Films that acompany the main programme.

» LETTERS IN THE WIND
(Namehaye baad), Ali-Reza Amini, Iran, 2002, 76′

A woman’s voice is heard and everything changes forever.

• D: Ali-Reza Amini
• S: Ali-Reza Amini, Keivan Nakhaie
• C: Bayam Fazli
• E: Ali-Reza Amini, Behnaz Nourollahi
• SO: Mohammad-Reza Yousefi, Mohammad-Reza Delpak
• M: Mohammad Reza Delpak
• P: Habibollah Kasesaz (Asr-e-h Entezar Film Company, Sheherazad Media International)
• : Mohammad Taghi Hashemi, Faramarz Hashemzadeh

The experiences of a group of army conscripts, mostly illiterate young men from the provinces, are much harder than expected when they were going to join the army for two years. Their training is punishing: a daily grind of rigorous exercise and harsh discipline, conducted in the icy conditions of a mountain base in winter. Back in their barracks, in rare but relaxed moments of privacy, they swap jokes and yearn for contact with their loved ones back home. Taghi, a shy soldier, makes friends with Faramarz on his first day as they get the same punishment. Taghi show him his secret which spreads fast among the soldiers: a small tape recorder he smuggled in on his arrival with a recording of a female voice. When he is granted a 24 hour furlough to Tehran - a city he’s never visited before – Taghi’s roommates record various messages for him to transmit to their families. Once he arrives in the capital, he calls the relevant families and plays for them the messages over the phone. When trying to find the address of a fellow soldier’s uncle, he gets lost in the city and is distracted by the girls. Overwhelmed by the sounds of the metropolis, he records the noise of the city, street music and voices he meets on the way for his fellow soldiers to share when he gets back to the barracks.

Under contemporary social conditions, everything has lost meaning, in one way or another, and it seems that only exceptional circumstances can help give meaning to things. In my film, several individuals are put into special circumstances which promise new experiences. For them, the word «sound» acquires a meaning, by listening to these sounds and trying to visualise them, they begin to see life in a new light. (Ali-Reza Amini)

“Namehaye Baad is Alireza Amini’s first feature. Realising that no Iranian film had ever penetrated «the army’s underbelly», this young filmmaker remembered his own experience as a soldier, when, during the Iran-Irak war, lying in the trenches, he used to listen to a transistor radio and became attached to a particular woman’s voice.” Locarno 2003

Festivals, awards (selection): Toronto 2002, Locarno 2003.

» NIGHTCAP
(Merci pour le chocolat), Claude Chabrol, France/Switzerland, 2000, 99′

The first major appearance of Anna Mouglalis, muse of the new French cinema.

• D: Claude Chabrol
• S: Claude Chabrol, Caroline Eliacheff (po romanu Charlotte Armstrong)
• C: Renato Berta
• E: Monique Fardoulis
• SO: Jean-Pierre Duret
• M: Matthieu Chabrol
• P: Marin Karmitz (MK2 Productions)
• CA:Isabelle Huppert Jacques Dutronc, Anna Mouglalis, Rodolphe Pauly, Brigitte Catillon, Michel Robin, Mathieu Simonet

Lausanne, Switzerland, the present. Marie-Claire ‘Mika’ Muller (Isabelle Huppert), managing director of a chocolate company, is remarrying André (Jacques Dutronc), the concert pianist to whom she was briefly married 18 years before. During their time apart André had married Lisbeth, now dead, and raised his child Guillaume (Rodolphe Pauly). Rumors abound that Guillaume had nearly been exchanged with another baby at birth.

Festivals, awards (selection): award Louis Delluc 2000, Venice 2001.

» ANIMATIONS FROM SOUTH KOREA
combined programme 99′

Overview of the South Korean animation from the past five years,featuring different techniques: from traditional ones (drawing on paper, painted glass, dolls) to the contemporary achievements of computer design.