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And Along Come Tourists
Germany, 2007, 85 min.
A young German is assigned to do his civil service at Auschwitz where his duties include helping a former concentration camp survivor. This powerful drama proves that it’s possible to talk about Auschwitz from today’s perspective in an intelligent, empathetic and edifying way.... more
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Angels in the Dust
South Africa, 2007, 94 min.
A wealthy Johannesburg family abandons their comfortable existence and spends their life savings to establish an orphanage in a village where 50% of the population is HIV-positive. This powerful documentary celebrates how children who are surrounded by death and tragedy can be instilled with strengt... more
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Anita O'Day: The life of a Jazz Singer
USA, 2007, 93 min.
This biographical documentary chronicles one of the most respected female vocalists in jazz, Anita O’Day (1919-2006), who died mere weeks after contributing interviews for the film.... more
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Armin
Croatia, 2007, 82 min.
An intimate, poignant drama about a small-town father and son trying to maintain their dignity in the big city and in the face of unexpected opportunities.... more
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The Band's Visit
Israel, 2007, 89 min.
This witty and gentle lark presents an Egyptian brass band in a backwater, desert Israeli town and the comical tensions that erupt among the band’s members, hosts, and potential audience.... more
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Baptism of Blood
Brazil, 2006, 110 min.
In the late 1960s, faithful to the gospel of the poor, and deeply touched by social inequality, a group of young Dominican friars in Sao Paolo become involved in the resistance against Brazil’s military dictatorship. Their loyalties and faith are put to the test in this rigorous account based on the... more
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Beloved
India, 2007, 142 min.
Supported by lush musical and dance numbers, this poetic film saturates the senses with images so beautiful, they’ll leave a haunting impression. Two star-crossed lovers move through life with a childlike innocence, reminding us of the power of unconditional love.... more
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The Best of Me
Spain, 2007, 83 min.
Award-winning actress Marian Alvares portrays a young woman who must decide whether or not to serve as an organ donor for her new lover in this emotionally honest melodrama.... more
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Body
Brazil, 2007, 85 min.
The body of a woman found in a mass grave dating back to the 1970s is strangely preserved, as if her death had just occurred. At the Sao Paolo morgue, a pathologist assigned to her case suspects that she was killed by the military dictatorship. He embarks on an obsessive search to uncover the truth.... more
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Body of War
USA, 2007, 87 min.
Veteran talk-show host Phil Donahue’s Academy Award-nominated documentary is a hardhitting indictment of governmental misuse of power focusing on one of its most courageous victims—a soldier paralyzed by a bullet five days after his arrival in Iraq.... more
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The Bodybuilder and I
Canada, 2007, 86 min.
Bryan Friedman’s account of his distant father’s obsessive training for a “Grandmaster” bodybuilding title is a confessional and amusing documentary about re-establishing bonds.... more
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Boystown
Spain, 2007, 93 min.
A real estate agent is murdering elderly women in the gay Chueca district of Madrid so as to acquire their apartments and sell them to upwardly mobile gay couples. Juan Flahn’s delicious black comedy combines hilarity and violence to startling effect.... more
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Caramel
Lebanon, 2007, 96 min.
A bittersweet comedy set in a Beirut beauty parlor centered on five women. Layele and her friends are threads that weave a portrait of women muddling through the uncertainties of a culture caught between the modern and the traditional, yet never giving up hope of love.... more
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Cat Dancers
USA, 2007, 75 min.
Before Siegfried and Roy, there was Ron and Joy Holiday. Cat Dancers is the story of the husband and wife team who became the world's first exotic cat entertainers in the 1960's. Their act and their lives changed dramatically when dashing young Chuck Lizza joined the pair in the 1980's. In a ... more
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Charm School
Mexico, 2007, 103 min.
Fernando Sariñana’s comedy about youthful rebellion and adult intolerance focuses on the willful Adela (Martha Higareda) who, after being sent to a strict school for girls in order to have her wild ways tamed, refuses to crack…... more
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Children of the Sun
Israel, 2007, 70 min.
Winner of Best Documentary at the Jerusalem Film Festival, this fascinating collage of archival materials spanning the years 1930–1980, illustrates aspects of the kibbutz movement from its utopian beginnings to ultimate disintegration.... more
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Conversations with my Gardener
France, 2007, 108 min.
French stars Daniel Auteuil and Jean-Pierre Darroussin play middle-aged men from different social strata—an artist and a gardener—who discover life anew by seeing the world through one another’s eyes.... more
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Cosmic Radio
USA, 2008, 106 min.
Idyllic Idyllwild provides the setting for this story about the owner of a counter-culture radio station whose business is on the verge of going belly-up—along with the illusions that have fueled his life so far—when the daughter of a conservative Senator comes to town hoping to undermine an effort ... more
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The Counterfeiters
Austria, 2007, 99 min.
This gripping drama is based on a true story about the world’s largest counterfeiting operation, which occurred in a Nazi concentration camp where inmate artisans were forced to aid the war effort.... more
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Crime and Punishment
USA, 1935, 88 min.
The rarely-screened Crime and Punishment (1935), directed by Josef von Sternberg and based on Dostoevsky’s classic 1866 novel, stars gifted Peter Lorre in his American debut and beautiful Palm Desert resident Marian Marsh in one of her best roles.... more
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Crossing a Shadow
Peru, 2007, 135 min.
This year’s Peruvian Oscar submission is a gentle but insightful historical drama situated at the beginning of the 20th century. It tells the story of a traffic engineer, who faces adversity and eventual redemption.... more
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Crossing the Dust
Kurdistan, 2006, 74 min.
The gripping story of two Kurdish foot soldiers, who come upon a lost child in the course of completing a mission, is an absorbing portrait of the societal strains that began to emerge in the aftermath of the quest to topple the Saddam Hussein. ... more
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Denias, Singing on the Cloud
Indonesia, 2006, 110 min.
John De Rantau’s heartfelt drama features stunning vistas from a place rarely captured on film—West Papua, Indonesia—while telling the story of a young lad named Denias, whose burning desire is to go to school even thought it is many days’ travel away.... more
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Eight Twenty Eight
Israel, 2007, 60 min.
A personal and poetic look at changes in kibbutz life by a filmmaker trying to decide whether he should remain a member.... more
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Getting Home
Hong Kong, 2007, 101 min.
When Liu dies unexpectedly, Zhao travels thousands of miles across China to bring the body home. With no money and a corpse on his back, Zhao’s Chaplinesque tragicomic odyssey has him experience all kinds of situations from clever to pathetic to hilarious.... more
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The Girl By the Lake
Italy, 2007, 95 min.
A girl is found dead—drowned in a small lake in the mountains of Friuli. Anna’s death is investigated by inspector Giovanni Sanzio, a brilliant detective from Italy’s deep south.... more
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Hats Off
USA, 2007, 81 min.
Mimi Weddell, 92 years young, makes her living in New York City in “theatre, movies, print and little TV things that come along.” As the camera follows her from lessons to auditions and back, we discover one woman—seen in Sex & the City, Law and Order, Hitch and The Purple Rose of Cairomore
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Hollywood Singing & Dancing
USA, 2007, 118 min.
Hollywood Singing and Dancingis a wonderfully entertaining and comprehensive documentary about the Hollywood Musical—a celebration of song and dance that begins with the era of Busby Berkley through the highly acclaimed 2007 box office smash hit Dreamgirls.... more
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The Home Songs Stories
Australia, 2007, 103 min.
1970s Singapore nightclub singer and single mom Rose (Joan Chen, outstanding), drags her two young children off to suburban Melbourne with a new ‘daddy’ following a surprise marriage proposal. But will this new home prove fertile ground for such an exotic bloom?... more
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Honeydripper
USA, 2007, 122 min.
Alabama, 1950. Ty “Pine Top” Purvis (Danny Glover) hatches a plan to revive his ailing jukebox joint by hiring blues star Guitar Sam for a make-or-break show. Two tiny problems: Ty has no money and no clue how to locate Sam.... more
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How About You
Ireland, 2007, 100 min.
A stellar cast—Vanessa Redgrave, Imelda Staunton, Joss Ackland, Brenda Fricker—anchors Anthony Byrne’s rollicking comedy centered on an Irish retirement home and the extremely rude (and very funny) denizens therein.... more
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I Just Didn't Do It
Japan, 2007, 143 min.
A devastating account of the hypocrisies of Japan’s legal system. En route to a job interview, a young man is accused of groping a girl on a train; protesting his innocence marks the start of a season in legal hell.... more
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In the Name of God
Pakistan, 2007, 170 min.
Condemned by radical clerics who issued a fatwa (Islamic ruling) against it, In The Name Of God has become a huge hit in Pakistan. Critical of Muslim radicals it also takes on the reaction of US authorities post 9/11.... more
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Irina Palm
Belgium, 2007, 103 min.
Mousey widow Maggie takes a job in a Soho sex club to pay for emergency medical treatment for her grandson and discovers to her surprise that she’s a dab hand at keeping the customers satisfied.... more
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Iska's Journey
Hungary, 2007, 93 min.
A young girl, all but abandoned by her parents, exists by scavenging through the streets of a Carpathian mining town. She is placed in an orphanage but, even in the worst of situations, her fighting spirit proves resilient. This film’s vitality and matter-of-fact integrity capture the unmistakable r... more
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Jani Gal
Iraq, 2007, 100 min.
That movies are even being made in Iraq today is a miracle. Jamil Rostami illustrates the plight of the Iraqi Kurds by giving us a story of a Kurdish man radicalized by false imprisonment in 1940s and ‘50s Iraq.... more
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Kill Them All
Uruguay, 2007, 97 min.
In this political thriller, Julia, a Uruguayan prosecutor, investigates the disappearance of a Chilean chemist with ties to Pinochet’s regime, revealing an international conspiracy. Julia must face her greatest fears and dig deep into her own past if she holds any hope of discovering the truth.... more
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Lagerfeld Confidential
France, 2007, 87 min.
Fashionistas and non-fashionistas alike will enjoy this documentary about the prolific and eccentric German-born designer Karl Lagerfeld, reviver of the Chanel brand, stylish to the tips of his fingers—adorned in fingerless gloves and multiple silver rings.... more
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Leave Her to Heaven
USA, 1945, 110 min.
Czar of Noir Eddie Muller will introduce this archival presentation of John M. Stahl’s magnificent Leave Her to Heaven in an extraordinary 35mm print restored by the Film Foundation and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Gene Tierney and Cornel Wilde star.... more
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M For Mother
Iran, 2006, 112 min.
The birth of a disabled child wreaks havoc on an otherwise happy marriage in this drama. The mother, a relief worker during the Iran-Iraq war, was exposed to chemicals during a bombardment.... more
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Me
Spain, 2007, 101 min.
An intriguing, beautifully made film, Rafa Cortés’s debut concerns a German handyman named Hans who arrives in a seemingly deserted village on the island of Mallorca to take up a new job formerly held by—guess who?—a missing German handyman named Hans…... more
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Mister Foe
United Kingdom, 2007, 95 min.
Teenage oddball Hallam (Jamie Bell) leads a secluded, semi-feral life. Leaving his fat-cat father’s country estate for Edinburgh, his close encounter with a beautiful young woman who resembles his late mother becomes a rite of passage for him in this playful, edgy comedy.... more
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My Brother is an Only Child
Italy, 2007, 108 min.
Two brothers fights for life, love and politics on the background of Otaly in the late 60’s, where the
Dream of wealth is slowly fading away and the uncertanties about the future are getting stronger.... more
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Nanking
USA, 2007, 91 min.
A chilling chronicle of the Japanese army’s 1937 invasion and obliteration of Nanking, China, told through the letters and diaries of a handful of Western expatriates who stayed to establish a makeshift safety zone in the ravaged city, as well as testimonies of both Nanking survivors and Japanese so... more
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No End In Sight
USA, 2007, 102 min.
An excoriating survey of the U.S. policy that led to the Iraq conflict and the subsequent descent into guerilla warfare, criminality and anarchy after the fall of Baghdad because of decisions by officials with scant military experience or knowledge of the Arab world.... more
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Off-side
Netherlands, 2006, 87 min.
This heartwarming, but frank and edgy, coming-of-age tale from the Netherlands focuses on a twelve-year-old misfit and his desire to forge a competitive soccer team, a goal fraught with personal hurdles.... more
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On the Wings of Dreams
Bangladesh, 2007, 84 min.
When a man and his wife, uneducated villagers, find a wad of foreign currency in some second hand clothing, they begin to dream about what fortune might bring them. However, as their long-dormant desires surface, deceptions change their relationship.... more
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The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio
Italy, 2006, 90 min.
A breath of fresh air, this real-life fairy tale tells the story of the making of a multi-cultural orchestra in the heart of a depressed Roman neighborhood.... more
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The Orphanage
Spain, 2007, 105 min.
Young mother Laura struggles to keep her grip on reality when her young son goes missing near the orphanage where she was raised, in this spine-chilling modern twist on the haunted house thriller.... more
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Our Father
Chile, 2006, 105 min.
Diagnosed with a terminal illness, “El Caco” gathers his family and tries to relive anew his long-gone youthful past… Graced with the presence of the luminous Argentine actress Cecilia Roth, the film is a funny and insightful portrait of a benign Chile of the 30s to the 70s, now long disappeared.... more
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