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".

Faubourg Saint-Denis

A short film by Tom Tykwer for Paris, je t'aime. After mistakenly believing that his girlfriend, a struggling actress, has broken up with him, a young blind man laments on the growth and seeming decline of their once joyful relationship.

There are times when life calls out for a change. A transition. Like the seasons. Our spring was wonderful, but summer is over now and we missed out on autumn. And now all of a sudden, it's cold, so cold that everything is freezing over. Our love fell asleep, and the snow took it by surprise. But if you fall asleep in the snow, you don't feel death coming. Take care.

Francine... I remember it exactly
It was the 15th of May
Spring was late to arrive and rain clouds were gathering
And you were screaming

And of course you were accepted
You left Boston and moved to live in Paris
A small apartment on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis
I showed you our neighbourhood, my bars, my school
I introduced you to my friends, my parents
I listened to you as you learned your lines
I listened to your singing, to your hopes, your desires
I listened to your music
And you listened to mine
You listened to my Italian, my German, my bits of Russian
I gave you a walkman and you gave me a pillow
And then one day, you kissed me

Time passed, time flew
And everything seemed so easy, so simple, free
So new and unique
We went to the movies
We went dancing, shopping
We laughed, you cried
We swam, we smoked, we shaved
From time to time you screamed, without reason
Sometimes with reason
Yes, sometimes with reason

I walked you to the Conservatory
I studied for my exams
I listened to your singing, to your hopes, your desires
I listened to your music
And you listened to mine
We were close, so close, ever closer
We went to the movies, we went swimming
We laughed together, you screamed
Sometimes with reason, and sometimes without
Time passed, time flew

I walked you to the Conservatory
I studied for my exams
You listened as I spoke Italian, German, Russian, French
I studied for my exams
You screamed, sometimes with reason
Time passed without reason
You screamed without reason
I studied for my exams
My exams, my exams, my exams
Time passed
You screamed, you screamed, you screamed

I went to the movies
Forgive me, Francine

***

Parfois, la vie exige un changement. Une transition. Comme les saisons. On a eu un printemps merveilleux, mais l'été est fini maintenant et nous avons manqué l'automne. Tout d'un coup il fait froid, si froid que tout se met à geler. Notre amour s'est endormi et la neige l'a pris par surprise. Et si tu t'endors dans la neige, tu ne sens pas la mort venir. Prends soin de toi.

Francine... Je m'en souviens exactement
C'était le 15 mai
Le printemps tardait, la pluie menaçait
Et tu criais

Et tu étais admise bien sûr
Tu as quitté Boston emménager à Paris
Un petit appartement dans la rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis
Je t'ai montré notre quartier, mes bars, mon école
Je t'ai présenté à mes amis, mes parents
J'ai écouté les textes que tu répétais
Tes chantes, tes espoirs, tes désirs, ta musique
Tu écoutais la mienne
Mon italien, mon allemand, mes bribes de russe
Je t'ai donné un walkman, tu m'as offert un oreiller
Et un jour, tu m'as embrassé

Le temps passait, le temps filait
Et tout paraissait si facile, si simple, libre
Si nouveau et si unique
On allait au cinéma
On allait danser, faire des courses
On riait, tu pleurais
On nageait, on fumait, on se rasait
De temps à autre tu criais sans aucune raison
Ou avec raison parfois
Oui, avec raison parfois

Je t'accompagnais au conservatoire
Je révisais mes examens
J'écoutais tes exercices de chant
Tes espoirs, tes désirs, ta musique
Tu écoutais la mienne
Nous étions proches, si proches, toujours plus proches
Nous allions au cinéma, nous allions nager
Rions ensemble, tu criais
Avec une raison parfois, et parfois sans
Le temps passait, le temps filait

Je t'accompagnais au conservatoire
Je révisais mes examens
Tu m'écutais parler italien, allemand, russe, français
Je révisais mes examens
Tu criais, parfois avec raison
Le temps passait sans raison
Tu criais sans raison
Je révisais mes examens
Mes examens, mes examens, mes examens
Le temps passait
Tu criais, tu criais, tu criais

J'allais au cinéma
Pardonne-moi, Francine

À la folie... pas du tout

A film by Laetitia Colombani

Angélique, a young, gifted art student is in love with a 35-year-old cardiologist named Loïc. The only problem is that the object of her affections is not only a father-to-be but is also happily married to someone else. But when you are madly in love and desire something enough, nothing will stand in your way.

First we see Angélique's attempts to make Loïc leave his pregnant wife, but he does not appear for the arranged meetings, or finally for the planned and booked journey to Florence. The narrative is then reset to the beginning, showing the viewpoint of Loïc relative to the same sequence of events – and things seem quite different now. The film uses restricted editing to show the two perspectives and in the end the two versions converge with surprising consequences.

Angélique is completely delusional about everything that happens. At the beginning we see her with a rose. We see the light of love and romance in her eyes. She thinks, and makes us believe, that Loïc is her lover. Later in Loïc's version we see that he only vaguely remembers handing a rose to a pretty young girl, a stranger, from a large bouquet bought for his wife to celebrate her pregnancy.

Described as an amazing psychological thriller masquerading as a trite romance, He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not is a provocative and unsettling study of amour fou. A taught, complex, and cleverly presented tale of the passion and obsession of a girl afflicted with the rare disorder de Clérambault's Syndrome, who will stop at absolutely nothing to actualise delusion.

Pora umierać

A film by Dorota Kędzierzawska

Time to Die is the story of the elderly Aniela and her life in what once was a grand and beautiful house. During the Communist regime she was forced to share her home with other comrades, but as the last of them leaves her house Aniela is left alone with only her border collie, Philadelphia, her attentive and constant companion. Her 50-year-old son, Wituś, occasionally visits, accompanied by his overweight 10-year-old daughter who Aniela finds a spoiled, demanding and undisciplined brat. Aniela blames her daughter-in-law, Marzenka, for her son's and granddaughter's laziness.

To one side of her lives a family who host a rather noisy children's music club that Aniela spies on daily and she is often taunted by and bothered by the local kids. On the other side is a nouveau riche couple, apparently scheming with Aniela's cold-hearted and greedy son to buy her old timber house, demolish it and build a modern apartment building on its site. Everybody it seems wants Aniela's house, or her land, so she finds a way to outsmart them all. Aniela is no fool – as she spies and learns of her neighbours' ways and true intentions she is always ahead of the game, and some surprises may yet be in store for those who are not wise to her thinking and abilities.

Throughout much of the film, which is shot entirely in black and white, we follow Aniela inside her house, with fractured views at the hostile world outside through its multitude of unevenly-glazed windows. There are also soft-focus slow-motion scenes in which the young Aniela is seen dancing in the moonlight as a young bride or playing with her young son, recalling the wonderful memories of her younger days. In the end Aniela comes to terms in some way with the difficulties she faces and makes peace with those who deserve to have peace made with them.

Jestem

A film by Dorota Kędzierzawska

Kundel is an eleven-year-old boy who escapes from an orphanage to return to his home town. There, his young alcoholic mother disowns him and kicks him out. He is also rejected by the other kids who call him "Mongrel", but undaunted and resolute, he finds an abandoned barge in which he makes a home for himself. Kundel is not only a very resourceful child with a strong survival instinct, he is also a fundamentally good person, being especially sensitive to creatures weaker than himself. He then meets Kuleczka, a pretty girl of his own age, from a well-off family living in a house nearby, and soon they discover a sense of affection and love in each other's company. Kundel forages, collecting scrap metal which he sells in town, while he dreams about being a poet one day – and he is marginal and independent enough to create his own wholly separate world, at least for a while.

Jestem (I am) tells the story of a boy searching for his place in life, his identity, whilst trying to avoid both the social pressures of his peers and the de-personalising life of the state-run institution. The splendid cinematography, with soft-coloured sepia-toned images, gives a comforting warmth to this beautiful film and Michael Nyman's musical score is both a sweeping and intimate addition. Writer and director Dorota Kędzierzawska, who has an extraordinary way with child actors, based Kundel, the main character of this award-winning film, on a real child she met who lived in the woods and dreamed of being a poet.

Helen

A film by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor

Helen is a 17-year-old girl with a complex and troubled past who has lived in care since she was an infant. She is on the threshold of her 18th birthday, which signals the end of her care order, and she awaits this new beginning full of anticipation and anxiety, knowing that her entry into adulthood is something she must ultimately undertake alone. Given everything that has happened to her in her life, being left alone is Helen's greatest fear, and her greatest challenge to overcome.

At the same time, and in the same city, there is a missing girl called Joy. A fingertip search led by the police is being carried out in a local woods following the discovery, the day before, of a jacket and personal effects belonging to Joy who has been missing for some time. Until now, Joy's parents have been clinging to the belief that her disappearance was nothing more than a teenage girl's cry for help, and they have lived in hope that one day soon she will return home safely to them. Although not hopeless, the situation following this new development looks somewhat more ominous.

A police reconstruction is organised that will retrace Joy's last known movements, to be screened on national television in the hope that it will provide valuable clues as to what happened to Joy in the twenty-four hours leading up to her disappearance. Helen is chosen to play the part of the missing girl in this reconstruction and both the police, and especially Joy's parents, agree that Helen is the perfect choice for the role. But the parents sense that there is something uncanny about Helen's resemblance to their daughter and are slightly unnerved by the similarity. Somehow their encounter with Helen makes them even more vulnerable and it is clear that they might actually need her help to get them through this very difficult time in their life. What they do not know is that Helen also needs their help.

For Helen, the role of stand-in represents an important opportunity, and she senses that to inhabit someone else's life, if only temporarily, could help her with her own life. Joy, who is the same age as her, had many of the things she never had: a secure home; loving parents; success at school; popularity amongst her peers; and a steady boyfriend. Gradually Helen begins to immerse herself into the role, visiting the people and places that Joy knew; quietly and carefully insinuating her way into the lost girl's life. But is Helen trying to find out what happened to Joy that day, or is she searching for her own identity?

Valley of Flowers

A film by Pan Nalin

Along the highest mountain passes of the Himalaya, the intrepid Jalan and his gang of outcasts make their living by robbing unsuspecting travellers. Abiding by their own unique codes of honour and dividing the spoils equally, all is routine until the arrival of the mystifying, beautiful Ushna. Appearing mysteriously after the raid of a pilgrim caravan, Ushna adheres to Jalan, claiming to have seen him in her dreams, and refusing to leave his side. Sensing the unease of the rest of the men, Ushna offers to help them in their endeavours, on condition that they do not ask why or how she is able to guide them to success.

In the time that follows, Ushna leads the gang to tremendous exploits, gaining the respect of the men, and the admiration of Jalan, who begins to fall passionately in love with this mysterious woman. As their success increases, seemingly unstoppable, so the love between Jalan and Ushna mounts in intensity, until they seem to have entered a world of their own. No longer heeding of the world around them, Jalan and Ushna venture too far in their exploits, progressing from the theft of material objects to tampering with the elements of nature – stealing energy, fortune and even the powers of levitation – the two cross over into the bounds of the supernatural.

Word of the duo and their strange exploits reaches the shrewd Yeti, who goes after them with his three bounty hunters. In the confusion of pursuit, Jalan and Ushna face a temporary separation, the shock of which drives each to desperation. Having lost luck, wealth and friends, the fated two are nevertheless fortuitously reunited. Their passion running higher than ever, they vow never to be separated again, even if this entails deceiving fate and cheating mortality. But life always reserves surprises, and karma will eventually restore the balance and their destinies, but in the most unexpected ways.

The story, Valley of Flowers, is inspired by an incident mentioned in Alexandra David-Néel's Magie d'Amour et Magie Noire where she narrates her meeting with an Indo-Tibetan highwayman. This bandit-chief in his youth had a passionate love affair with a beautiful young woman whom he believed to be an incarnate demon. Their adventure took them right across Tibet through the wildest and most inaccessible Himalayan regions and brought them into contact with some fascinating and mysterious people. Their extraordinary journey as Alexandra explains in her book is "a true story which has been lived".

A magical Himalayan tale of love and longing, karma and reincarnation, death and immortality, spanning two centuries, from the Silk Route of the early 19th century to the bustling metropolis of modern-day Tokyo.

The Singing Detective

A TV mini-series written by Dennis Potter and directed by Jon Amiel.

Detective novelist Philip Marlow suffers from the crippling condition psoriatic arthropathy. Incapacitated both physically and emotionally whilst confined to a hospital bed, Marlow escapes into his imagination, plotting out a murder tale in which he is both a big-band singer and a private eye. As he re-writes his early crime noir thriller, The Singing Detective, he enters into a surreal Chandleresque fantasy of sleazy nightclubs, spies and criminals.

In his hospital bed where he rants and yells at everyone who comes near him, Marlow begins to hallucinate from his high fever. Reality and fantasy constantly overlap and intertwine as the story weaves effortlessly between his present experiences, his past fictions, paranoid imaginings, and the overwhelming memories that still dominate his life from his childhood, growing up amongst a poor, ignorant coal-mining family in the Forest of Dean.

Escaping into this dark inner world, he places himself in the role of the hero of his own novel, and so begins to encounter and explore the guilt he has carried from his tormented childhood days, and the paranoid fantasies he has about his estranged wife Nicola. As he drifts between memories of past events and the mental re-working of his novel, all surfacing in his subconscious, Marlow's tortuous self-analytical voyage of personal discovery provides a key to the conquering of his illness.

A dramatically rich and complex masterpiece, disturbing and shocking, yet also with great depth of insight and humour – a uniquely brilliant work.

Caché

Hidden
a film by Michael Haneke

Georges, a television presenter, and his wife Anne, who works at a publishing house, are living the perfect life of modern comfort and security. But their successful bourgeois lives hide a complacency and general indifference to the outside world.

One day, their idyll is disrupted in the form of a mysterious videotape that appears on their doorstep. On it they are being filmed by a hidden camera from across the street with no clues as to who shot it, or why. At first Anne is dismissive of the tape, which appears to be surveying the exterior of their home, but Georges believes there is a sinister motive behind its unexplained appearance. Soon they receive a second tape accompanied by a disturbing drawing. Nerves become frayed and tension erupts when their twelve-year-old son Pierrot, staying at a friend's house all night without letting them know, brings fears that he has been kidnapped by the stalkers.

A third tape reveals the farmhouse where Georges grew up and where his invalid mother still resides. A visit to his mother brings back long buried memories and he is forced to confront a terrible secret, hidden since his childhood. As he begins to fear for the safety of his family, and as Anne struggles to come to terms with his revelations, their entire comfortable existence begins to disintegrate. Convinced he knows the identity of the person responsible, Georges embarks on a rash and impulsive course of action that leads to shockingly unexpected consequences.

The story is multi-layered – on one level it is a study of the colonial guilt of Europe and race relations; on a deeper level it probes the complacent and bourgeois temperaments of the financially secure classes in society; on yet another level the story explores the attitudes of three distinct generations towards social relationships. A brilliantly conceived and intriguing film, the voyeuristic camera lingering on long static shots as images pass across both foreground and background, enabling us to interpret things at our will.

It is a story about the propagation of lies to avoid confronting the guilt that remains for our past actions – and how we find ourselves ever more enmeshed in that from which we seek to escape. Haneke shows us that we all have things we want to keep hidden, but can we be sure that we are the sole keepers of our secrets? Ultimately he leaves us to decide what the truth is, or indeed whether it is not perhaps better for the truth to remain hidden.

Nadzieja

A film by Stanisław Mucha, from the screenplay trilogy Heaven, Hell and Purgatory by Krzysztof Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz.

Nadzieja (Hope) is the last film in a trilogy representing not only the Dantesque concepts of heaven, hell and purgatory, but also the Christian ideals of love, faith and hope. As the film opens we witness a woman being killed in a road accident as she attempts to protect a child's life. She was the mother of the child, Franciszek. Franciszek's father, a renowned musician and conductor, still suffers from his bereavement fifteen years later, having given up his music to become a humble church organist. Franciszek's suicidal older brother, Michal, is currently serving a prison sentence for the murder of two men.

Set in contemporary Warszawa, Franciszek, an angelic-looking young man, has been following the underworld events in the life of Benedykt Weber, a senator, gallery owner and respected art dealer. He has compiled a complete dossier on all of Weber's dealings and knows everything about the man's life. One night Franciszek lies in wait in the same church where his father now plays, to capture with a borrowed videocamera, Weber's theft of a magnificent 15th century Venetian altarpiece called 'Angel with a Violin'. With this video and other supporting evidence Franciszek approaches Weber, making it clear to him that the dossier will be given to the police if he does not return the painting to the church. But instead of trying to extort money from him, Franciszek simply says that he wants to help him.

Weber quickly realises that Franciszek has the means to both destroy his valued reputation and to put him in prison if he does not comply with the boy's request. But already the painting has passed to another intermediary in the underworld of art theft and it will now be impossible to get it back, yet Franciszek is insistent that the painting be returned, despite several warnings being given in an attempt to frighten him off.

We begin to see that Franciszek has no sense of fear. During his freefall flights at the airfield he waits longer and longer before he opens his chute. It's as though in all he does he is protected by angels. But his girlfriend Klara, who loves and admires him even though he does not return her affection, becomes increasingly unable to bear the risks he now takes. There is also the question of whether forcing someone to undo a wrong is of any use if in reality the person simply fears the consequences of not making amends.

Mucha allows the story to unfold as a combination of thriller, moral tale, and metaphysical drama, recalling the films Piesiewicz made with Kieślowski. Likewise, there is a similar sense of cosmic order and chaos, with many elements seemingly mysteriously connected, yet unexplained. Whilst the film focuses on hope, it does so not in any conventionally uplifting way, but rather by an exploration of the capacity of the human spirit.