Eve Vercel Movies
- 2000
Noted indie filmmaker Beth B. directs this documentary about three Vietnam veterans travelling back to Indochina and confronting their pasts. With their grown family in tow, the three revisit cities, temples, villages, and jungle trails, an experience that proves to be difficult, though revelatory. Through one-on-one interviews, the veterans' children relate their resentment toward the war and the trauma that it inevitably wrought. This film was screened at the 2000 Rotterdam Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- 1997
A dark and claustrophobic film, this brutal, tragic, gut-wrenching drama is set almost totally within the confines of a ship's cargo container that is only 25 square meters in size. It is the grim story of six ill-fated refugees trying to get to Canada from a port in France. The police are in hot pursuit when the septet of strangers are stowed away in the huge metal box. The refugees -- two men, two women and two children -- are of various backgrounds including Gypsy, Russian and Arab. The first of many problems occurs when a mother and daughter arrive with no food (they lost it during a chase). The one Russian refugee, Roman, declares that they should not be allowed to board the ship, but the other three refugees allow them in. Their ordeal begins when the ship breaks down in Liverpool. The layover is hard on the hidden party's food supply. Another breakdown at sea is disastrous, for everyone inside runs out of food and water. Their hunger, thirst and fear causes chaos amongst them, and violence erupts at different points. Finally they become so desperate that they decide they must escape the container or die. Unfortunately, if they succeed, a worse fate may await them on deck, for the ship's crew knows that their employer will face a $5,000 per head fine levied by the Canadian government for any illegal alien that is discovered on board their vessel. As a result, the crewmen have no qualms about doing whatever they want with their unwanted cargo. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ovidiu Balan, Moussa Maaskri, (more)
- 1997
A businessman's day starts out badly and turns into a surrealistic nightmare. Forman is trapped in a traffic jam in the pouring rain when he realizes that he has forgotten to buy a gift for his 10th anniversary. Something goes wrong with his car and he ends up taking shelter in the entrance of a ritzy, art-deco style mall. Just then, a man who closely resembles him bursts out of the door and is killed by a passing car. A little girl appears and lures Forman into the mall. He soon finds himself a prisoner in an increasingly strange place populated by sinister and frightening people. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1996
New Orleans was once described as "the city that care forgot," and at no time does the city set its troubles aside as fully as during the raucous celebration of Mardi Gras. Cutting Loose takes a new look at this venerable Louisiana tradition, from the city's beautiful official parades and festivities to the wilder (but less public) events elsewhere in town and the elaborate parties thrown by the city's wealthy "krewes" (private social clubs). Cutting Loose received the Filmmaker's Trophy for Best Documentary at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
