Please take a look

http://www.cairofilmfest.org/sections/F ... tival.aspx
http://www.cairofilmfest.org/sections/O ... ition.aspx
http://www.cairofilmfest.org/sections/I ... ature.aspx

Is there anything I shouldn't miss?

btw, I've already made my own schedule

Wed. 19/11/08
16.00 - Der Rote Punkt (The Red Spot) B-
19.00 - Loss B
21.30 - Gomorra A-

Thurs. 20/11/08
19.00 - GÃ¥ med fred Jamil (Go With Peace Jamil) B
21.30 - Boogie A

Fri. 21/11/08
21.30 - Shoot on Sight D+

Sat. 22/11/08
21.00 - Battle in Seattle B+

Sun. 23/11/08
18.30 - The Last Lear B
21.30 - Üç maymun (Three Monkeys) A

Mon. 24/11/08
21.30 - Los girasoles ciegos (The Blind Sunflower) B-

Tues. 25/11/08
13.30 - Ramchand Pakistani
16.00 - Captain Abou Raed
21.30 - It's a Free World

Wed. 26/11/08
19.00 - Salt of This Sea
21.30 - Turneja (The Tour)

Thurs. 27/11/08
16.00 - Sous les bombes (Under the Bombs)
19.00 - La Soledad (Solitary Fragments)

Fri. 28/11/08
16.00 - Paradesi (The Foreigner)
21.30 - Zavet (Promise Me This)

I'm not going to write a long comment.. I'm not good at it..

DAY 1

The first film in my 'watch list' of this year's CIFF was a German film Der Rote Punkt (The Red Spot).



It was about a Japanese woman and what seems to be a missing piece of her life. Unfortunately, when the movie ends, neither she or the viewer felt that the hole has been filled, the mystery has been answered (what is it to be answered? that's actually a question I asked myself after the credit rolls). While this film has got a nice tone to get along with it, or if it was beautiful to watch, the script was somehow seemingly pointless. While it's got something right (mostly involved with cross-culture experience), most of it just didn't work out as strong as it should be (the sub-plotlines). This film fails trying to convince us to see that what she's looking for, is something really important to her life, something that will change her life. What started out to be something passionate, interesting, ended up with unsatisfied result. And there's nothing to talk about the acting or the directing, either. B-

Next was Loss, from Lithuania.



Great flick. If somehow too well-calculated, too much of fwrd/bckwrd flashback style. Many rooms could have been easily improved, but a nice, quite-powerful film nonetheless. B

I finished my first day with the highlight of the festival. A so-much-talk-about Italian film, Gomorra.



Not a masterpiece, but damn great. What seems to be 'lacked-in-style' is actually a realistic look of the world of crime. 'Gomorrah' is intense in every minute with a taut direction and the entirely great performances. It's bleak, sincere and angry. Likely to make you feel having no desire to live in this world anymore. A/A-

DAY 2


Go With Peace, Jamil - A taut drama/thriller with the strong message of the subject rarely to be found in any film. If slightly empty in plot or its characters. B


Boogie - To my surprise, this was my favorite film of the festival. True that it has been just two days. But I doubt anything can top this drama from Romania (the great). I was actually going to skip this. Glad that I didn't. Superb in every way. A

okayyyyyy 8 days to go!!

DAY 3



Shoot on Sight has everything you need for a bad drama/thriller. Predictable, cliche, sloppy, bland. I hate it when someone tries to pretend that he understands the situation when he actually has no clue about it at all. The bland acting only made things worse. The only good thing is the cuteness of that guy. But he still barely made the film bearable. The more I think of it, the more I hate it. Yuck! D+

DAY 4

The problem I always had with 'movie festival' is the schedule. My own schedule. Especially with CIFF, where almost every film is those you never heard of. And you couldn't go through and miss nothing. So, it's a very big deal to make sure that what to be decidedly missed is not something you shouldn't.

My choice of the day for today was 'Battle in Seattle'. I was going to skip it. In fact, I thought I was going to 'Après lui'. But it was when I arrived at the box office that I found out it has been some change.



And frankly, what made me 'errr' with the decision to watch this film is the name of Stuart Townsend. Battle in Seattle is his first directorial work. And the reviews have been mixed at best.

Fortunately, 'Battle in Seattle' is worthwhile. The film was made with much of passion. And that helped the film a lot. And I have to say, Townsend's skill in directing or his visionary in film-making is, while hardly original, quite a surprise. Filming in a docudrama style, while failed to achieve the high note of being either, it was pretty powerful. With the strong casts all around, 'Battle in Seattle' is gripping and through-out interesting. B+

DAY 5

The Last Lear

The legendary of Bollywood, Amitabh Bachchan was just a-ma-zing in this film. He is mesmerizing in the role. His performance in this movie is certainly one of his best work, if not the best. Passionate and powerful, it was. The rest of the film, from Bachchan's co-stars or the script by the director Rituparno Ghosh, was anything but solid, nothing great. The script, while featured loads of smart dialogue, was led down by the poorly developed sub-plots, of which become unnecessary at the end. And it still can't quite escape from the fake-emotional-squeezing moment, of which has become the benchmark of Bollywood film (wouldn't be such a big deal if it actually did work). The pacing was sometimes off too, mostly ruined by the confusing editing. The film has the interesting take on acting and film-making, of which could be easily related for us. But with those little minor problems mentioned above, I found it be just a solid work, if certainly could have been more effective and hence a better film.
Bottom line? Yes, this is undeniably Amitabh Bachchan's film. B

Three Monkeys

Loved it! Even most the film was a quite long-shot, but Ceylan kept the intensity on screen all the time. The characters might speak no word, but you can feel the rage, the confusion, the angry even the sadness beneath the silence, thanks to the gorgeous camera work and the brilliant directing. It all worked wonderfully. I might just quote the review by Peter Brunette...

A quite, yet powerful film. A

Have I said that I'm dying to see Gomorra?

DAY 6



The Blind Sunflowers was saved by its strong casts, Maribel Verdú in particularly. Although the story itself is interesting, the overall result while wasn't a disaster, wasn't as strong as effective as it should have been either. It left much to be desired, and the much is too large. The cause is its decision to play safe, its unwilling to go out of the edge. Or maybe its carelessness to the issues it's dealing with. Or both, in case it tried to be both of a thriller about lust, and a drama of struggling life in the postwar era in the same time.
This plotline-problem asides, there were also few noticeably flaws. Not much, but none of which is small to be overlooked. Start with the scene near the end, when the boy asked the mother what is wrong after watching what just happened. What's wrong, he asked? How could someone write these line in the script or it was the director who led this scene passed.
It's kind of mixed up of the mess and the good. It's well-acted, nice-looking. But with the strong moment after the weak one, repeated one after another, it's almost unsurprising to find this movie, in the end, dragged, dull and empty in any emotional impact or whatsoever.
Hard to believe this was the strongest effort from Spain this year. B-