In recent times, no medium has been as effective at communicating the range and diversity of the world's cultures as the cinematic arts. The Global Film Initiative promotes cross-cultural understanding through the medium of cinema, with programs that support both the production of authentic and accessible stories created in the developing world and their distribution throughout the schools and leading cultural institutions of the United States. For more information, please visit www.globalfilm.org. (Film notes courtesy of the Global Film Initiative.)
ALL FILMS NOT RATED

AFI member passes will be accepted at all screenings in the Global Lens 2007 Series.

ENOUGH!
[Barakat!]

During the dangerous resurgence of the Algerian war in the 1990s, two women search for the younger woman's husband, a journalist whose writings resulted in his disappearance. Ignoring curfews and the constant threat of ambush, they journey across Algeria, finding in their shared spirit of resistance a deeper understanding of how their country's history shaped their lives.

DIR/SCR Djamila Sahraoui; SCR Cécile Vargaftig; PROD Richard Copans. France/Algeria, 2006, color, 95 min. In French and Arabic with English subtitles.

Wednesday, November 21, 5:00; Wednesday, November 28, 9:20

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND from the 2007 China Film Festival
DAM STREET
[Hong Yan]

Classic melodrama gets a fresh perspective in this artful, affecting film. In 1983, a feisty high schooler from a small Sichuan town gets pregnant and is publicly denounced. Her family arranges a secret adoption, after telling her the child has died. Ten years later, dreaming of singing opera but stuck singing pop songs in dive bars, she begins an unusual friendship with a precocious young boy.

DIR Yu Li; SCR Li Fang and Kechun Li; PROD Li Fang. France/China, 2005, color, 93 min. In Mandarin with English subtitles.

Wednesday, November 21, 7:00; Thursday, November 22, 9:30; Friday, November 23, 9:30; Saturday, November 24, 3:30; Sunday, November 25, 9:30

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND from the 2006 Latin American Film Festival
THE SACRED FAMILY
[La Sagrada Familia]

A raw and unnerving portrait of love and betrayal. Sexual energy is fueled by drink and drugs when an upper-class Chilean son brings home his sensual and extroverted girlfriend on the same weekend his mother is called unexpectedly out of town.

DIR/SCR Sebastián Campos; PROD Úrsula Budnik. Chile, 2004, color, 99 min. In Spanish with English subtitles.

Wednesday, November 21, 9:00; Thursday, November 29, 9:15

OF LOVE AND EGGS
[Rindu kami padamu]

Award-winning Indonesian director Nugroho sets his light comedy about family relationships and the mishaps of children against the backdrop of a busy and crowded Jakarta mosque. Evocative of traditional Indonesian comic movies made under the country's studio system, the film draws on the powerful Islamic images of the prayer rug, the mosque—and eggs.

DIR Garin Nugroho; SCR Aramantono. Indonesia, 2005, color, 100 min. In Indonesian with English subtitles.

Thursday, November 22, 3:00; Friday, November 23, 1:00

ANOTHER MAN'S GARDEN
[O Jardim do outro homem]

In a restrictive, male-dominant culture, is educating a girl worthwhile? In Mozambique, the obstacles for a woman studying medicine extend beyond the distractions of her boyfriend and family. Any weakness or error can cost her a place at the university. Journalist and documentarian Sol de Carvalho dedicates his first feature to the courage of these young women who strive against the odds.

DIR/SCR/PROD João Luis Sol de Carvalho; SCR Joana Smith and Gonçalo Galväo Teles; PROD Luís Galvão Teles and Serge Zeitoun. Mozambique/Portugal/France, 2006, color, 80 min.

Thursday, November 22, 5:00; Friday, November 23, 3:00

A WONDERFUL NIGHT IN SPLIT
[Ta Divna Splitska Noc]

In the dark ghetto of the medieval Croatian city of Split, between ten o'clock and midnight on New Year's Eve, three love stories unfold: a drug dealer and a widow, a junkie and an American sailor, and a teenage couple. As they rendezvous in the final hours of the year, their increasingly complex stories intertwine against the backdrop of the traditional fireworks display.

DIR/SCR Arsen Anton Ostojic; PROD Jozo Patljak. Croatia, 2004, b&w and color, 100 min. In English and Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles.

Friday, November 23, 4:45; Saturday, November 24, 8:30

ON EACH SIDE
[A Cada Lado]

Argentinian director Grosso's richly symbolic story follows a photographer hired to document the construction of a bridge over the course of several years. As his pictures document the bridge, they also capture the impact of the undertaking on his and the nearby townspeople's lives: two carefree boys grow into teenagers on the banks of the river and a mysterious engineer touches the lives of the elderly sisters who rent him a room.

DIR/SCR Hugo Grosso; PROD Fernando Gondard. Argentina, 2005, color, 97 min. In Spanish with English subtitles.

Sunday, November 25, 12:30; Wednesday, November 28, 7:15

FINE DEAD GIRLS
[Fine Mertve Djevojke]

An investigation into a kidnapped child uncovers nightmarish conditions in a seedy Zagreb apartment building. Each of the residents keeps secrets—but when they learn the truth the pervasive climate of mistrust explodes into violence. The hostility and misery of the characters' lives project vivid echoes of Croatia's recent past, as the country slowly emerges from years of ethnic violence during the Balkans War.

DIR/SCR Dalibor Matanic; SCR Mate Matisic; PROD Jozo Patljak. Croatia, 2002, color, 77 min. In Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles.

Saturday, November 24, 10:35pm; Monday, November 26, 9:50

KILOMETRE ZERO

In this tragicomic hybrid of a war flick with a road movie, Kurdish director Saleem brings opposites together—a Kurdish soldier under orders to return the body of a dead soldier to his family and an Iraqi taxi driver—to shed light on the ethnic conflict between Kurds and Iraqis during the 1980s Iran-Iraq War.

DIR/SCR/PROD Hiner Saleem; PROD Emilie Georges, Fabrice Guez and Alexandre Mallet-Guy. France/Iraq/Finland, 2005, color, 91 min. In Kurdish, Arabic and French with English subtitles.

Sunday, November 25, 5:30; Monday, November 26, 4:20; Tuesday, November 27, 4:45 & 9:40

Global Film Initiative Shorts

Now in its second year, the Global Shorts program returns to carry audiences from the streets of South Africa to a train in Mumbai, a dream in Morocco and a world where less can sometimes means more. These seven short films from around the world explore universal emotions such as love, hope and fear, in cultures from South America to the Middle East. (All films with English subtitles.)

Wednesday, November 21, 3:00; Sunday, November 25, 7:30

THE PERFECT DAY
[El Día Perfecto]
Giving up his dream of sharing a tragic death with someone he loves, Sergio has resigned himself to planning the spectacle alone—but he receives a mysterious phone call.
DIR Bernardo Loyola. Mexico, 2004, 13 min.

A LITTLE BIT HIGHER
[Kami Balatar]
Waiting in their separate trucks for the workday to begin, two crane operators - a young man consumed by love and an ex-teacher standing in for a friend - are unprepared for the job awaiting them.
DIR Mehdi Jafari. Iran, 2005, 12 min.

YOUR DARK HAIR
[Tes Cheveux Noirs Ihsan]
A young man returns to his hometown in North Africa after his mother's death and learns of her amazing efforts to give him a better life, navigating between dreams and memories of her.
DIR Tala Hadid. Morocco, 2005, 14 min.

RIDING WITH SUGAR
Terrence dreams of escaping his drug-ridden South African neighborhood to ride championship BMX. He stumbles into a precarious and unlikely relationship with Olivia, a beautiful girl who appreciates both his dream and his drive.
DIR Sunu Gonera. South Africa, 2005, 10 min.

BROAD DAY
[Üks päev]
Based on a true story of the rape of a passenger on a Mumbai train, BROAD DAY uses amateur actors on the actual site without rehearsal to capture the passengers' reactions.
DIR Rajeev Ahuja. India, 2004, 11 min.

ABSENT
[En Ausencia]
Waiting on the results of a home pregnancy test, Maria sits alone in her apartment's bathroom. Her memories of exile and violence mingle with the hope of new life.
DIR Lucia Cedron. Argentina, 2003, 15 min.

GIRL OF FAITH
[Mina De Fé]
In the favelas high above Rio De Janeiro, Silvana brings her boyfriend Maninho unexpected news. To survive, they must outwit both the police and rival gangs.
DIR Luciana Bezerra. Brazil, 2004, 15 min.