Abel Ferrara
After finishing shooting a film about Jesus Christ, the actress who plays Mary Magdalene (Juliette Binoche) decides to go to Jerusalem to clear up the doubts that the character has aroused in her. One year later, in New York, a journalist presents a television series on the historical figure of Jesus. In his latest film, Ferrara, influenced by the Gnostic gospels, faces up to the problems of religion. The latest film by director Abel Ferrara, who the Festival is devoting a retrospective to this year.
Woody Allen
A humble tennis coach manages to go up in the world when he marries a wealthy pupil's sister. After his pupil splits up with his girlfriend he begins a passionate relationship with her. A categorical rebuff to those people who always claim that Woody Allen invariably makes the same film, its use of opera, the adoption of violent solutions to conflicts and some highly sexy passionate love scenes are just some of the innovative features in this film, which caused a sensation at Cannes in 2005.
Carlos Reygadas
Mexico - France - Belgium - Germany
120 min.
Marcos is a general's driver, offers his driving services to his daughter Ana, coordinates the raising and lowering of the flag on the Zócalo square each day and plans the kidnapping of a child who accidentally dies. The second film by the director of the award-winning Japón (2002), that boldly pokes fun at the most revered symbols in Mexican society. It was praised and loathed in almost equal proportions at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
Giada Colagrande
Eleonora, a young Italian, arrives at the house that she has inherited from her dead lover. Leslie is the person who looks after this enigmatic mansion and safeguards the darkest secrets of its previous owner. The youngster and the caretaker embark on a relationship of mutual dependence and the house will be the refuge where they will give free rein to their feelings. Second film by Giada Colagrande after Aprimi il Cuore (Open My Heart) (2002), well-received at numerous international festivals and nominated by Italian critics as most promising new director of the year. On this occasion she writes and co-stars together with the great actor Willem Dafoe in this intimate suggestive drama in which they subtly play with the concepts of space, memory, fear, love and madness.
Jim Jarmusch
Jarmusch won the Grand Jury Award at Cannes with the journey that a man goes on to visit the women he's loved in the past to try and discover which one of them is the mother of a son who he didn't know existed. The director's emotional aesthetic minimalism reaches its peak with a splendid cast headed by a peerless Bill Murray.
Danis Tanovic
A teacher is convicted of paedophilia, after being reported to the police by his wife when she catches him in a compromising situation with a student. The tragic consequences that this has will profoundly mark the lives of his three daughters and lead them to suffer disappointments in love. The director of No Man's Land, Pearl of the Audience Award at the San Sebastián Festival in 2001, completely changes register to adapt an idea by Krzysztof Kieslowski to create an intimist drama featuring some of the most renowned actors in French cinema.
Bertrand Tavernier
Tavernier has gone to the exotic, far-off Cambodia to film the tale of a desire, that of having a child. A young couple played by Isabelle Carré and Jacques Gamblin set out on a journey obliging them to face the tremendous reality of legal and illegal adoption, not to mention their own fears. Latest work from this director admired at San Sebastian to whom we dedicated a retrospective in 1999. Shown at festivals in Moscow, San Francisco and New York.
Kim Ki-duk
A sailor finds an abandoned little girl and takes her under his wing, promising to marry her as soon as she comes of age. He rents out his boat to fishermen who try to seduce the girl, but they give up when the old man uses a bow to frighten off these creeps. With hardly any dialogue, but with intelligent use of the soundtrack and some extraordinarily beautiful sequences, Kim Ki-duk creates an intoxicating visual poem, dominated by his young leading actress's luminous face.
Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato
In 1971 Deep Throat, a porn film directed by a specialist in the genre, Gerard Damiano, came out in the USA. This documentary, that won an award at the Sundance Festival, not only shows selected extracts from the film, but also takes a look at the enormous scandal that its premiere caused and the legal proceedings that affected its makers, distributors and exhibitors, encouraged by an ultraconservative government that to a large extent contributed to the huge popular impact it had. At the same time, the Watergate scandal that would end up forcing Richard Nixon to resign broke.
Miranda July
Christine is an artist who mixes fiction and fantasy in both her daily life and in her work. Richard sells shoes, lives on his own with his two children aged 7 and 14 and is captivated and bowled over when Christine comes into his life. A highly acknowledged avant-garde artist, Miranda July, has written, directed and starred in her first full-length film, an imaginative fable about the search for people to really relate to. A magnificent example of American independent cinema that won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Festival and was one of the surprises at Cannes in 2005, where it won the Golden Camera for best debut film and the Critics' Week Prize, among other awards.
Rodrigo García
Nine important moments in the lives of nine different women, each filmed in a continuous sequence shot and performed by an extraordinary cast of actresses. They won the Collective Performance Award while the Golden Leopard went to this American film by the Colombian Rodrigo García at the recent Locarno Film Festival.
Hany Abu-Assad
Holland - Israel - Germany - France
90 min.
Two young volunteers prepare a suicide bombing on Palestinian soil that they have to carry out in Israel. One of them has a girlfriend, the daughter of a hero in the resistance, who tries to dissuade them. A depressingly topical story that looks at the conflict from the inside and reveals how the director sincerely aims to provide a lucid objective analysis of the situation, even though this will inevitably prove to be controversial. The film sparked off a wide variety of reactions at the latest Berlin Film Festival.
Laurent Cantet
Brenda, Sue and Ellen, who are all about 50, travel to a luxury hotel complex in Haiti in search of easy sex, a touch of the good life and pleasant company. These are the 1970s and the dictator's highly visible brutal police who control all the reins of power won't hesitate to take drastic reprisals. After Ressources humaines and L'emploi du temps, premiered in Zabaltegi, Laurent Cantet confirms that he is a consummate filmmaker, with complete mastery of all his narrative resources in one of the top films of the year.