[Squishy] SF film festival [long]

[Jenny Fong]

hi all!

the SF film festival is coming up again, and there are quite a few 
interesting looking films. here's the website: www.sffs.org/fest02. 

i've attached below descriptions of the films for which i'm getting tix. let 
me know if you end up going to the same ones. it would be fun to get a group 
together to view, then hang out later. i'm shooting for the shows  that 
happen in the evening, in SF if possible. 

happy screening! 

 --jenny fong 

Bola, El	Achero Mañas	Spain	2000
A young boy in Madrid helps a friend overcome a violent home in this 
refreshingly realistic, unmelodramatic vision of friendship, childhood and 
strength. A carefully wrought script and superb performances refuse to 
sensationalize its subject. 

CQ	Roman Coppola	USA	2001
A valentine to 1960s cinema, from black-and-white verité to kung-fu sex 
kittens in space, CQglows with the light of a great cast and a director in 
love with film, past and future. With short, On the Set of CQ. 

I'm Going Home	Manoel de Oliveira	Portugal/France	2001
Michel Piccoli gives one of his greatest performances as an actor who, after 
his wife, daughter and son-in-law are tragically killed, must take care of 
his grandson. Costarring John Malkovich and Catherine Deneuve, it was the 
surprise crowd pleaser of last year’s Cannes Film Festival. 

In Praise of Love	Jean-Luc Godard	Switzerland/France	2001
Jean-Luc Godard, cinema’s supreme iconoclast, delivers another work of great 
intellectual freedom, elusive meanings and overwhelming visual beauty. It 
addresses ideas of memory, loss, the Holocaust and Hollywood in Godard’s 
inimitable, restless style. 

Musa the Warrior	Kim Sung-Su	South Korea	2001
This breakthrough action epic is massive entertainment, blending human drama 
and visual poetry. A Korean military group braves Mongol hordes and the 
vast, beautiful, and perilous Chinese landscape in an attempt to rescue a 
Chinese princess (Crouching Tiger’s Zhang Ziyi). 

Nights of Constantinople	Orlando Rojas	Cuba	2001
When tyrannical matriarch Doña Eugenia discovers her favorite grandson has 
won an award for writing an erotic novel, she falls into a coma, giving her 
family a chance to revolt. Art, secrets and dreams are linked in this comic 
tale of a family in long-overdue rebellion. 

One Take Only	Oxide Pang	Thailand	2002
Making John Woo look like Ron Howard, the maker of the jolting gangster epic 
Bangkok Dangerousreturns with this ferociously stylized tale of doomed love 
between a prostitute and a smalltime drug dealer in a city on fire: Bangkok. 

Princess Blade, The	Shinsuke Sato	Japan	2001
High-tech special effects and the action artistry of Donnie Yen (Iron 
Monkey) unite with jaw-dropping results in a futuristic Japan of dictators, 
rebels and a rogue female assassin looking to avenge her mother’s death by 
slaughtering them all. 

Sound of Brazil	Mika Kaurismäki	germany/Finland/france	2001
Dancing a few steps beyond bossa nova or samba, this musical journey through 
Brazil highlights frevo, coco, forró and embolada, to name just a few of the 
amazingly diverse styles of music it so spontaneously, gloriously displays. 
With short, My Buddy, Zé Ketti. 

Taxi for Three, A	Orlando Lübbert	Chile	2001
Two young thieves enlist a weak-willed cab driver as their accomplice in 
crime. This darkly comic fable of greed, corruption and betrayal, a big hit 
in its native Chile, is a sly metaphor for post-Pinochet Chile. 

 --btw, i was tempted by "Waterboys" just for the sheer cheesiness of it! 

 --jenny