Set in rural Mexico in the mid-’70s, Don Plutarco is a gnarled farmer who travels with his son and grandson as a band of wandering musicians, making them ideal couriers for the ‘campesinas.’ When their village is taken over by the army, Don Plutarco approaches the squad captain and offers to play his violin every day if he is allowed to go into his cornfields and tend his crops afterwards. A deal is struck with the music-loving officer, and after Plutarco’s performances, ammunition hidden in the fields leaves town inside his violin case. But the threat of discovery and violence looms as the dangerous game of cat and mouse unfolds. (98 mins.)

FOLLOWED BY

THE GREAT MATCH
DIRECTOR: GERARDO OLIVARES
SPAIN, 2006
Soccer is truly “the world’s game,” a fact never so convincingly or pleasurably evident as in this visually vibrant, warmly comic feature. The film revolves around the Herculean quests by indigenous communities in three of the world’s most remote spots—the Amazon, the Ténéré Desert of Niger, and Mongolia—to find electricity, never mind televisions, to watch the 2002 World Cup final between Germany and Brazil. Generous spirit and magnificent cinematography combine for splendid entertainment—not just for soccer fans but for anyone interested in how others live. (88 mins.)

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A suicide bombing in Jerusalem kills a foreign worker at a prominent local bakery. Worried about bad press, the bakery’s owner insists on memorializing the woman and instructs her personnel officer to escort the body back to Romania for a dignified funeral. But who was this woman, and why was she in Jerusalem? As a surreal journey to the backwaters of Romania unfolds, the personnel officer learns more than he bargained for about the woman’s life, bureaucracy, and the “human resources” he himself possesses. (103 mins.)

FOLLOWED BY

HOSPITALITÉ
DIRECTOR: KOJI FUKADA
JAPAN, 2010
Traditional Japanese decorum is strained to the breaking point in this quirky film that gets comic mileage from deadpan performances and ritualized antics. The sedate Kobayashi family’s pet parakeet flies the coop, an event that becomes the catalyst for an open door policy for a host of obnoxious uninvited guests in their tiny duplex. Adultery, public nudity, blackmail, and larceny all become the spice of family life when a new employee works his way into their good graces under false pretenses. (96 mins.)

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Dennis, a painfully shy 38-year-old bodybuilder, has never had a girlfriend and lives alone with his mother in Copenhagen. When his uncle marries a Thai woman, Dennis decides to try his own luck on a trip to Pattaya. He tells his mother he is going to Germany for a competition. In hectic Pattaya, the intrusive Thai girls shatter Dennis’ naive picture of what love should be like. He is about to lose hope when he unexpectedly meets the woman of his dreams. Now if only he can confront his mother ... (93 mins.)

FOLLOWED BY

THE FOREST FOR THE TREES
DIRECTOR: MAREN ADE
GERMANY, 2003
Idealistic and bursting with enthusiasm, Melanie leaves her small-town home for her first teaching job in the big city. Her new neighbors meet her with bemused apathy. At school, her students are beyond her control, and she alienates her fellow teachers by introducing herself as a “breath of fresh air” and bragging about her revolutionary methods. Unable to connect to anyone in her new surroundings or admit defeat and return home, Melanie begins a painful meltdown in this fascinating character study of a woman who simply, achingly wants to belong but doesn’t know how. (81 mins.)

When Chen’s estranged wife asks for custody of their daughter, the musician girl decides she will live with whomever can provide her with a piano. Chen’s struggle thus begins. When efforts to borrow money and even steal a piano fail, Chen concocts a preposterous plan—he’ll make a piano from scratch! He persuades a bunch of reluctant but loyal misfit friends to help him forge the instrument in a derelict factory from a heap of scrap steel. “Artfully blends music, romance, comedy, and just a little social comment. ...thoroughly enjoyable.”—Screen Daily (105 mins.)

FOLLOWED BY

BE WITH ME
DIRECTOR: ERIC KHOO
HONG KONG, 2005
In this tapestry of three stories woven around the themes of love, hope, and destiny, an aging shopkeeper grapples with loneliness until he chances upon an autobiography of Theresa Chan (the famous accomplished deaf and blind Singaporean teacher, playing herself); two teenage girls find a love less ordinary through a flurry of text messages; and a middle-aged security guard decides to bridge the divide between the two loves in life: food and a high-flying professional who works in the same building. (93 mins.)

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ALAMAR celebrates the nearly divine mystery of the love between a parent and child. The young son of a separated couple is sent from his mother’s home in Italy to the Yucatan coast for a summer to be spent working alongside his Mexican father, a fisherman on the idyllic Chinchorro Reef. Intent on teaching Natan about their Mayan heritage, the two live simply on the water among the elements. Diving for fish, cooking, and swimming—father and son experience life at its most essential and form an incomparable bond that will last forever. (73 mins.)

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WHO IS CAMUS?
DIRECTOR: MITSUO YANAGIMACHI
JAPAN, 2005
“In this Altman-esque portrait of the psyche of modern Japan, Yanagimachi follows a group of film students as they make a movie about a seemingly gratuitous murder. As it examines the students’ bickering, betrayal, and sexual cruelty, the film offers a witty portrait of a younger generation so steeped in Western culture that its touchstones are film noir, Michel Houellebecq, and THE STRANGER. This brilliantly made film explodes with cinematic energy, from a sly opening sequence that riffs on THE PLAYER to a powerful finale that reveals depths as dark and mysterious as anything in Camus.”—New York Film Festival (115 mins.)

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