Director: Rafa Cortes

Script: Alex Brendemuhl, Rafa Cortes

Camera: David Valldeperez

Music: Oscar Kaiser

Cast: Alex Brendemuhl, Margalida Grimalt, Rafel Ramis etc.

Spain, 2007, 100 min, F

Hans, a German worker, arrives in a Majorca village to replace the missing housekeeper of a rich German villa, whose name was Hans as well. From the first moment of his arrival Hans feels subjected to an unspoken suspicion from the village people. He feels accused of what he has not done. Hans’s attempts to prove his innocence lead him to the main problem– himself. This psychological thriller with absurd humour elements is a sort of labyrinth where we can follow the protagonist and ask ourselves: does being yourself mean being good?

Director: Esteban Sapir

Script: Esteban Sapir

Camera: Cristian Cottet

Music: Leo Sujatovich

Cast: Alejandro Urdapilleta, Valeria Bertucelli etc.

Argentina, 2007, 90 min, F

The City With No Voice is located in the eternal snow. Mr TV, who owns the only film channel in the city, has taken the voice away from the people and has made them eat TV programmes instead of food. But this is not enough– he wants to gain total control over people’s minds as well. In order to make his evil plan come true, Mr TV kidnaps the only city dweller that has not been deprived of voice yet– the splendid singer with no face. Can anyone stop him?

“The Aerial” is the first Argentinian film in the last 36 years that has participated in the Rotterdam International Film Festival competition. The film has also been awarded prizes at film festivals in Hungary, Brussels and others.

Director: Algimantas Puipa

Script: Jurga Ivanauskaite, Algimantas Puipa

Camera: Algimantas Mikutenas

Music: Juozas Sirvinskas

Cast: Rasa Samuolyte, Aleksas Kazanavicius, Kostas Smoriginas, Nele Savicenko, Remigijus Sabulis

Lithuania, 2007, 100 min, F

A mysticism-imbued psychological drama about women and men, faith, hope, and love.
Vika is on the verge of a suicide and goes to a psychotherapist. Her husband is mentally ill, and she is romantically involved with Paul, a priest, who visits regularly to care for her husband. When Paul, wishing to comply with the vow of the priesthood, decides to end the affair, Vika tries to find solace in sleeping with strange men. As if exerting a vengeance she describes these events in her confessions to Paul.
The film is based on the novel by Jurga Ivanauskaite, The Witch and the Rain.

Director: Bent Hamer

Script: Bent Hamer

Camera: John Chr. Rosenlund

Music: Kaada

Cast: Bard Owe, Ghita Norby, Espen Skjonberg, Henny Moan etc.

Norway, Germany, France, 2008, 91 min, F

Odd Horten has conducted the same train route every day for such a long time that his life has become a series of comfortable rituals. But now the sixty-seven year old train conductor has to retire and his regular and solitary existence will have to face a future full of confusing questions. Will Horten ever fly in a plane? How is he going to end up in red, high-heeled shoes? Will he survive a night drive with a blind man at the steering wheel? The only thing that is clear is that Horten will get himself into absurd adventures and strange accidents. The film has been screened at Cannes and Karlovy Vary film festivals.

Director: Joao Canijo

Script: Joao Canijo, Celine Pouillon, Mayanna von Ledebur

Camera: Mario Castanheira

Sound: Olivier Blanc, Ricardo Leal, Gerard Rousseau

Cast: Anabela Moreira Lucia, Marcia Breia Adelaide, Fernando Luis Evaristo etc.

Portugal, 2007, 117 min, F

Lucia is an unhappy young woman who feels like an eternal widow to her own father. Her existence is the bodily form of an angry cry. Lucia wears black mourning clothes every day as a reminder to her mother of her crime and betrayal. Humiliated by her mother and her lover, Lucia lives with a hope that one day her brother will return and together they will avenge their father’s death. The myth of Electra – a mother’s incapacity to love her own daughter is revived in modern Portugal.

The film has been screened at the Venice International Film Festival and elsewhere.

Director: Ramin Bahrani

Script: Bahareh Azimi, Ramin Bahrani

Camera: Michael Simmonds

Music: M. Lo

Cast: Alejandro Polanco, Isamar Gonzales, Ahmad Razvi etc.

USA, 2007, 84 min, F

Twelve-year-old Latin American Alehandro lives in the outskirts of New York, works in auto repair shops and washes, collects scrap metal, and lives in a small room that belongs to his employer. His sixteen-year-old sister Isamara is Alehandro’s only family. Desiring a better life for both of them, Alehandro starts saving money to make his dream come true– he wants to buy a van and turn it into a store. But then he has to face the adult world and take decisions he has never dreamed about.

The film has participated in the Cannes, Toronto, Berlin, and AFI festivals. In 2008 the film was awarded Indepedent Spirit Awards special prize.

Director: Sergey Loznitsa

Script: Sergey Loznitsa

Camera: archival material

Sound: Vladimir Golovnitsky

Germany, Russia, Ukraine, 2008, 83 min, D

“Revue” is made from 1950s and 1960s Soviet newsreels. The Soviet propaganda materials have been given an untraditional character thus transforming the audience’s role from information consumers to information critics. The film reveals the Soviet way of thinking and Soviet people’s life that are both subjected to absurd rituals and idealized by the splendid illusion of communism. The film made its debut at Rotterdam

International Film Festival and it received The Golden Horn Award for the best documentary at Krakow Film Festival. “Revue” has been screened at other festivals around the world as well.

Director: Pen-Ek Ratanaruang

Script: Pen-Ek Ratanaruang

Camera: Chankit Chamnivikaipong

Music: Hualampong Riddim, Koichi Shimizu

Cast: Ananda Everingham, Lalita Panyopas, Porntip Papanai

Thailand, 2007, 105 min, F

Ploy symbolises a cunning trick that makes your opponent frustrated and thus lets you win the game. This name has been given to a mysterious girl who brings a sudden change to the marriage of Wit and Daeng. The couple returns to Bangkok after seven years of absence, and stays at a five-star hotel. Here Wit meets Ploy in the hotel bar, where he has gone to buy cigarettes.

Suddenly the married couple is pulled into a stream of passion, suspicion and jealousy, that flows slowly and relentlessly in accordance with the calm and steady rhythm of the film, making this a doomed story.

Director: Guy Maddin

Script: Guy Maddin, George Toles

Camera: Jody Shapiro

Sound: David McCallum, David Rose

Cast: Darcy Fehr, Ann Savage, Janet Maddin etc.

Canada, 2007, 80 min, D

Have you ever wished to be a child again and live your life differently? Guy Maddin explores this question in a film about his hometown. He has created the docu-fantasy film genre that blends the local history with his personal experience. Surrealistic, black-and-white sequences reflect the local mythology, for example, the myth about horse heads emerging from the snow-covered ice of a frozen lake. Maddin’ s most personal film is both funny and moving.

The film has been awarded the leading prize at Toronto film festival, and it has been screened at the Berlin film festival’ s opening night.

Director: Udo Maurer

Script: Michael Glawogger, Ursula Sova, Udo Maurer

Camera: Attila Boa, Udo Maurer

Music: Serge Tonnar

Austria, Luxembourg, 2007, 83 min, D

Three different remote parts of the world– Bangladesh on the Indian Ocean, a fishing village in Kazakhstan near the shrinking Aral Sea, and a slum in Kenya, in the central part of Africa. Houses easily dismantled in order to leave land taken over by water; a ship cemetery right in the middle of the steppe and people queueing up in the streets with yellow cans in their hands. The film focuses on the issue of water in developing countries that are beautifully portrayed despite harsh living conditions.

Michael Glavoger, Austrian documentary and feature film director whose films are often screened in “Arsenāls,” has co- written the script of this film.