The 34th Annual Portland Int'l Film Festival

Details

Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Tuesday, 08 February 2011 06:11

Written by L E Shannon

The 34th Annual Portland International Film Festival (PIFF) is being held February 10 - 26, 2011 in Portland, Oregon at Northwest Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium, the Cinemagic, the Hollywood Theater, and Cinema 21, among other venues.

Presented by the Northwest Film Center, the Festival has provided diverse and innovative films to the Northwest, and this year's Festival showcases 130 compelling new films from more than 30 countries, including regional work.

The Opening Night film is Potiche, from director François Ozon (Under the Sand, Swimming Pool, 8 Women). This comedy stars two of the most acclaimed and beloved French actors of all time, Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu.

A Prophet
dir. Jacques Audiard (France)
Frenchman Malik El Djebena, part Arab, part Corsican, is condemned to six years in prison. Arriving at the jail entirely alone, he appears younger and more fragile than the other convicts. He is 19 years old and cannot read or write. Cornered by the leader of the Corsican gang currently ruling the prison, he is given a number of “missions” to carry out, which toughen him up and gain the gang leader's confidence in the process. Malik is a fast learner and rises up the prison ranks, all the while secretly devising his own plans. Winner of the Academy Award™ last year for Best Foreign Language Film.

In a Better World
dir. Susanne Bier (Denmark)
The lives of two Danish families become intertwined as an extraordinary but risky friendship develops. Nominee for this year’s Academy Award™ for Best Foreign Language Film.

Incendies
dir. Denis Villeneuve (Canada, France)
A mother's last wish sends twins living in Canada on a journey to the Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Nominee for this year’s Academy Award™ for Best Foreign Language Film.

Ajami
dir. Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani (Israel)
This powerful collaboration between Shani (Israeli) and Copti (Palestinian) offers a unique perspective on the myriad complexities of the greater Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ajami is a tough Jaffa neighborhood, rife with tension and full of human struggles. A powerful Bedouin clan wages a violent vendetta against a poor family that has offended its honor. A teenage worker from the occupied territories desperately tries to raise money to help his ailing mother. A Jewish police detective struggles with the disappearance of his brother. An affluent Palestinian and his Jewish girlfriend dream about the future.” Winner of the Best Film, Director, and Screenplay awards at this year's Israeli Film Academy.

Aftershock
dir. Feng Xiaogang (China)
The epic story of the survivors of one of China’s greatest natural disasters, the Tangshan Earthquake of 1976, which killed nearly 250,000 people moves from disaster flick to a deeply moving family melodrama. When the earthquake strikes, father Daqing is killed, and mother Yuanni is forced to make an impossible choice involving her two children that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Mother, son, and daughter, against the background of three decades of rapidly advancing Chinese society, must find the emotional pathways to reconnect with each other. With Xu Fan, Zhang Jingchu, Chen Daoming. This film ranks as the most popular film in Chinese box office history.

Mutant Girls Squad
dir. Tak Sakaguchi, Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura (Japan)
A 16-year-old girl’s life changes when her father reveals that he is a mutant, and she has inherited his mutant gene, before he and her mother are killed by government special forces. The girl’s dormant mutant abilities are awakened, and her arm transforms into a sharp, knife-encrusted claw. She joins a group of girls also born as mutants.

The Man Who Will Come
dir. Giorgio Diritti (Italy)
Diritti’s film is a moving anti-war parable. In the fall of 1944, the German army committed an atrocity of Italian genocide known as the Massacre of Marzabotto—slaughtering almost 800 Italian peasants near Bologna, many women, children, and the elderly. Diritti explores the events that led to this act through the eyes of an eight-year-old peasant girl and her family, including the fateful decision by their community to aid the partisans fighting the occupying Fascist forces. Winner of the Jury Prize at the Rome Film Festival and this year’s David de Donatello Award for Best Film.

Barbershop Punk
dir. Georgia Sugimura Archer, Kristin Armfield (USA)
While trying to share his collection of rare, turn-of-the-century barbershop quartet recordings over the internet (legally), a software engineer named Robb Tolposki living in Hillsboro, Oregon, found that his uploads were being secretly blocked by his service provider, Comcast. His response soon made him the unlikeliest of heroes in the “net neutrality” debate, compelling the Federal Communications Commission to focus on Comcast’s—and other large media corporations’—efforts to control free expression and, of course, internet profits. Filmmakers Archer and Armfield expertly interweave Tolposki’s inspiring personal battle against censorship with opinions on both sides of the issue.

Pink Saris
Kim Longinotto (Great Britain)
“Pink Saris” refers to the hot-colored garments worn by the Gulabi Gang, women who resist the traditionalist view of Indian society. Longinotto, whose past films have celebrated strong-willed women fighting for justice, follows Sampat Pal Devi, leader of the “Pink Gang,” a group of female activists from the Dalit caste who crusade to help battle practices that have kept Indian women subservient for centuries. As Longinotto tracks the remarkable Sampat’s effective conflict resolution strategies, we witness a woman who exhibits unflinching courage in the face of almost overwhelming obstacles.

For more information, go to http://festivals.nwfilm.org.

Northwest Film Center
Whitsell Auditorium
Portland Art Museum
1219 SW Park Avenue
Portland, OR
(503) 221-1156 x10

Cinema 21
616 NW 21st Ave at Hoyt

Cinemagic
2021 SE Hawthorne Blvd at 20th

Hollywood Theatre
4122 NE Sandy Blvd at 41st

And other venues in Portland

• < Prev
• Next >