A House in Jerusalem

 

Enticing feature set in Jerusalem produced by Wellington Films

Directed by Muayad Alayan, this is a telling and delicate tale about how the past is always with us no matter how far we run from it

Young Rebecca, with her father, relocate to Jerusalem following the tragic death of her mother in a car crash that she survived. Their move into an old family home in the Valley of the Ghosts which becomes the setting for mysterious events and a friendship between Rebecca and Rasha, a young Palestinian only she can see. Following the template of young females becoming more of themselves by delving into mysterious gardens and households, this tale slowly becomes a ghost story being lived in now.

As the friendship grows, is Rasha a figment of Rebecca's imagination and the film makes a statement upon how grief is processed as the two young girls are binded by tragedy. Poignant and delicately handled in its production, A House in Jerusalem is a film for today but about yesterday and the days ahead.

Rebecca seeks solace in the ghostly apparition of Rasha, partly because they have a shared language or understanding, as she struggles to learn Hebrew in her new school. The friendship grows due to a fear of authority - for Rasha it is the police, for Rebecca the military - but never her father who is vulnerable and grieving himself throughout and traversing the single parent wasteland he finds himself in. 

Featuring performances by veteran stalwart Johnny Harris as the father, Michael, and featuring the up and coming Miley Locke as Rebecca, this is a talent to watch out for in future years. Showing maturity beyond her years in moments such as dishing up a plate for her departed mother at dinner time and listening to voicemail to hear her voice, Locke channels such as Ivana Baquero from Pan's Labyrinth (2006).

On limited release from May, this film is an enticing enterprise with a great premise that will help viewers understand the notions of racism and how it takes hold upon those who allow it to manifest in society - similar to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - a young protagonist interacts with someone from a different faith to better appreciate their background and become a better person themselves

A House in Jerusalem is produced by Wellington Films and released by Peccadillo Pictures from 31st May 

Medusa

Brazilian genre-bending horror MEDUSA out 14th July 

Writer-director Anita Rocha de Silveira second feature film is a mind melt of genres that follows 21 year old Marianna who is a member of a repressive patriarchal Christian sect. By day, she is all sweetness and Christ and yet at night she is a member of a vigilante gang of women who scare the women of the city they deem to be sinners in God's eyes. This film tackles the question of vanity and feminism in an increasingly smaller world due to the ubiquity of social media.

The Brazil we see her is similar to ones we are familiar with in this watered down social media where beauty is only skin deep, vanity is paramount and the need to be rich is at odds with own religious beliefs.

As Marianna, Mari Oliviera evokes a lot of connection and subtext into her role as a women questioning her beliefs and scared of the ramifications her actions within the vigilante group may have.

At times the style outdoes the substance of this film, and yet it remains highly engaging and watchable with its satirical take on the marriage of instagram and Christianity in one character who teaches followers how to take the perfect Christian selfie. In this film everyone is always looking at and gazing, a feast for the Laura Mulvey fans out there.

A film that could easily have been labelled provocative is in fact something a little bit more perscient than that and violence upon women by women - often as form of control - is apparent to this day; this form of control with the perpetrators seeking the victims to be like them is worrying as a whole and an indictment of the power of social media especially upon impressionable young women.

Her collaboration with her cinematographer Joao Atala creates a world that is both hypnotic and foreboding, a visual style and language of De Silveria's own coming together with excellent production design by art director Dina Salem Levy and the ominous soundtrack created by the director and Bernardo Uzeda.

A feast for the senses embodying the works of David Lynch in terms of melting of genres such as drama and horror; Dario Argento's out and out horror but also Brian De Palma's paranoid thrillers and twisty narratives.

Medusa is out from 14th July via Peccadillo Pictures. It shall be on streaming services from August.

The Levelling

The stunning debut feature from writer-director Hope Dickson Leach reaches DVD and Blu-ray on 17th July from Peccadillo Pictures.

Against the backdrops of floods that have ravaged her family home, Clover (Ellie Kendrick - Game of Thrones) returns to the family home to confront her estranged father, Aubrey (David Troughton - The Archers).  Upon return, a tragic event sparks conflict and regrets among the family as father and daughter attempt to repair old wounds within their troubled relationship.

Shot with a keen eye by director Leach whose camera does not appear to be intruding upon Clover in unusual surroundings confronting the harsh realities of life and the decisions that have led to this point.  At times the camera may have an almost documentary feel lending it a neo-realist feel but the combination of charismatic performances by the two leads and the delicately handled family drama rises it above the level of documentary subject matter.

The title of the film may be construed as prescient and a double meaning of both a term referring to a piece of land where the family home resides but also the death of her brother can perhaps lead to a plateauing of their relationship with an understanding and appreciation of each other.

A film at times feels part dream, part social realist document on the post-austerity Britain and a statement on the fragility of family dichotomies and relationships, Kendrick breaks out from the ensemble of Game of Thrones to mark herself out as a talent to watch, matched by the experience of Troughton.

The Levelling is out on DVD/Blu-ray from Peccadillo Pictures on 17th July

Salvo

First seen on these shores during the 2013 London Film Festival when nominated for the prestigious Sutherland Trophy for debut feature film.  Salvo is visceral and dynamic bow by Italian pair Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza gains a theatrical release from Peccadillo Pictures on 21st March.

Salvo (Saleh Bakri) is the name of a Mafia hit-man in Sicily, Italy who is one of the best in the business as seen by the opening sequence when he takes out would-be aggressors.  His next big job involves him killing a rival clan.  During the job, he encounters a blind girl, Rita (Sara Serraiocco) who stands innocently by as Salvo kills her brother.  What follows is a morality tale between the two during intense exchanges, as Salvo becomes aware of his life's work and Rita becomes accustomed to her captor who spares her life and for both the journey together becomes one about redemption.

Shot on location in their hometown of Palermo, the directing duo bring a real sense of place and location to the action helped by growing up in the vicinity of the action.  The Mafia in Sicily is so prevalent to everyday life, the pair knowingly incorporate the myth and legend of the mafia into the story; the fear they hold over all who they surround is paramount.

Tellingly though, for a generic film of Mafia's built around the tropes of violence and action this film is slighter and softer; the eponymous hit-man is very methodical and deliberate in his actions which helps create an aura of mystique about him and a world of enclosure.
 
Bakri's performance of near muteness is a wonder here, his towering presence helping establish the solitary individual in his role; reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's famous Man with no Name and even Javier Bardem's performance as Chigurh in No Country for Old Men.

It is rare for a first time film to take such care in the construction of an aural landscape, the use of a particular Italian song when Salvo first intrudes Rita's house is a cleverly harked back to by the film's conclusion.

The sound design by Guillaume Sciama is exemplary and the script by Grassadonia and Piazza is first rate, conveying a sense of purpose for the lead characters without resorting to cheap narrative tricks and treating an audience with as much respect as they pay to their characters along with the situation they find themselves in.

Calling cards carry bombast, however the Italian pair have taken great pains to facilitate the world of isolation that both Salvo and Rita find themselves in; and the deliberate disruption of audience in terms of aurality and seeing and not seeing pays dividends.  Debuts can be clever, but rarely are they as intelligent and immersive as this.

Salvo (12A) is out on Friday 21st March from Peccadillo Pictures

www.peccapics.com

Mea Maxima Culpa

The renowned documentary film-maker Alex Gibney whose documentary projects have ranged from such subjects as economic breakdown (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), American in Iraq (Taxi to the Dark Side) and  baseball (Catching Hell)

Now he returns with Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God a documentary that pushes back the veil on the rampant sexual abuse by Catholic priests in North America.  Gibney focuses on the transcripts of four courageous deaf men who recount the molestation they suffered at the hands of Father Murphy whilst at the Hearing School in the 1950s and 60s.

Archive footage obtained by Gibney and his indispensable editor, Sloane Klevin, portrays Murphy as a saintly figure who works with deaf children and helps them become better men, leading them to college and employment.  However, the boys soon learned that Murphy would molest the boys by watching them touch themselves, then sleep in the same bed with the boys.  What is all the more sickening, is that Murphy chose boys whose parents could not read or understand sign language; meaning the young boys were locked in a hell of accepting the punishment with no-one able to help them.

The accusations against Murphy ran from 1957 up to 1963 when our protagonists were first complaining, meaning Murphy had been accusations of sexual abuse for some twenty years.  Gibney uses the archive footage to piece together the boys attempts to make a case against Murphy which more and more is being ignored by the higher powers, who chose to ignore the complaints as the life of a Priest is more important than that of a young deaf child.

Gibney uses the three boys on screen now as they appear doing sign language to the screen, so they speak with all the fury of their convictions, yet he has them voiced by famous actors, Terry (Jamey Sheridan), Arthur (John Slattery) and Garry (Chris Cooper).  This is a clever device as you see the anger in the faces of the deaf men, yet the voices are given clarity by the actor's delivery.

Gibney, quite possibly the best documentarian currently alive, again creates an important piece of not just cinema but also of social awareness of an ever-increasing problem which in this current day and age of apparent rampant peadophilia; think of the Jimmy Saville cases and the continual claims of sexual abuse against Catholic priests across the world.

Mea Maxima Culpa is not only a document of a past era, but an attempt to show behind the curtain of a very powerful organisation that has too much influence over too many people, the thoughts that the priests are not only above and beyond the law and that the Diocese and even the Vatican can deal with this in secret and deal with the matter how they feel is appropriate - by denying and refusing to acknowledge the presence of sexual predators in the Catholic church.

Mea Maxima Culpa is released on DVD on Monday 24th June from Peccadillo Pictures

www.peccapics.com

LFF 2012: Keep the Lights On

Ira Sachs directs and co-wrote the screenplay for this semi-autobiographical tale about a destructive same-sex relationship set in the 1990s of New York city.

When we first meet Sachs' surrogate Erik (played tenderly by Thure Lindhardt) he is on a party-line hoping to hook up with random strangers in the city.  Erik encounters Paul (Zachary Booth) on one of these nights and there is an instant connection between the two; Paul however is a closeted homosexual and with his girlfriend.  Erik persists though and slowly the intense bond between the two leads to Paul's coming out , however, Paul has a strong drug habit that descends into addiction.

Erik also has his personal problems, he is a documentary filmmaker who is struggling to get funding and will not use his family's money to help cultivate his work, instead focus on outside funding.  Cleverly, Sachs chose to depict himself as a foriegner, to give that added dimension of foreignness as otherness.  Erik is the extreme outsider in New York - gay, foreign and out of work, but Lindhardt's performance full of doe-eyed innocence is a pleasing one, he is a soul in search of love, yet ignorant of the hurt he has to go through to get it.

At times the relationship is depicted with raw intensity that can be unsettling.  Paul's habit to disappear due to his drug habit culminates in the highlight of his downfall when he ends up in a plush Manhattan hotel during a cocaine binge.  Erik visits hoping to persuade Paul to come back to their house; yet Paul is too far gone and we witness Paul sleep with a rent boy whilst Erik is in the next room, Erik even goes to the length of watching as if to comfort Paul during his waywardness.

These moments albeit expertly performed by the actors, left this reviewer at times cold and numb from the lack of awareness in Paul's character in his own plight and the harm he causes Erik.  Erik wins a prestigious documentary award, yet he does not seem to make another film whilst is in the relationship, therefore the choice that Erik has to make should be easy and yet the sense of frustration in this depiction is palpable.

Thumbs up for the acting and bravery of depicting a passionate relationship helped by an evocative soundtrack by late New York composer Arthur Russell, but thumbs down for making Erik seem like such a fool in love.

Keep the Lights On is released from Peccadillo Pictures - which released Weekend from the 2011 London Film festival - on DVD today January 28th

She Monkeys

The debut feature of Swedish filmmaker, Lisa Aschan is a delightful, yet intelligent film that subverts the coming of age generic picture with a queer twist. It won Best Film at the Tribeca Film Festival last year, so you can see the universal themes of young love travels well.

14 year old Emma (Mathilda Paradeiser) joins an equestrian gym team (handstands and vaults whilst the horse is moving) where her naturalness on the equine beauties is initially met with trepidation and jealousy by Cassandra (Linda Molin).  Slowly though a kinship forms between the two teenagers, a friendship full of looks and unspoken feelings.

The dynamism of their horse riding routines speaks of their unspoken admiration and romantic affection towards each other.

There is a reassuring confidence about Aschan's direction - affection for the characters and a softness in the depiction of new adolescent love.  Aschan is helped by the equally brilliant performances by the two teenage girls, and even by Isabella Lindquist who plays Emma's younger sister, Sara; herself a young girl a bit confused with her emotional connections, as she falls for her cousin.

In the same vein as French film Water Lilies (2007) by Celine Sciamma , about sexual awakening in adolescent girls She Monkeys has a correct tone and fervour to succeed in garnering critical attention and some box office from the arthouse crowd.

The film is distributed by Peccadillo Pictures, a company that specialises in queer cinema and enjoyed huge acclaim with the British film Weekend, one of my films of 2011

She Monkeys is out on limited release from Friday 18th May

www.peccapics.com

Sasha

Dennis Todorovic makes a startling and emotive feature centering on a frustrated young man, Sasha (played by debutant, Sasha Kekez), a would be pianist who dreams of studying at a conservatoire in his home town of Cologne, Germany.


Sasha though harbours a secret crush on his piano tutor, Gebhard Weber (Tim Bergmann), who is leaving for Vienna for a new job.  This announcement from Mr.Weber acts as the cause and effect of the piece, his leaving prompts Sasha to search his soul and declare to his best friend, Jiao (Yvonne Hung Hee) that he is gay.

The scene when Sasha comes out Jiao is one of aching heartbreak; she is expecting a declaration of love yet the film handles the scene beautifully shot against a lovely backdrop of the main river.

Once Sasha comes out, Jiao pretends to be his girlfriend to hide the fact from his homophobic father Vlado (Predrag Bjelac), a deadbeat Dad who never fulfilled his potential and lives vicariously through Sasha's achievements.  He is married to Stanka (Zeljka Preksavec), a beauty compared to the beast like Vlado.  She adores her son Sasha, yet so many of the film is concerned about identity and becoming who you are.

The film begins with the family, of Serbian heritage crossing the border into Germany. Immediately they are tarred with the outsider tag of being an immigrant, Sasha feels stressed to succeed at the piano due to the pressure of his parents.  Sasha's breakdown at his audition is marked for being a scene of raw emotion, thanks to the wonderful central performance by Kekez who enfuses his namesake with a mixture of optimism and cynicism, a product of nature and nuture colliding and going hand in hand.

Todorovic has a real confidence in his use of soundtrack the mix of classical and vintage music in comparison to the techno music to endorse the bold and new direction of the family and the decisions they must all make.  The film is as much about acceptance as just another gay movie.

The acting is all done well, a real naturalism stems from many of the performances - except Ljubisa Gruicic's performance as Uncle Pero, a role of comic relief that feels a little forced at times - and this is a really well directed and acted piece of cinema, which although can be categorised as queer cinema is anything but.

Sasha is released by Peccadillo Pictures and is out now on DVD.

http://www.peccapics.com/

Life, Above All

Schmitz's inspirational movie was nominated for Best Foriegn Language film at the 2011 Academy Awards and tells the story of Chanda, who after her mother leaves the village goes off in search of her. It is based on the novel, 'Chanda's Secrets' by Allan Stratton.

Chanda (played by first timer, Khomotso Manyaka) learns of a rumour that spreads like wildfire through her dust-ridden village outside of Johannesburg. Her family is destroyed by this vicious allegation, forcing her mother to flee the village. Young Chanda believes the rumour was spread through superstitition and so goes in search of her mother and the truth she may hold.

Chanda is played by Khomotso Manyaka (a first time performance) who embarks upon a personal journey of discovery, as she listens to her heart for the answers and trusts the loyalty of her family to overcome the paranoia of the community.

Manyaka is amazing in the role of Chanda, being both innocent yet strong and commanding when necessary, following on in the footsteps of Tsotsi (Gavin Hood, 2005) it again shows South African cinema able to portray young children on the cusp of adolescence and ensuing adulthood with a sincerity and seriousness.

Schmitz (who filmed a part for the portmeneau film 'Paris, je t'aime') films with a confidence and shoots the landscapes beautifully conveying a real sense of vastness and place that Chanda is in.  Whilst the parallel storylines of child prostitution may make this film a tougher watch, nonetheless it remains a gratifying and rewarding one.

Life, Above All is released on DVD by Peccadillo Pictures on Monday 23rd January

http://www.peccapics.com/