Program:: 2009  Download Printable Program

Opening night – Of Love and Patriotism

BEHIND THE GLASS 
(Croatia - Feature; 80 min. L.A. Premiere!)
(Iza stakla)

Director: Zrinko Ogresta / Croatia
Prod: Ivan Maloca

Beautifully composed psychological drama about a love triangle reveals layers of moral dilemmas as protagonists confront fate, destiny, coincidence and individual responsibility as one marriage is falling apart. Much like Kieslowski, director Ogresta probes the social undercurrents beneath the bubble of an upscale urban living with great skill and sharp insight.

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DIVORCE ALBANIAN STYLE
(Bulgaria/Albania – Doc; 66 min. West Coast Premiere!)
(Razvod po albanski)

Director: Adela Peeva / Bulgaria
Prod: Adela Peeva and Slobodan Milovanovic

Bulgarian director Adela Peeva reveals the tragic stories of Albanians who married Polish, Russian, or Czech women in the post-WWII Albania. When Albanian president Hoxha split from the USSR in 1961, he ordered spouses deported as "spies", and broke those marriages by force.

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BAD BLUE BOYS
(Croatia – Doc; 28 min. US Premiere!)
(Panj pun olova)

Director: Branko Schmidt / Croatia
Prod: Anita Juka

A traumatized war veteran attempts to reintegrate into the Croatian society by going through the motions: sharing meals with his family, toiling in his workshop, a visit to the cabin, and meeting with friends. But despite his best efforts to forget the war experience, it continues to haunt him. Bad Blue Boys is a faceless confession of pain and a testament to the profound and lasting effects of war.

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THE PAINTED BRIDE
(Bulgaria– Doc; 30 min. US Premiere!)
(Pisanata bulka)

Director / Prod: Veselka Toncheva / Bulgaria

The film looks at customs and rituals of a confessional community – the Bulgarian Muslims of the Teteven region - which has been influenced by both Islamic and Christian folk cultures. The film’s focus is on a wedding ritual that involves decorating the face of the bride and dyeing her hands with henna.

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MY MARLON AND BRANDO
(Turkey – Feature; 93 min. West Coast Premiere!)
(Gitmek)

Director: Huseyin Karabey / Turkey
Prod: Lucinda Englehart, Huseyin Karabey, Sophie Lorant

A delightful, quirky and profoundly lyrical film from Kurdish director Karabey features Turkish actress Ayça Damgaci who plays herself and Kurdish actor Hama Ali Khan, who fell in love only to be separated by borders and wars. Ayça’s journey across inhospitable border zones brings a new chapter to the love story genre.

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9:00 pm

FORGOTTEN VOICES 
(USA/Bosnia Herzegovina – Doc; 52 min. L.A. Premiere! )

Director / Prod: Jennifer Rawlings /USA

In 2006 filmmaker Jennifer Rawlings journeyed to Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, to interview women who survived the Bosnian War of the 1990s. Remembering these events and their victims is one way to recognize them and to honor their experience.

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JOURNEY INTO SEX SLAVERY
(Italy – Doc; 7 min.)
(Bocca della Verita)
 

Director / Prod: Luigia Martelloni / Italy

Shot over a period of several years, the film is a personal account of “Karen”, young Romanian woman who was kidnapped and sold into sex slavery on the streets of Rome.

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DIAGNOSIS S.B.H.
(Bosnia-Herzegovina - Doc; 42 min. US Premiere! )
(Dijagnoza S.B.H.)

Director: Enes Zlatar / Bosnia-Herzegovina
Prod: Amra Baksic Camo

On a backdrop of the contemporary music scene in Bosnia-Herzegovina and interviews with fellow rock musicians, director Zlatar asks :Which language is ‘our language’? He explores the issue of language, leaving us to contemplate the high-voltage political legacy of nationalism and recent wars.

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TUNNEL'S END
(Bosnia-Herzegovina/Spain - Doc; 100 min. US Premiere! )
(Na kraju tunela)

Director: Monica Lleo / Spain
Prod: Luka Tomanovic

An extraordinary debut by a young filmmaker from Spain Monica Lleo, the film tackles the key issues that led Bosnia-Herzegovina first into war in 1990s and subsequently into paralysis, which the country is still suffering today. Featuring interviews with politicians, activists, journalists, artists, and survivors.

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THE FOURTH MAN
(Serbia – Feature; 107 min. US Premiere! )
(Cetvrti covek)

Director: Dejan Zecevic / Serbia
Prod: Zÿeljko Mitrovic´, Slobodan Jocic´, Dénes Szekeres, Nikolina Vucÿetic´

Search for a “fourth man” and one man's own lost memory takes a recently amnesiac veteran of the Bosnian war on a soul-searching journey through many circles of corruption, betrayal, misplaced honor and loyalty to reveal a failed criminal system. Made as a thriller and staying faithful to the genre throughout, the film rewards with restrained acting, intelligent plot and excellent chemistry among its ensemble cast.

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TWO FAIRIES
(Croatia – Animated Short; 3 min U.S. Premiere! )
(Dvije vile)

Director: Jadranko Lopatic, Miroslav Klaric / Croatia
Prod: Vinko Bresan

This charming vignette depicts a very funny duel between two fairies for the possession of a single magic wand. These winged ladies employ even martial arts in their epic battle and are properly brought down to an appropriately comical size.

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BALKAN EXPRESS-Macedonian Wedding
(Macedonia/Austria – Doc; 52 min L.A. Premiere! )
(Balkan Express-Rückkehr nach Europa: Mazedonien - Der Krieg,der nicht stattfand)

Director: Peter Beringer / Austria
Prod: Martin Traxl

The ten part documentary Balkan Express – Return to Europe was awarded the Erasmus EuroMedia Grand Award in 2008 for outstanding European media productions by the European Society for Education and Communication (ESEC). Macedonian Wedding focuses on the Albanian minority in Macedonia and the impressive cultural diversity stemming from centuries of coexistence between Orthodox and Islamic religions.

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UNPLUGGED
(Croatia – Animated Short; 12 min U.S. Premiere! )

Director: Stjepan Mihaljevic / Croatia
Prod: Vinko Bresan

Gaöpar is a lonely taxi driver whose life is filled with mindless, propagandistic TV programs. Accidentally, he rescues a beautiful member of the Resistance and with her goes on a quest to a mysterious island that harbors the ‘zero-switch’. Discovering the switch, they are rescued from the world of alienation and loneliness, finding a new meaning in togetherness and love.

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THE OTHER SIDE
(Hungary – Short; 12 min U.S. Premiere! )
(Odaát)

Director: Peter Szalay / Hungary
Prod: Andras Muhi

A reenactment of the tragic real-life story about the last victim of the Iron Curtain era. Just weeks before the fall of the Berlin Wall, while an East German family tries to cross the Hungarian border a nervous guard accidentally kills the father.

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ROOSTER'S BREAKFAST
(Slovenia - Feature; 124 min. West Coast Premiere! )
(Petelinji zajtrk)

Director: Marko Nabersnik / Slovenia
Prod: Franci Zajc

The top grossing film in Slovenia and the country's official entry for Best Foreign Language Film in 2009, Rooster’s Breakfast is a love story between a young car mechanic and the wife of a local criminal. There is plenty of nostalgia, sweet humor and country-style lovemaking in this tale of a tempestuous episode in the life of a provincial town.

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MEGATRON
(Romania - Short; 15 min. )

Director: Marian Crisan / Romania
Prod: Anca Puiu

Winner of Palme d’Or in Cannes 2008, Megatron tells the story of Maxim, a boy who lives with his mother in a village near Bucharest, longing to meet his father who lives in the city. When his mother takes him to McDonald’s for his eighth birthday, Maxim would do anything to meet his father.

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ELEVATOR
(Romania – Feature; 85 min. L.A. Premiere! )
(Elevatorul)

Director: George Dorobantu / Romania
Prod: Alexandra M. Paun and Gabriel Pintilei

Shot in eighteen days in the elevator of a Bucharest theatre for a budget of just 300 Euros, Elevator is a small masterpiece of tension and nerve-shredding claustrophobia. Based on a real event and on an award-winning stage play by Gabriel Pintilei; Fabien Baumann of Positif says, “Elevator evokes Gus Van Sant's Gerry (despite using the opposite device of confined space rather then open desert), and even his Last Days in its glorious final sequence.”

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Parallel program reserved for trailers, experimental and short films, including presentation of films by expat filmmakers.
 

NOTE
(Animated Short, Croatia - US Premiere!)
Dir: Marko Mestrovic

Three diffferent stories about a relationship between a father and son, taking place in different social milieux.

MALFORMANCE/PERFORMANCE
(Animated Short, Croatia - US Premiere!)
Dir: Tomislav Gregl

Clay images of tyrants, warmongers and dictators recall faces of evil through history.

EGON & DONCI - trailer
(Feature Animation, Hungary)
Dir: Adam Magyar

Boy-cat pair of space explorers from a faraway planet travels across the universe to reach Earth.

THEY CAME TO PLAY – trailer
(Doc., USA)
Dir: Alex Rotaru

International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in Fort Worth, Texas features three nerve-wracking elimination rounds.

SARAJEVO 1984 – 25th Anniversary of the XIV Winter Olympic Games
(Doc., USA)
Dir: Kim Takal
Courtesy of Jalbert Productions International
http://www.jalbertfilm.com/

Original footage from the '84 Winter Olympics pays homage to Sarajevo and evokes a legendary moment in time, a precursor of war-time heroic stand during the siege of 1990's.

ZOOGEN
(Experimental Short, Croatia - US Premiere!)
Dir: Dan Oki

Raising ethical questions about the science of artificial life, the film is an artistic vision of the relationship between humans and animals.

WINTER PASTILLES
(Pastille de Iarna)
(3D animated short, Romania)
Dir/Wr/Pr & Animator: Ion Octavian Frecea

Winter-to-spring divertissement stars two playful snowmen who are soon replaced by a pair of bunnies as spring time approaches …