I have gone over Michael Guillen's SFIFF wish list carefully too. He like Oscar recommends Jaime Rosales' SOLITARY FRAGMENTS and Vera Storozheva's prizewinning TRAVELING WITH PETS and the Thai WONDERFUL TOWN. And he expresses some interest in Dario Argento's THE MOTHER OF TEARS or at least in his omnipresent, campy daughter Asia's presence in it.

He mentions Hitoshi Matsumoto's "future cult classic" (SFIFF blurb) BIG MAN JAPAN, Ermanno Olmi's ONE HUNDRED NAILS. A Variety review says it's a disappointing follow-up to Singing Behind Screens, which already seemed to me quite heavy going. This loaded religious allegory about a professor is. . . dubbed, using non-actors, returning to Olmi's roots and those of Italian film itself. As a student of Italian film I may have to see it, especially given that US release seems doubtful.

Guillen mentions Sergei Bodrov's Ghengis Khan epic biopic MONGOL, which features, obviously, breathtaking visuals. It will have general US release though. He mentions that I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND was a Best Foreign Oscarn nominee.

And he mentions the Danish JUST LIKE HOME and the Greek VALSE SENTIMENTALE as "of possible interest." The latter was a New Directors/New Films FSLC series selection recently.

I'm marking down as a must Yousry Nasrallah's THE AQUARIUM from Egypt, because of my interest in that place and knowledge of that dialect. Also mentioned by Guillen and interesting to me are the Nigerian Newton I. Aduaka's EZRA and the French-Algerian TWO LADIES, which looks nicely shot and edited and with good acting rhythm.

Graham Leggett, the SFIFF general director, said his programmers thought this was an off year for Latin America, Guillen mentions--continuing to say the Mexicans would be very surprised with that idea. He is intersted in Alex Rivera's SLEEP DEALER and Rodrigo Pla's LA ZONA, and then he mentions COCHOCHI, which I will skip because Oscar thoroughly discussed it already.

_________________
©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.