Bembol Roco as Kontra Madiaga

“Manila In The Fangs Of Darkness” (This is not a film by Khavn) will be shown in the section “Stranger Than Cinema” at the Jeonju International Film Festival. April 30 to May 8, 2009. Philippines | 2008 | 72min | miniDV | Color+B&W | Asian | SUBTITLE: English.

SYNOPSIS
From the dark and dangerous streets of Manila, a young man enters the world of violence in order to save the woman he loves, and becomes a murderer. Khavn De La Cruz, the father of Philippine digital films, has produced more than 20 feature films and 70 short films and is prominently featured in many film festivals.

FESTIVAL: http://eng.jiff.or.kr/mprogram/FilmView.aspx?seq=2043

TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOFmzLQgq3U

EXCERPT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL_ZQv5Bi8A

The Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) launches The View From Elsewhere (March 19 – June 13), its first exhibition for 2009, in partnership with Queensland Art Gallery|Gallery of Modern Art.

The view from elsewhere is an exhibition of film, video and installation works reflecting contemporary moving image practice from East Asia to the Middle East. Featuring works by some of the region’s most acclaimed filmmakers as well as an installation of artists’ video work, The view from elsewhere is a must see for anyone interested in the life enriching experiences afforded by contemporary film practice.

“Sydney offers very limited opportunities for dedicated movie goers to enjoy the cinémathèque experience. For three months, SCAF will change this, showing over one hundred movies in the intimate space of our Paddington gallery, and it will be free to all comers. Audiences will be introduced to some of the best films made in the region over recent years that cannot, and will not, be seen in mainstream movie theatres. Cinema has played an important role in the process of cultural renewal in these regions. With the changing socio-political landscapes, a number of talented directors have emerged to reflect upon topical issues of culture in their respective countries…” said Dr Gene Sherman, Executive Director and Founder of SCAF.

“Film is a natural fit with the SCAF philosophy. Low cost digital cameras now mean that movie making is no longer the preserve of heavily funded film production studios – it has become a democratic medium; the essential visual language through which people today communicate. The new wave of Asian filmmakers are using low production values to rigorously explore and interpret the world in a way not seen before.” said Dr Sherman.

Curated by Queensland Art Gallery’s Kathryn Weir (Head of International Art and the Australian Cinémathèque) in collaboration with Mark Nash (Head of Department, Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of London), the movies are as diverse in length as they are in subject matter; ranging from the unrelenting punk-rock driven soundtrack of Khavn De La Cruz’s Squatterpunk (2007), a film about the poverty in the slums of Manila, through to the tender documentary elegiac love story of Hu Jie’s Though I am Gone (2006), a film recently banned in China because it deals with the first death of the Cultural Revolution.

Jia Zhangke’s feature, the hauntingly lyrical Still Life (2006), Golden Lion winner at the Venice Film Festival in 2006, tells a love story filmed against the backdrop of one of China’s most controversial projects, the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. While A House in Jerusalem (1998) by Israeli Amos Gitaï, traces the history of a house in West Jerusalem over twenty years from 1980 and the families that have lived in it during this turbulent period.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi6awU-v9eU

MANILA IN THE FANGS OF DARKNESS
This is not a film by KHAVN

Very likely the world’s most prolific major filmmaker, Khavn makes “filmless films” (his company’s name and his way of defining video-shot cinema) with a madcap energy married to deadly seriousness, tethered to no genre or tradition except his own commitment to radical cinema’s capacity to change audiences. But like his fellow radicals Raya Martin, Lav Diaz and John Torres, Khavn knows his Filipino film history, and honors his cinema godfather, Lino Brocka, in Manila in the Fangs of Darkness —a title pun on Brocka’s classic, Manila in the Claws of Neon, starring the young Bembol Roco as Julio Madiaga, searching for his beloved and endangered Ligaya. The older Roco now reappears as a hybrid character beyond the grave, partly as tragic Julio, partly as brutal Kommander Kontra in Brocka’s Fight for Us, still trying to save Ligaya from the city’s abyss of sex and violence. Khavn’s recent films display Manila as a trap, where the past is perpetually revisited in the present, just as Roco’s past films recycle in his mind as he wanders like Travis Bickle and Orpheus down the mean streets.

BAYAN KO: MY OWN COUNTRY
A film by LINO BROCKA

Lino Brocka, who died in a car accident in 1991, is considered the most important Filipino filmmaker. Maybe we could talk about Brocka’s main creed (of cinema as starting point, at gusts a second, for denunciation, for melodrama, for intelligence) or maybe we could present his Bayan Ko as one of the strongest left-hand punches Ferdinando Marcos’ dictatorship had ever received. Turning the story of a desperate guy who robs in order to support his family into the mirror of a period in time, and, at the same time, translating into the story the fury caused by the then-recent murder of journalist Benigno Aquino, Brocka’s powerful, compromising film brought worldwide attention towards the poor and the marginalized in his country, although, to accomplish that, the director had to smuggle it all the way to Cannes and, as a consequence, lost temporarily his Filipino citizenship. Bayan Ko can be seen as part of a double feature with the latest “filmless film” by Khavn de la Cruz (one of Brocka’s most talented heirs), Manila in the Fangs of Darkness, which is presented in the Panorama section.
 

BAFICI 09: Las 15 sorpresas que recomienda el “anfitrión” 
El director del BAFICI aceptó la propuesta de armar una lista con 15 títulos que, en principio, no figurarían entre los must see de la programación, pero que según él tienen chances de convertirse en las revelaciones de este año.
- MR. ARKADIN, por Sergio Wolf 

Manila in the Fangs of Darkness, de Khavn de la Cruz; y Bayan Ko My Own Country, de Lino Brocka. La relación de esta película con la Manila de Lino Brocka es esencial, en tanto recupera no tanto al actor de aquella película de Brocka sino al personaje que ha quedado adherido al actor, convirtiendo el film precedente en una suerte de flashback de la ciudad y la cultura más que del atormentado personaje. Pero la Manila… de De la Cruz también podría verse como una actualización política del cine de Brocka y en es esentido, no estaría mal armar un vaivén con Bayan Ko My Own Country, la obra maestra de Brocka, que es una de las imperdibles del BAFICI. 
http://www.otroscines.com/columnistas_detalle.php?idnota=2579&idsubseccion=12

BAFICI: BUENOS AIRES INDEPENDENT FILM INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

With over 450 films screened between March 25th and April 5th, the Buenos Aires Independent Film International Festival (BAFICI) positions the capital of Argentina once again as an international screen portraying the latest tendencies in cinema.

Tha BAFICI was born eleven years ago and, ever since then, it has become one of the most outstanding film festivals of the world.

Celebrating its 11th anniversary this year, the new edition of the BAFICI brings  Buenos Aires back to the  meeting point for diversity in cinema it used to be for all the corners of the world.

With the screening of over 450 films, this seventh art celebration is the huge showcase of the latest world film trends. Besides the three competition categories (international, national and short film), the BAFICI offers different thematic segments  organized by the great variety of the featured films, which includes world, argentine and latin-american premieres as well as retrospectives. It will take place for twelve days, from March 25th to April 5th, and will be held in an exhibition circuit of theaters located in different districts of the city.

Tha BAFICI was born eleven years ago and, ever since then, it has become one of the most outstanding film festivals of the world, with significant recognition and a place of privilege in the international film calendar. Along with the Mar del Plata Film Festival, it is Argentina’s most important event on film production.

One of the festival´s more attractive features is its special activities program, which includes debates, seminars, conferences, free outdoor screenings, music festivals, performances and book presentations. Standing out on this occasion is the Talent Campus Buenos Aires, focused on film and music and jointly organized with the Berlin Film Festival. Different seminars and workshops will be held for four days conducted by regional and world prominent professionals, academics, and scholars; they will provide a theoretical and practical framework with the aim of contributing to cinematographic education.

Likewise, the sixth edition of the Buenos Aires Lab (BAL) will be held, seeking to support development and production of independent cinema in Latin America. Professionals from all over the world are expected to attend: producers, international sales agents, distributors, television networks, and endowment funds interested in Latin American cinema.

More over, just as the BAL, the BAFICI will offer again its Industry Office, a service for international and local film industry. Its purpose is to provide special assistance to programmers, filmmakers, producers, and other industry related people to foster dialog between foreign and local participants of the festival.

“MANILA IN THE FANGS OF DARKNESS” LINKS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL_ZQv5Bi8A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOFmzLQgq3U

One hell of an existentialist one-man hard-boiled crime story. Visions from the streets of Manila. Life passes by. Literature can be deadly if taken seriously. Is this how poetic justice looks like? (Tina Lange, Asian Hotshots Festival in Berlin)

ASIA’S BEST SHORT FILMS AT MUMBAI TIMES CAFE
We’re screening a special selection of some of the best short films from Asia this Monday Night. Tina Lange, the curator and director of the Asian Hotshots Festival in Berlin (her festival showcases the best contemporary cinema from Asia) has especially selected these films and will be doing something like a workshop cum talk cum
screening.

WHERE: Mumbai Times Café mumbai.burrp.com
ADDRESS: Fifth Floor, Crystal Shopper’s Paradise, Off Linking Road, Bandra (W). Mumbai, India
LANDMARK: KFC on Linking Road. Walk into the lane.
START TIME: 9pm
END TIME: 12.30am.

SYNOPSIS
Literature is a surreal narrative poem that revolves around a revolver, a forlorn man, heavy traffic, and a book. It surveys the elements of a short story as seen through the eyes of a semi-omniscient speaker, who observes but not moralizes, who talks about possibilities but not the truths, who relishes in both the reportage and the investigation.

CAST AND CREDITS
Starring Farley Alcantara
Directed & Produced by Khavn
Written by Joel Toledo
Cinematography by Albert Banzon
Editing by Lawrence S. Ang
Sound Design by Ria Munoz
Production Design by Lope Cui, Jr.
Voice-over by Ebong Joson
Production Company: Filmless Films

Watch the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrap0TFEBoM&feature=PlayList&p=5781319D93AD27B8&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=5

http://fm4.orf.at/stories/1600882/

Mutige Entscheidungen

Rotterdam ist – das muss man sagen – das europäische Zentrum der philippinischen Filmkultur geworden: da das ambitionierte Team hier jungen bis ganz jungen Regisseuren (einige noch in ihren Teens) die Gelegenheit gibt, ihre oftmals noch unrunden, auch unfertig wirkenden Arbeiten – vorwiegend bis ausschließlich auf DV gedreht – einem großen Publikum zu präsentieren. Dazu gehört viel Mut, denn man lehnt sich weit aus dem Fenster: das Rotterdamer Festival hat einen Namen, muss einen Ruf verteidigen, darf schon mal daneben hauen, muss aber Qualität liefern. So oft wie möglich.

Aber es rechnet sich: surft man durch das diesjährige Programm durch, fallen dem langjährigen Rotterdam-Gast sogleich vertraute Namen auf: etwa Khavn De La Cruz, der von der niederländischen Stadt aus mit seinen Arte Povera-Punk-Digitalfilmen große Teile des europäischen Kontinents erobert hat und mittlerweile auch über seine eingefleischte Fan-Gemeinde hinaus bekannt ist. In diesem Jahr präsentiert er in Rotterdam zwei neue Arbeiten: den Ritualfilm The Middle Mystery of Kristo Negro und den irgendwo zwischen Horror und Pornographie angesiedelten experimentellen Angstfilm Three Days of Darkness.

THREE DAYS OF DARKNESS
This is not a film by Khavn

It made the censors in the Philippines stutter. The filmmaker, in his vision of the Apocalypse as experienced by three women locked in a ghostly house, was not only inspired by horror, but also by porn films. You have been warned.

It was said of the most productive Dutch novelist Simon Vestdijk that he could write faster than God could read. You could say of Khavn that he makes films faster than God can watch. In his speed and productivity, Khavn made Three Days of Darkness twice: the first time with young actresses and afterwards (this film) with more experienced ones in all respects. So it’s a remake of his own film. And the remake is better – or maybe the remake is the original.
The background for the film was borrowed from a text from the New Testament book of Revelations, the mystical and apocalyptic predictions by the apostle John. When the day of divine revenge comes, three days of darkness will fall over the earth. When three women are together in what is undoubtedly a haunted house, the lights fail during the divine storm. Demons emerge in all kinds of forms in the darkness. Fear, yet strikingly also enjoyment, overwhelms the women. This is the start of strange, bloodcurdling and erotic events. The film does not only borrow its inspiration from horror films, but also from porn. As the end approaches, apparently unbridled powers break free; the women surrender themselves entirely to their lusts.
In the Philippines, the censor had no words to describe the alleged filth. However, supporters immediately hailed the film as a cult classic. (Gertjan Zuilhof)

Director Khavn De La Cruz
Producer Khavn De La Cruz
Scenario Aloy Adlawan, Khavn De La Cruz
Cast Katya Santos
Gwen Garci
Precious Adona
Bugz Daigo
Photography Albert Banzon
Editor Lawrence S. Ang
Art design Jeck Cogama
Length 81′

THEMES
2009 Signals: Hungry Ghosts
Horror films and more. The ghosts in these Asian films are real. Viewers and makers certainly believe in them.

SCREENINGS
Cinerama 7 Fri 23 Jan 17:15
Venster 2 Tue 27 Jan 22:30

THE MIDDLE MYSTERY OF KRISTO NEGRO
This is not a film by Khavn

Maybe animal lovers should come in ten minutes too late. Yet the ritual slaughter of a young water buffalo is a powerful start to a sombre and nightmarish film about the Passion of Christ. No, it doesn’t look like that are the film. This Christ has no idea either.

Not everyone can cope with it, but the film opens with what should be an age-old ritual. Several men slaughter and skin an animal in the open field. It’s a young water buffalo that continues to breathe when it hardly has any skin left. The landscape has a biblical appeal and the people are dressed in timeless garb. Less timeless are the Roman legionaries who appear and disappear. A Christ-like figure is left on his own in the empty landscape and starts dragging the carcass of the water buffalo as if it were his cross. He seems to carry all his sins through a hellish landscape that looks as if it were designed in a feverish dream.
Without the Catholic Church, there probably wouldn’t be any such thing as a cult film. The old, theatrical and mystical rituals of the church are a never-ending source of inspiration for film makers who are sensitive to a similarly hysterical rapture or who want to mock the conservative institution.
Although you could expect it from an outspokenly underground film maker like Khavn, in this case one cannot really talk about direct mockery of religion. Is it’s more that he takes the element of self chastising that is part of certain rituals (such as the acted Way of the Cross) one step further and makes the ritual more real than was maybe intended.
The Hungry Ghosts programme also includes the director’s Three Days of Darkness. (Gertjan Zuilhof)

Director Khavn De La Cruz
Producer Khavn De La Cruz
Scenario Khavn De La Cruz
Cast Macoy Duran
Mary Tamayo
Kat Sandoval
Photography Albert Banzon
Editor Lawrence S. Ang
Art design Kristine Kintana, Ma. Krissna Isabelle Cruz, Michelle Ann Frazier, Gladys Melgarejo, Jet Leyco
Length 70′

THEMES
2009 Spectrum
Rotterdam on the wide side. The festival selected topical, powerful and innovative work of the past year by well-known faces and possibly less well-known directors from all four corners of the world.

SCREENINGS
Cinerama 7 Sat 24 Jan 17:15
Lantaren 2 Tue 27 Jan 20:15
Zaal De Unie Fri 30 Jan 19:45

Jan 12, 2009

Berlinale Shorts: 28 Wilful, Disturbing and/or Mollifying Ways to Regard the World

A top-notch international jury – with actress Arta Dobroshi from Kosovo, director of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen Lars Henrik Gass, and Philippine director Khavn de la Cruz – will pick the award winners in this year’s short film section. The Berlinale Shorts will screen 28 films from 17 countries, eleven of which will be running in the Competition, and vying for the Golden and Silver Bears for Best Short Film. The entire programme automatically qualifies for the DAAD Short Film Prize and receives a nomination for Best European Short Film. Markus Kavka will present the awards in CinemaxX3 on February 10.

Germany is making a strong showing this year with five formally complex films. In Christoph Girardet and Matthias Müller’s new film contre-jour, “the way we regard the world and how it regards us in return breaks into disturbing fragments” (K. Tieke). Humorous in the telling, but formally more reticent is Lola Randl’s Die Leiden des Herrn Karpf. Der Geburtstag – a short film about the loneliness and estrangement of the urban individual. Three wilful productions underscore the specialness of Belgium’s narrative culture. And then there’s the East, which is not a country, but a direction. This trend is illustrated by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy’s Diagnoz from the Ukraine and Alexander Karavayev’s Devyat proloyotov vmeste from the Russian Federation, which depict the current political and economic situation in very different ways, as well as Jan Andersen’s vostok’ from France, whose title is already programmatic.

David OReilly, who won Special Mention in last year’s Short Film Competition, is back with his new digital animation Please Say Something, a film about a relationship of another kind. In Birth, Signe Baumane shows how being pregnant can feel. The Indonesian film Trip to the Wound by Edwin, who is a member of this year’s Forum NETPAC jury, will screen out of competition. The film is an artistic and political statement on the freedom of art in times of radical censorship.

The Berlinale Shorts is pleased to announce that the winner of the Prix UIP at the 2008 Berlinale, Darren Thorton’s Frankie (Ireland), won Best European Short Film at the European Film Awards in Copenhagen in December 2008.

The Berlinale Shorts jury:

Khavn De La Cruz (Philippines)
With more than 70 short films and features, this director is one of his country’s most important underground digital filmmakers. De La Cruz, who participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus 2005, is also a writer and musician, as well as director of the Philippine MOV International Digital Film Festival. With his production company Filmless Films, he has made many works, including Mondomanila: Institute of Poets, a surreal cinematic reflection on Philippine society.

Arta Dobroshi (Kosovo)
With her role in the screen drama Lorna’s Silence (winner of Best Screenplay at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival), this young actress achieved her international breakthrough and a nomination for the 2008 European Film Awards. Born in Pristina, Arta Dobroshi has played many stage roles in her country, as well as a leading role in the prize-winning German-Albanian production Magic Eye (2005), a film about the situation in Albania in 1997, when it was rocked by unrest.

Dr. Lars Henrik Gass (Germany)
Lars Henrik Gass studied literature and theatre. Since 1997, he has been director of the renowned International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. Until 2007, he was also a member of the German Short Film Award jury. He has written many essays on photography and film, and teaches at a number of universities and academies. In 2001, Gass published his book “Das ortlose Kino. Über Marguerite Duras”.

The 2009 Berlinale Shorts programme:

I / 83 min
Bric-Brac, Gabriel Achim, Romania, 18 min
VU, Leila Albayaty, Belgium, 25 min (Competition)
Princess Margaret Blvd., Kazik Radwanski, Canada, 14 min
Kain, Kristof Hoornaert, Belgium, 16 min (Competition)
Please Say Something, David OReilly, Ireland, 10 min (Competition)

II / 79min
The Illusion, Susana Barriga Rodríguez, Cuba, 24 min (Competition)
A Mango Tree In The Front Yard, Raveendren Pradeepan, France, 11 min (Competition)
BaDerech Hachutza, Elad Pankovski, Israel, 17 min
Dish, Brian Krinsky, USA, 15 min
Birth, Signe Baumane, Italy/USA, 12 min (Competition)

III / 77 min
26.4, Nathalie André, Belgium, 15 min
Renovare, Paul Negoescu, Germany/Romania, 24 min
Diagnoz, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, Ukraine, 15 min (Competition)
contre-jour, Christoph Girardet, Matthias Müller, Germany,11 min (Competition)
Trip to the Wound, Edwin, Indonesia, 7 min (Out of competition)
The Island, Trevor Anderson, Canada, 5 min

IV / 86 min
Jade, Daniel Elliott, Great Britain, 15 min (Competition)
Karai norte, Marcelo Martinessi, Paraguay, 19 min
Pure, Jacob Bricca, USA, 5 min
Devyat prolyotov vmeste, Alexander Karavayev, Russ. Fed., 20 min (Competition)
Musafir, BW Purba Negara, Indonesia, 17 min
Die Leiden des Herrn Karpf. Der Geburtstag, Lola Randl, Germany, 10 min

V / 90 min
Buenas Intenciones, Ivan Lomelí, Mexico, 18 min
Laitue, Nicholas Brooks, UK, 10 min
Havet, Jöns Jönsson, Germany, 25 min (Competition)
der Prinz, Petra Schröder, Germany, 15 min
vostok’, Jan Andersen, France, 17 min
Mama L’Chaim, Elkan Spiller, USA, 5 min

Press Office
January 12, 2009

http://filmjourney.weblogger.com/2009/01/15/robert-koehlers-best-of-2008/

Khavn’s “Manila In The Fangs Of Darkness” is one of Robert Koehler’s Best of 2008

The Golden Age Continued: The Films That Matter in 2008

By ROBERT KOEHLER
January 15th, 2009

It’s always dangerous to assume anything, but I figured that by now I would have been teased—somewhere, by someone—for having argued more than once over the past couple of years that we are living in a new golden age of film. This position runs so counter to the prevailing mood and sentiment (dour may be one word to describe it) that I know more than ever that I’m right, just as I know that such a contrarian position opens one up for attack. Hasn’t happened. Yet. Maybe it will this time, especially when some films that seem so wildly and widely loved aren’t listed among the year’s films that matter (say, for the helluva it, WALL-E). Perhaps part of the reason for the critical exercise in listing a year’s survey of films is to offer a counter to the pack mentality that swamps North American movie criticism today. (Not a golden age there.) But the central reason is to stake a position in the field of cinema, to defend it, to cite the films made by filmmakers who fathom that we’ve entered a time where cinema’s essence of a greater understanding and feeling for reality through image and sound, a time that runs full circle to the silent era, liberated from literature, from theater, from all of those alien projects that have nothing to do with cinema.

After putting down these titles, especially this year, I scanned down them one more time, hit by a rush of memories: from the (literally) smoke-filled cinemas in Buenos Aires during a horrible brushfire that engulfed the city; to Serge Bozon playing pop records on three continents; to the frozen, exhausted, hulking survivors of yet another year at Sundance; to the shock and dismay at the news of the collapse of FICCO and the excitement of the news of Locarno snatching Oliver Pere from the Quinzaine; to the thrill of the first ten minutes of Ballast and Tulpan and Rail Road Crossing and Afterschool and Hunger and A Good Day to Be Black & Sexy and El Camino and Knitting and a bunch of other astounding films by first-time narrative directors; to the sight of Nicolas Klotz and José Luis Guerín sharing a video camera when Guerín’s was stolen; to the silencing poetry of a new Straub or Reeves in Toronto’s “Wavelengths” section reminding one what beauty actually is; to watching AFI Festival revive and explode as one of North America’s most important festivals after many years in the doldrums; to the complete fun of watching (and hearing news of) my friend and Cinema Scope colleague Mark Peranson gradually make his first film out of the winds of the Canaries and the world created by Albert Serra; to Serra, just Serra, walking around, talking; to the personal frustrations of not being able to share time with my juries in Miami and Mexico City as well as friends in Cannes; and above all, to my wife Marjaneh, who has taught me new levels of courage as she successfully battles breast cancer. (2008 was, in the words of Harvey Pekar, our cancer year.) Being home, with her, and with a ton of screeners from festivals and beyond, made me love the DVD as never before; near to the one I love the most in the world, and able to interact with films in a way—and perhaps, even depth–not possible in the cinema. Make no mistake: the DVD as cinema object is a wonderful thing.

So, after the memories, a sensation: awe. It’s hard to believe that there were so many extraordinary films in one year, so many new voices that came out of nowhere, though perhaps not as hard to believe that so many that have barely been seen in North America, where fewer good films are shown than anywhere else. And still, the films that actually made it to Los Angeles (an increasingly feared destination for small and independent distributors)….and, even more, the films that made it past Homeland Security officials (though not to Los Angeles—thus, the separate US list)….perhaps I should term it the “New York” list, since that’s where those films played more or less exclusive national engagements. As for the World list, a total of 91 is a record. Beware of top ten lists: They reveal nothing about what the critic has seen that year, nor where the critic stands. If you watch all or part of well over 700 films, 91 is relatively brief. Note that some films on the World list have US distribution planned for 2009; I always item films in this section in the year I first viewed them, and if they make it to the US in a subsequent year, I’ll list those fortunate ones again, accordingly. The films are listed in order of preference. Such orders are, like many other things, fluid.

Los Angeles:

Gomorra (Matteo Garrone, Italy)
Ballast (Lance Hammer, US)
My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, Canada)
Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant, US)
Man on Wire (James Marsh, UK)
Still Life (Jia Zhang-ke, China, 2007)
Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredsson, Sweden)
Momma’s Man (Azazel Jacobs, US)
The Unforeseen (Laura Dunn, US, 2007)
Hunger (Steve McQueen, UK)
Alice’s House (Chico Teixeira, Brazil, 2007)
A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin, France)
The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, US)
Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, US)
‘Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris (Raymond De Felitta, US, 2006)
Times and Winds (Reha Erdem, Turkey, 2007)
The Duchess of Langeais (Jacques Rivette, France, 2007)
The Witnesses (Andre Techine, France, 2007)
Shotgun Stories (Jeff Nichols, US, 2007)
The Pool (Chris Smith, US/India, 2006)
Up the Yangtze (Yung Chang, Canada)
A Good Day to be Black & Sexy (Dennis Dortch, US)
Role Models (David Wain, US)
Wonders Are Many (Jon Else, US, 2007)
The Voyage of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao Hsien, France/Taiwan, 2007)
JCVD (Mabrouk El Mechri, France)
Irina Palm (Sam Gabarski, Belgium/Luxembourg/UK/France, 2007)

US:

In The City of Sylvia (Jose Luis Guerin, Spain, 2007)
La France (Serge Bozon, France, 2007)
The Silence Before Bach (Pere Portabella, Spain-Germany)
Fengming: A Chinese Memoir (Wang Bing, China, 2007)
The Secret of The Grain (Abdelatif Kechiche, France, 2007)
Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico, 2007)
Frownland (Ronald Bronstein, US, 2007)
Heartbeat Detector (Nicolas Klotz, France, 2007)
Paraguayan Hammock (Paz Encina, Paraguay, 2007)
Tirador/Slingshot (Brilliante Mendoza, Philippines, 2007)
Opera Jawa (Garin Nugroho, Indonesia, 2007)
The Romance of Astrea and Celadon (Eric Rohmer, France, 2007)
Wonderful Town (Aditya Assarat, Thailand, 2007)

World:

Liverpool (Lisandro Alonso, Argentina/Spain/Netherlands/France/Germany)
El cant dels ocells/Birdsong (Albert Serra, Spain)
Tulpan (Sergey Dvortsevoy, Kazakhstan)
Still Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan)
Il Divo (Paolo Sorrentino, Italy)
Revanche (Götz Spielmann, Austria)
Good Cats (Ying Liang, China)
The Feature (Michel Auder/Andrew Neel, US)
Survival Song (Yu Guangyi, China)
Our Beloved Month of August (Miguel Gomes, Portugal)
Delta (Kornel Mundruczo, Hungary)
Night And Day (Hong Sangsoo, South Korea)
When It Was Blue (Jennifer Reeves, US/Iceland)
RR (James Benning, US)
United Red Army (Wakamatsu Koji, Japan)
Rail Road Crossing (Pere Vilà, Spain, 2007)
Le Genou d’Artémide (Il Ginocchio di Artemide, Jean-Marie Straub)
Circus School (Guo Jing/Ke Dingding, China, 2007)
El Camino (Ishtar Yasmin, Costa Rica)
Respite (Harun Farocki, South Korea, 2007)
Perfect Life (Emily Tang, China-Hong Kong)
The Longwang Chronicles (Li Yifan, China, 2007)
Correction (Thanos Anastopoulos, Greece)
La vie moderne (Raymond Depardon, France)
This Longing (Azarr Rudin, Malaysia)
Jalainur (Ye Ziao, China)
Now Showing (Raya Martin, Philippines)
Four Nights With Anna (Jerzy Skolimowski, France/Poland)
Tokyo Sonata (Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Japan)
Drifter (Cao Guimarães, Brazil, 2007)
Afterschool (Antonio Campos, US)
All Around Us (Hashiguchi Ryosuke, Japan)
Better Things (Duane Hopkins, UK/Germany)
Megane (Naoko Ogigami, Japan)
La Rabia (Albertina Carri, Argentina)
Crime and Punishment (Zhao Liang, China/France, 2007)
35 Rhums (Claire Denis, France/Spain)
Knitting (Yin Lichuan, China)
Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas, France)
Revue (Sergei Loznitsa, Germany/Russia)
Where Are Their Stories? (Nicolas Pereda, Mexico/Canada)
Treeless Mountain (So Yong Kim, South Korea)
The Juche Idea (Jim Finn, US)
Los Bastardos (Amat Escalante, Mexico)
Loos ornamental (Heinz Emigholz, Austria/Germany)
Waiting For Sancho (Mark Peranson, Canada/Spain)
Lake Tahoe (Fernando Eimbcke, Mexico)
Sweet Food City (Gao Wendong, China)
Los Herederos (Eugenio Pogolvsky, Mexico)
Chouga (Darezhan Omirbaev, Kazakhstan/France)
Megatron (Marian Crisan, Romania)
We (Huang Wenhai, China)
The Infinite Border (Juan Manuel Sepúlveda, Mexico)
süden (Gaston Solnicki, Argentina)
Cry Me A River (Jia Zhang-ke, China/Spain/France)
She Unfolds by Day (Rolf Belgum, US)
mime-mime (Sode Yukiko, Japan, 2007)
Jogo de cena/Playing (Eduardo Coutinho, Brazil, 2007)
10+4 (Mania Akbari, Iran, 2007)
Fragments of Conversations with Jean-Luc Godard (Alain Fleischer, France, 2007)
Sonetàula (Salvatore Mereu, Italy/France/Belgium)
Como estar muerto (How To Be Dead) (Manuel Ferrari, Argentina)
Plot Point (Nicolas Provost, Belgium, 2007)
Largo (Mark Flanagan/Andrew van Baal, US)
Manila in the Fangs of Darkness (Khavn, Philippines)
Historias Extraordinarias (Mariano Llinas, Argentina)
Voy a explotar/I’m Gonna Explode (Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico)
The Rebirth (Kobayashi Masahiro, Japan, 2007)
The Rabbit Hunters (Pedro Costa, South Korea, 2007)
The Equation of Love and Death (Cao Baoping, China)
Correspondences (Eugene Green, South Korea, 2007)
Kaza-ana (Uchida Nobutero, Japan, 2007)
Jerrycan (Julius Avery, UK)
The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel, Argentina)
Possible Lovers (Raya Martin, Philippines)
Box Office: Next Attraction (Raya Martin, Philippines)
Recycle (Mahmoud Al Massad, Jordan/Germany/Holland)
Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell (Matt Wolf, US)
Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains (Gonzalo Arijon)
Goliath (David Zellner, US)
L’Aimee (Arnaud Desplechin, France, 2007)
Years When I Was a Child Outside (John Torres, Philippines)
Parque Via (Enrique Rivero, Mexico)
Quemar las naves (Francisco Franco, Mexico, 2007)
24 City (Jia Zhangke, China)
Return to the Scene of the Crime (Ken Jacobs, US)
The Legless Boy Cannot Dance (Michel Lipkes, Mexico)
Dernier Maquis (Adhen) (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, France/Algeria)
Mock Up on Mu (Craig Baldwin, US)
Sonic Youth: Sleeping Nights Awake (Michael Albright, US)
God’s Puzzle (Miike Takashi, Japan)