Madeleine Gavin Movies

It's no great surprise that making your way into the United States as an illegal alien can be a dangerous business, but for many getting close enough to the border to make the jump is one of the riskiest parts of the journey. A significant number of undocumented immigrants are from Central America and they must cross through Mexico in order to reach the American border. Filmmaker Rebecca Cammisa follows a handful of youngsters as they make their way across the continent with the United States as their ultimate goal in the documentary Which Way Home. Many of the kids travel by train, hopping rides on a rattletrap line known to locals as "The Beast." This is dangerous enough, with the youngsters riding on top of the cars or holding onto the sides when they can't find an open boxcar, but that's hardly the only risk they face, as violence and criminal predators lay in wait for them along the load road into Mexico and the land of their dreams. Which Way Home was an official selection at Toronto's 2009 Hot Docs Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In a bleak future where the borders have been sealed, vast computer networks commodify memories, and corporate warriors have been militarized, a tech-savvy "campesino" from a small Santa Ana farm village discovers a mysterious transmission that seems to be a blueprint for the city of the future. Memo Cruz lives with his family in Santa Ana del Rio, a remote farming community that has recently been hijacked by a private company. Having already taken control of the entire area's water supply, the company is now seeking to sell the precious resource back to citizens at criminal prices. As a result, aqua-terrorist cells have recently formed, with the explicit goal of taking back the water supply by force if necessary. Despite the growing tension in Santa Ana, however, all Memo really cares about is technology. Memo longs to find employment as a node worker in the high-tech factories of the northern cities, and has recently constructed a transmitter that allows him to vicariously experience the lives of others.

One evening, while surfing the local airwaves, the gifted eavesdropper locks onto a forbidden broadcast not intended for the general public -- a broadcast that lays out explicit plans for creating a future that Memo could have never imagined. Subsequently targeted by the government -- which has discovered evidence of his radio intercept and now views him as a direct threat -- Memo must flee to Tijuana after his home is destroyed in a violent remote-control bombing. Memo hopes to find work in Tijuana, and along the way he meets aspiring journalist Luz, a bright young woman in search of her breakthrough story. Later, after selling some of her memories online to a mysterious client, Luz helps Memo acquire the nodes he needs to connect to the network and get a job. As Memo plugs his body into the system and discovers that work in a high-tech factory can be fairly treacherous, Luz works to uncover the identity of her biggest fan, and these three unsuspecting individuals become caught up in a plot that could transform their world forever. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Irena Salina directs this feature-length documentary about the industry and consumption of humankind's most precious resource: water. As African villages survive on potentially toxic water supplies out of sheer necessity, Salina explores how the corporate structure has come to control humanity's water supply, creating a dire situation that experts have come to refer to as the World Water Crisis. With issues of pollution, politics, and human rights all coming to a head with the issue, Salina points the finger at the specific corporate and governmental figures responsible for the crisis, and takes a look at how grassroots organizations work to fight the increasing privatization of water, hoping to end the imbalance in access to the precious resource that has already had mortal consequences for so many. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

A teenage boy tries to hold his family together while the girl of his dreams drives him to distraction in this coming-of-age comedy drama. It's 1978, and Henry Nearing (Gregory Smith) and his family are in a state of flux. Henry's mother has died, and now his father, Shep (David Morse), is trying to find himself by quitting his job, buying a motorcycle, and growing out his hair. Henry's brother, Blair (David Moscow), is similarly trying to expand his boundaries by dating a free-spirited girl and experimenting with drugs. Henry, meanwhile, is just trying to get through high school, but a certain girl is making that difficult for him. Grace Chance (Jordana Brewster) is a pretty girl in Henry's class who enjoys wrapping boys around her little finger; it doesn't take long for her to notice he's smitten with her, and she begins flirting with him and getting him to do whatever she wants, even though she already has a boyfriend whom she has no intention of leaving. Meanwhile, Merna (Ashley Johnson), a cute girl who lives nearby, has a crush on Henry and is clearly a better match for him, but she can't get him to notice her, even after she starts dating an older boy to make him jealous. Nearing Grace received its world premiere at the 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The documentary What I Want My Words to Do to You offers a look at some actual rehabilitation at a women's maximum security prison. Directors Judith Katz, Madeleine Gavin, and Gary Sunshine used high-definition video cameras to capture an emotional reformation process for several incarcerated women. Activist and playwright Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) conducted a writing workshop at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York. Some of the inmates were serving long sentences, including some members of the Vietnam war-era radical political group the Weather Underground. The convicts were asked to contemplate their crime and assess possibilities for their future, even if that means life imprisonment. After the workshop, the stories were then performed by actors with the entire prison population as the audience. The personal stories of the inmates shared a common theme of painful truths and acceptance. What I Want My Words to Do to You won the Freedom of Expression Award at the the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Following up on his critically successful debut, Sunday (1997), which won top prizes at the Sundance Film Festival, Jonathan Nossiter directs this romantic drama about a man obsessed with coincidence, serendipity, and the preternatural. Alec Skarsgard (Stellan Skarsgard) is a Stockholm-born American who lives in Athens and works as a commodities trader. He takes great pride in his ability to perceive patterns and trends in the daily undulations of the market and thereby turn a huge profit. In his private life, he also obsesses over random incidents and occurrences, looking for a deeper meaning in the chaos of everyday life. Though he loves his longtime wife Marjorie (Charlotte Rampling) and their two teenaged children, he finds that he cannot resist the seductive wiles of his co-worker Katherine (Deborah Kara Unger). He soon breaks the illicit affair off in an effort to save the marriage. Yet when he accidentally bumps into Katherine on a family ski trip, believing it fateful coincidence, he leaves with his co-worker and files for divorce. Later, Katherine reveals that she concocted their fortuitous meeting. Aghast, Alec promptly spurns her and returns to his soon-to-be ex-wife. Since she has already taken up with Greek intellectual Andreas (Dimitris Katalifos), Marjorie is less than enthusiastic about reconciling. Meanwhile, Katherine follows Alec and informs him that she is pregnant. This film was screened at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Writer-director Jonathan Nossiter's first feature film is a moody exploration of assaults upon, and shifts in, personal identity. The movie's action all takes place on a Sunday in a poor section of the New York City borough of Queens. Oliver (David Suchet) is a newly homeless middle-aged man who was downsized out of his job as a mid-level functionary at a computer corporation and lost his wife and family because of his employment troubles. Out walking in the borough, Oliver collides with Madeleine Vesey (Lisa Harrow), an out-of-work British actress who is in the process of breaking up with her American husband, Ben (Larry Pine). Madeleine mistakes Oliver for Matthew Delacorta, a famous film director, and Oliver goes along with the mistake, hoping that it will help him to escape his misery. Madeleine hopes that she can make an impression that will land her a film role, so she invites her new friend up to her apartment. When Oliver tells her his life story, she mistakes it for an invented movie plot because Madeleine lives her life in a fantasy world, pretending reality is a film. After the two lost souls have sex without emotion, Ben shows up. He tells Oliver that his recent open-heart surgery wounds were caused by a knife attack from Madeleine. Oliver leaves as the estranged couple argues, but he returns to retrieve his precious winter coat, and he becomes further entangled in the fantasy of a new identity. Sunday won the Grand Jury prize at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Ronny (Alex Wolfe) is a rootless young drifter who insists on carrying his ukelele around with him and playing it at odd times. He is traveling with two highly suspicious characters (Madelieine Gavin and Jeffrey Vance), each of whom has just killed someone and brags about it to Ronny. This doesn't seem to bother him, but the fact that the girl is attached to the other guy instead of him does. Eventually, the girl does take an interest in him, and it begins to look as though Ronny could earn a living with his uke, but he is yet another killer, wanted by the police as a cop-killer. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide