2002 Toronto International Film Festival
The True Meaning of Pictures
$19.95 | 71 minutes
Canadian filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal, director of the acclaimed Paul Bowles documentary LET IT COME DOWN, trains her eye on another artist of uncompromising vision in her film THE TRUE MEANING OF PICTURES. For over 30 years, Shelby Lee Adams has been photographing the impoverished mountain dwellers of his native eastern Kentucky, earning&hellip…
Desire
$17.95 | 86 minutes
This erotic drama from Korea revolves around two lovers who have a penchant for swapping partners that subsequently leads to some dire consequences, and bitter jealousy for all involved&hellip&hellip…
Chi-hwa-seon
$26.95 | 116 minutes
This moving biographical pictures details the life and work of Jang Seung-up, "Ohwon," (Choi Min-sik), a troubled, Korean artist. Nineteenth century Korean society suffered from a blight of poverty and political upheaval. Ohwon emerged from that chaos with the help of a benefactor who pulled him from a street gang and provided copious&hellip&hellip…
Unknown Pleasures
$16.95 | 113 minutes
UNKNOWN PLEASURES ruminates on the boredom, longing, and helplessness of two teenage boys in Datong, a small town in northern China. While Bin Bin (Zhao Wei Wei) has a serious girlfriend (Zhou Qing Feng) and thinks about a future with her, she is only focused on leaving town and never coming back. Having been accepted to Beijing University&hellip&hellip…
Lost in La Mancha
$23.95 | 93 minutes
Directed by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, LOST IN LA MANCHA documents Terry Gilliam's disaster-prone attempt to make THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE, a film largely based on the classic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. The movie first encounters difficulties in its preproduction stage, starting with an uncomfortably small European-funded budget&hellip&hellip…
Madame Sata
$21.95 | 105 minutes
A powerfully moving and emotional film that is as rough around the edges as it is sweet at its core, MADAME SATA tells the life story of Jaoa Francisco dos Santos (Lazaro Ramos), an historic figure in Brazilian counterculture. Known to his followers and friends as Madame Sata, which is his stage name in the haunting narrative performances&hellip&hellip…
Gerry
$11.95 | 103 minutes
Visions Award(Special Citation)
In Gus Van Sant's GERRY, a film more concerned with atmosphere and visual breadth than with story or plot, a frivolous hike through the desert evolves into an existential journey for two young men. The film features only two characters, both named Gerry and played by the film's co-creators Casey&hellip…
Spun
$17.95 | 101 minutes
Ross (Jason Schwartzman) is an addict badly in need of some speed. A visit to his dealer, Spider Mike’s (John Leguizamo)--where fellow "tweakers" Nikki (Brittany Murphy)--a stripper, Frisbee (Patrick Fugit)--a metalhead, and Cookie (Mena Suvari)--Mike's girlfriend--turns into an odyssey, though, when Mike can't find his stash. Nikki tells&hellip&hellip…
Tycoon: A New Russian
$27.95 | 128 minutes
Plato Mavoski (Vladimir Mashkov) is the Russian government's worst nightmare. While still a brilliant young academic, he encourages four of his friends to set aside their studies and join him in a variety of business schemes beginning in the late 1980s. Mavoski's semi-legal enterprises make him not only the richest man in Russia, but&hellip&hellip…
Morvern Callar
$21.95 | minutes
The role of the aimless young rebel hiding behind an emotional wall and steely eyes has been monopolized by men in the movies since James Dean. Samantha Morton, one of her generation's most gifted actors, makes the most of her opportunity to embody such a figure in her role as the title character of MORVERN CALLAR. Momentarily frozen&hellip&hellip…
The Sea
$21.95 | 109 minutes
"Why this sudden love of truth?" This is the question that launches the complicated dialogue of Baltasar Kormakur's beautifully complex, moody film about a dysfunctional family in Iceland. The utterly chilling opener in which a dilapidated fishery bursts into violent flames and burns, against the backdrop of a snow and rain storm, sets&hellip&hellip…
Ten
$24.95 | 83 minutes
Filmed entirely inside a car, a woman drives through the streets of Tehran, picking up and dropping off passengers--her son, a friend, her sister, a prostitute--as she runs errands and goes about her busy days. The title TEN represents the distinct conversations that the woman has with each of her passengers, reflecting on life in modern-day&hellip&hellip…
Gasoline
$26.95 | 90 minutes
This slightly surreal Italian road movie from first-time director Monica Stambrini tweaks the THELMA AND LOUISE mythos with just the right amount of moody teen spirit. Lenni (Regina Orioli) is the meek, bespectacled girlfriend of butch mechanic Stella (Maya Sansa), and together they run a gas station/coffee shop. They live in a middle-of-nowhere&hellip&hellip…
Horns and Halos
$21.95 | 79 minutes
When J.H. Hatfield published a biography of George W. Bush entitled FORTUNATE SON in 1999, it looked set to become a best seller. Not afraid to detail the past indiscretions of the President, Hatfield alleged that Bush had been arrested for cocaine possession back in 1972. Publishers St. Martins Press got cold feet when they discovered&hellip&hellip…
Dolls
$21.95 | minutes
Takeshi Kitano continues alternating between introspective drama and violent films with DOLLS, which he wrote, directed, and edited in between the bloody gangster picture BROTHER (2000) and the samurai update THE BLIND SWORDSMAN: ZATOICHI. Beginning with an excerpt from Bunraku puppet theater master Monzaemon Chikamatsu’s THE COURIER&hellip&hellip…
Spellbound
$10.95 | 95 minutes
Jeff Blitz's Academy Award-nominated documentary is an affecting, inspiring look at eight American children as they make their way to compete in the 1999 National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. Defying all stereotypes and categorizations, the spellers that Blitz chooses to focus on run the ethnic and socioeconomic gamut. Emily is from&hellip&hellip…
Dirty Pretty Things
$17.95 | 107 minutes
Chiwetel Ejiofor gives a remarkably understated performance in director Stephen Frears's offbeat and gripping drama DIRTY PRETTY THINGS. Ejiofor stars as Okwe, a Nigerian who is trying to make a new life for himself in London, where he works days as a taxi driver and nights as a hotel desk receptionist. When he discovers a human heart&hellip&hellip…
Oasis
$19.95 | 132 minutes
A troubled young man in his twenties is released from prison only to commit social atrocities. He rapes a severely disabled woman who clearly cannot defend herself from the attack. Oddly enough, the woman ends up falling in love with him, and it turns out that he needs her too&hellip&hellip…
Russian Ark
$23.95 | 96 minutes
Visions Award
A visually hypnotizing cinematic feat, RUSSIAN ARK is Alexsandr Sokurov's spellbinding ode to St. Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum. Shot in one fluid take using High Definition video cameras, the photography floats and careens through the lavish corridors of the museum, examining its architectural details while&hellip…
The Magdalene Sisters
$16.95 | 119 minutes
Discovery Award
Peter Mullen's shocking drama THE MAGDALENE SISTERS is based on real events that took place in Ireland from the 1960s until 1996 when an estimated 30,000 young women, considered by their families to have committed sexual sins, were sent away from their homes to earn penitence working in profit-making laundries&hellip…
The Way Home
$17.95 | 85 minutes
This subtle and bucolic Korean film is "dedicated to all grandmas" by its director Jeong-hyang Lee. The story concerns bratty, selfish seven-year-old Sang-Woo (Seung-Ho Yoo) who is sent out into the mountains to live with his ancient, mute, partially deaf grandmother (Eul-Boon Kim) while his stressed-out single mom looks for work back&hellip&hellip…
Together
$11.95 | 119 minutes
Director-writer-producer-star Chen Kaige, well known for his visually sumptuous tales of historical China (FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE) directs this sweet-natured coming of age tale set in modern day Beijing. An impoverished cook, Liu Chen (Liu Peiqui), gives up his provincial life to move his 13-year-old violin virtuoso son, Xiaochun (Tang&hellip…
Bowling for Columbine
$10.95 | 125 minutes
People's Choice Award(3rd Place)
Filmmaker and leftist activist Michael Moore asks some serious questions as he probes the depths of America's trigger-happy gun culture in the insightful and amusing documentary, BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE. Guns in America are used to kill an average of more than 11,000 people per year. This death toll&hellip…
Nowhere in Africa
$22.95 | 140 minutes
Fleeing Nazi Germany, many Jewish families found that a new life was as difficult as any hardship they had previously known. This German drama, based on a book by Stephanie Zweig, tells of one family's struggle as Walter Redlich (Merab Ninidze), his wife Jettel (Juliane Kohler), and their young daughter Regina (Karoline Eckertz) flee&hellip&hellip…
Man Bites Dog
$26.95 | 92 minutes
A mock black comic documentary that spoofs reality TV, and questions the media's role in perpetuating and abetting violence. A homicidal maniac, serial-killer, Ben Patard, is accompanied on his killing sprees by a film crew who document, then later participate in, even as they question, his activities&hellip&hellip…
Blue Gate Crossing
$21.95 | 85 minutes
Bold tomboy Lin (Lin Shu-Hui Liang) and pretty, reserved Meng (Lun-Mei Guey) are Taiwanese high school girls whose extremely close friendship revolves around Meng's crush on Zhang (Bo-Lin Chen), the popular star of the boys' swim team. When Lin takes it upon herself to act as the go-between for her friend, Zhang and Lin begin spending&hellip&hellip…
A Snake Of June
$21.95 | 77 minutes
From Japanese cult director Shinya Tsukamoto (TETSUO: THE IRON MAN) comes A SNAKE OF JUNE (ROKUGATSU NO HEBI). Tsukamoto continues exploring the themes he set up in TETSUO and other works--extreme alienation from both self and other, the changing relationship between man and machine, and the body as the site where these problems are worked&hellip&hellip…
The Trials of Henry Kissinger
$19.95 | 80 minutes
THE TRIALS OF HENRY KISSINGER, a documentary based on the book by British journalist Christopher Hitchens, argues that Kissinger, the former U.S. Secretary of State and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, was a power-hungry warmonger responsible for massive military cover-ups in Vietnam, Cambodia, and East Timor in the 1960s, as well&hellip&hellip…
Balseros
$18.95 | 120 minutes
This epic documentary examines the lives of seven Cubans who came to live in the United States after being rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard as they attempted to paddle across the ocean from Havana to Miami on ramshackle homemade rafts. Over 50,000 Cubans attempted this feat, trying to immigrate to the United States in 1994 seeking a better&hellip&hellip…
Kedma
$26.95 | 100 minutes
In May 1948, a group of European Jewish refugees illegally sail to Palestine via the cargo freighter Kedma, arriving only a few days before the departure of British forces and the founding of the nation of Israel. Once ashore they are received by the Palmach, Jewish fighters who help them evade arrest by British troops. Hiding amid the&hellip&hellip…
Take Care of My Cat
$23.95 | 112 minutes
Director Jeong Jae-eun's debut feature, TAKE CARE OF MY CAT, is a slick but sensitive portrayal of girlfriends on the cusp of adulthood. Hollywood films about recent high school grads tend to focus on sex, partying, and planning for college. These Korean girls have their share of fun, but they have critical life issues to deal with, and&hellip&hellip…
Bad Guy
$26.95 | 103 minutes
A harrowing portrait of love and desire, BAD GUY is situated deep in Seoul's seedy nightlife. Differing strains of the story follow various people inexorably caught up in an underground existence that exercises a vice-like grip over their every action; a pimp forces a prostitute to live in her booth, then falls in love with her by watching&hellip&hellip…
Abouna
$23.95 | 84 minutes
This sorrowful story begins when Tahir (Ahidjo Mahamat Moussa) and his little brother Amine (Hamza Moctar Aguid) learn that their father has abandoned them, and they embark on a desperate quest to bring him home. Roaming their city in central African Chad, they check with relatives, look in local shops, and wander the border bridge between&hellip&hellip…
Hukkle
$20.95 | 75 minutes
The bucolic, even-paced, daily life of a small Hungarian village is the setting for the experimental film HUKKLE (onomatopoeic for "hiccup" in Hungarian). A series of dialogue-less vignettes, featuring the various townspeople and their animals, explore the quotidian existence in the Hungarian countryside. Unifying these sequences is a&hellip&hellip…
All or Nothing
$11.95 | 128 minutes
Following 1999's Oscar-nominated period piece TOPSY-TURVY, acclaimed filmmaker Mike Leigh returns to the familiar terrain of modern, working-class London with ALL OR NOTHING. Yet another bittersweet slice-of-life drama conceived in Leigh's now legendary improvisational style, ALL OR NOTHING follows a group of dysfunctional families living&hellip…
Letters in the Wind
$26.95 | 76 minutes
A fascinating history lies behind Iranian filmmaker Ali-Reza Amini's LETTERS IN THE WIND. The movie, which shines a light on life inside an Iranian military camp, has rarely been seen outside of Amini's native country due to an injunction placed on it by authorities. Nevertheless, it is presented here, and offers plenty of food for thought&hellip&hellip…
My Life on Ice
$21.95 | 102 minutes
When Etienne receives a video camera as a gift for his 16th birthday, he uses it to meticulously document everything around him as a video diary. Set in the world of competitive figure skating, Etienne becomes entranced by his teacher Laurent, and also by his friend Ludovic, whose video segments consist almost entirely of talk about girls&hellip&hellip…
Suddenly
$26.95 | 94 minutes
This refreshingly offbeat film from Argentina follows a few days in the life of Marcia (Tatiana Saphir), an overweight girl working in a Buenos Aires lingerie shop, whose going-nowhere life is interrupted by a pair of sullen, lesbian wanderers named Mao (Carla Crespo) and Lenin (Veronica Hassan). Marcia accompanies them semi-unwillingly&hellip&hellip…
September 11
$23.95 | 128 minutes
A reaction piece to the United States' terrorist attack on September 11 2001, this controversial film calls upon eleven directors from various countries to contribute 11-minute 9-second films about the event. Variously political, violent, disturbing, abstract, opinionated, angered, or forgiving, each film is drastically different from&hellip&hellip…
The Eye
$24.95 | 99 minutes
THE EYE, directed by twin brothers Danny and Oxide Pang, is a Chinese/Thai horror film that focuses on Mun (Sin-je Lee), a cornea-transplant recipient who has been blind most of her life. As Mun adjusts to her newfound sight, she begins to see haunting visions of dead people. As these terrifying visions become more frequent, Mun turns&hellip&hellip…
City of God
$21.95 | 130 minutes
Visions Award-Special Citation
Youth gangs took over the slums of Rio de Janiero during the 1960s and didn't relinquish their stronghold until the mid-1980s. Only a sucker wouldn't have turned to crime and this is exactly how naive teen Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) views himself. His attempts in illegal activity fail as he finds&hellip…
Sex is Comedy
$17.95 | 95 minutes
To call a French filmmaker a provocateur may seem redundant, but feminist auteur Catherine Breillat has managed to shock even her most liberated compatriots. The bad girl of Gallic cinema, Breillat has become known for her graphic and cynical takes on male-female sexual relationships and has faced accusations of onset cruelty. SEX IS&hellip&hellip…
Temptation
$10.95 | 86 minutes
Best Screenplay(Nominee)
Best Actress
This wickedly funny comedy follows two filmmakers who attempt to produce artful erotica while avoiding the usual trappings of the adult film industry. Unfortunately their tastes don't match up with the public's, and they fail to make any money from the pursuit. But on one fateful day they&hellip…