Top picks from international cinema.
Café De Flore and Once Upon A Time In Anatolia
Beauty (Skoonheid)
(Country: South Africa, France, Germany; Year: 2011; Director: Oliver Hermanus; Writer: Oliver Hermanus, Didier Costet; Stars: Deon Lotz, Charlie Keegan, Michelle Scott, Albert Maritz, Sue Diepeveen, Roeline Daneel, Drikus Volschenk, Morné Visser, Leon Kruger, Robin Smith, Jeroen Kranenburg, Tinarie Loots van Wyk, Jan Hendrik Opperman, Marion Holm, Shaun Rossouw),
Trailer
Winner of the Queer Palm at Cannes 2011, a disturbing and provocative examination of one man's damaging self-hatred.
Bonsái: A Story Of Love, Books And Plants (Bonsái)
(Year: 2011; Director: Cristián Jiménez; Writer: Cristián Jiménez, Alejandro Zambra; Stars: Gabriela Arancibia, Cristóbal Briceño, Julio Carrasco, Nathalia Galgani, Trinidad González, Ingrid Isensee, Paola Lattus, Hugo Medina, Diego Noguera, Alicia Rodríguez, Andrés Waas)
Tragic-comic love story between two youngsters amid books, literary quotes, coming-togethers and fall-outs.
Café De Flore
(Country: Canada; Year: 2011; Director: Jean-Marc Vallée; Writer: Jean-Marc Vallée; Stars: Vanessa Paradis, Kevin Parent, Hélène Florent)
Lonely people whose love binds them in painful situations are united by music.
Chinese Take-Away (Un Cuento Chino, Chinese Take-Out)
(Country: Argentina, Spain; Year: 2011; Director: Sebastián Borensztein; Writer: Sebastián Borensztein; Stars: Ricardo Darín, Muriel Santa Ana, Ignacio Huang)
A grumpy shopkeeper lends a helping hand to a young Chinese man who cannot speak his language, and his life changes forever.
Cloudburst
(Country: US, Canada; Year: 2011; Director: Thom Fitzgerald; Writer: Thom Fitzgerald; Stars: Olympia Dukakis, Brenda Fricker, Ryan Doucette, Kristin Booth, John Dunsworth),
Official Site
An elderly lesbian couple flee the threat of a nursing home and head to Canada to marry, picking up a hitchhiker along the way.
Chinese Take-Away and Where Do We Go Now?
Elena
(Country: Russia; Year: 2011; Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev; Writer: Oleg Negin, Andrei Zvyagintsev; Stars: Nadezhda Markina, Andrei Smirnov, Elena Lyadova, Alexei Rozin)
Andrei Zvyagintsev's award-winning account of a struggle over inheritance is accompanied by an effective score by Philip Glass.
Mitsuko Delivers (Hara ga kore nande)
(Country: Japan; Year: 2011; Director: Yuya Ishii; Writer: Yûya Ishii; Stars: Riisa Naka, Aoi Nakamura, Ryo Ishibashi)
Mitsuko is in her ninth month of pregnancy, but that doesn't stop her taking the lead when all around her are floundering. Yuya Ishii's breathless comic drama has satire, brio and originality to burn.
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia
(Country: Turkey, Bosnia, Herzegovina; Year: 2011; Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan; Writer: Ercan Kesal, Ebru Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan; Stars: Muhammet Uzuner, Yilmaz Erdogan, Taner Birsel, Firat Tanis)
A group of men set out to investigate murder in the steppe.
Red Dog
(Country: Australia, US; Year: 2011; Director: Kriv Stenders; Writer: Louis de Bernières, Daniel Taplitz; Stars: Josh Lucas, Rachael Taylor, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Noah Taylor, Luke Ford, Bill Hunter, Tiffany Lyndall-Knight, Arthur Angel, John Batchelor, Loene Carmen, Rohan Nichol, Costa Ronin, Eamon Farren, Koko, Shingo Usami),
Official Site
The story of a Western Australian legend and the tough, warm, independent people whose lives he touched.
Where Do We Go Now? (Et maintenant, on va où?)
(Country: Lebanon; Year: 2011; Director: Nadine Labaki; Writer: Rodney Al Haddid, Jihad Hojeily, Nadine Labaki; Stars: Kevin Abboud, Claude Baz Moussawbaa, Julian Farhat, Ali Haidar, Leyla Hakim, Nadine Labaki, Yvonne Maalouf, Claude Moussawbaa, Antoinette Noufaily)
A group of Lebanese women try to ease religious tensions between Christians and Muslims in their village.
