Joël Farges Movies
- 2006
His Evenk friend shot dead by the corrupt politician's thuggish supporters, an eighteen year-old Cossack saddles the recently deceased's pony-sized steed and prepares to make the 4,000 mile trip to St. Petersburg in hopes of ensuring that the czar fulfills his promise to protect the indigenous population of Siberia. The year is 1889, and the malevolent followers of a corrupt governor have offered to trade guns and flour to the Evenks for a special herd of horses. When teenage Cossack Dimitri Pechkov (Aleksei Chadov) sees murderous henchman Bouvarine (Nikolai Smirnov) gun down his Evenk acquaintance, he soon makes it his mission to ensure that no further harm comes to the peaceful tribe. Despite the fact that Dimitri has never ventured beyond the borders of the small village in which he was born, his drive to earn the respect of his distant father prompts the brave youngster to rechristen his fallen friend's horse Serko and brink the matter to the czar's attention. Over the course of the next 193 days, Dimitri finds his noble quest growing increasingly arduous as the fearful governor sets out to insure that his message never reaches the powerful monarch. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Gamblin, Marina Kim, (more)
Jerome Bonnell's Le Chignon d'Olga looks at the lives of a French family after the death of their beloved mother. Her son Julien (Hubert Benhamdine) deals with the grief in part by losing an interest in his musical studies. Daughter Emma (Florence Loiret) begins to experiment with her sexuality. Husband Gilles (Serge Riaboukine) faces a brutal case of writer's block. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hubert Benhamdine, Nathalie Boutefeu, (more)
Hamro (Maruf Pulodzoda) is a thug--an irresponsible lowlife ex-con who seems to care for nothing but his own fleeting satisfaction. He lives in Moscow, but when he hears that his elderly mother, Halima (Uktamoi Miyasarova), is sick, he returns to his hometown of Asht in Tajikistan. He's not greeted with any joy. The townspeople remember him too well, and he owes money to too many of them. The doctor gives him the bad news. Halima will be dead in a few days. Savri (Malkqat Maqsumova), his mother's pretty nurse, tells Hamro that Halima's dying wish is that he fix up her ramshackle home, and replace her narrow door with a double door, so that her casket will fit through. As Hamro works on getting Halima's house in order, and on seducing Savri, his creditors come calling. His abandoned young son, Yatim (Kova Tilavpur), is brought to him by the family of the boy's mother, who forcefully demand that Hamro take him in. After spending a good deal of money to get the house fixed up, in anticipation of selling it after his mother dies, Hamro learns that Halima was faking her illness. As he struggles to find a way to address his many problems, Hamro surprisingly begins to take an interest in his son's well being. Director Jamshed Usmonov, who also wrote and co-directed the festival hit Flight of the Bee and starred as a filmmaker in Darezhan Omirbaev's The Road, set Angel on the Right in his own hometown, and cast his own mother (Miyasarova) and brother (Pulodzoda) in the lead roles. The film was selected for Un Certain Regard at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and the 2003 installment of New Directors/New Films. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Uktamoi Miyasarova, Maruf Pulodzoda, (more)
- 2001
A filmmaker arrives at a crossroads in his life and his art when he learns his mother may be dying in this drama with comedic overtones from director Darezhan Omirbaev. Amir Kobessov (Djamshed Usmonov) is a well-respected filmmaker from Kazakhstan who, both professionally and personally, is suffering from a crisis of confidence. Amir is beginning to wonder if audiences are still interested in his work, and he has a recurring nightmare in which his latest premiere is scotched in favor of a low-budget chop-socky epic. At home, Amir and his wife are not getting along, and both are struggling to keep their marriage afloat. When Amir receives word that his mother is seriously ill, he hops in his car and sets out to visit her in the small village where he was born; along the way, Amir finds himself examining his past as he tries to come to terms with an uncertain future. Jol was screened as part of the Un Certain Regard series at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jamshed Usmonov, Saul Toktybaeva, (more)
The political and social changes that swept China during the 1980s are reflected in the lives of a troupe of musicians in this drama from acclaimed Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke. In 1979, China is beginning to reinvent itself in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, and change is slowly but surely coming to Fenyang, a small town in the Shanxi province. The influences of the West (pop music, longer hair for men, television, privatization) and the adoption of more modern social conventions (birth control, co-habitation, the abandonment of the arranged marriage) begin to slowly manifest themselves in Fenyang, and two young people, Minliang (Wang Hong-wei) and Chang Jun (Liang Jing-dong), find their own lives beginning to change. Chang Jun becomes involved with Zhong Pin (Yang Tian-yi), and they decide to move in together, which is still against the law and earns them the enmity of their parents. Minliang, meanwhile, openly declares his affections to Ruijuan (Zhao Tao), who finds her own feelings about him carrying greater weight than her father's stern objections. The times also change for the musical group , as they shift from the state-sanctioned political material that had been their staple to Westernized pop music, but they find themselves in a no-man's-land, as there is little audience for either their old repertoire or their new material. Zhantai received its world premiere at the 2000 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wang Hong Wei, Zhao Tao, (more)
- 1999
French producer Joel Farges got together with Czech producer/director Artemio Benki and four other young Czech filmmakers to contribute to a series of 20-minute episodes about love in the magical city of Prague at the end of the millennium. Praha ocima was inspired by episode films about cities, such as New York Stories by Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen; but most of all by Six in Paris made by Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, and others. Not all of the five directors of the film come from Prague and their styles are certainly diverse. But they all have an affinity with the city, which is a meeting place of many cultures. Artemio Benki's Riziko (Dive), about a French couple whose relationship ends because, in Prague, she falls in love with a Czech, is narrated in a poetic style. Martin Sulik's Obrazky z vyletu (Pictures from a Trip) narrates the tribulations of a Slovak mother, an aging music teacher who has to accept her daughter's way of life in Prague. Petr Vaclav's bitter but nonetheless romantic Vikend V Praze (Weekend in Prague) is about a Chinese student visiting the city who realizes that her relationship with her French lover is over. Michaela Pavlatova's Absolutni Laska (Absolute Love) re-enacts the affair of two ex-lovers. Vladimir Michalek's Karty jsou Rozdany (The Cards are Dealt) is the bizarre story of a reporter who gets depressed every time he goes to a bar but cannot stop going. The common themes of the stories are the complications of love affairs, tragi-comic barriers to communication, the ingenious ways lovers bridge distances and generally the strange behavior of couples in love. Through the theme of love, Praha ocima also reflects the general welfare of the city's inhabitants. The film was screened at the 1999 Rotterdam International Film Festival. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laurence Côte, Arnaud Giovaninetti, (more)
Filmmaker Ildiko Enyedi, best known for My Twentieth Century, directed this blend of drama and fantasy. Peter Andorai stars as Simon, a magus (mystical magician) who makes his way wandering from town to town. After helping police offers uncover a murderer by using a stale old magician's technique, a rival magus offers him a challenge: recreate one of Houdini's most dangerous stunts, in which he would be buried in the ground for three days. Meanwhile, Simon meets an attractive woman with whom he strikes up a relationship, but while she wants sex, his needs are more spiritual. Simon mágus won awards for directing, acting and cinematography at the 1999 Hungarian Film Week Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Andorai, Julie Delarme, (more)
- 1999
Science fiction, fantasy, comedy, and eroticism meet in this unusual Hungarian drama. Sziraki (Mariusz Bonazewski) is a college professor who is studying ancient alchemist's texts, trying to discover the key to making gold. When a virginal teenager he has become infatuated with helps with his experiments, he discovers her purity is the secret ingredient to the successful formula. However, since the gold evaporates after only a few hours, he has to find a way to make the process stick, all the while avoiding the girl's large and very angry boyfriend. This film was shown as part of the 1999 Hungarian Film Week Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mariusz Bonaszewski, Eszter Onodi, (more)
- 1998
Darezhan Omirbaev (Kairat, Kardiogramma) directed this French-Kazakh film about a young man driven to the precipice in an uncaring world. Marat (Talgat Assetov) works as a chauffeur for a well-known scientist. Driving home from the maternity hospital with his wife Aijan (Roksana Abouova) and their new baby boy, Marat is at fault during a minor traffic accident. The damage payments on both cars put him in debt. Unable to cover costs when the baby gets sick, Marat finds it necessary to follow a gangster's bidding to murder a journalist. Shown in the Certain Regard Section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Talgat Assetov, Roksana Abouova, (more)
- 1996
Told via flashback, this raw, emotional drama chronicles the events that led a 22-year-old Czech Gypsy to prison. Marian was born to an alcoholic father and a terrible mother. As a result he is sent to a government orphanage where he is labelled a problem child for his inability to speak Czech. Life in the orphanage is devoid of love and offers only minimal physical comforts. Sometimes life there is brutal. His one bright spot was the time he first spent with a kindly and encouraging teacher who inspired in him hope for a better future. One day something goes wrong and the teacher is forced to punish Marian who retaliates by stabbing her. Marian is a teen by the time he is released from a juvenile reformatory. He falls in love for the first time, but because it is a foreign emotion, he doesn't know how to deal with it. By this time, the cruelty that has marked his life in institutions seems to have fated him to be a criminal and for Marian there can be no turning back. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stefan Ferko, Milan Cifra, (more)
