Bijou Film

Wednesday, November 9

9:00 pm

Thursday, November 10

7:00 pm

Writer-director Zhang Lu’s fascinating window into a rarely seen corner of rural China revolves around 12-year-old Chang-ho, living with his grandfather and mute sister along the frozen river-border with North Korea. Although fraught with unemployment and other tensions, his community seems sympathetic toward the Korean refugees fleeing famine and misery; Chang-ho even bonds over soccer with one young border-crosser who comes scavenging food for a sibling. But he soon turns on his new friend as suspicions mount against the illegal immigrants and his sister reels from unexpected aggression, provoking a quandary over his loyalties in an exquisitely detailed story of compassion and strife across an uneasy geopolitical border.

Dir. Zhang Lu
Korean and Mandarin w/English subtitles, China
89 min, 35 mm

Trailer: http://catalogue.globalfilm.org/global-lens-collection/global-lens-2011/dooman-river.html

Sunday, November 6

7:15 pm

Wednesday, November 9

7:00 pm

After twenty-five years, Cinemateca Uruguaya’s most devoted employee, Jorge (real-life Uruguayan critic Jorge Jellinek), still finds his inspiration in caring for the films and audiences that grace the seats and screen of his beloved arthouse cinema. But when dwindling attendance and diminishing support force the theater to close its doors, Jorge is sent into a world he knows only through the lens of art—and suddenly forced to discover a new passion that transcends his once-celluloid reality. Stylishly framed in black-and-white with brilliantly understated performances, Federico Veiroj’s sly and loving homage to the soul of cinema is a universally appealing gem and knowing charmer about life after the movies.

Dir. Federico Veiroj
This film is preceded by a 13 minute short film (also by Veiroj) entitled AS FOLLOWS
Spanish w/English subtitles, Uruguay
76 min (both films included)

Trailer: http://catalogue.globalfilm.org/global-lens-collection/global-lens-2011/a-useful-life-la-vida-util.html