ZAMA | Dir. Lucrecia Martel | 2017 | 115 min
Presented in Spanish with English subtitles.

Lucrecia Martel’s long awaited cinematic return Zama is a feast for the senses. Based on Antonio di Benedetto’s classic 1956 Argentinean book of the same name, Martel has stamped her unique voice on the material and elevated proceedings by packing the film with cinematic and literary references. As a result, Zama brings fresh insights to the colonial narrative. 

In the late 18th century, Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho) is an officer of the Spanish crown stationed in a remote South American town. He patiently goes about his daily tasks but his heart is set on a move to a more desired posting. Soon he realizes that in order to get his wish, he must put up with whatever is thrown his way, even if it comes at the cost of personal humiliation. To complicate matters, he slowly starts lusting after a noblewoman Luciana (Lola Dueñas, Broken Embraces, Volver) and that further torments him. Finally, there is the constant dread of Vicuña Porto, a famed bandit whose appears to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The heat, the lust, and the threat of Vicuña Porto all slowly start to unravel Zama to a point where reality, myth, and dreams collide. 

Stunningly shot and boasting a hypnotic score, Zama is an immersive cinematic experience unlike any film made in the last few years!

Note: Zama is Martel’s first film since 2008's The Headless Woman, a film that was shown as part of Calgary Cinematheque’s Focus series on “21st Century Cinema of Argentina”.

Awards
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Argentina 2017 - Nominated (Award of the Argentinean Academy, Best Film | Lucrecia Martel, Best Director | Lucrecia Martel, Best Actor | Daniel Giménez Cacho, Best Supporting Actor | Juan Minujín, Best Screenplay, Adaptation | Lucrecia Martel, Best Cinematography | Rui Poças, Best Editing | Karen Harley, Miguel Schverdfinger, Best Art Direction | Renata Pinheiro, Best Costume Design | Julio Suárez, Best Make Up | Marisa Amenta, Alberto Moccia, Best Sound | Guido Berenblum)
Seville European Film Festival 2017 - Won (Special Jury Award | Lucrecia Martel 

Zama is the fifth selection in our CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA series.

A GENTLE CREATURE | Dir. Sergei Loznitsa | 2017 | 143 min
Presented in Russian with English subtitles.

Master director Sergei Loznitsa’s timely A Gentle Creature digs deep into the Russian countryside and presents a unique view of the country’s penal system. Loosely inspired by a Dostoevsky short story, A Gentle Creature depicts an unnamed woman’s (Vasilina Makovtseva) attempt to visit her husband in prison. After the package sent to him comes back marked "return to sender", the woman goes to the prison to find out what happened. She soon discovers that getting an answer is not an easy task, nor is finding out where her husband is. Her quest to find the facts becomes a Kafkaesque journey through a Russian society where the truth is elusive. Each step towards finding an answer takes her further into the underbelly of a place where fact, fiction and fantasy are all indistinguishable.

A Gentle Creature is only Loznitsa’s third fictional feature after My Joy and In the Fog, although he has directed more than a dozen documentary features and shorts such as Maidan and The Event. In A Gentle Creature, he brings his sharp documentary eye in depicting the details of the prison system while smartly embracing elements of fiction, satire and even opera in crafting the film. The end result is a film that is essential viewing for our contemporary times!

Awards
Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2017 - Nominated (Asia Pacific Screen Award, Best Film | Marianne Slot, Valentina Mikhalyova, Galina Sementsova, Lev Karakhan, Gunnar Dedio, Uljana Kim, Peter Warnier, Serge Lavrenyuk, Marc van Warmerdam)
Cannes Film Festival 2017 - Nominated (Palme d'Or | Sergei Loznitsa)
Munich Film Festival 2017 - Nominated (ARRI/OSRAM Award, Best International Film | Sergei Loznitsa)

A Gentle Creature is the fourth selection in our CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA series.

THE DAY AFTER | Dir. Hong Sang-soo | 2017 | 92 min
Presented in Korean with English subtitles.

The Day After continues the blistering pace of auteur Hong Sang-soo as the his third film released in 2017. Shot lovingly in black and white, the film contains plenty of signature elements from the director’s previous works, as well as some delicious variations. 

The Day After depicts book publisher Bong-wan’s (Kwon Hae-hyo) attempts to fight accusations of affairs from his wife while simultaneously trying to start a new affair. Besides his wife, the film focuses on two other women in Bong-wan’s life: an ex-employee, Chang-sook (Kim Sae-byuk), and a new employee, Areum (Kim Min-hee, Claire’s Camera, The Handmaiden). Bong-wan has an affair with Chang-sook, and after she leaves the job, her position is filled by Areum. Within hours of Areum starting her job, Bong-wan tries to woo her. Naturally, like other Hong Sang-soo films, there is plenty of alcohol in the form of soju, ensuring events unfold deliriously and with plenty of honesty and humour. In addition, Hong Sang-soo plays with the concept of time and extends the timeline of a single day with déjà vu and flashbacks. The end result is a film that smartly shows how relationships can instantly spark into life and also how they fizzle out.

Note: The film shares elements with Hong Sang-soo’s Right Now, Wrong Then, a film shown by the Calgary Cinematheque in 2016.

Awards
Buil Film Awards 2017 - Nominated (Buil Film Award, Best Film | Hong Sang-soo, Best Director | Hong Sang-soo, Best Actor | Kwon Hae-hyo)
Cannes Film Festival 2017 - In Competition (Palme d'Or, Hong Sang-soo)
International Cinephile Society Awards 2017 - Won (ICS Cannes Award, Best Actress | Kim Min-hee)
Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival 2017 - Nominated (Jaeger - LeCoultre Best Film Award, Best Film | Hong Sang-soo)
Munich Film Festival 2017 - Nominated (ARRI/OSRAM Award, Best International Film | Hong Sang-soo)
San Sebastián International Film Festival 2017 - Nominated (Zabaltegi Section, Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Prize | Hong Sang-soo)

The Day After is the third selection in our CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA series.

COCOTE | Dir. Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias | 2017 | 72 min
Presented in Spanish with English subtitles.

Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias’ stunning award winning Cocote sheds an overdue cinematic spotlight on the Dominican Republic. In the film, Alberto (Vicente Santos) works as a private gardener in Santo Domingo. He learns that his father has died but when he returns to his hometown, he discovers that his father was instead killed by a powerful man. Alberto’s family wants revenge while Alberto doesn’t want to have anything to do with violence. He just wants to participate in the funeral rituals and return back. However, Alberto soon finds himself getting drawn into a simmering feud that is close to boiling over.

Cocote is a creative blend of fiction and documentary which effortlessly mixes different film stocks (colour, black and white) and contains different camera styles, including an immersive 360-degree pan. The end result is a scrumptious film that hails the arrival of an exciting new voice in international cinema!

Awards
Hamburg Film Festival 2017 - Nominated (Critics Award | Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias)
Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival 2017 - Nominated (Jaeger - LeCoultre Best Film Award, Best Film | Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias)
Locarno International Film Festival 2017 - Won (Signs of Life Section, Best Film | Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias) 
Mar del Plata Film Festival 2017 - Nominated (Best Latin-American Film, Latin-American Competition | Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias) 
San Sebastián International Film Festival 2017 - Nominated (Horizons Award, Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias)

COCOTE is the second selection in our CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA series.

BY THE TIME IT GETS DARK | Dir. Anocha Suwichakornpong | 2016 | 115 min
Presented in Thai with English subtitles

A HEADSPINNING TOUR DE FORCE, BEGINNING WITH THE ATTACK ON STUDENTS IN 1976 AND TURNING TO THE NATURE OF FILM-MAKING ITSELF.

This mesmerising second feature from Thai film-maker Anocha Suwichakornpong, writer/director of 2009’s Mundane History, is a kaleidoscopic meditation on the shifting relationship between past and present, truth and fiction, movies and memory. A self-referential treatise on the impossibility of capturing “real” life on camera, it begins with a single linear narrative that mushrooms into something altogether wider and more weird. Described by its creator as both an “ode to the memory-recording and reconstructing machine that is cinema” and “my attempt to deal with the impossibility of making a historical film in a place where there is no history”, it’s a dizzying, dazzling work – elliptically political, frequently perplexing, yet fluid enough in its possibilities to allow each viewer to divine their own meanings from its quicksilver forms. READ MORE, The Guardian

Awards
FIRST YOUTH FILM FESTIVAL 2017 - Won (Jury Award, Grand Jury Prize - Feature Film | Anocha Suwichakornpong)
HAMBURG FILM FESTIVAL 2016 - Nominated (Young Talent Award, Best Feature Film | Anocha Suwichakornpong)
LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2016 - Nominated (Golden Leopard, Best Film | Anocha Suwichakornpong)
MINNEAPOLIS ST. PAUL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2017 - Nominated (Emerging Filmmaker Award | Anocha Suwichakornpong)
OSAKA ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2017 - Won (Special Mention | Anocha Suwichakornpong)
QCINEMA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2016 - Won (Special Citation, Asian Next Wave | Anocha Suwichakornpong), Nominated (Pylon Award, Best Picture - Asian Next Wave | Anocha Suwichakornpong)
ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2017 - Nominated (KNF Award | Anocha Suwichakornpong)
SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2016 - Nominated (Silver Screen Award, Best Asian Feature Film | Anocha Suwichakornpong)
THAILAND NATIONAL FILM ASSOCIATION AWARDS 2017 - Won (National Film Association Award, Best Picture, Best Director | Anocha Suwichakornpong, Best Editing | Lee Chatametikool, Machima Ungsriwong), Nominated - (National Film Association Award, Best Supporting Actor | Natdanai Wangsiripaisarn, Best Supporting Actress | 
Apinya Sakuljaroensuk, Best Supporting Actress | Achtara Suwan, Best Screenplay | Anocha Suwichakornpong, Best Cinematography | Ming-Kai Leung, Best Costume Design | Rujirumpai Mongkol)

This film is the first selection in our CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA series.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances outside of our control, we are unable to present this title at this time. We hope to bring the film to Calgary in the new year. 

LOVER FOR A DAY | Dir. Philippe Garrel | 2017 | 76 min
Presented in French with English subtitles.

Lover for a Day is an exquisite meditation on love and fidelity that recalls Garrel’s previous films selections Jealousy and In the Shadow of Women. After a painful breakup, heartbroken Jeanne (Esther Garrel) moves back in with her university professor father, Gilles (Eric Caravaca), to discover that he lives with optimistic, life-loving student Ariane (newcomer Louise Chevillotte), who is the same age as Jeanne. An unusual triangular relationship emerges as both girls seek the favor of Gilles, as daughter or lover, while developing their own friendship, finding common ground despite their differences. Gorgeously shot in grainy black and white by Renato Berta (Au revoir les enfants), Lover for a Day perfectly illustrates Garrel’s poetic exploration of relationships and desire. - Acephale

Awards
2017 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL - Won (SACD Prize (Directors' Fortnight) | Philippe Garrel) 
2017 SAN SEBASTIAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL - Nominated (Zabaltegi Section, Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Prize | Philippe Garrel)

Lover For a Day is the first selection in our CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA series.