When we first meet David (Camilo Pinto) he is in a desperate state – homeless, friendless and penniless. But, something kept him going. Struggling against his weakness and desperation, he presses on the goal only known to him. He doesn’t mind the state he is in, or the looks he gets from the people around him, what matters most is his end game – finding whom he seeks. But the end of his road is again a disappointment – the woman Yarida (Luz Angela Poveda) who opens the door he staggered to is not the woman whom he is looking for.

The director of the movie chooses to put the viewer in the same position as the characters: confusion. For the better part of the movie I was trying to piece the puzzle of David and whom he is searching for so desperately. But, alas, most of my questions stayed unanswered; we never find out whom he is looking for, where has he been or what has happened to him.

The mysterious vibe of the film is what keeps the viewer watching, even though the overall atmosphere of the movie reeks of negative emotions and people. Everything seems slowed down by some sort of invisible weight that presses down on everyone, like the weight of the sin done by Jairo (Ivan Alvarez) that no amount of kindness David gets from the children or Yarida can erase. From the moment he realized the Jairo is to blame for the disappearance of the woman he seeks, his character is only driven by the need for revenge. This revenge is the driving force of the rest of the movie. It is the only thing that keeps this particular and unexpected set of characters together – David, two local children who helped him and Yarida, a woman who feels guilty for the sins of her cousin. When the culmination of the movie ultimately comes, there’s nothing else left but for these characters to part ways.

The grays and other dark colors which dominate the shots add to the uncleanness and desperate feel of the movie. The overall atmosphere of the movie is very depressing. While the camera work, photography and sound were top notch, acting, script and directing could be better. Children actors and Ivan Alvarez were particularly stiff and unconvincing. But overall, Nicolás Olivera has done a good job.

Nikola Gavrilović

The Weekend tells the extraordinary story about a young man (Taso Mikroulis) helping a complete stranger (Danielle Guldin).

Two main motifs of this short film are aloneness and kindness. Aloneness is steadily fed to the audience from the first scene to the last. It underlines every decision that two main characters make, conscious or unconscious. It is shown through the sets chosen for each scene – loneliness in a crowd of people in the café in the first scene, the deserted pier where the main characters meet for the first time, the sadness of a once shared space of the young man’s apartment that is now only him, and the bathroom escape from the aloneness that the girl seeks in her addiction. It is a universal human emotion that everyone can relate to and everyone has experienced at least once in his/her life. But what the “Weekend” shows us is that aloneness doesn’t have to always be a negative, or a bad thing. With a little nudge of simple kindness, it can grow into contemplative state, it can bring peace, quiet and center a haggard and tired mind.

The young man did not have to help the young girl who abused his welcome in his own home. He could have called the authorities when he found her unconscious on the floor of his bathroom. But he didn’t. Maybe he saw a bit of his own pain in her, maybe he recognized a fellow tortured soul who reached out for help. Maybe he felt responsibility for enabling her, or maybe he needed to feel needed by someone. Maybe he simply wanted to share kindness and hope, hoping that someone would one day do the same for him. I don’t know his true motivation, but I want to believe that even if all the aforementioned theories were true, that kindness was the most important one.

Both actors, Taso Mikroulis and Danielle Guldin, are gentle and unobtrusive, yet they perfectly get the emotions across to the viewer. Their chemistry is just right, complementing each other and the atmosphere of the whole movie. Even though the theme is quite dark and depressing, Cahlo managed to end it on the lighter note, with hope and positive outlook on the kindness given and kindness taken. The movie is finished in a circular fashion: in the end we find the young man in the same place – still alone in the crowd of a busy café, but not fighting his aloneness anymore.

Nikola Gavrilović

Directed by: Federico Olivetti
Script by: Luciano Colavero, Carlo Orlando, Giacinto Palmarini, Federico Olivetti
Played by: Giacinto Palmarini, Ilaria Natali, Silvia Luzzi
Photography: Tiziano Casanova

“The Guest” tells the story of a man who, after the loss of his father, seeks comfort in a little bed and breakfast run by a harsh mother and her ficle young daughter, Orsola (Ilaria Natali). The guest (Giacinto Palmarini) soon discovers that the relationship between mother and daughter is rotten and filled with verbal and physical abuse. In a morbid twist of the story, instead of a hero, the guest turns out to be a villan, first enjoying, and finally even taking part in the abuse.

Federico Olivetti’s „The Guest“ is maybe closer to the real life sitations – since the domestic abuse is at best ignored, at worst perpetuated by those who dicovered it – but one can not miss the morbid feel of the movie. Giancinto Palmarini’s character enters the movie with the feeling of loss which the viewer attribute to the recent loss of his father. But soon, we have to wonder if his sadness was more due to the loss of a victim than to a loss of his father. When the guest first learns about the abuse his shock is soon replaced by excitement and he keeps making sure that Orsola is further punished. When you watch the film for the first time, you are inclined to forgive him this behavior at first on the account of grief and confusion. But on the second watch, Guest’s struggle looks more like releaving the past abuse, wheater he was the victim or the abuser. And when he decides to go back to Orsola to „finish the job“ his eagerness and calmness tells the story of a man who’s not doing it for the first time.

The movie sets and photography are very good. The atmosphere they made is artsy, vintage and melancholic. The script left a lot of holes for the viewer to fill, especially when it comes to the characters’ motivation. It is hard to watch a movie twice to understand all the emotions and nauances. Iliria Natali and Giancinto Palmarini gave great performances – it can’t be easy telling a story about abuse and emotional instability. All in all, although the theme’s very heavy the mood and atmosphere of the movie was spot on.

How many times a day do we judge someone? We look what they’re wearing, what they’re driving, how they walk, or stand alone in the corner perhaps and it takes us all of 3 seconds to pass a judgment: stuck up, rude, stupid, uneducated, smart, beautiful…the list goes on. “Bohemian Like You” deals with this flaw and all of its aspects in short 8 minutes beautifully.

Billy, the Bohemian bookworm who for some reason or another works as a street sweeper, finds himself pigeonholed into uneducated and rude bunch first by a well to do “gentleman” (who is, ironically, rude himself) and then by his colleague. Both are unable to see Billy as anything more than a street sweeper, who is below or the same as them, respectively. And, although Billy is piqued by these judgments, he can’t help but judging himself – by idealizing Annie, the girl he sees everyday carrying a different book. He demeans his own sense of worth by thinking to himself – that girl is better than me, although he doesn’t know anything about her. Of course, he doesn’t escape her judgment also, which will eventually change by the end of the movie, even though she is portrayed as “ideal”. Her first judgment of Billy is a result of his colleague’s behavior, who yells profanities at her in the middle of the street. And although Billy’s just a stunned observer of this event, she still perceives him the same as his coarse colleague, because he happens to be with Billy. Even when he runs to apologize to her for his colleague’s behavior, her first reaction is to attack him, to yell all the insecurities and self-righteousness without stopping for a second to think about his motives for following her. Although her anger is justifiable to a point, she also falls into the same trap as everyone else – coarse judging a person based on a few sort-of-true facts she believes she knows about him.

The film is short and to the point. Even though some characters are true caricatures of people we could meet on the streets, their flaws amplified to get the point across, the storyline is smooth and believable. Dialog is free flowing and natural and Billy’s train of thought is easy to identify and sympathize with. It will leave you wondering how many street sweepers you have looked down on, and how other people perceive you. This insecurity is well known to anyone, no matter how successful (or not) they are. We are masters at deceiving ourselves into not having faith in our own abilities and character, and we are constantly frightened of people we don’t know. What if they are better than us, smarter, more eloquent, more well read? This fear of unknown is what made human beings excelent at quick judgment and „boxing up“everyone and everything. If I assign you a label, which carries a set of characteristic and „truths“with it, than suddnely you aren’t so scary anymore, are you? You are just another „Bohemian like me“.

Even though communication was never easier, with Internet and smart phones, people have never been more disconnected from one another. Obsessed with the need to earn more, buy more, have more, we find ourselves forgetting to enjoy the time we spend with our loved ones. “Reconnection” is a story of a man (Sean Fletcher) so caught up in his work and online life, that he forgot to live. After everything seems to be falling apart, he takes the advice from Govinda Swami and visits the enchanting Vrindavan hoping the find new direction, to become less lost in the world. After the initial struggle with the burden of technology in an otherwise technology-less world of Vrindavan, he starts learning how to experience the world around him not through the technology, but through his own senses. He realizes that “the Internet is a pretty handy tool, you can get anything you want. But it can’t make you feel what it’s being pounded on by the kids nor the sensation of a cow’s tongue on your skin. Some things you just can’t Google.” Only by letting yourselve feel the world around you, by admiting your flaws and your mistakes to yourself you can hope to begin to right your wrongs and live your life as opposed to observing it through the camera lense.

The other major theme of the movie is love – the selfless, all encompassing love, that humbles gods and men alike. At first it strikes him as odd that the poor people of Vrindavan seem so eager to share with him what little they have, wanting nothing in return but his open mind to try all of his senses. Those little things, like eating a meal prepared on the open hearth of a humble home with his bare fingers, feeling all the textures and tastes and smells completely, are what shook him the most. It is here that he realizes how much her wronged the woman he loves the most, by listening to the simple truth of stories about Krishna and Radha. As he realizes that the man was made to love, freely, without bonds or anything in return, he gathers strength to right his wrongs, much like Krishna did to get his Radha back.

One could say that there are two lead roles in “Reconnection” – Sean (Armand Gachet) and Vrindavan – the mystical village of temples, rich in spirituality, simple life and that special energy that brings good to everyone who visits. Humble in its apparenceVrindavan is not trying to awe you by grandeur of white temples and impeccable nature. What it offerse is healing experience through helping others and sharing your life and love with them. The movie invites adventurers, roamers and all who might have lost their way to come and visit. After all, the only reason to leave Vrindavan is to tell others about it. With this movie, those who have found peace in Vrindavan, don’t have any more reasons to leave it ever again.

Even though the first association when someone mentions ballet are beautiful, dainty girls in tutus, ballet is certainly not for the faint of heart and body. The years and sheer strenght one needs to seem so efforlessly graceful are extremely hard and unforgivable. One wrong move, one bad jump, one injury too many and a ballerina could become stuck at the sidelines, watching all those months of practicing go to waste, unable to dance ever again. The stakes, training and competition are so grueling and cruel that comparing it to professional assassination isn’t so far fetched. And who would believe that something so hauntingly beautiful could possible be heart-breaking.

The story is about Anna (Christine Perkins) an already aging ballerina, who doubles as a hit man for the director of the troop. When she gets a new understudy Grace (Emelia Perkins) she doesn’t suspect for a minute that she’s been betrayed. But much as in a ballet, she’s lead into a trap that almost costs her her life. She barely escapes and exacts her revenge during the last act of the show.

The motives of betrayal, revenge, subterfuge are quite common in the theater world, both in operas and ballets. The movie successfully borrows exactly the things that people love about these overly dramatic genres. This model has already been proven good time and again by numerous great films, most recently in the Oscar awared „Black Swan“. The world of these beautiful creatures and their extraordinary lives is something ordinary people seem to crave to understand. The more extraordinary it is, the better. Ballerina turned hitman is as extraordinary as it can possibly get.
The storyline of a hit man ballerina is nicely wrapped around the storyline that is unfolding on the stage and the few cliches (the evil Russian director of the troop) can be forgiven. The action scenes could have been practiced more, and the marks could have been a bit less caricatures of mobsters. The struggles in the backrooms of the theater are a little stiff and cartoonish, but sort of plausable. Dialog is sometimes overly dramatic, especilly the inner monologue, but it somehow fits well with the overly dramatic setting of the theater. The audience wants to know how extraordinary these theater poeple are, so they are willing to believe that their lives away from the stage is just as dramatic as the shows that they take part in. The effort of all the ballerinas hired to give more credibility and atmosphere of the movie is applaudable. All in all “Bullets and ballet” offers as an entertaining fictional view of a ballet troop, that given the amount of competition and physicality of the art, might not be too far from the truth. If you are ready to overlook the few flaws and the low budget of the movie production, you are in for an exciting ride through the lives and minds of point shoes, theater, classical music and ofcourse dramatic story worthy of the stage.

Refugees, immigrants and immigration in general have been an extremely important topic in the last couple of years. With the political instability in certain parts of the world, many people are left struggling to survive. It is often forgotten that bullets and bombs are not the only cause for this struggle. People need economic stability, jobs, schools, infrastructure, safety for their children and families so they can live normal and healthy lives. This economic instability is the number one reason for immigration from different countries around the world, and El Salvador is one of the leading countries by the sheer number of immigrants. Being a part of the Organization of American States, it is only normal for people from El Salvador to look up to USA for a better life. Families get separated, parents working illegally for minimal wages so they can hope to reunite with their children in the States. And why do they have to do it illegally? Because the USA has time and again showed its bigotry when it comes to immigrants – they are quick to criticize other countries’ relationship towards immigrants, but aren’t prepared to deal with immigrants themselves. And when we take into account that the USA was founded by immigrants, the bigotry is even bigger. How are people from El Salvador today different from the pilgrims that came to America on the Mayflower, beside, you know, not having the murderous intent to conquer the lands?

“La Liberacion de Alexis” points out all of these problems through the story of one boy, Alexis, who found himself in the cross-hairs of someone else’s conflict, separated from his parents and the rest of his family and in danger of losing his life. It took Isenberg Center for Immigration Empowerment more than 9 months of red tape war to get all the appropriate permits to bring the boy to USA. Through this almost movie-like real life story, the viewer can’t help but ask him/herself – are we really that self-entitled to believe that we are better than someone else, have more right for a decent life than someone else, just because we had the luck to be born in the USA or UK or Germany? Why are we so afraid of the “others”? Is it because we are frightened that they are going to be more hardworking or able to lead better bussinesses and earn more than us? Or is it because we don’t want our children to hang out with „them, even form multiethnical families with „them“? How is that different from the believes the Nazis had when they planned and executed genocides?

Although the movie doesn’t offer any solutions for this problem, it instigates us to use our common sense and try to conquer the unjustified fear and see the immigrants for they truly are – normal people trying to live a better life. Only when we finally stop stereotyping, fearmongering and deciding peoples worth sticktly based on the color of their skin or the name of the country written in their birth certificate can we hope to put the wars behind us.

The first thing that grabs attention in the esoterically titled Pages 321 is its visual style. Stripped down, black-and-white, it establishes an unflashy hipness that seems pried from the pages of a recent hip hop video. Fortunately, director Anugat Raj is seeking anything but commercial flair in this, a bizarrely fragmented journey into the mind of a hyper-afflicted hippie.

The similarities to Darren Aronofsky’s indie gem Pi (1998) are wildly prevalent, right down to the obsessive scribbles and increasingly frantic voiceover. The Writer (Saurav Khurana), bespeckled and blessed with a Middle Eastern accent that drips like verbal butter, guides the protagonist’s unclear goal to areas that seem prime real estate for existential musings or profound social commentary. With influence, style, and acting chops coming together quite smoothly, it seemed as though Pages 321 was in the perfect position to impress its viewers. Sadly, things falls apart quicker than a torn bungee cord.

It’s tough to pinpoint where things exactly go wrong. The Writer makes some food on the stove, scribbles of profound aspiration in his journal, and before you know it, alternate character Vicky Khanna (also Khurana) loses his specks and soliloquies to himself out loud. The order and expediency of such events are startling, and serve to belittle the potent mood conjured up by Raj and cinematographer Keshav Gupta. Between the two of them, Writer’s apartment is marvelously caked in monochromatic shadings, calling to mind something out of a Woody Allen-Gordon Willis flick. As a result, Pages 321 seemingly falls to the classic case of technical craft over content – the age old plague of low-budget cinema.

By the time Vicky gets groovy and jams to Lou Bega’s “Mambo No. 5,” all tension has evaporated into the apartment’s thick air. Not even kidding, he does what every little kid did in 1999 by snagging a top hat and lip syncing the song awkwardly to himself. And while it’s cute for those under the age of ten, such behavior can become a bit unsettling in the context of a thirteen minute film. What the director was thinking is a glorious mystery unto itself, one that proves far more intriguing to engage than The Writer’s nonexistent conflict.

This ¾ backslide goes on far too long, despite the flawless efforts of Mr. Bega, before returning to a storyline that struggles to find its ground again. Vicky lights a cigarette and navel-gazes as if the whole thing were a bad trip, while, confounding images of clenched hands and female fingernails throttle this thing towards Persona (1996) levels of avant-garde imagery. It’s gutsy and exhilarating to experience, but without a thread to hang a hat on, it’s ultimately futile.

It’s a real shame too, for Raj has some good ideas sprinkled throughout this messy display. The camerawork can come off a bit shoddy in spots (with the occasionally shaky moment), but the yearning to express something great bleeds through each uneven frame. There’s a promising future here, just not one that’s delivered with Pages 321. D

As a storytelling tool, narration has intertwined with cinema since sound first came about. Whether film noir, flashbacks, or stressed emotional emphasis a la Terrence Malick, they’ve proven to be a bit of a double-edged sword by modern standards. And it’s easy to see why; voiceovers can often find themselves butting heads with the imagery, thwarting nuance and subtlety with a character that explains the whole damn thing. Thankfully, such a trap is avoided in Equal Measure, the sleek mystery from writer/director Michael Salmon.

Cutting to the chase with an omnipresent voice, Measure quickly establishes a tone of urbane wittiness. Jimmy Kendall (Peter McPherson), a London slickster with the sharp duds to match, overlays the audience with one detailed observation after another; akin to a career criminal scoping out a joint. The glitz, the glamour, the parties that only a pal like Gerald Windham-Wade (Guy Wah) can throw, all succulently laid out in a memory match game of mise-en-scene. Salmon, sporting a hazy romanticism to his framed edges, establishes a world that’s highly desirable in scope – the kind of shindig that Jay Gatsby would be proud to attend.

Aided by a silently floating camera that follows Jimmy’s smug activities, the film kicks things up a notch with the introduction of ravishing redhead Anna Berisford (Jessica Duncan). Channeling a cockney inflected Amy Adams, the actress goes toe-to-toe with our main character in a verbal display both pleasing and impressively assured given its indie origins. So often focus is put upon technical aspects, and it’s refreshing to find a film that maintains its professional look while tearing through some truly delicious lines.

This rooftop exchange, Sin City-esque in its visual flair, tosses about barbs dealing in heat, weather, and having “good lucks and a personality” to boot. It’s all very wry in that classically U.K. way, leaving the floodgates open for both performers to excel. Taking their tangible chemistry to the streets, the twosome continue ringing off bloody brilliant bon mots while developing a cutesy attraction seemingly genuine in spirit. Kendall, landing somewhere between Clive Owen and a spry Christoph Waltz, provides just enough narrative luster to survive Equal Measure’s rather underwhelming finale.

Picking things up the following morning, Jimmy reveals himself to be a daytime con man, hocking watches and sales-pitching locals on stuff that’s obviously low quality in content. Though it’s clearly convinced of its cleverness, as evidenced by the glitchy techno score and smug narration, it ultimately feels like a cop out to the dozen minutes that preceded it. The actor’s winning charisma remains, but the visual and narrative magic that cast its spell over the evening turned back into a pumpkin just in time to sap the film’s overall effect. Salmon has got lots of gifts as a filmmaker, and his excellent ear for dialogue is not to be missed. Judging from the fact that this it’s passed off as part 1 of a larger story, Equal Measure still has a chance to rectify this mistake. Hopefully Salmon does so next time viewers see him.