Family Matters

Some of us love them, some of us loathe them, and most of us do both at the same time. Families, no matter how close-knit or far-flung, are inextricably intertwined with our identities; our families are who we are. Each of the families in the "family" films at AFI FEST 2007 presented by Audi deal with unique problems, but they all share the same familial bond -- so strong, so aggravating, and so inescapable.

In THE SAVAGES, writer-director Tamara Jenkins has created a darkly comedic film about an estranged family who are forced together when their father falls ill. "There's something inherently dramatic about people being stuck together and having to deal with each other. There's something about that enclosed theme - it's like a strange human laboratory," says Jenkins. Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman are two siblings who are forced together to work out the details of their father's future, their relationship, and the complexities of their own lives.

Gael Garcia Bernal makes his directorial debut with DEFICIT, a radically different take on a similar subject. Cristobal (played by Bernal) is the spoiled son of a wealthy but crooked businessman, who invites a gang of equally privileged friends to their estate for an all-day party by the pool. Cristobal and his sister, aware of their father's money problems, slowly begin to self-destruct. The extended family of close friends and lifelong servants try to offer support, but in the end, the brother and sister must take care of each other.

Based on the novel by Nobel Prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA, directed by Mike Newell, is a story of true love denied because of familial interference and obligation. Fermina Daza (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) is forced to forget her true love Florentino Arizo (Javier Bardem) by her oppressive father, played by John Leguizamo. Instead, she is forced to marry a respectable suitor, Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt). However, Arizo has never forgotten her, and fifty years later, he returns to her life to re-ignite their affair.

The wonderfully titled Japanese film FUNUKE, SHOW SOME LOVE YOU LOSERS! directed by Daihachi Yoshida is a comedic take on a family being torn apart after their parents die in a freak accident. Struggling actress Sumika (the devilishly superb Eriko Sato) leaves Tokyo, returns to her family's country home to collect her inheritance, only to find that the money has run out. The bully Sumika takes out her frustrations on her younger sister Kyomi (Aimi Satsukawa) while Sumika and her stepbrother Shinji (Masatoshi Nagase) explore their sexual attraction to each other. Outsider, orphan, and Shinji's new wife Machiko (played with unerring comic timing by Hiromi Nagasaku), struggles to maintain some semblance of family harmony.

There's little trace of family harmony in Canadian director Bruce McDonald's THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS, based on a novel by Marueen Medved. Ellen Page is a knockout as Tracey Berkowitz, 15, "just a normal girl who hates herself." Presented almost entirely in split-screen frames, with a jagged timeline, the film explores Tracey's myriad moods and personas as she searches for her lost brother and struggles with her grieving parents.

In ECHO, Danish writer-director Anders Morgenthaler also portrays a family on the brink of disaster, as a distraught father (Kim Bodnia) kidnaps his six-year-old son and hides with him in an abandoned summer house. The boy, Louie (Villads Milthers Fritsche), makes the journey from innocence to experience as his father descends into the world of his own disturbed imagination.

Uruguayan short, FEATHERS TO THE SKY, follows the transformation of a family, consisting of a young girl (Camila Tamareo) and her grandfather (Julio Cesar). As a poor working child, Tamara experiences no childhood of her own, until she is befriended by a caring teacher (Jorge Esmoris), who interferes with the family dynamic and enriches the lives of both the girl and her grandfather.

A documentary by Guido Santi and Tina Mascara, CHRIS & DON. A LOVE STORY explores the extraordinary relationship between Christopher Isherwood and artist Don Bachardy. Isherwood (whose novel "The Berlin Stories" became the film and musical Cabaret) was 46 when he met the 16-year-old Bachardy. Using home movie footage, photographs, interviews with Don, and excerpts from Isherwood's daily diaries, CHRIS & DON follows the couple from the early years of their relationship in the 50s through to Isherwood's death in 1986.

In life, and in these films, the family experience is both universal and utterly unique, providing plenty of compelling stories for filmmakers and audiences alike.