Mood:
energeticAt long last the BAFF program has been settled upon. These times and dates are approximate. There may be a few films added over next week or so. The screenplays are still being read!
PROGRAM #2
Friday, 10:00am, Boulder Theater
Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame
Iran, Feature Film, 2007, 81 min
Winner of Michael Moore’s “Founders Prize” at the Travis City Film Festival and dozens of awards at film festivals throughout the world.
This wonderful film, made by an 18-year old Iranian woman, was shot in war-torn Afghanistan near the tragic emptiness of the ruins of the 100 ft. tall Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban.
Armed only with a notebook and her mother's lipstick for a pencil, 6-yr-old Bakhtay (the narrator of this film), is stubbornly traveling alone on a long, dangerous journey to a recently opened girls' school across the river. On her way, she is harassed by ruthless boys playing games that mimic the terrible violence they have witnessed during their young lives. The boys want to stone the little girl, to blow her up as the Taliban blew up the Buddha, and to shoot her like Americans. "Children are the future adults. If they get used to violence, the future of the world will be in great danger." - Hana Makhmalbaf, director.
Directed by Hana Makhmalbaf
Colorado Premiere
PROGRAM #5
Friday, 4:30pm, Boulder Theater
The Unwinking Gaze: The Inside Story of the Dalai Lama's Struggle for Tibet
UK/India, Feature Documentary, 2008, 70 min
"It could force China into a more civil, humanitarian stance toward Tibet”—Paul Tatara (The Guardian)
This unforgettable film was conceived as a chance to show the Chinese the unfiltered, unedited Dalai Lama, to show that he is no fanatical religious leader bent on splitting China, only a gentle, funny, deeply spiritual man trying to make some space in the People's Republic for the preservation and growth of Tibetan culture. Accordingly, BBC director Josh Dugdale was given unprecedented access to the Dalai Lama’s daily life and activities - his breakfast, his debriefing of his envoys to China, his normally closed-door dialogue with Chinese officials and his travels to visit world leaders. The Unwinking Gaze is perhaps the most honest and genuine film about the Dalai Lama likely to be released in his lifetime.
Directed by Joshua Dugdale
Colorado Premiere
PROGRAM #9
Friday, 12:30pm, Boulder Public Library
Short International Documentaries (synopses to come)
USA, Feature Documentary, 2008, 80 min
The Conciensce of Nhem En
USA/Cambodia, Feature Documentary, 2008, 34 min
Directed by Steven Okazaki
Premiere
PROGRAM #26
Saturday, 4:30pm, Boulder High School
Sita Sings the Blues
USA, Feature Animation, 2007, 82 min
Nina is an animator whose husband dumps her by email. Sita is a goddess dumped by her husband Rama in a similar manner. Why couldn't these two women, 3000 years apart, make their marriages work? (And Sita was goddess, for godsake!) This award-winning, beautifully animated interpretation of parts of the Indian epic, Ramayana, was rendered on a laptop, mostly using Flash, by a single animator, Nina Paley, who lays down wildly imaginative musical interludes that use authentic 1920s blues recordings to link the narratives of these two unfortunate ladies.Why did Rama reject Sita? Why did the animator's husband reject the animator? Find out in this ground-breaking triumph of personal motion picture art.
Directed by Nina Paley
Boulder Premiere
PROGRAM #32
Sunday, 6:30pm, Boulder Theater
The Sari Soldiers
USA/Nepal, Feature Documentary, 2008, 90 min
Winner, New York's Human Rights Watch Film Festival.
"gives credence to the old feminist (cliche) that if women were given power, they would speedily put an end to war." Variety
Dangerously filmed over the three years following Nepal's King Gyanendra's dissolution of Parliment and crackdown on civil liberties in 2005, Julie Bridgham's admirably even-handed film follows 6 different women who are trying to bring justice and democracy to Nepal, including: low-caste Devi, who witnessed her niece being raped and killed and her daughter "disappeared" by the Royal Army. Kranti, a Comander in the Maoist Insurgency, (the Maoists are 40% women, and are fighting Nepal's entrenched caste system and its traditional oppression of women,) and activist Ram Kumari, whose pro-democracy forces engineer an alliance between the Maoists and other Nepalese political parties against the monarchy, and bring millions of protesters to the streets of Kathmandu. Will they succeed in bringing democracy to Nepal?
PROGRAM #36
Journey to the Center
USA/China, Feature Documentary, 2008, 54 min
Winner of Best Film on Mountain Sports at the Banff International Film Festival 2008 .
In 1996, American spy satellites discover a geographical anomaly in the Center of China. Analysts began to worry that the Chinese were constructing a nuclear missile silo. A group of agents posing as cavers were sent to investigate. It turned out to be a natural phenomenon. The worlds deepest vertical cave. Its name is Xiao Tiangkeng – The Heavenly Pit. Journey with three world-renowned BASE jumpers as they travel 10,000 miles by airplane, river boat and 4x4 truck to confront the mist and mystery of the old cave, an ancient culture and their own demons at the center of their dangerous mission. Millions of years old, a half-mile deep, Tian Keng has waited for eons to test the endurance, skill and courage of the men who dare to parachute into her heart.
Directed by Jens Hoffman
Colorado Premiere
PROGRAM #37
Sunday, 2:45pm, Boulder High School
Tulpan
Kazakhstan-Germany-Switzerland-Russia, Feature Film, 2008, 100 min
(Synopses to Come)
PROGRAM #39 (CLOSING NIGHT PROGRAM)
Sunday, 6:30pm, Boulder Theater
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
Norway/Sweden/Denmark/UK/Burma, Feature Documentary, 2008, 86 min
Top Prize, IDFA Amsterdam, the world's top documentary festival.
Straight to BIFF from Sundance, the film's first appearance in the USA.
In September of 2007, 10,000 Buddhist monks, risking torture and death, led the "Saffron Revolution" that brought hundred of thousands of demonstrators to the streets of Rangoon, to march peacefully protesting a cruel military dictatorship that has held the country hostage for more than 40 years. Burma has been closed to the outside world for decades, so how did we witness these events? The revolution was kept alive on TV screens all over world by the unbelievable bravery of a small band of video journalists, calling themselves the DVB and led by person who is code-named Joshua, who directs his courageous army of video warriors to film the government abuses in their country, then smuggle their footage out of Burma and broadcast it to the world via satellite. As government intelligence begins to understand the enormous power of the tiny video-cams, the VJs become their prime target, and the life-and-death chase is on...all captured on video, of course.
Directed by Anders Ostergaard
Produced by Lise Lense Miller
R Premiere
PROGRAM #5
Now and Before – Animation by Narimitsu Ozaki Exploration of modern technique to render traditional animation and the speed of time.
Adobo - A twenty-something Philippina, Delia, is constantly threatened by off-leash dogs in her Boulder, Colorado neighborhood. Enraged by her clueless neighbors, Chad and Allen, she plots revenge... a delicious revenge that exploits a culinary stereotype of the Philippines.