The village, of course, sees her as a crazy witch, and however much Juan thinks of himself as a supportive fellow freethinker, the pressure's building. Keeping with my enjoyment of films about places I'll never go, I was delighted by Happy Birthday , Larisa Sadilova's magnificent film about a Russian maternity ward. Film festivals remind you that some things are universal, and that's not always a good thing. Anyone who's loved both cinema and another human being should be taken in by Tempting Heart , Sylvia Chang's tender evocation of how neither films nor people can give us all we ask of them. The tale is acted out by a pair of students whose brief burst of passion is thwarted by their parents and their own jealousy.
Complications ensue when the writer refuses to accept that love is ever all that simple.
The desire to belong, to fit in, is also understood by all, and it finds funny, complex expression in Annette Apon's One Man and His Dog , from the Netherlands. The film is fond of its hero, but knows how wrong he is, and the movie's creepiness is only helped by the star's spooky resemblance to street magician David Blaine. Film festivals are about announcing new talent. Most attention here will probably focus on Nichola Bruce, whose I Could Read the Sky is composed of an old man's reminiscences of growing up in Ireland, working in England, and falling in love. I hated it.