Things worth checking out.

In the September/October 2006 Issue [print-copy only], Film Comment Magazine's discusses our recently screened Blood of my Brother in an article entitled "Art of the Real".

Copies of Film Comment Magazine are available at Clemons Library in the Current Periodicals section on the fourth floor. Copies are also available online for U.Va. students through InfoTrac and IIPA Full Text.

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OFFScreen Presents "Look Both Ways"

Look Both Ways
Dir. Sarah Watt - Australia, 2005
Sunday, September 24th - 7 & 9:30 PM - 100 mins.
Newcomb Hall Theater

Using an innovative mix of animation and live action, acclaimed animator Sarah Watt's Look Both Ways follows the misadventures of Meryl (Justine Clarke), a woman who sees disaster everywhere. Set over a scorchingly hot weekend, Meryl is witness to a real accident that connects her to the lives of others affected by the tragedy. Among them is Nick, a photographer emotionally inhibited by his own fears. Nick visits a doctor for a routine medical and is given a devastating diagnosis but has to wait until Monday for specialist advice. Meryl, returning from a funeral, has until Monday to finish her project or lose her job. The convergence of their paths creates an intriguing picture; intimate, universal and uplifting in this "fearless movie about a fearful subject." (Los Angeles Times)

Watt's film screened at the Film Society at Lincoln Center's 35th Festival for New Directors/New Films in March of 2006. Her steps forward into live action, while still maintaining her background in animated film, allow for a fresh sensibility.

Click here to view the trailer.

Review for Look Both Ways on inFilm Australia, an online Australian Film Magazine.


Review for Look Both Ways by Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times.

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OFFScreen Presents

The Blood of my Brother: a Story of Death in Iraq
Dir. Andrew Berends - USA/Iraq, 2005
Sunday, September 17th[Tonight] - 7 & 9:30 PM - 90 mins.
Newcomb Hall Theater
$3

The Blood of My Brother: A Story of Death in Iraq tells a story of the war in Iraq from a perspective rarely seen. The primary point of view is Iraqi -- a family grieving at the tragic death of its eldest son. After years of hard work, Ra'ad, an Iraqi portrait photographer, has saved enough money to open his own shop. On the night of the opening, while volunteering to guard the ancient mosque in Kadhimiya, Ra'ad is shot and killed by an American patrol. Longing for revenge, Ra'ad's brother Ibrahim dreams of joining the Shia uprising against the American occupation. But as the only male left in the family, Ibrahim must take on the role of breadwinner.The Blood of My Brother "is intimate and hair-raising, granting us rare access to scenes inside mosques, at a Shiite militia rally and in homes under fire." (The New York Times)

See here for more info.

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Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival

In light of OFFScreen's Sept. 3 screening of Lady Vengeance, we thought it might be fitting to call to attention South Korea's Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival, commonly known as PiFan. This past July, PiFan celebrated its tenth year, and showed films from new and upcoming Korean directors, film shorts, the works of Audrey Hepburn, Italian horror masterpieces, and a special collection of works from New Zealand and the masters at WETA.

Film Comment Magazine is hosting a Online Exclusive article for the Sept/Oct 2006 Issue written by Chris Chang that recounts what, in his opinion, were the most interesting points of this year's festival (and the moments of slight unexpected gore.)


REALITY CHECKED: Strange views from Korea's PiFan Film Fest by Chris Chang


still from Meatball Machine, Japanese Directors Yudai Yamaguchi and Junichi Yamamoto

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OFFScreen Presents

Death of Mr. Lazarescu -
Sunday, Sept. 10 - 7 & 930 pm - 150 mins
Dir. Cristi Puiu - Romania, 2005



Review from the N.Y. Times, Sept. 24, 2005:

New York Film Festival Reviews; The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

By MANOHLA DARGIS

There are nine circles of hell in Dante's inferno and five in Cristi Puiu's film ''The Death of Mr. Lazarescu,'' a harrowing vision of a solitary soul who embarks on a journey into the diseased soul of his fellow man. After the title character, an ashen Hungarian intellectual (Ion Fiscuteanu), takes ill, he reaches out to those who might offer a helping hand. Initially tended to by his bumbling neighbors -- a woman brings the vomiting man a bowl of moussaka -- Mr. Lazarescu enters the grudging care of a recalcitrant paramedic. Together, the two become partners on a voyage that takes them to various hospitals, purgatories of indifference that should carry the legend ''Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.'' Shot through with biting humor and filmed with quasidocumentary intimacy, this affecting story depicts a society that, in its inability to tend to its weakest members, betrays its own ill health, which sounds awfully familiar in these post-Katrina times.

View the trailer

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