the film week is over. and what it was like? well, i like it. tho i'm not keen on multiplexes, febiofest was cool. i've seen four movies. first on monday (with kombajn after digging the green gold) we watched israeli film 'lovesick on nana street'. it was quite an interesting study on various kinds of mental diseases ;) all in all i like it, but i wasn't astonished. additional info from imdb.

on wednesday i was thinking about two films, and finally i decided to go see 'bolshe vita'. it's a hungarian one from '95 telling a story of different people meeting in budapest in summer '89. hungary was the first of communist countries (except yugoslavia that had reached different position) which opened the borders to the west. you might remember the 'osis' (east germany citizens) travelling in their 'trabis' through hungarian-austrian border to the west germany, land of their dreams. and so two russian musicians, yura and vadim came to budapest and get to know two girls, maggie from england and susan from texas. nor the boys, nor the girls were satisfied with the previous lives and thus they made it to hungary, where everything was possible and people were 'truly living their lives'. fifth person is sergei, russian engeneer who wanted to go further to the west after selling some knives to get dollars needed to cross the border. they used to meet in an underground club 'bolshe vita'. yura and vadim were playing here. meanwhile sergei was discovering the realm of the marketplace (or bazar) where mostly russians sell just about everything. he was introduced to the correspondent here. a guy that was falsifying so called inviting letters (these were needed by the russians to have the possiblity of traveling abroad).
the main themes are not only changing society or description of how different cultural worlds meet. but also how to be free. it's a state of mind. the end is not a happy one, rather a real one. yura and maggie got married (she was pregnant), susan went to tashkent where she found a man of her dreams. vadim (thought he loved susan) stayed in budapest playing saxophone. sergei was killed by forming mafia. correspondent felt the danger and so he returned back to russia. and the club was closed and a sex shop was opened instead...
i was really amazed - mostly of the actors. the plot seemed to me... just normal. but they made it very believable. if you have a possibility, be sure not to miss this one! some more info on internet to be found here and also here (you can even buy it as a vhs).

on thursday another film, this time yugoslavian - 'the marathon family runs a honour lap'. after seeing it i was a little bit angry on the festival programme - the description sucked major - or they were talking about a different movie ;] well, i can't say it was a bad one, but i wouldn't recommend it. more info on imdb or here (order! ;).

on friday i met in front of the cinema one of tomas's ex-schoolmates. he recommended me spanish film 'lucia and sex'. and so i went to see it :)
in spite of the name it's a marvelous story, a very gentle piece... almost the whole film runs in two different lines. one started when lucia was calling rodriguez, her friend, she felt sorry for the words she spoken. but he claimed she was right. after getting home, she recieved a phone, that her friend was hit by the car. she knew about some problems of his that had something in common with the island. and so she decided to go there to find out. the second line told us a story how lucia and rodriguez met and what was happening to rodriguez. he was a writer and she loved him and his novel. she came telling him she wanted to stay, because she is desperatly willing to be with him... he was very surprised, but agreed and fell in love with her too. for some time everything was as good as it could be. but suddenly, a friend of him revealed him a secret. few years ago, rodriguez was on the island. he met a woman in the sea at night and made love with her not even knowing her name. the memory of this adventure stayed as something crazy but very beautiful. and his friend's sister got to know a woman with the same story... and even more: the woman was pregnant and a girl named 'luna' was born. rodriguez of course wanted to see his daughter. he went to the park where the girl used to play. luna was here with belen, a baby sitter. rodriguez began to write a novel about his own story. also started a secret relationship with belen. one night he was for the first time with belen and they wanted to have sex. they were in elen's (luna's mother) house. but before they came to sex, a tragic moment occured: luna was butchered by a dog. rodriguez got away, but was caught in the story - he continued writing about ill relationships in belen's family. he wanted to bring it to a brighter end: elen (suffering of loss) moved to the island where she opened a lodge. rodriguez was chatting with her via internet and writing a story with a better end. and here both lines came together: lucia met elen and carlos (later they found out it's belen's stepfather...) when rodriguez woke up from the coma he went straight to the island and all the past is not forgotten but forgiven...
"that's the best on the story... it never ends - in the end it falls in a hole and returns to the middle and may continue in another way..." that's the message... a strong story indeed. with lot of questions that still will be buzzing inside your head. the sexual scenes are imho a little bit useless - they have no purpose, probably only commercial one, as the name of the film would make it more scandalous and brings a lot of attention. i really think this one is worth seeing and i hope (as it has czech subtitles) that it should appear quite soon in normal cinemas. and i guess i will go to see it for the second time. also if you want, have a look at imdb or here for more details...

so that's about this year febiofest... i wish they can make it next year too and not only in prague... that would be horrible :((

          adamm