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Sundance Film Festival 2011

This year’s 14 films were selected from 1,073 international narrative feature submissions.

View other Sundance Film Festival Films by strand: Documentary Premieres, From The Collection, Native Showcase, New Frontier, NEXT (<=>), Park City At Midnight, Premieres, Spotlight, US Documentary Competition, US Dramatic Competition, World Cinema Documentary Competition

The Cinema Hold Up The Cinema Hold Up
The Cinema Hold Up and The Guard
Abraxas (Country: Japan; Year: 2010; Director: Naoki Kato; Writer: Dai Sako, Naoki Kato; Stars: Suneohair, Rie Tomosaka, Manami Honjou, Ryouta Murai, Kaoru Kobayashi)
After botching a speech on career guidance at a local high school, a depressed Zen monk with a heavy metal past realises that only music can revive his spirit.
All Your Dead Ones (Todos Tus Muertos) (Country: Colombia; Year: 2010; Director: Carlos Moreno; Writer: Carlos Moreno, Alonso Torres; Stars: Alvaro Rodríguez, Jorge Herrera, Martha Marquez, Harold Devasten, John Alex Castillo)
One morning, a peasant wakes to find a pile of bodies in the middle of his crops. When he goes to the authorities, he quickly realises that the dead ones are a problem nobody wants to deal with.
The Cinema Hold Up (Asalto Al Cine) (Country: Mexico; Year: 2011; Director: Iria Gomez; Writer: Iria Gomez, Juan Pablo Gómez; Stars: Gabino Rodríguez, Juan Pablo de Santiago, Ángel Sosa, Paulina Avalos, Dolores Heredia, Susana Salazar, María Gelia, Gabriela Reynoso, Juan Manuel Bernal, Roberto de Loera, Carlos Valencia, Luis Javier Becerril, Gustavo Sánchez Parra, Javier Oliván, Harold Torres)
Four childhood pals decide to rob a cinema.
Full Review
A Few Days Of Respite (Quelque Jours de Repit) (Country: Algeria, France; Year: 2011; Director: Amor Hakkar; Stars: Marina Vlady, Samir Guesmi, Amor Hakkar)
A pair of gay men who have escaped from Iran seek safe harbor in a small French village, where a lonely middle-aged woman offers aid.
The Guard (Country: Ireland; Year: 2011; Director: John Michael McDonagh; Writer: John Michael McDonagh; Stars: Don Cheadle, Brendan Gleeson, Mark Strong, Liam Cunningham, David Wilmot, Fionnula Flanagan)
A small-town cop in Ireland finds himself drawn into an uneasy partnership with an FBI agent trying to smash a drug smuggling racket.
Full Review
Tyrannosaur Tyrannosaur
Tyrannosaur and All Your Dead Ones
Happy Happy (Sykt Lykkelig) (Country: Norway; Year: 2010; Director: Anne Sewitsky; Writer: Ragnhild Tronvoll; Stars: Oskar Hernæs Brandsø, Ram Shihab Ebedy, Agnes Kittelsen, Henrik Rafaelsen, Joachim Rafaelsen, Maibritt Saerens, Heine Totland)
A perfect housewife, who just happens to be sex-starved, struggles to keep her emotions in check when an attractive family moves in next door.
Kinyarwanda (Country: Rwanda, US; Year: 2011; Director: Alrick Brown; Writer: Alrick Brown, Patricia Janvier, Ishmael Ntihabose, Charles Plath; Stars: Edouard Bamporiki, Cassandra Freeman, Cleophas Kabasiita, Hadidja Zaninka, Kennedy Mazimpaka, Hassan Kabera)
Based on accounts from survivors, Kinyarwanda tells the story of Rwandans who crossed the lines of hatred during the 1994 genocide, turning mosques into places of refuge for Muslims and Christians, Hutus and Tutsis.
Lost Kisses (I baci mai dati) (Country: Italy; Year: 2010; Director: Roberta Torre; Writer: Roberta Torre, Laura Nuccilli, Alessandro Amapani; Stars: Donatella Finocchiaro, Pino Micol, Giuseppe Fiorello, Carla Marchese, Martina Galletta, Tony Palazzo)
A 13-year-old girl in the deprived outskirts of a sprawling Sicilian city becomes a local celebrity to her needy community when word spreads that she just might be able to perform miracles.
Mad Bastards (Country: Australia; Year: 2010; Director: Brendan Fletcher; Writer: Brendan Fletcher in collaboration with Dean Daley-Jones; Stars: Dean Daley-Jones, Greg Tait, John Watson, Ngaire Pigram, Lucas Yeeda)
In a frontier town of northern Australia’s Kimberley Region, an urban street warrior meets his match in a local cop. Performances and stories from real people in Kimberley are woven through the music of Broome musicians, The Pigram Brothers.
Restoration (Boker Tov Adon Fidelman) (Country: Israel; Year: 2010; Director: Yossi Madmoni; Writer: Erez Kav-El; Stars: Sasson Gabay, Henry David, Nevo Kimchi, Sarah Adler)
Aided by a young and mysterious apprentice, an antique furniture restorer struggles to keep his workshop alive, while his relationship with his own estranged son, who is trying to close down the shop, begins to disintegrate.
The Salemsan (Le Vendeur) (Country: Canada; Year: 2011; Director: Sébastien Pilote; Writer: Sébastien Pilote; Stars: Gilbert Sicotte, Nathalie Cavezzali)
Car salesman Marcel Lévesque operates by the rules of a bygone era, turning on the charm to make his quota. But the increasing decline of his fading industrial town threatens to plummet this peddler of dreams into an unfriendly reality.
Ticket To Paradise (Boleto al Paraiso) (Country: Cuba; Year: 2010; Director: Gerardo Chijona Valdes; Writer: Gerardo Chijona Valdes, Francisco Garcia Gonzalez, Maykel Rodriguez Ponjuan; Stars: Miriel Cejas, Héctor Medina, Dunia Matos, Jorge Perugorria, Luis A Garcia)
A teenage girl running away from her father's sexual harassment meets a young rocker who has escaped to Havana with his misfit group of friends. Set in 1993, during a period of acute shortages in Cuba, the local AIDS hospice begins to look like an unlikely refuge to the hopeless teens.
See: Sundance 2011 diary piece, capsule reviews of Terri, Ticket To Paradise and a chat with Richard Ayoade
Tyrannosaur (Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Paddy Considine; Writer: Paddy Considine; Stars: Peter Mullan, Eddie Marsan, Olivia Colman, Ned Dennehy, Sian Breckin, Paul Popplewell, Julia Mallam, Sally Carman, Lee Rufford, Paul Conway, Piers Mettrick, Samuel Bottomley, Archie Lal, Fiona Carnegie, Vicki Hackett), Official Site
A man plagued by inner rage forms an unexpected relationship with an abused woman.
Full Review See: Sundance 2011: Capsule reviews of Tyrannosaur, Project Nim, Submarine, Kaboom, The Music Never Stopped
Vampire (Country: Japan; Year: 2010; Director: Shunji Iwai; Writer: Shunji Iwai; Stars: Kevin Zegers, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Amanda Plummer, Trevor Morgan, Adelaide Clemens, Yû Aoi, Kristin Kreuk, Rachael Leigh Cook, Ryan Robbins, Jodi Balfour, Samuel Patrick Chu, Teach Grant, Chad Krowchuk, Mandy Playdon, R. Nelson Brown)
On the surface, Simon seems like a fairly normal, average young man, devoted to his teaching job and ailing mother. Secretly, he is compelled to hunt through online chat rooms and message boards, searching for the perfect girl who will ensure his own survival.
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