Moscow International Film Festival

Programmes


Competition

Bibi // Bibi
Iran, 2008, 75 min.

Director: Hassan Yektapanah
Cast: Salimeh Rangzan, Mohsen Emadipour, Ali Farahani, Ali Farhad, Esmaeel Musavi

Bibiaziz is an Iranian aged woman who has been dispelled from Iraq to Iran during Sadam Hussein’s reign because of Iraq - Iran war. She has lived in Iran for twenty five years and she had never measured to receive an Iranian ID card. But now that she is aged she decides to provide an ID card for herself in order to persuade the Cemetery Organization to carve her own Iranian name on her grave stone because this would be the only sign for her daughter who lives in Iraq to recognize her grave. Bibi goes to the ID Registration Office, but they can find no trace of her identification among the files. Bibi has a good friend, a driver Foruhar, who is like a stepson to her. They go to the Cemetery Organization where Bibi intends to buy a grave so that, on her departure, they would, without an ID documentation, put her name «Bibiaziz Zahiri» on her gravestone, but they refuse. Foruhar decides to try all ways to find a stolen ID card for her, he persuades Bibi that they can easily buy an ID card from smugglers.

Prank // Tréfa
Hungary, 2009, 94 min.

Director: Péter Gárdos
Cast: Tamás Lengyel, Lórád Váta, Mihály Kovács, Zsolt Kovács, András Kecskés

It is 1912. In a small town’s parish school run by priests the school year starts off in an ordinary way. This autumn, however, the pupils are overcome by a strangely overwhelming rowdiness, leading them to come up with increasingly more outrageous pranks. The school welcomes a new teacher, Father Weigl. The new, young teacher is aghast at his colleagues’ liberal approach to the excessively bad behaviour of the teenage pupils. Father Zoltán, the form master of the 7th year students, pays less and less attention to the events taking place right around him. His younger brother, deafened in a boxing match, was on his way to Boston for surgery at Father Zoltán’s urging. The brother was aboard the Titanic, which collided with an iceberg. The official report on the injured and casualties is yet to be released. One day, events take a sudden turn...

As God Commands // Come Dio comanda
Italy, 2008, 103 min.

Director: Gabriele Salvatores
Cast: Elio Germano, Filippo Timi, Fabio De Luigi, Alvaro Caleca, Angelica Leo

Based on a novel by Niccolò Ammaniti. Adesolate northern Italian town set beneath majestic mountains where Cristiano Zena lives with his hard-drinking, out-of-work father, Rino, is a world away from the picturesque towns of travel-brochure Italy. Cristiano is in middle school. It is the two of them against the world. Rino raises his son the best he can. Cristiano worships his father with a misguided but powerful love. When Rino and his rough-edged cronies Danilo and Quattro Formaggi come up with a plan to reverse all their fortunes, Cristiano wonders if maybe their lives are poised for deliverance after all. But the plan goes horribly awry. On a night of apocalyptic weather, each character will act in a way that will have irreversible consequences for themselves and others, and Cristiano will find his life changed forever, and not in the way he had hoped.

Beauty // Beauty Utusukushiimono
Japan, 2009, 109 min.

Director: Toshio Goto
Cast: Takataro Kataoka, Ainosuke Kataoka, Kumiko Aso, Taira Takahashi, Sora Oshima

Before WWII, harvest offering plays hold up the town abound in a village deep in the mountains called Inadani Valley. Hanji, a wood cutter protege, admires leading children’s kabuki actor Yukio and begins to study kabuki. According to Yukio’s request, Hanji undertakes an «onnagata» or female role. As a result, Utako, Yukio’s partner up to that point, loses the role of heroine. But this kind hearted girl continues to look after the boys. Eventually, both are dispatched to war and endure cruel hardships including a labor camp in Siberia. Hanji, who has returned home alive, carries out Yukio’s dying wish playing a leading role in more ways than one and then Hanji and Utako become star couple on stage. But suddenly one day, they learn that Yukio who they thought was dead is alive. Blind and guilt stricken from the sins of war, Yukio refuses to return to their town. But Hanji’s ardent pleading gets the best of him bringing Yukio back to the town stage. Yukio and Hanji dance together once again.

Little Moscow // Mala Moskwa
Poland, 2008, 113 min.

Director: Waldemar Krzystek
Cast: Svetlana Khodchenkova, Leslaw Zurek, Dmitry Ulyanov, Elena Leszczynska, Artem Tkachenko

Russian citizen comes to Legnica in Poland – sometime ago, in the 60s he was doing his military service there, and at the «Soviet part» of the local cemetery there is his wife’s grave. He is willing to pay for another twenty years of the burial place here. His daughter also comes to Legnica. She just hates her mother whom she has never seen, but still she can’t forgive her for committing suicide because of her unfortunate passion for Polish officer. Walking around the deserted places of this provincial town Yrii Svetlov starts recalling his youth: how he brought here his young and beautiful wife, and how everyone’s was in love with her, and she belonged to him. How she later fell for Polish officer, how he suffered and how his personal drama suddenly became a huge political scandal. He recalls how he’s lost forever his dear Vera, and never managed to love somebody again.

Melody for a Barrel Organ // Melodiya dlya sharmanki
Ukraine, 2009, 153 min.

Director: Kira Muratova
Cast: Lena Kostyuk, Roma Burlaka, Oleg Tabakov, Renata Litvinova, Nina Ruslanova

After their mother’s death her children – stepbrother and stepsister – have no choice but to go and find their fathers in the big city. On their way they meet many people of the most different kind – people that are kind or wicked, rich and poor, wise and idiot. But one thing stays the same as nobody really cares for them, because everybody’s got to deal with their own problems. And all the more – in the night on the eve of Christmas. Cold and magic Christmas night ends up with by no means fairytale final.

Burning Mooki // Mooki bo'era
Israel, 2008, 102 min.

Director: Lena Chaplin, Slava Chaplin
Cast: Efrat Ben-Zur, Yoav Koresh, Yehuda Almagor, Haran Sagi, Sivan Levy

When Mooky is fifteen, his beloved father dies a sudden death, and his place is taken by Yanek - an impulsive, rough, yet generous man who is regarded as a controversial figure due to his doings in the Holocaust in the Zonder Commando. He brutally invades Mooky’s life and turns it upside-down. During Mookys teenage years, which are affected by his seductive mother Tinka, he deals with unfulfilled love for one girl and a dominated relationship with another. One day Mooky returns to his mother’s home, deranged, and does something from which there is no turning back. Twenty years later, Mooky must decide whether to attend his mother’s funeral and re-open his wounds of the past.

Ward No. 6 // Palata No. 6
Russia, 2009, 83 min.

Director: Karen Shakhnazarov (with participation of Aleksander Gornovsky)
Cast: Vladimir Ilyin, Aleksey Vertkov, Aleksey Zharkov, Aleksander Pankratov-Cherny, Evgeny Stychkin

The screenplay is an adaptation of Chekhov’s mysterious paradoxical and disturbing story, which can be in all justice called the most pessimistic and also the most life-asserting work of the author. The story is based on a real life incident and centers around the head doctor of an asylum who winds up as the asylum patient. Lonely, estranged, reflecting Doctor Andrey Ragin is one of the focal characters in the work of Chekhov and the entire world literature of the 20th century. Preserving the story-line the authors deliberately move the scene into the present. Shooting of the fi lm was done in a real asylum.

Pete on the way to Heaven // Petya po doroge v tsarstvie nebesnoe
Russia, 2009, 97 min.

Director: Nikolay Dostal
Cast: Egor Pavlov, Aleksandr Korshunov, Roman Madyanov, Svetlana Timofeeva-Letunovskaya, Evgeny Redko

Small town Kandalaksha, the year 1953. The town’s fool Petya likes to pretend that he is a real militiaman serving and guarding, furthermore – that he is the real inspector of the traffic police. He has a formal baldric and militiaman’s cap, and in his real holster there is a gun – it makes no odds that it is in fact made out of wood. Nobody wants to talk him out of this harmless encroachment for the power. Even the cars of the chief constructor and the superior engineer stop at «inspector Petya» signal. He was honored with the favour and attention of the first beauty of the town, the wife of the colonel of GB Boguslavskiy, who is the chief of several local reformatory camps. And then came the fatal march of 1953. Stalin died. And a con has just escaped from the local reformatory camp. Together with alarmed soldiers and guards Petya starts out for chasing, because he just couldn’t imagine how an event like this could possibly pass without him…

Mediator, The // Mediatori
Germany / Georgia, 2008, 95 min.

Director: Dito Tsintsadze
Cast: Ewen Bremner, Dito Tsintsadze, Burghart Klaußner, Nutsa Kukhianidze, Merab Ninidze

An Englishman Stephen travels to Tbilisi in order to sell some nebulous undefined information and then is subsequently pursued and killed by a retired agent acting under the aegis of a shadowy puppet master. As a police investigator attempts to unravel the mystery of the English agent’s death the film takes us on a journey through the murky underworld of Tbilisi. The characters in the film all share one thing in common, they are messengers, go-betweens and mediators operating from motivations forced upon them by others. Stephen is hoping the information he exchanges will provide a secure future for his daughter and Assassin also believes that this one final act will rid him of the shackles of his history and enable his family to exist in harmony.

Missing Person, The // The Missing Person
USA, 2009, 95 min.

Director: Noah Buschel
Cast: Michael Shannon, Amy Ryan, Frank Wood, Linda Emond, Paul Sparks

The film is a modern-day film noir in which the sardonic, ginsoaked detective contends with an odd cast of characters while tailing a mysterious, middle-aged man traveling with a Mexican boy from Chicago to Los Angeles. John Rosow is a Chicago gumshoe whose skill for cracking a case often comes with a price; he has a penchant for getting in over his head, but he never loses his cool. Contacted by influential lawyer Drexler Hewitt and asked to shadow a man who is currently en route to Los Angeles with a young boy, Rosow collects his cash and instructions from Hewitt’s gruff assistant Miss Charley, and sets out on his latest assignment. Upon arriving in Santa Monica, however, Rosow is caught off guard to learn that his objective has been updated. He is now to bring the man back to New York. For his efforts, Rosow will receive the tidy sum of a half-a-million dollars.

Five Days without Nora // Cinco días sin Nora
Mexico, 2008, 92 min.

Director: Mariana Chenillo
Cast: Fernando Luján, Ari Brickman, Verónica Langer, Enrique Arreola, Max Kerlow

This story begins as Jose finds out that Nora – the woman he’s been married for 30 years and then divorced - has committed suicide. The rabbi explains to Jose that due to the celebration of the Passover festivities, together with a few other factors, if Nora is not buried that same day before 3 o?clock, they will have to wait almost five days to be able to carry out the burial. Jose can’t bury Nora without their son, so he is forced to wait with the corpse until his son arrives. As soon as he is alone, Jose opens the refrigerator to discover that Nora has left all the food for the Passover dinner ready to be prepared. As he walks through the apartment, he realizes that there is a Machiavellian plan behind all this in order for him to be there taking care of the corpse. In a failure of will, Jose decides to refuse to grant Nora her will, and decides to search for an alternative.

Crayfish // Raci
Bulgaria, 2009, 110 min.

Director: Ivan Tscherkelov
Cast: Philip Avramov, Valeri Yordanov, Rangel Valchanov, Nikolai Urumov, Slava Doicheva

Two best friends get involved into the domination games of two mafia bosses in post-communist Bulgaria. Without the other one knowing, they are manipulated to take seemingly harmless tasks. Clutching like crayfish to the baits of everyday life, they determine their fates. Parallel to the criminal line in the story, our attention is drawn toward the inner problems of the characters, toward the links that exist between everything and everyone. The two friends try fruitlessly to establish a dialogue. A dialogue about relationships, about death, about responsibilities, about the essence…

Happy New Year // Happy New Year
Switzerland, 2008, 94 min.

Director: Christoph Schaub
Cast: Nils Althaus, Johanna Bantzer, Bruno Cathomas, Jörg Schneider, Denise Virieux

It’s Christmas Eve, and everybody’s in panic trying to sup up all that’s been in the previous year and still manage to celebrate and have some fun. Gloria, whose husband has left her for some model looking girl, is in great fear that she will have to celebrate alone. Pascal admires constructing scaled-down models – galleys, sailing-vessels, castles etc. That is what he loves more than anything in the world, and he is not great fan of people around. But this night he is forced to baby-sit his little neighbor Karin. For this night he has to forget about his passion in constructing and hold conversation about Barbies and stuff , and of course answer patiently all of the child’s questions. Nothing ever happens in Herbert and Ann-Marie’s life. Until this evening when their dog Beppo ran away being afraid of the fireworks and got lost. Herbert and Ann-Marie go to find him, and this night voyage through the streets of Zurich will become a good shake-up for their too «perfect» marriage. This night every character in the film will get a chance to change something in their lives.

Today and the Other Days // Jeo Nuk Ui Game
South Korea, 2008, 102 min.

Director: Choi Wee-An
Cast: Ha Hee-Kyung, Jung Jae-jeen, An Chan-woo, Lee Jung-Ryul, Yun Bae-Young

The movie portrays one routine day of a single woman in her midthirties who lives life with emotional scars of domestic violence by her father and without any sense of her own identity. Song-jae works as an assistant who arranges musical scores. After a rehearsal of cello ensemble performance, on her way back home, she gets slapped in the cheek by a truck driver. This incident reminds her of her father who used to get drunk and beat her family, and reignites her hatred for her father. During her afternoon nap that day, her mother who left home long time ago for unknown reason appears in her dream. But it is only the thought in her mind. Song-jae’s daily routine continues, making dinner for her bad father who has dementia and is now obsessed with his own life and health, and playing a card game with him like other days... The day goes by and Song-jae still doesn’t know where she belongs between an unreachable dream and inescapable reality.

Miracle // Chudo
Russia, 2009, 110 min.

Director: Aleksander Proshkin
Cast: Konstantin Khabensky, Polina Kutepova, Sergey Makovetsky, Maria Burova, Vitaly Kischenko

Film is based upon the real events that took place in Samara in 1956 and became known as “Standing of Zoya”. On a local feast the heroine of the film fails to wait for her fiancée and then engages for a dance Nikolas the Wonderworker. She grabs the icon and suddenly freezes stone-still. The habitants of the provincial town are scared of this extraordinary event, which immediately overgrows with gossips and speculation. In order to make situation clear a journalist from the capital newspaper comes to Samara…