OUR TIPS FOR MONDAY 7.11.

LAS ACACIAS (CF/Lumiére, 17:30)

Director: Pablo Giorgelli, Argentina-Spain, 2011, 85 min.

A minimalistic road-movie featuring just two characters, the film is simple in terms of story and form and simultaneously rich in emotional expression. One of the world’s best film debuts of the year.

GUILTY (CF/K7, 14:00)

Director: Vincent Garenq, France, 2011, 101 min.

Based on one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in modern French history, this powerful film dramaturgically conceived as a thriller boasts exquisite directing and superb acting and is one of the best French films of this year.

Recommended by Nenad Dukić, programmer of the Feature Film Competition

BOŽENA,

BREATH

 (ANT/K9, 13:30)

Director: David Vigner, Czech Republic, 2011, 13 min.

Director: Kullar Viimne, Estonia, 2007, 59 min.

The two antidepressant films for today, Božena and Breath, do not have too much in common. The former is a love story of two students that is being hindered by a four-metre long python. The latter is an entertaining story of possibly the only living female chimney sweep in Estonia who wanders from door to door and tells her own story as well as stories of her clients of different background and desires.

OK, ENOUGH, GOODBYE! (ST/SNG, 21:00)

Director: Rania Attieh, Daniel Garcia, United Arab Emirates-Lebanon, 2010, 93 min.

While not having a primary political agenda, this film is also a little bit about the slow and grass-root origins of contemporary revolutions that recently took the Arab world by storm. A story of a pastry maker who lives with his mother, meets a prostitute and takes a walk on the wild side, it features several unforgettable scenes such as the protest tyre burning. Taking place in the Lebanese port of Tripoli (not to be confused with the capital of Libya) it is an interesting cinematic contribution from one part of the world we do not know much about.

Recommended by Radovan Holub, programmer of Antidepressants and Stories sections

THE BENGALI DETECTIVE   (DC/K7, 11:30)

Director: Philip Cox, India-USA-UK, 2011, 92 min.

I strongly recommend to kick out the Monday festival program by a competing documentary The Bengali Detective (11:30, K7) by British director Philip Cox. A daring mix of genres that borrows from detective stories, melodrama or colourful Indian spectacles, the film follows an intrepid private detective Rajesh and his motley band on raids and investigations of various crimes, ranging from production and sale of fake cosmetics to murder. The only escape from the harsh reality of their work is weekly dance routines in the Bollywood style because Rajesh secretly dreams of winning a national TV talent show. I know this description makes the picture look like a whimsical cinematic entertainment; nevertheless, the filmmakers have rather casually captured everyday life in an Indian city.

Recommended by Pavel Smejkal, programmer of the Documentary Film Competition

CINEMA KOMUNISTO CINEMA KOMUNISTO (DC/K9, 18:30)

Director: Mila Turajlić, Serbia, 2010, 101 min.

The most interesting and successful documentary to come from Serbia in years, Cinema Komunisto is a story about cinema in Yugoslavia during Tito’s rule. Using rare footage from more than 150 Yugoslav films as well as never-before-seen archive material from film sets and Tito’s private screenings, Turajlić paints a convinging picture of a country that developed its own film genre – namely freedom-fighter epics from World War II – and simultaneously attracted lavish international film productions with filmmakers and stars such as Sam Peckinpah, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Sofia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor or Richard Burton who played Tito in Academy Award-nominated film Battle of Sutjeska).

Recommended by Vladan Petković, Serbian film journalist, correspondent of Screen Daily