San Sebastian Film Festival ::

A Night in Havana: Dizzy Gillespie in Cuba

John Holland

United Kingdom

85 min.

Jazz great Dizzy Gillespie has always had a musical love affair with Cuba, but it's been passion from afar. For three decades, political conditions prevented Gillespie from visiting Cuba, until he was invited to headline the Fifth International Jazz Festival of Havana. A Night in Havana is a celebration of that trip, and of Dizzy's music.In the 1940s, bebop was born. Dizzy startled the world with Afro-Cuban rhythms in american jazz, and music would never be the same. In A Night in Havana, Dizzy finally experiences, first-hand, the African drumming, chanting and dancing that was one of the wellsprings of his creativity. talking with Fidel Castro, he discovers that the Nigerian religions practised throught Cuba were also prevalent in his native South Carolina. Dizzy's synthesis of the Afro-American and Afro-Cuban experience lies at the very heart of A Night in Havana.

Couples and Robbers

Clare Peploe

United Kingdom

28 min. Short film

During their wedding, Morris and Wendy lose their ring, their friends and their hopes. All they wanted was essential things that provide the middel-class life: a video, a mixer and potter plants, but they turned out to be much more elusive than they thought, particulary when all they get as a present are two tickets for the ballet.But when they find their ideal partners, every thing changes drastically. walter and Julian might not be married, but their life-style is the stuff dreams are made of, (and plans).

Daniel

Sidney Lumet

USA

129 min.

Daniel is about the development of a traumatic story: two children see how the FBI takes their parents away during a day trip. The incident becomes a bloody and horrible nightmare caused by the children going from their adoptive parent's houses to public shelters. The last thing the children remembers about their parents is having seen them with their heads shaved in the Sing-Sing prison qhere they were executed for conspiration in the robbery of nuclear secrets for the Soviet Union.When we later meet Daniel and Susan theyr are twenty years old. Daniel is a graduate student, married to a pretty blonde, with one child. Susan in suffering from internal confusion. The film now moves on to the 1960s, an active political moment in the world. Daniel is in very low spirits due to Susan's attempted suicide. He picks up the threads in his life and starts looking for people who knew his parents personally or something about them. He is obsessed by their death, an event which has dominated his whole life.

Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam

Bill Couturié

USA

97 min.

Dear America is a passionate docu-drama which reveals the real American experience in Vietnam, the courage, the compassion, the companionship and the sadness, through letters written home by American soldiers who fougth there. couturié has even been able to include pieces which have never been seen before. Some of the scenes short, chosen by Couturié, were filmed by the soldiers using 8 mm cameras. The letters were edited for their humour and plaintiveness, but were never changed nor altered. "The letters in Dear America are the real truth about what being in a war zone signifies". Couturié: "I have achieved what I wanted to when I started on a positive film about soldiers in Vietnam, to create an image of them which is neither one of shil-killers nor unlucky drug addicts, but rather as recruits doing their military service who, in reality, would rather be at home with their friends, studying. this is a film against the war but for soldiers - it is not politically biased... showing the price paid by the youngsters who took part in it. "I wanted to separate the war from the fighter, and show taht the guilt of failure should not fall upon the boys whom America sent to fight in it".A percentage of the benefits from Dear America will be donated to war veteran associations all over the world.

Der wilde Mann

Matthias Zschokke

Switzerland

69 min.

A German sales representative for fancy goods is travelling aroun Switzerland trying to sell his products in small provincial hotels.The film begins with the representative in the "Zum Wilden Mann" Hostel. he decides to spend the night there as it is already dark and so that he can start business with the locals in the morning. The silence and pure air of the countryside have the promising aspect of a peaceful night and relaxing slepp. But suddenly everything changes. The air becomes heavy, a strom is threatening, discussions and glances become ambiguous and even dangerous at times. The locals try to approach him, but everything gives way to false intepretations. He can't even think about sleeping. Upset, the representative gives up his project, and at 5 a.m. the next morning, tired after a sleepless night, stiff and worn-out, he makes to leave the town hurriedly. At the same time, in the village square front of the "Wilden Mann", the animal market is starting. He doesn't get far.

Doc's Kingdom

Robert Kramer

Portugal

90 min.

Doc lives on the frontier between Europe and the Third World. Ten years ago, during the war in Africa, he caught an ilness. The official diagnosis is cholera, but Doc knows the real name of the disease: hopelessness. He tries to forget his lost ideals with the help of a bottle. On the other side of the woekd lives Jimmy, a boy crazy about motorcycles. He discovers a letter from his father, who he tought had died with his mother. He climbs on the bike and goes to find him. Their two lives are destined to cross.

Danniel Danniel

The Netherlands

58 min. Medium-length film

A baker, the leader of a group of three friends, is the only single man among them. He lives with his mother. At 35 doesn't have an emotional life. He is a simple man. His friends start a search for a companion to make his life happier. The girl selected arrives on a bus and the three friends take her to meet her destiny. A tender and touching relationship is born.

Gramsci l'ho visto così

Gianni Amico

Italy

60 min.

Talk about Gramsci. Who was he? What was he like? What is he like? Reconstruct, through statements made by those who shared the important moments in his life, the different stages of a biography, the way the man was, his style. But also we have to verify his presence, and the vitality of his methods, in today's world. This is the starting point for our televised documentary dedicated to Gramsci.

Hairspray

John Waters

USA

90 min.

Hairspray revolves around the extremely popular local TV dance party, The Corny Collins Show. Airing every day after school, it is faithfully watched by a teenage audience who must learn the latest dance steps to keep up with their peers at weekend record hops. The Council, regulars who have to audition to be selected, are the stars of the show, tough but nice kids who become instant celebrities because of their daily TV exposure.Amber Von Tussle is the most popular girl on the show: a granting, conceited teenage princess whose nouveau rich parents ("The richest family East Baltimore"), Velma and Franklin Von Tussle, own Tilted Acres Amusement Park, long a tradition of "Baltimore fun" and the main sponsor of The Corny Collins Show. Amber's boyfriend, Link Larkin, also a Council member, is a handsome Elvis lookalike who is growing weary of their teem love but realizes the popularity and fame that comes from their on-the-air romance.

Imagen latente

Pablo Perelman

Chile

92 min.

The setting is today's Chile where Pedro, professional photographer and brother of a missing prisoner, confronts the memory of his brother trying to free himself from his situation as indirect victim of the repression. This film, which is totally filmed in Chile, approaches the problem of people who have disappeared and that of their families from an intimate and personal point of view.

Krótki film o zabijaniu

Krzysztof Kieslowski

Poland

85 min.

A spotty boy is walking around the streets of the city. A middle-aged taxi driver is cleaning his car. A young jurist is sitting the entrance exam to become a lawyer. The boy watches the taxi rank, goes into a photographic studio and asks the firl to enlarge a photograph of a girl dressed for her first communion. Later the boy drinks a coffee in a bat. In the same bar, at the same time, the young jurist who has passed his exam, is telling the details to his girlfriend. The taxi driver drives around the city looking for clients. He stops in front of a hotel. The spotty boy gets nito the car and tells the driver to to go towards the outskirts of the city. There, by a river bank, the boy kills the taxi driver. The boy is condemned to death. In the prison the executioner prepares the rope and pils the hatch. The young lawyer talks to the accused for the first time... A few years before, a tractor had knocked down and killed his little sister. The driver was drunk and the boy had been drinking with him. "If that hadn't happened, maybe I wouldn't be here today", says the boy. But he is here. He is hanged layfully. He resists, but is no use. The lawyer hangs his head.

Le voyageur italien / The Italian Traveler

Fernand Moszkowicz

France

52 min. Medium-length film

We are in Roissy, Paris. The airport corridor is flooded with an out of season sunlight. The man of the escalator is a Film Director, his name is Bernardo Bertolucci and he is playing his own role. He is about to change continents, destination Hollywood. He is going to direct a film which, as so many others, will not be made. But he doesn't know that, as he doesn't know that America is only a stopover on the way to China. He confronts his past: his childhood near Parma, the 1900 farm, the cheese factories; Paris and the ghosts of Last Tango in Paris. He intermixes his actors with unreal re-encounters. Five years pass. Bertolucci left for hollywood, but landed in Pekin where he will finally start filming -the film will be called The Last Emperor. Le voyageur italien is a mixture of documentary and fiction.

Malenkaya Vera / Little Vera

Vassili Pichul

USRR

134 min.

Vera was brought up with her parents in a city at the seaside. On finishing school, she planned to become a telephonist and is now studying to that end, but she spends a lot of time in dance halls with her friends. At one of the dances she meets Serguei, a stuent at the Metallurgical Institute. They start a relationship on a casual basis and so, when Serguei tells her older brother, Víctor, that he is going to marry her, she is surprised. Víctor, a doctor in Moscow, talks to his parents who ask him to try and make Vera see reason as they don't approve of the proposed marriage. On the other hand, Serguei has no respect for Vera's parents: her father is an alcoholic and her mother simple. The situation becomes more and more tense. One day Vera's father, whilst quite drunk, stabs Serguei with a knife. Her mother and brother convice him to tell the judge that it was Serguei's fault. Vera can't bear such treachery and tries to comit suicide, but Victor saves her life. Once cured, Serguei leaves the clinic and returns to Vera's house where he resolves his problems.

Mapantsula

Oliver Schmitz

South Africa

106 min.

For Johnny -Panic to his friends- prison is a part of South African life. Robbing whites is his way of getting back what he considers to be partly his. With no hope of a possible change suddenly comes with a wave of new black militants, his world falls down around him. He is prison, with no friends, and is being menaces by death unless he gives information about a certain political leader. Johnny modifies his principles.

Notturno

Fritz Lehner

Austria

104 min.

In the summer of 1823, Franz Schubert is taken into hospital in Vienna suffering from syphilis. He begins to go bald and his friend Schobert gives him the present of a wig. Once his condition has improved and hiding is lack of hair with the wig, Schubert can once again participate in the parties organized by his friends. But he doesn't feel like having new romantic adventures any more. Only music can make him forget his problems.

Pantarej

Krzysztof Sowinsky

Poland

104 min.

Pantarej, the main character in the film, has been addicted to drugs for years. He rejects his family's lifestyle in which everybody only worries about their own lives. His father has an aquarium full os small fish which is his passion whilst his brother is trying any way possible to ensure himself a comfortable future. Through Pantarej and Zito, his friend, we learn about the structures and mechanism of narcodependences. The discoteque scenes and conversations with dealers are starting. At the same time as the film is becoming more intense, the boys craving also intensifies the drama. Pantarej robs a large quantity of narcotics and hallucinogenics from the armoured vault in hospital.

Salaam Bombay!

Mira Nair

India

113 min.

Krishna, a 10-year-old boy, abandoned by the circus in which he worked, arrives in Bombay, with the dream of earning 500 rupees for his mother in his village. Once in the city, he is surrounded by madness and noise: police, brothels, traffic, lunatics, intermediaries, flesh and drug traffickers. film sabout impossible fantasies all over the place, children like him surviving and succumbing to the city hunger. Krischna begins to work on the lowest rung in the street hierarchy, becoming a "Chaipau" or One Who Serves Tea and Bread. Whilst working, he meets people who will change his life. Chillum, a happy 25-year-old street veteran who sells drugs for Baba: the fickle and hard boss from the toughest area. Baba lives with Reckba, a strong and lively prostitute and her 8-year-old daugther, Manju.Salasaal, or gentle child, a 16-year-old Nepalese girl, appears into this community brought by force to Bombay to be sold as a virgin prostitute. Without wating to, Chaipau acts as go-between in their lives until they are united in climatic and unexpected ending.

The Moderns

Alan Rudolph

USA

126 min.

The film's first sequence takes place in a lively cafe, similar to those depicted by Lautrec and Renoir. We see a man sketching the active scene unfolding before him. He is Nick Hart, a decisive and wordly painter who possesses an eye of someone marked by pain. His work is satirical and accompanies the scandalous articles of his friend Waldy, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. While in the cafe, Hart sports Rachel, a beautiful young lady in the company of Stone, and ambitious businessman seeking prestige and cultural recognition. For this reason, he is sorrounded y young artists. Hart's violent attractvion For rachel is nothing new: they were married years earlier in Chicago. Rachel, incapable of enduring the marginal existance entailed by the lifestyle of an artist, abandoned Hart in order to marry for money and security. The years of separation have not reduced their attraction for one another, although Hart hesitates to return to the relationship. The tension of this emotional triad creates a three way confrontation which soon reaches its breaking point.

The Nature of the Beast

Franco Rosso

United Kingdom

95 min.

Something is killing sheep up on the moors outside Haverston. Is it a large dog, or is it something more sinister: a "Beast"?Unemployment, the Beast of the 1980s, hovers over the small northern town. The men at Stone Cross Mill have nothing left to lose, threatened with its closire and redundancies, they occupy the mill. Bill Coward is a loner. His mum ran away when he was a baby, and Bill has been brought up with rough affection by his father, Ned, and grandfather, Chunder, who both work at the mill. Playing truant up on the moors with his mate Mick is better than enduring hours of boredom at school. What's the point of school? bill would rather live on the moors, a wild and free man. When he hears that there may be a creature, a predator, roaming the moors, Bill is disturbed and fascinated by the idea of a "Beast". As the workforce are duped by the management into leaving the mill, the "Beast" enters the town for the first time. Chunder's pride and joy, his game birds ad other hens on his allorment, are all killed. Chunder is devastated, his spirit broken, and Bill's fascination with "The Beast of Haverston Moor" turns into a full-blown obsession.But as Bill is tracking down the "Beasts", the "controlled" world of school teachers and social workers closes in on him. Bill's crusade becomes a fight for his own freedom.

Xiangnu xiaoxiao / A Girl from Hunan

Xie Fei

China

110 min.

The film is adapted from the novel Xiao Xiao by the famous writer Shen Congwen. The novel was published half a century ago and has become famous as an elegantly written love tragedy. Xiao Xiao is married to a child husband, but later she falls in love with the young farm hand who works for her family, and not long afterwards, she is pregnant. Afraid that their love affair will be exposed, the young farm hands rund away. The family is kind to Xiao Xiao, and allows her to bring her little boy up as her husband's younger brother. On her son's wedding day, Xiao Xiao is asked to sleep with her husband who has just graduated from school in the city.

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