Vesna Jovanoska Movies
- 2004
A man in need of a miracle learns that the hospital will help those who help themselves in this satiric comedy. Jesus (Augustin Mendieta) is a low-level office worker in the Bolivian government who one day suffers a heart attack and ends up with a long and unexpected stay in the hospital. Adding to Jesus' problems, his wife decides to leave him while he's in recovery, and by the time he gets out he literally has debts he could never hope to pay. However, Jesus discovers there's another patient at the hospital who has the same name -- and who happens to have unlimited insurance coverage. By forging a few papers, Jesus is able to get his bills paid by the other Jesus' carrier. However, insurance investigator Duran (Julio Kempff Suarez) soon figures out that something isn't right, and as the two patients are shuffled from one ward to another in a bid by Jesus to keep from getting caught, Duran steps up his insurance fraud investigation. El Corazón de Jesús received its North American premiere at the 2004 Los Angeles Latino Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Augustin Mendieta, Melita del Carpio, (more)
Love and war divide two brothers in a drama from award-winning director Milcho Manchevski, his first since his acclaimed 1994 debut Pred Dozhdot. After an elderly woman (Rosemary Murphy) gets the better of a burglar (Adrian Lester) who has broken into her apartment, she decides to tell him a story about her family to give him a perspective on an individual's legacy to their family. Luke (David Wenham) and Elijah (Joseph Fiennes) are brothers and cowboys in the American West near the turn of the century. Luke and Elijah are both in love with Lilith (Anne Brochet), a woman who works in an upscale brothel, and when Elijah marries her, it puts a permanent rift in his relationship with his brother. Luke leaves the country and travels to Macedonia, where he becomes involved with a group of resistance fighters who are trying to topple Turkish occupation of their land; a skilled gunman, Luke soon becomes a valuable member of the Macedonian nationalist forces, and falls in love with Neda (Nikolina Kujac), a woman fighting alongside the loyalists. However, Luke discovers he can't entirely leave his past behind when he discovers Elijah has become a hired gun who has joined the Turkish forces. Dust was the opening night attraction at the 2001 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joseph Fiennes, David Wenham, (more)
Can a working-class wife find happiness through the discipline of sumo wrestling? After half-bright layabout Kenny (Lee Ross) loses his job, he tries to persuade his wife Daisy (Charlotte Brittain) to bring in some extra income by posing for nude photos. Daisy, who is more than a bit overweight, hardly regards this as either amusing or practical, and instead takes a position at a canning plant. Daisy doesn't much care for the work, but dutifully does her job until her boss Marlene (Annette Badland) approaches her with an unusual request. It seems Marlene is a member of a group of women who are fascinated with Japanese culture, and they've taken it upon themselves to secretly found Britain's first female sumo wrestling society. Marlene is convinced Daisy is just the sort of woman they need, and while she's not certain at first, Daisy plays along and soon finds she quite enjoys her new hobby; she's even given an appropriate new nickname, "Mistress Great White Jellyfish." While Daisy is enthusiastically learning the "way of the warrior" without telling her husband, Kenny starts to think something funny is going on, coming to the conclusion that his wife's mind had been overtaken by space aliens. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlotte Brittain, Lee Ross, (more)
- 1998
In this comedy thriller, Carla is the daughter of a mobster and Alex is a modern Casanova. He is looking for romance in the pub, while she is hiding from the police. Alex's pick-up line for the day is that he is a gangster on the run. Carla shrewdly offers herself as a cover without Alex realizing that he is in fact her cover. Everything goes wrong when Carla takes Alex on as an accomplice. They steal a huge amount of money from an arms dealer, but Alex accidentally burns the money. Before long, they are on the run from the gun dealer, his customer as well as the police. Helden und andere Feiglinge was shown as part of the New German Films at the 49th International Berlin Film Festival, 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ralf Bauer, Carin C. Tietze, (more)
- 1997
Ella drives a cab for a living in Berlin's busy streets. On a day when, ironically, she is broke, some muggers try to rob her and are frustrated by her lack of money. They are about to inflict grievous bodily harm on her when she is rescued by a debonair Russian, Aleksei. Intrigued by his manner as much as by his appearance of having lots of ready cash, Ella arranges to meet him again. He offers her a lot of money to marry him so that he can legally immigrate to Germany. Soon, she finds out that he is involved in a scheme concocted by his brother Yevgeni to sell nuclear weapons-grade materials to Middle East types. When Aleksei steals the money the buyers brought, he and Ella are chased by everybody, and Ella shows that she has an unexpectedly clever turn of mind. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
