's involvement in the mystery of his clothes and watch, has followed her to the barn, but as he approaches she runs from him across the fields. Later that night when she has not returned, search parties begin to scour the local countryside, eventually finding her asleep beside the walls of a ruined building. Whilst she is roaming in the woods alone, we see a dream-like evocation of Ana's meeting with Frankenstein's monster in which she has become the little girl in the film, and we conclude that for her, the monster continues to exist.

During the period that follows, Ana, still traumatised and confined to bed, ignores the presence of her family and does not speak. The doctor tries to reassure her mother that she will in time forget her experiences and will recover completely. Later, in the night when alone, Ana rises from her bed and standing before the open window, facing the moonlit night outside, she closes her eyes and calls to the spirit, "I'm Ana. I'm Ana".

Made under the Franco regime, this astonishing feature debut from 1973 is one of the most remarkable, influential and purely poignant films to emerge from the 1970s. An enigmatic yet totally captivating study of childhood unfettered by the strictures of reason. Existing in a highly evocative dream-like state, it is a powerfully symbolic, richly allegorical tale, a timeless masterpiece that is as unique as it is beautiful.

Solas

A film by Benito Zambrano

Unable to tolerate her father's abusive and authoritarian ways, María has fled from her parents' home in rural Andalusía to Sevilla. There she finds an apartment in a rundown part of the city and a demoralising job as a cleaner. Her life now brings only frustration and bitterness and she turns to drink for solace. María's situation worsens when she discovers that she is pregnant and the father of the child, her truck driver boyfriend, refuses to take responsibility, apart from casually offering to pay the expenses of an abortion.

When her father goes into hospital in Sevilla for an operation, Rosa, her mother comes to stay with her. Attempting to care for María and to brighten her life a little, Rosa finds her daughter bitter and distant, refusing all offers of help from her mother who has to spend her days alone in the city. Rosa then encounters one of María's neighbours, an elderly widower named Vecino, whose only companion is his German shepherd, Achilles. A touching and respectful friendship slowly develops between these two as they continue to meet each other. María's mother's desire to help the old and lonely man, and the gratitude he shows her in return, is contrasted with the cold detachment of her daughter, and the contempt shown by her husband during her daily visits to the hospital. But Rosa has grown used to their ways and accepts them as a part of the life she has chosen. Vecino begins to nurture a deep affection for Rosa, and she responds by showing him friendship but maintaining an appropriate distance between them. As he quietly engages Rosa's attention and help, intentionally and unintentionally, she passively endures both her husband's abusiveness and her daughter's intolerance.

Gradually, María realises that behind her mother's passivity is a strength and compassion which is absent in herself. She begins to understand that what is missing in her life is perhaps a result of her self-imposed emotional isolation. Her father is then discharged from hospital after his operation and her parents return to their country home, leaving both María and Vecino to themselves once more. Following Rosa's departure, during a revelatory evening spent with Vecino, María realises how much she wants a life with her child, and in a completely unexpected development we learn how this is accomplished.

An outstanding, touching portrayal of loneliness and redemption, with a deep sense of serenity and clarity amid boiling human emotion, and the most uplifting, if heart-wrenching, conclusion.

Historias mínimas

A film by Carlos Sorín

A touching, yet unsentimental, and quietly profound road movie which follows the lives of three disparate travellers heading for the Argentine provincial town of Puerto San Julián. Roberto is a travelling salesman hoping to impress a young widow with a gift for her child. Don Justo is an old man with poor vision who sits in front of his grocery store entertaining passing children by wiggling his ears. María is a shy young mother who has won an appearance on a TV game show. Gently probing the hopes and aspirations of the characters, the film uses the interconnected tripartite structure to offer astute observations on a culture relatively unscathed by modernity in contemporary Argentina.

Don Justo is told that his lost dog, Badface, has been seen at the highway patrol station on the outskirts of San Julián and after much deliberation the old man decides to hitchhike the 300 kilometres from Fitz Roy to seek forgiveness and bring him back. A fellow traveller on the road is Roberto, a lonely and obsessive salesman who is in love with a young widow. He has had a cake baked in the shape of a football as a surprise for her child's birthday, but then suffers agonising doubt as to whether his perfect gift is actually appropriate. María, an impoverished young mother, receives news that she has been selected as a contestant on a television show where the grand prize is a top of the range food processor. As each character journeys to their destination in pursuit of a dream, they are helped by complete strangers whose kindness makes the task possible, but who ask for nothing in return. In the end, the three will get more or less what they set out for, but it will come to them in ways that they never expected.

This subtle and insightful study of the warmth and goodness of the human spirit is set amid the beautiful, barren landscapes of Argentine Patagonia.

Machuca

A film by Andrés Wood

Set in Santiago, Chile in 1973 when General Augusto Pinochet's military coup seized power from President Salvador Allende's democratically elected socialist government. The film follows the unexpected friendship of two 11-year-old boys who meet when an idealistic priest, Father McEnroe, begins a trial of social integration by admitting children from poor families to an elite private school. As the two boys learn about each other's very different worlds, a strong bond develops between them.

Gonzalo Infante is a shy and quiet boy from a privileged, middle class family living in a comfortable, bourgeois neighbourhood where his security is unquestioned, even though he is aware of his mother María's long-standing affair with a wealthy Argentinean businessman. Pedro Machuca comes from a poverty-stricken low class family in a nearby illegal shantytown, insanitary and overcrowded, where people live without even hope for a better future. The inclusion of the marginal students causes unrest at the school. Fights break out between boys of the two economic classes and parents call a meeting to voice their opposition to the "communist" priest. During one of these scuffles, Gonzalo protects Pedro from the bullies, suffering the most injury as a result, and later he visits Pedro in his home.

Gonzalo accepts his status without feeling superior and is willing to share his personal possessions without question, though Pedro's family continue to refer to him as "the snob". Pedro's seductive young cousin Silvana introduces both boys to her feminine charms which serves only to strengthen the bond for the innocent and impressionable Gonzalo. Together they attend political rallies in order to make a little money, selling Chilean flags to both the Nationalists and the Communists. But as emotions begin to escalate and street fights break out between far-left and far-right militants, the political unrest inexorably encroaches into their lives and the boys' friendship is shaken to the core.

This outstanding, semi-autobiographical and vividly realised drama was the first Chilean film to deal with this tumultuous time in the country's history.

XXY

A film by Lucía Puenzo

The chromosomal abnormality of XXY, known as hermaphroditism or intersexuality, results in a child born with both male and female reproductive organs. When detected at birth the condition usually results in a decision between physicians and parents to surgically alter the body to become one or the other phenotypic assignment – male or female. This remarkably subtle and intelligent film is a story of the understanding and acceptance of a diagnosis by both child and parents, and the interaction and conflicts such a gender variation can present.

Alex is a 15-year-old intersex from Buenos Aires. At birth her parents, marine biologist Kraken and his wife Suli, decided against having her operated on, in order that she would later be able to choose her gender herself. However, she was given female hormone supplements and has been raised as a girl. They are loving parents and have moved several times before settling in a remote area of Uruguay in order to protect her from the exposure and ridicule she previously suffered while living in Argentina. Alex's mother clearly wants her to be a girl, but her father has always maintained she should make the choice herself, and he is willing to accept whatever she decides. Alex is now beginning to discover herself and her preferences. She has many feelings, and she wants to express them.

In deep conflict about her situation, Alex refuses to take her medications, wanting to explore both aspects of her sexuality, as her physiology dictates. Given the chance to choose what to be, she will choose not to change, even against her parents' assumptions that she would want to be a girl. When Alex's mother invites her friend Erika and her surgeon husband Ramiro to their home to advise them on the surgical alternatives, they are accompanied by their shy, artistic son Álvaro who knows nothing of Alex's condition and has some sexual issues of his own. There is an immediate emotional attraction between Alex and Álvaro which will ultimately result in a crisis in the transition from adolescence to adulthood and self-acceptance for both these young people.

In her award-winning first feature, Lucía Puenzo explores the individual's self-discovery and our acceptance of their identity. She delivers a unique and sensitive depiction of the ambiguity of sexual awakening where the choices made will define what we are beyond the physical aspects. She also proclaims the right of being different, and to have the freedom to make those choices. Above all, she contends that a person with such a physical identity should not only be respected but can also be desired.

Sonbahar

A film by Özcan Alper

Yusuf, a Turkish political prisoner who was sentenced to jail in 1997 as a university student aged 22, is released on health grounds ten years later. Having lost the best years of his life, he returns to his childhood home in a mountain village in the eastern Black Sea region. Yusuf is welcomed only by his sick and elderly mother, his father having died while he was in jail and his older sister having married and moved away to the city. Economic factors mean that the village is now populated almost exclusively by old people, the only person of his own age that Yusuf finds is his childhood friend Mikail.

As autumn slowly gives way to winter, Yusuf goes with Mikail to a tavern where he meets Eka, a beautiful young Georgian girl who earns a living by prostitution. But neither the timing nor the circumstances are right for these two people from different worlds to be together – love becomes a final desperate attempt to grasp life and elude loneliness, for Yusuf at least. For Eka, Yusuf is something like a character from the pages of a Russian novel – a character who inhabits a faraway world and a faraway time. Their relationship explores and compares the dreams, frustrations and the pains of two people, one of whom has spent ten years of his life in prison because of his socialist ideology, and the other who suffers from the after-effects of that same ideology.

The film also provides a cultural glimpse into the simple life of the people living in this region of the Black Sea. In the mountain village time seems to stand still, or at least to advance very slowly, and this impression skilfully contrasts the destiny of Yusuf, who having been released from prison due to severe illness, has returned to his home to die. But although Yusuf is trying to come to terms with himself, he does not seem to belong in this external world where people have problems other than politics.

With its strikingly powerful images and hypnotic musical soundtrack, Autumn is a slow-paced, minimalist and deeply moving drama exploring recent Turkish political history, the loss of idealism, and the personal perspectives of time and place.

Au revoir les enfants

A film by Louis Malle

Set in a rural Catholic boarding school during the Nazi occupation of France, the film charts the friendship between Julien and new boy Jean. But Julien is soon burdened with a dangerous secret, that Jean is a Jew who is being hidden from the Nazis by the friars who run the school. This award winning film is based on events from the director's own childhood during World War II.

At the end of the Christmas holidays in 1943, Julien Quentin, the son of a wealthy family, reluctantly returns to the tedium of his boarding school in the French countryside. But then the headmaster, Père Jean, introduces three new pupils to the school, one of whom, Jean Bonnet, is the same age as Julien. Before Jean's arrival, Julien had been the class leader, both academically and influentially, but the new student appears to be Julien's academic and artistic superior. Whilst respectful of his classmate's abilities, Julien is naturally a little envious which leads to some rivalry between them. This however turns into healthy competition and eventually, with growing mutual respect, the two become friends.

One night in the school dormitory Julien awakes to find Jean wearing a kippah and praying in the Hebrew language. After searching Jean's locker, Julien discovers the truth about his new friend whose real name is Kippelstein. He and the other two new pupils have been granted secret asylum by Père Jean who is now hiding the children from the Nazis. During a visit by Julien's mother, Jean accompanies them to a restaurant for lunch. Two Milice officers arrive and attempt to expel an elderly and distinguished gentleman whom they identity as Jewish, but a German officer dining at a neighbouring table steps in and orders the 'collaborators' out of the establishment.

Joseph, the school's kitchen assistant, is then exposed for selling the school's food supplies on the black market and he implicates several students as accomplices, including Julien and his brother, François. Père Jean has no choice but to dismiss Joseph although he refrains from expelling the students for the sake of their parents. Following this, on a cold morning in January 1944, the school is raided by the Gestapo. As Julien's classroom is searched and the Gestapo officer asks for the identification of Jean Kippelstein, Julien unintentionally gives away Jean Bonnet by looking in his direction. The other two Jewish boys are then hunted down and Julien encounters their informant, Joseph the kitchen assistant.

As the students are lined up in the courtyard, the Gestapo officer denounces the illegal nature of Père Jean's actions, declaring that as a result the school will close. Père Jean and the three Jewish boys are led away by the officers. The children call out, "Au revoir, mon père!" and Père Jean responds, "Au revoir, les enfants! À bientôt!"

A deeply personal and tragic examination of the Holocaust, childhood friendship and accidental betrayal. Told from the perspective of a child, it captures the fearful nature of children under enormous pressure from external events they cannot comprehend.

L'appartement

A film by Gilles Mimouni

Max has at last decided to settle down and marry his current love, Muriel, the sister of his boss. He is in a jeweller's shop choosing an engagement ring for her but is unable to make a decision between three very different rings, each of which he says he likes. Just as he is about to leave Paris on a four-day business trip to Tokyo he catches a glimpse of his former love, Lisa, a beautiful girl who disappeared mysteriously from his life two years before. Discovering the door key she has left behind whilst making a telephone call, he impulsively abandons his plan to fly to Japan and finds himself pursuing her, this unexpected opportunity having awakened feelings for her that he cannot now ignore.

A meeting with his old friend Lucien who currently has difficulties in his own love-life, enables Max to confide his feelings to someone while he tries to make sense of them himself. Now obsessed with meeting Lisa, his search eventually leads him to her address and he enters the apartment to wait for her. He is then surprised to find it is a case of mistaken identity when another girl, Alice, enters the flat and emotionally distraught, attempts to throw herself from an upper-storey window. Max drags her back into the room and tries to calm her down. She tells him, however, that her name is also Lisa and that it is her apartment. Captivated by her mystery and her strange resemblance to Lisa, he is irresistibly attracted to Alice and eventually they become romantically entwined.

Still determined to meet Lisa, Max finds that she has a lover, and that her lover's wife has recently died in suspicious circumstances. Gradually, Max is drawn into the mystery, which ultimately he hopes will lead him closer to Lisa. Things however are not what they appear to be, and much of what is now happening is a result of past events which gradually become clear to us when seen in flashbacks. Central to these is the enticingly enigmatic Alice who appears to have had a history with Lisa that curiously parallels Max's own.

This convoluted, multi-layered and brilliantly constructed romance uses repeated motifs and juxtaposed images to subtly indicate the parallels, connections and interpretations in the events of the lives of these characters. Switching between time, chic cafés, beautiful Parisian apartments, and the three women in Max's life, this very stylish suspense thriller confounds us with an extraordinary and elusive mystery, with undercurrents of obsession and jealousy, as it races towards its heady and devastating conclusion.

In the City of Sylvia

A film by José Luis Guerín

A deceptively simple tale of a man's return to a city, in search of the woman that he loved six years earlier. The young man, an artist whose name we do not know, has come alone and on a whim to Strasbourg in order to find a beautiful woman called Sylvia whom he remembers from six years ago. It is not clear whether a relationship between them ever existed or if their meeting was just a chance encounter. He has no way of contacting her and nothing but a map she drew for him on a napkin, but he knows she was then a student at the Conservatoire. It is here that he is now seated in an outdoor café as he begins his task of waiting, watching and hoping. As he sips his beer he makes pencil sketches in his notebook of the young women who surround him, whilst patiently waiting for his lost love to appear. A glance, a gesture, a smile – precious moments captured which might somehow lead him to Sylvia or perhaps draw her to him. Sylvia's presence lingers, but is it possible to return to the past?

Suddenly a delicate and lovely young woman who may be Sylvia catches his eye, and after some deliberation, he abruptly leaves his table at the café to chase after the girl. Obsessively following her almost like a stalker, he calls out to her, "Sylvie?". Losing her momentarily in a labyrinth of alleys and streets, he then gets very close but we cannot be certain at this point whether she is aware of his presence. The girl boards a tram and he follows her. Again he asks her name, "Sylvie?" and then she speaks to him.

An outstanding, superbly shot and hauntingly enigmatic interior drama, perfectly capturing the sense of longing, unfulfilled desire and simple voyeuristic pleasure. The almost total absence of dialogue and the skilful use of shifting perspective allows us to follow the thoughts and musings of this young man and to join him as an observer of people amidst life in a French city. In being a part of the flânerie sustained by the gentlest thread of a story we become immersed and entranced by its moods, impressions, sensations and their repetitions. We find that we are observing a piece of art in motion, one in which we are free to provide the characterisation ourselves, by inference or reconstruction – exploring the power of the imagination over reality, bringing the magic of the dream into the everyday world.

Still Life

A film by Jia Zhangke

Set against the spectacular landscape of the Three Gorges region, this humane and moving film tells two contemplative and compassionate stories of a man and a woman searching for lost partners in Fengjie, an ancient town on the Yangtze River which is being demolished and will soon vanish for ever in the flooding caused by the controversial Three Gorges hydroelectric dam project.

In the separate yet marginally connected stories, the events in the lives of these two very different people mirror each other but with a contrasting emphasis and outcome. At the same time as offering a revelatory, thought-provoking portrait of people adrift in a world they no longer recognise, Sanxia Haoren also reveals their energy, resilience and ability to reach new understandings.

Sanming Han is a coal-miner from Fengyang in Shanxi province who is looking for his ex-wife, Missy Ma, who left him taking with her their daughter whom he has not seen for 16 years. Sanming has only an address given to him many years ago, and until his arrival in the town, had been completely unaware of the demolition and flooding taking place in the area. With the help of her brother he eventually traces Missy who works on a boat which is down-river in Yichang. Their daughter, who is the reason for Sanming's journey, is now working in Dongguan, much farther south, but in their meeting both Sanming and Missy discover they have renewed feelings for each other.

Shen Hong, a nurse from Taiyuan in Shanxi, has come to look for Guo Bin, her estranged property entrepreneur husband whom she has not heard from in two years. She enlists the help of one of his old friends, archaeologist Wang Dongming, in order to find him. Discovering he is now very successful in the business of asset stripping former state-owned properties, she suspects he is also having an affair with Ding-Ya Ling, his female associate. But when they finally meet she walks away, and when he follows her she reveals that she is in love with someone else and wants a divorce.

The natural beauty of the Three Gorges and the Yangtze River is contrasted with the manual demolition of the buildings in a town that will soon be lost for ever, and the human stories set against this background are fleeting, fragile and ethereal. The slow, balanced and contemplative motion of events suggests the movement of water, bringing fluidity, transformation and renewal. The film's focus is on the destruction of time and place and our collective loneliness in the modern world, and yet it is also a testament to the depth and capacity of the human spirit to overcome and adapt to loss and change in our lives.

Samson & Delilah

A film by Warwick Thornton

Samson and Delilah's world is small, an isolated community in the Central Australian Desert. When tragedy strikes they turn their backs on home and embark on a journey of survival. Lost, unwanted and alone they discover that life isn't always fair, but love never judges.

Samson & Delilah is a love story, but perhaps not in the traditional sense. It deals with life on a remote Aboriginal community and the ways in which one young couple manage to escape from this mundane existence, exploring a love that develops out of survival – necessary love. It is a story about the many different ways in which love grows. Samson and Delilah have a very unusual relationship and their love is strong but understated and it develops as their trust develops. It's a film about people who are classed not even as people – let alone people who are allowed to love or have emotions. The story of these two young lovers is an important and unique story to tell, an untold story. In the end, even though life is going to be hard, there are real possibilities of success for them, a new life, hope.

Writer and director Warwick Thornton on his reasons for making the film:
"Storytelling has been a way of life for my people over thousands of generations, from singing stories under the stars to celluloid on the screen. The medium has changed but the reasons for telling our stories have not. I believe that this is a story I needed to tell. You have to believe in your stories and trust that an audience will take the journey with you and your characters. The audience's journey through the darkness makes the light brighter at the end. Samson and Delilah's unconventional love is that light. Their challenges and struggles are inspired by what I see every day as I journey through my own life in Central Australia. It is real."

Samson & Delilah won the Caméra d'Or for best first feature at Festival de Cannes 2009.

Elle s'appelle Sabine

A film by Sandrine Bonnaire

A sensitive and very personal portrait of Sabine Bonnaire, the autistic younger sister of French actress Sandrine Bonnaire.

Sabine is a 38-year-old whose autism went undiagnosed for decades and whose vivacious character was almost destroyed through years of inadequate care. Using footage filmed at Sabine's current care home as well as 25 years of home movies, Sandrine paints a picture of her sister as a once independent young woman with special needs to an adult now in need of constant supervision. The contrast between the young girl and the dispirited woman five years later is a terrible and moving indictment of state institutions and the effects of misdiagnosis. Now in a care home in the Charente region, Sabine has found a new lease of life thanks to proper care and the unwavering support of her family and friends.

As a girl, despite her unusual behaviour, Sabine would play with her siblings and take part in their games. She first attended a school for "abnormal" children but in fact had a great many abilities, including being able to read and write. At the age of 12 she was enrolled in the same school as Sandrine, but stood out as being different and suffered taunting by the other kids. She became self-destructive, biting and scratching herself and removing her clothes in the playground. With no specialised schools available, she then remained at home until the age of 27, during which years she was highly creative both in crafts and studies. Also developing a love for music, she took lessons for piano and very soon was playing Schubert and Bach. Sabine was always very close to her siblings but as they left home one by one she was left alone with her mother in the Parisian suburbs. Her sisters would visit her regularly and organise special outings for her. She became independent, able to go places on her own; she was cheerful, full of laughter and life. Sandrine then made Sabine's dream of America come true by taking her on a visit to New York.

When Sabine's mother moved from Paris to the country the sisters were able to visit less frequently. Sabine became isolated, and feeling abandoned, gradually began to decline, becoming destructive and violent towards her mother. Her sisters took her for a while in order to give their mother a break but Sabine continued to be violent and disruptive in each of the sisters' family homes. As a result, Sabine was sent to a psychiatric hospital for diagnosis, while the family searched in vain for a specialised home in which she could receive professional care. Sandrine eventually rented a flat close by where she installed Sabine with two home nurses. This arrangement, however, did not last and Sabine returned to the hospital where she stayed for five years. As her anxiety grew worse and she began self-mutilating, she was restrained and given high doses of neuroleptics. With her memory almost gone and her weight increasing by 30kg, Sabine's physical condition and mental faculties deteriorated further until she was unable to look after herself.

In 2001, Sandrine heard about a centre in Charente. While there were no places available, she met with the director who was seeking desperately to open a new home. Sandrine's fame as an actress was instrumental in gaining the necessary funding to eventually create the new home where Sabine still lives today. Now diagnosed as psychoinfantile with autistic behaviour, the treatment she receives is vastly improving her quality of life and it is hoped that the damage resulting from years of being institutionalised can eventually be repaired.

Mockingbird Don't Sing

A film by Harry Bromley-Davenport

On 4 November 1970 on the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite reported on the horrific story of a 13-year-old girl discovered in the small Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia who was still in diapers, barely able to walk and unable to speak. She had been kept in severe isolation by her parents with virtually no human contact for more than ten years. Confined to her bedroom, tied to her potty-chair by day, and at night restrained in an over-sized crib with a cover of metal screening, she was often forgotten and left alone to fend for herself. As Cronkite noted, it was one of the worst cases of child abuse ever to surface.

The tragic story of Genie (named Katie in the film) is the subject of this drama made in 2001. The director worked closely with Dr Susan Curtiss (Sandra Tannen in the film) now a linguistics professor at UCLA, who as a graduate student interested in language acquisition had been present from the early stages of Genie's rescue, starting a few months after she arrived at Children's Hospital in Los Angeles. Genie immediately won the hearts of all the doctors and scientists involved in her case.

The film begins with the early years of Katie's life of isolation, fear and abuse at the hands of her unstable and domineering father. Her mother, Louise, sensing that her husband is now potentially homicidal, leaves the house taking her daughter with her. Almost blind from cataracts, Louise is seeking medical aid treatment, but unwittingly enters a social services agency where Katie's physical condition immediately alerts the authorities' attention and she is taken into care at Children's Hospital. There she becomes the focus of observation and research by scientists and doctors who are eager to discover if Katie has a normal learning capacity and whether it is possible for her to recover completely from years of deprivation. For them, Katie is the perfect opportunity to test the Criticial Period Hypothesis which contends that the ability to acquire language is limited to the years before puberty, after which, as a result of neurological changes in the brain, the ability is lost.

In her new environment Katie makes rapid progress, but whilst her vocabulary grows she is still unable to string words together into meaningful, grammatical sentences. Scans indicate she may in fact be mentally retarded, either from birth or as a result of injury, chronic malnutrition or lack of mental stimulation. But over the following years Katie demonstrates a remarkable ability to develop non-verbal communication skills – illustrating complex ideas and even feelings in quick sketches, and by learning to use sign language. Her mental development however eventually levels out to a point from which she does not progress further.

Throughout the years of research, Katie's life is far from stable and we see how she becomes the victim in a tug-of-war between those who want to help her, study her, and provide her with a normal home environment. Funding for the research project is eventually withdrawn and Katie is passed around between her mother, the hospital, and several inappropriate fostering placements where she suffers further abuse. The only person who truly cares for her wellbeing and who can offer Katie a stable and loving home is Sandra Tannen but Katie's mother forbids it, threatening legal action against all those involved in her daughter's case. Katie begins to regress, deteriorating both physically and mentally and her mother places her in a home for retarded adults where it is believed she has remained for the rest of her life.

Genie's story is a very poignant one. Perhaps if therapy had been the priority over research then things may have turned out differently. She was a victim not only of abuse at the hands of her father but subsequently of the limitations of society's mechanisms for dealing with abused children. The film sensitively and accurately documents the system's initial success yet ultimate failure to address the needs of a very special child.

Twin Sisters

A film by Ben Sombogaart, based on the novel by Tessa de Loo.

Following the deaths of their parents in the 1920s, twins Anna and Lotte Bamberg are cruelly separated at the age of six. Contact between the two is immediately broken and the sisters grow up in separate worlds. Anna is sent to work on her uncle's farm in rural Germany, growing up in harsh circumstances, denied an education, and living amongst ignorant and brutal people. Lotte, who suffers from tuberculosis, is welcomed into a loving home by her upper middle class Dutch relatives where her health is restored and she receives a good education. For many years the girls try to contact each other but both families intercept their letters, making each believe that the other sister is dead.

Both attempt to renew their bond several times but fail each time for different reasons. The story follows their lives as they eventually meet and try to reconcile their differences while World War II impacts each of their lives in different ways. Anna marries a young Austrian SS officer, while Lotte becomes engaged to a Jewish musician – following different and opposing paths, both sisters' lives are irrevocably changed. More than half a century later, Anna seeks out her unwilling sister, only to find that their different experiences during the war years has damaged their relationship possibly forever.

A deeply moving story focusing on the loyalties, fates and passions of two women torn apart by war.

Suzhou River

A film by Lou Ye

A visually arresting tale of mystery and obsession set in the neon lit nightclubs and grimy industrial wastelands of Shanghai. The story is told by and shot directly from the point of view of the unseen narrator. He guides us through the streets, along the banks of the heavily polluted and industrialised Suzhou river, and we watch his girlfriend Meimei, whom he is obsessively filming, as she dresses and prepares to leave her riverside home. He tells us that Meimei has unexpected periods of sadness, often disappearing for days at a time without explanation. His own moments of sadness then turn to joy when he sees her return, walking over the bridge with her arms folded across her chest. He then begins to recount the story of Moudan and Mardar.

Mardar is a motorcycle courier working in the city. One of his clients, a shady businessman, regularly hires Mardar to drive his sixteen-year-old daughter, Moudan, to her aunt's house while he entertains his latest girlfriend at home. Moudan and Mardar grow fond of each other and a relationship develops. He gives her a mermaid doll as a birthday present. But then Mardar becomes entangled with a crime gang who force him to kidnap Moudan and demand ransom money from her rich father. She escapes from him outside the empty warehouse where she has been held, disappointed at his betrayal of her love and enraged by the small amount of ransom money he is due to receive in return. Moudan runs from him, and clutching the mermaid doll, throws herself off a bridge into the poisonous river, promising that one day she'll return as a mermaid.

Mardar serves a three-year jail sentence for his part in the crime, and still wracked with grief over Moudan's supposed death, eventually returns to Shanghai and to his work as a courier, whilst endlessly searching all over the city for Moudan. But no one has seen her or knows what happened to her because a body was never recovered. One night as he walks into a bar, Mardar encounters a girl who bears a striking resemblance to Moudan. He follows her to the nightclub where she works, performing an underwater mermaid act in a tank, and Mardar is convinced that the girl, Meimei, is his lost love.

The jerky handheld visuals, harsh lighting and stunning colours all bring a heightened sense of reality to the film, and we are drawn into the tragedy of Moudan and Mardar, the narrator's own part in the story, and the feelings that develop between Mardar and Meimei. An intriguing, captivating and beautiful love story, with a heartbreaking conclusion and an unexpected narrative twist bringing the plot full circle.

Smiley's People

A TV mini-series dramatised by John Hopkins from the novel by John le Carré, and directed by Simon Langton.

George Smiley is once more called from retirement to come to the aid of 'the Circus', the code-name for the British Secret Intelligence Service. He is asked to settle the affairs of an old friend, an émigré Estonian general and British agent, who has been assassinated on his way to a meeting in a safe house in London. Smiley's old organisation, the Circus, has become so overwhelmed by political considerations that it wants no involvement. As Smiley begins to retrace the events of his friend's last days, the clues lead to his seemingly invulnerable nemesis in Soviet counter-intelligence, Karla, who may have finally exposed an Achilles heel.

Years before, Karla had nearly destroyed British counter-intelligence, wrecking Smiley's marriage in the process. Following an initial hunch and a fragment of evidence, Smiley methodically begins to put the pieces together, despite the fact that almost everyone he knows advises him to go home and enjoy his retirement. At the same time, Karla, realising that he has probably jeopardised himself by bending his own rigidly enforced rules, is ruthlessly trying to cover his own tracks.

Resolutely overcoming all obstacles he encounters, and with the help of some of his ex-colleagues, including the elegant but dubious former master of spy tradecraft, Toby Esterhase, Smiley collects the evidence needed to secure the support of Saul Enderby, the vain and cynical current chief of the revamped Circus. Smiley's investigations send him digging into the past on a twisted trail across Europe that moves, inexoribly, towards a final confrontation with his old adversary, Karla of Moscow Centre.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

A TV mini-series dramatised by Arthur Hopcraft from the novel by John le Carré, and directed by John Irvin.

George Smiley is a retired principal counter-intelligence officer who is secretly brought back into 'the Circus', the code-name for the British Secret Intelligence Service, to root out a top-level mole. Smiley did not actually retire, but was removed from his post, the head of personnel, as a result of a remarkably orchestrated long-term plan by his old adversary, code-name Karla, the head of Moscow Centre.

Smiley's chief, known only as Control, had been detecting markers of Karla's intricate scheme for months and had narrowed the mole's identity to five senior officers. To stop him, Karla fashioned a set-up in the form of an offer that Control could simply not refuse. The necessarily unsanctioned operation to exploit the offer failed catastrophically, and Control, disgraced, was forced out, taking with him Smiley who, as Control's most trusted ally, was found guilty by association and also banished.

When Ricki Tarr, a resourceful, low-level field agent, thought to have defected, turns up in Britain with solid evidence pointing to the existence of the mole, thereby validating Control's long-term suspicions, Smiley, the sole remnant of the old order who can be trusted, is called in to spy on the spies. Without official access to any of the files in the Circus and without revealing that anyone is under suspicion, Smiley gradually pieces together the story, trawling through the murky waters of Cold War espionage and the painful memories from his own past.

A Perfect Spy

A TV mini-series dramatised by Arthur Hopcraft from the novel by John le Carré, and directed by Peter Smith.

Magnus Pym has disappeared, setting off a massive man-hunt. One of Britain's top intelligence agents, Pym is also searching for his true identity, hidden beneath a lifetime of deception. His quest takes him from his relationship with his con-man father to his betrayal of everything close to him – his wife, his country, even the high-ranking Czech agent whom he befriended. Pursued by his agency and his enemies, Pym must find himself before his hunters find him.

As a young man, Magnus Pym's father Rick was the most influential character in his life. Rick was a raconteur, con-man, thief and black marketeer. From a young age Magnus was included in Rick's schemes, learning how to survive by deceit and lies, but also learning about responsibilities towards those you love. When a university student in Switzerland, Magnus meets the other person who will have the greatest influence in his life, Axel, a Czech refugee. As Magnus enters his career in the British Secret Service, his relationship with Axel and the values he developed in childhood will lead him down his own tragic path of betrayal and loyalty.

Part spy thriller, part mystery, part psychological suspense story, but foremost a love story. A stunning and exquisitely transformed adapation of le Carré's most intriguing and absorbing masterpiece.

Lovers of the Arctic Circle

Los Amantes del Círculo Polar
a film by Julio Medem

A passionate and secret love story narrated by Ana and Otto, from the age of eight until the age of twenty-five. The story begins in 1980, when after school a girl and a boy start to run for different reasons. From that afternoon the lives of Ana and Otto will be intertwined in a single circle that will begin to close seventeen years later, in Finland, on the very edge of the Arctic Circle.

Ana is running away from her mother, denying that her father has died in a car crash. Otto is chasing a football kicked by another boy after school. As they encounter each other with a stare that begins their strange relationship, Ana sees the spirit of her dead father in Otto. At the same moment Otto falls in love with Ana, and she knows it will be forever. At that moment both project a desire for love, the girl for her father and the boy for his mother, and they are both there for each other.

But all things are transient, even love, and Otto's father and mother separate. By chance again, the two children are brought closer still when Olga, Ana's mother and Álvaro, Otto's father meet and a relationship begins. Both parents encourage their children to be like brother and sister but this is not what Ana and Otto want, and the feelings they share, as they become lovers, have to remain hidden and secret.

Ana relates to her life as a string of chance events. Otto sees life as running in a circle – one begins at a certain part of the circle and at the end one reaches the point at which one began. Throughout the film the narrative switches between the two characters: following the perspective of each in flashbacks and current events; illuminating thoughts and motivations; exploring what the events in each life mean to the character. The connections are intricate and complex, the visual storytelling compelling. The film sets forth the premise that random chance is somehow organised – it is chance, but with a destiny, a kind of intention or will.

A stunning, beautiful and unique film about love, our choices in life, and the power of our emotions. It is also a treatise on the nature of fate and coincidence, its recurring metaphors exploring the connections in a cyclic rhythm of destiny.

Love Letter

A film by Shunji Iwai

When I close my eyes...

For Hiroko Watanabe, the passing of two years has not lessened the pain brought by the tragic death of her young fiancé, Itsuki Fujii in a mountain climbing accident. She longs for healing but is unable to let go of his sudden death. Fate intervenes, however, and a single letter she writes to her deceased lover as a whim, sets in motion a chain of events that allows her to discover the untold secrets of their connection.

Following a memorial ceremony for her fiancé, Hiroko looks through his old school yearbook, hoping to find something of him that she can hold onto, which will enable her to let go of the longing she has for him. She copies an address in Otaro, in northern Japan, associated with the name Itsuki Fujii and sends a short letter, asking "How are you?" and telling him "I am fine". Believing the destination to no longer exist and that it will not be delivered, she sends the letter to him 'in heaven'. Her close friend Akiba who has fallen in love with her supports her in this, hoping it will help her to let go.

To her surprise, Hiroko receives a reply and after the exchange of several letters, discovers that her correspondent is a woman with the exactly the same name as her fiancé, and that both male and female Itsuki Fujiis were classmates together in Junior High School. As their letters continue, Itsuki uncovers some hidden truths about herself, her father's death, and her relationship with the shy student with the same name.

Love Letter is a film of exquisite cinematic poetry that explores the subjectivity of memory and the idea of redemption. A very beautiful and moving love story in which two young women, having discovered the connection which binds them, are able then to redeem the past in order to regain their lives in the present.

Blind Chance

A film by Krzysztof Kieślowski

Blind Chance (Przypadek) explores the interplay of chance and coincidence in the fate of Witek Długosz, a medical student on special leave, living in Łódź, Poland during the politically turbulent late 1970s. We are shown how chance plays a leading role in the changing of destinies for better or worse, in both subtle and dramatic ways. We also see that the same moral choices confront each of us in our lives, albeit in different forms. The film is structured in three parts, each representing a different outcome of a single chance event.

Witek is a young man in search of a direction in life who wants to do good. As the film opens we see him seated on a plane. His eyes suddenly widen in horror and he screams "No!". A bloodied body is dragged across a hospital floor. We are then shown fragmented glimpses of Witek's life as a child, as an adolescent, and as an adult attending medical school. Losing his vocation and following the death of his father, he seeks to define himself through commitment to a cause and decides to go to Warszawa. At the beginning of each of the following three scenarios, Witek is running to catch a train...

Witek almost collides with a man who is drinking a glass of beer. He runs after the train and is just able to grab the handrail of the train's last coach, pulling himself aboard. On the train he meets and befriends a middle-aged Communist veteran named Werner whose political ideals inspire Witek to join the Communist Party in the hope that it will enable him to improve his society. By chance Witek meets up with his first love, Czuszka, who is angered and disappointed by his decision to join the Party which she distrusts. Now a Communist Party member as well as an atheist and idealist, Witek is sent to end a protest by the inmates of a drug rehabilitation centre where the doctors have been replaced by heavy-handed and unsympathetic Party staff. But Witek has little idea of the extent to which the morally corrupt system will affect not only his freedom but of those he loves. When he is questioned about Czuszka's role in the underground activity Witek senses no danger. When Czuszka is suddenly arrested, he realises with a shock that he has been unwittingly turned into an informer, a development that destroys his relationship with her. As he waits to board a plane for a conference in Paris with a group of Party members, they are told at the last moment that they will have to remain in the country to deal with a series of strikes that have broken out.

Witek crashes into a man who is drinking a glass of beer. They collide with such force that he knocks the glass from the man's hand and it smashes on the floor. Witek doesn't stop to apologise, but he misses his train when his path is blocked by a station guard. In the ensuing scuffle, Witek is arrested and subsequently sentenced to thirty days' jail and community service. There he meets Marek, an Opposition activist and soon Witek joins the Opposition, becoming involved in the printing of dissident publications during the strikes and rise of the trade union movement in Poland. Deeply impressed by a woman dissident's tranquil faith in God, Witek decides to be baptised and becomes a Catholic. As the romantic idealist, he yearns to improve his society by adopting the religious and political beliefs of those whose courage and conviction he admires. Witek applies for a passport to travel to France to attend a gathering of Catholic youth in Paris, but his request is refused because of his anti-Communist activities. The authorities however offer to give him a passport if he informs on the underground's contacts in Paris but Witek chooses not to go. He meets up with Daniel, a friend from his childhood who is attending his mother's funeral with his married sister Werka. As a result of this chance meeting, an affair develops between Witek and Werka and she visits his home in Łódź. After her return to Warszawa, Witek discovers that the printing shop has been raided in his absence and his colleagues arrested. Marek holds him responsible and suspects him of betrayal. Finding himself betrayed, he can only conjecture that Werka had something to do with it, perhaps unwittingly.

Witek nearly runs into a man who is drinking a glass of beer, just managing to avoid a collision. He tries to catch the departing train but fails. The railway guard appears a few seconds later but now Witek has stopped to catch his breath. He then notices Olga on the platform, a girl from his medical school who has come to see him off. Happily for Witek, in failing to catch his train, he finds fulfilment instead in both his personal and professional life. Witek and Olga fall in love and Witek decides to resume his medical studies. After graduating he practises at the hospital as well as teaching at the medical school. Olga tells him she is three months pregnant and they get married. Witek leads a happy life as a loving husband and father and also shows great compassion in his career as a doctor, but he steers clear of both religion and politics. At the medical school some students are circulating a petition protesting the arrest of fellow students, including the Dean's son, who have been involved in Samizdat and other dissident activities. Not wishing to jeopardise his career and personal happiness Witek refuses to sign the petition, noting that the Dean himself has not signed either. That evening, the Dean asks Witek to give a lecture in Libya, which on account of his son's arrest he is unable to do himself. Witek agrees to give the lecture but postpones his journey in order to celebrate his wife's birthday, exchanging his ticket for a flight to Libya via Paris. As if seized by a premonition, Olga begs her husband not to go on the trip and when they are at the railway station, surprises him with an announcement that they will soon have a daughter. When he arrives at the airport, Witek sees some of the characters who appeared in the previous two scenarios and we realise that Witek, in the other two variations of his life, would also have been on the same flight had chance not intervened in each case. The plane taxies along the runway, Witek gets comfortable in his seat and the plane takes off. A few seconds later the plane explodes.

Kieślowski described the film as "a description of the powers which meddle with our fate, which push us one way or another". Blind Chance is driven by political undercurrents, and on one level it considers, in 1981, three possibilities for Poland's political future as it explores three different outcomes springing from the premise of a student trying to catch a train. But more profoundly, it explores what Kieślowski termed "interior liberty", transcending the immediate, external political situation to consider the individual's choice in possible courses of action or inaction. Kieślowski's interest lay in a deep awareness of, and sensitivity to, that dimension of life which influences human events, yet for which there is no rational explanation. Ultimately, on the flight to Paris, the same fate awaits Witek regardless of the choices he has made or what has happened to him in between.

In the Danish television documentary Krzysztof Kieślowski: I'm So-So... in 1995, Kieślowski observed, "We are a sum of several things, including individual will, fate (but we can change fate a little), and chance, which is not so important. It's the path we choose that is crucial".