Cedomir Kolar Movies

A man who is guilty of minor corruption for benevolent reasons comes up against a man deep in major corruption for his own profit in this comedy-drama from director Aktan Arym Kubat. Svet-ake (Arym Kubat) is a good-hearted family man who works for the electric company in a small village in Kyrgyzstan. A number of folks in Svet-ake's neighborhood are seniors on a fixed income, and he helps them out by adjusting their meters on the sly to keep their bills low. Bezkat (Askat Sulaimanov) is a powerful but corrupt politician from the city who wants to make a quick windfall by selling part of Svet-ake's village to a Chinese firm; to help make this happen, Bezkat puts his political muscle to work and sees to it that his unscrupulous relative Mansur (Stanbek Toichubaev) becomes the new mayor. While Mansur is forced to bend to the will of the people when they object to the land deal, Svet-ake assumes this means Mansur isn't a crook, which makes trouble for him when he proposes switching the village over to cleaner and renewable wind power. Svet-ake (aka The Light Thief) was an official selection at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Director Danis Tanovic picks up where the late-Krzysztof Kieslowski left off by taking on the second installment of Kieslowski's "Heaven," "Hell," and "Purgatory" trilogy (the first was adapted by Run Lola Run director Tom Tykwer) with this tale of a family whose dark past returns with a vengeance. Loosely modeled by screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz on the second act of Dante's Inferno, Hell tells the story of sisters Sophie (Emmanuelle Béart), Céline (Karin Viard), and Anne (Marie Gillain), whose lives were turned upside down when their father was imprisoned and their mother was rendered a wheelchair-bound mute. As the estranged sisters are slowly brought back together by a mysterious and handsome stranger who is somehow involved with the tragic events of the past, the questions that had for years gone unanswered slowly begin to drift into focus. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

German filmmaker Tom Tykwer helmed this feature, which was adapted from a screenplay co-authored by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski. Philippa (Cate Blanchett) is a British schoolteacher living in Italy, whose husband fell victim to a drug overdose, as have several of her students. Marco Vendice (Stefano Santospago) is a powerful local drug dealer who sold the dope which killed Philippa's husband, as well as a number of neighborhood teens. Disgusted with the inability of the police to bring Vendice to justice, Philippa takes the law into her own hands, planting a bomb which is intended to kill the dealer. However, Philippa's plan goes awry, and instead the bomb kills four innocent bystanders. Philippa is arrested and brought before the police for questioning, not knowing that the interrogating officer in charge of the case, Pini (Mattia Sbragia), is one of Vendice's secret business associates. More comfortable with English than Italian, Philippa requests a translator, and multilingual officer Filippo (Giovanni Ribisi) is brought in to serve as interpreter. Filippo finds himself falling in love with Philippa, and with his help she's able to escape and go into hiding; however, despite her deep regrets about the loss of four lives in the bombing, she is still bound and determined to see Vendice dead. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A young man learns how hard growing up can be in this family themed drama. Maimyl (Mirlan Abdykalykov), or "the Chimp," is a teenager growing up in a quiet town in the Central Asian nation of Kirgizstan; he gained his nickname thanks to his large, protruding ears. There isn't much for a young man to do in Maimyl's hometown except kill time and wait to be drafted, and as he waits for his call-up for mandatory military service, Maimyl tries to sort out his relationship with his girlfriend and make peace with his father (Dzylkycy Dzakypov), who has a severe drinking problem. However, he soon has bigger family problems to deal with when his mother (Aingul Essenkoyeva) decides she's had enough of her husband's alcoholism and leaves him, taking their younger daughter with her. Maimyl was screened as part of the Un Certain Regard program at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The third feature film of Giacomo Campiotti, previously the assistant director to Mario Monicelli, Il Tempo Dell'Amore (A Time to Love) is an omnibus film of three different love stories that take place in three different eras and locations. The common element is the theme: love causes a lot of pain. In the first episode, we are in South Africa at the turn of the century during the Boer war. Martha (Juliet Aubrey), a forty-year-old English woman, is on her way to visit her brother Thomas (Tam Williams), who is in the army, when the train is attacked by Boers. Peter (Ciaran Hinds), an English soldier, saves her life. This unexpected encounter leads to an impossible love, as Peter happens to be one of Thomas' footsoldiers. In the second story, Paris is under German occupation during the Second World War. Claire (Natacha Regnier), a young French musician, meets Gabriel (Ignazio Oliva), a Russian musician, during a concert performance. Their passionate love affair has limits because of the linguistic barriers, and what begins well ends in tragedy. In the last episode, we are in present-day Italy. Teenager Guiseppe is in a coma following an accident. His classmates take turns by his bedside, but when summer arrives, they all go away. Naty (Natalia Piatti), who is much younger than Guiseppe and somewhat of a tomboy, stays behind and visits him regularly, developing an attachment to the boy even though she knows that, when he recovers, he would not look at her. Il Tempo Dell'Amore tries to create a magical atmosphere in dealing with affairs of the heart, using dreams and nightmares to interpret moods. The first episode is the least successful in terms of building the relationship to its climax. The last episode is the best one, particularly because of excellent acting by Natalia Pitti, who is a natural. Campiotti co-wrote the script with his partner in his previous film, Like Two Crocodiles, the Russian playwright Alexander Adabachian, who has also worked as a screenwriter for Nikita Mikhalkov. Il Tempo Dell'Amore was in competition at the 1999 Locarno International Film Festival. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi

Aktan Abdykalykov made his directorial debut with this semi-autobiographical Kirghizian-French drama set in a rural Kirghizian village where young Adyr plays in the brick mudpits, takes an interest in a girl, and attends outdoor movie showings. However, Adyr's pals reject him when it's learned that he's adopted, and more dark clouds hover over Adyr after a death in the family. Filmed in black and white with color inserts, this film played in several 1998 film fests (Locarno, Montreal, Toronto). ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

A childhood friendship becomes something much more in this Italian outing that begins as an off-beat comedy and ends up an exploration of a rocky romance. The story begins near the Baths of Carcalla in Rome where transvestite streetwalker Desideria hangs around begging for someone to love him/her and only ends up robbed and alone. The baths are a notorious hang-out for hookers and one night the police raid the joint causing Desideria to panic and flee with a cop in hot pursuit. Both end up hanging from a precipice and while waiting to be rescued, discover that they were best friends in school. Later Pasquale, the cop, returns to his provincial home village to consult a priest about what Desideria has become. The well-meaning father suggests that Pasquale help Desideria find redemption and resume life as a heterosexual. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned and Desideria ends up seducing Pasquale. They become lovers but trouble ensues when Pasquale's narrow-minded small-town lover Nellina finds out and tries to fight for his love. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Milcho Manchevski's first feature film is a three-part story of the violence and political chaos tearing apart the newly independent nation of Macedonia (former Yugoslavia). In part one, Kiril (Grégoire Colin), an Orthodox monk, encounters Zamira (Labina Mitevska), a Muslim from Albania. Zamira is frightened and has nowhere to go, so Kiril lets her stay in his cell, knowing that if the authorities find her, his peaceful life will be shattered. The second segment, set in London, concerns Anne (Katrin Cartlidge), married to stable but boring Nick (Jay Villiers) but enjoying an affair with Macedonian photographer Aleksander (Rade Serbedzija); Anne is trying to decide if she should stay with Nick or leave with Aleksander, before unexpected events make the decision for her. The conclusion follows Aleksander back to Macedonia; while he's tired of photographing war, he finds no sanctuary in his home town, as Christians and Muslims wage war and he accidentally causes the death of innocent bystanders. Before the Rain received an 1995 Academy Award nomination as Best Foreign Language Film. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In 1950, Jozef watched the communists assume control over his native Hungary. He was too young to have an opinion about it, but he was mightily impressed all the same. Now it is 1968, and he is a young man. When the Russian tanks come rolling through his village on their way to suppress the stirrings of freedom in Prague, he does what he can to ensure that he's in good odor with those who will inevitably come out on top. This meandering political drama is apparently an exploration of opportunism, but reviewers gave it low marks for clarity of exposition. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi