Amira Casar Movies

Three French women in their 20s wrestle with their feelings about the nature of romance in this drama that chronicles their love lives over a 6 month period. The film opens with scenes that not only introduce the women, they also tell the viewer what is to become of two of them. Marie, who likes having sex with different partners, is a stockbroker. She is first seen climbing a huge tree to tell a portly office messenger of her love for him. Jeanne is married and works as a waitress. She finds her estranged husband in a restaurant. Alice, an art history student, is frigid and has low self-esteem because her father was domineering. She is first seen lying nude on a canvas. An artist pours paint upon her body. The film jumps back six months. The three women are at a local pool engaging in some post work-out girl talk. It is frank, graphic and quite sexual. Sex scenes illustrate their stories. Marie keeps sleeping around while Jeanne becomes a part-time hooker. Alice considers giving herself to a painter who creates tableaux of ecstatic naked women covered in paint. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Noted Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura follows up on his 1999 opus Goya with this wild and woolly reimagining of a 1930s adventure serial from the mind of a surrealist master. The film opens in the present with an aged Luis Buñuel listening to a script pitch about the search for a magical table smuggled from the Ottoman empire to Spain several centuries ago. As the spiel plods on, Buñuel's mind drifts, imagining himself during his prime with his buddies Salvador Dali and Garcia Lorca. The trio search for the missing item of furniture through the winding alleys and sewers of Toledo. Along the way, the actors playing Buñuel, Dali, and Lorca reflect on playing the parts of great artists while engaging in witty banter with one another. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

A newly married attorney accepts the murder case that could establish him as a top defense lawyer, only to find himself hopelessly intertwined with a prime suspect after meeting the mysterious beauty at the scene of the crime. Approached by this brother with a case that seemed especially difficult, ambitious lawyer Lucien Lambert agrees to defend a woman accused of murdering her husband in cold blood. Blanche Kaplan is going to trial for murder. Despite the fact that Blanche has an airtight alibi, the case against her is strong due to the fact that her fingerprints were all over the knife that was used to kill her husband. As Lucien begins to investigate the case by exploring Blanche's home, he happens across a strange but mesmerizing woman named Marguerite who seems to have taken over the abandoned abode. In the days that follow, Lucien and Marguerite enter into a bizarre game of seduction and persecution - often interacting like a married couple as they dine together, discuss the events of their day, and grow increasingly intimate. Later, as Marguerite admits to Lucien that she had been having an affair with Paul Kaplan, plain close policeman Louis Berger observes their actions from afar. Yet despite the fact that her recent confession has made Marguerite a prime suspect, Lucien's view of her has become hopelessly biased since he has fallen completely in love with her. Now that Lucien has become blinded by his feelings for Marguerite, it's up to detective Berger to uncover the truth and capture the killer. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The Sephardic Jewish characters who headlined the riotous 1997 comedy Would I Lie To You? - all employees in the garment business - return for this laugh-filled 2001 sequel. At the center of the farce are Dov (Gad Elmaleh), Patrick (Gilbert Melki), Serge (Jose Garcia), Yvan (Bruno Solo) and Eddie (Richard Anconina), friends for life and colleagues in the said industry, who spend their days wheeling and dealing and establishing connections but run the socioeconomic gamut from filthy rich to lower working class. A series of misunderstandings commences when blue-collar Serge - employed as a motorcycle messenger and living with his parents - takes the wealthy Patrick's blue Rolls Royce convertible out on an errand and runs headfirst into Chochana (Elisa Tovati), a Jewish girl with whom he feels instantly smitten. She naturally assumes, given the car, that he's wealthy - and he of course does nothing to discourage this. In time, Serge manages to prolong the economic ruse to such a degree that he ends up engaged to the high-maintenance Chocana, and on a headfirst collision course with her furniture kingpin father (Enrico Macias). Meanwhile, the garment industry as a whole in Le Sentier (the chief Parisian neighborhood in which the men do business) suffers from a massive economic downturn, thanks in no small part to escalating labor costs and the flourishing of Internet start-ups; in desperation, Yvan and Eddie turn to EuroDiscount, a massive chain of European department stores, with a feeble attempt to sell their merchandise to that outfit. They fail to count, however, on the ugly reaction of the cunning manager, Vierhouten (Daniel Prevost), which threatens to send them spiraling toward bankruptcy. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Gael Morel's drama Les Chemin de l'Oued (Under Another Sky) is about life in Algeria. When Sami (Nicolas Cazale) causes the death of a police officer, his family sends him to help his grandfather (Kheireddine Defdaf) work his farm. Sami is a fish out of water, but soon connects with two very different cousins. Mohammed Majd portrays a drug-dealing hedonist, while Amira Casar plays a widow whose guilt about her dead husband's terrorist activities causes her to do charity work. She touches Sami, but that may not be enough to help everyone out of their difficult lives. Under Another Sky was screened at the Vancouver Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

On a dark and rainy night, a deeply troubled Antonio drives a saddened Laura home from the hospital after witnessing the painful death of her husband (Antonio's best friend), Tomas. In a series of flashbacks, as water splashes down the darkened car windows, Antonio tells her how he came to marry the seductive and murderous Ana. A long-time morphine addict, he met her while she was living in the gorgeous old home of her ailing grandparents. She wanted the house for herself, so when her grandfather told her he wanted to die, she graciously obliged him. Unfortunately, her doddering grandmother is not ready to go, nor is she easy to get rid of. To this end, Ana agrees to marry the impassioned Antonio only if he promises to help murder her grandmother. Antonio says yes, but after the honeymoon ends, he begins rethinking his hasty vow. The painful death of Tomas has not helped him make his decision. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The story of this gay comedy reminds one of the fashionable boulevard theatre of 1950's Paris whose major theme was bourgeois adultery. A couple would invite another couple to dinner, and half way through the second course it would be revealed that the husband was having an affair with his best friend's wife. Pourquoi pas Moi? also starts off with a dinner party, but today revelations come with a difference -- and it is no big deal. Nico, Eva and Ariane are gay and just about to confess it to their parents. Camille, who lives with Ariane, has already told her mother. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

The Brothers Quay return for their first film in a decade with this live-action story of an 19th-century opera singer who is murdered on-stage shortly before her upcoming wedding. Soon after being slain by the nefarious Dr. Emmanuel Droz (Gottfried John) during a live performance, Malvina van Stille (Amira Casar) is spirited away to the inventor's remote villa to be reanimated and forced to play the lead in a grim production staged to recreate her abduction. As the time for the performance draws near, piano tuner of earthquakes Felisberto (Cesar Sarachu) sets out to activate the seven essential automatons who dot the dreaded doctor's landscape and make sure all the essential elements are in place. Once again instilled with life after her brief stay in the afterworld, amnesiac Malvina is soon drawn to the mysterious Felisberto as a result of his uncanny resemblance to her one-time fiancé Adolfo (also Sarachu). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

An Italian woman intent on tracking down the Romany musician who impregnated her becomes lost in a world of Gypsies in director Tony Gatlif's meditative road drama. Convinced that her one-time lover Milan (Marco Castoldi) has been deported by French authorities and determined to let him know about his unborn child, Zingarina (Asia Argento), travels to Romania in the company of her motherly friend Marie (Amira Casar) in hopes of seeking out the elusive musician. Though Zingarina does eventually track Milan to a remote village festival, the rejection she is faced with soon drives the troubled mother-to-be to ditch her friend Marie during the trip back to France. Now wandering the Romanian countryside as her future grows ever more bleak, Zingarina enters into a tentative romance with itinerant trader Tchangalo (Birol Ünel), whose gruff exterior masks a sensual inner beauty. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The life of poet and novelist Sylvia Plath -- one of the most celebrated literary figures of her generation -- is brought to the screen in this controversial screen adaptation. Born in Boston, MA, in 1932, Plath (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) developed a precocious talent as a writer and published her first poem when she was only eight years old. That same year, tragedy introduced itself into her life as Plath was forced to confront the unexpected death of her father. In 1950, she began studying at Smith College on a literary scholarship, and while she was an outstanding student, she also began suffering from bouts of extreme depression; following her junior year, she attempted suicide for the first time. Plath survived, and, in 1955, she was granted a Fulbright Scholarship to study in England at Cambridge. While in Great Britain, Plath met Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig), a respected author who would later become the British Poet Laureate; the two fell in love, and married in 1958. However, marriage, family, and a growing reputation as an important poet failed to bring Plath happiness, and as she became increasingly fascinated with death in her later poetry and her sole novel, The Bell Jar, and after Hughes left her for another woman, her depression went into a tailspin from which she would never fully recover. Sylvia was adapted in part from Birthday Letters, a collection of poems Ted Hughes published in 1998, in which he dealt with his marriage to Plath in print for the first time. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Catherine Breillat's adaptation of An Old Mistress stars Fu'ad Ait Aatou as Ryno de Marigny, and Asia Argento as Vellini, two lovers in 19th century Paris. The two have been passionately involved for nearly a decade, but de Marigny attempts to end their relationship now that he is engaged to Hermangarde (Roxane Mesquida), a respectable young woman. As the bride-to-be's grandmother forces de Marigny to confront his past as a notorious womanizer, the film flashes back to reveal the intense decade the lovers shared. Although de Marigny appears to want to shut Vellini out forever, her passions may be far too much for him to deny. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide