Hola, CineLocos del Mundo, que patza? Father Geek here with the First of a series of very special Latin-AICN reports on the wonderful RIO DE JANEIRO INT¹L FILM FESTIVAL for 2001. Una nueva critica/cuate for AICN is going to be sending us columns on this great fest being held in the party capital of the world every few days so be looking for them.

On another subject while I've got your attention... you may have noticed... "NO" column from Africa-AICN and Dr. SOTHA this week, well you see the good ol' Doc is on safari in the South African bush, not hunting rare endangered animals, but a different type of game entirely, one more in keeping with an adventurer who just happens to edit and write for our site. Este accion mutante? Que lastima! Here's the note he sent Father Geek late last night by carrier pigeon...

Hey Jay,

I won't be able to deliver this week's AFRICA-AICN as I am super icognito in a very remote part of South Africa working on getting some coverage of an interesting film currently being shot in the Karoo. I will send in a bumper column next week... if I survive this somewhat sweaty safari...

DR.SOTHA

Father Geek esta aqui tambien... with one last contribucion pobre de mi parte... and that's to simply say, here's the 1st report from the Rio Film Fest...

RIO DE JANEIRO INT¹L FILM FESTIVAL 2001

Here¹s the drill: the actual festival just starts next 27th, but they¹ve already started with the press screenings for, y¹know, the press and agregateds ­ category where I¹d fit best. I write for a brazilian film website called ZetaFilmes (www.zetafilmes.com.br ) in case you¹d like to read the whole scoop in badly written portuguese. Please, put up with the rusty english on my reports for this site.

Most of the movies on the festival have already been reviwed on your site ("The Brotherhood Of The Wolves", "Trouble Every Day" and "Battle Royale", for example), most of them have already opened on the US ("Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back", "The Others"...), some of them are already out on DVD ("Shadow Of The Vampire", "Requiem For A dream"). And there¹s some which will make their world premiere on this very fest (Jean Marc Barr¹s "Being light", third of his Dogme 95 trilogy ­ yeah, I know how jolted you were about watching this one).

The Int¹l Festival is split into various mini festivals, including some thematic ones.And those would be: Focus on France (they¹ll be showing "The Brotherhood...", "Amelie Poulain", "Harry, He¹s here to help" among others), Beckett (shorts and feature films based on this playwriter works), Francesco Rosi (they¹ll be showing some of his rare works) and a Troma Festival (looking foward to watch "Citizen Toxie" and "Terror Firmer", because I can¹t find those DVD¹s around here).

The movies the fest production have screened so far ­followed by a brief review, if I found time to watch the damn thing ­ were:

ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS (Italiensk for Begyndere, Denmark, 2000)

Sincerely, I feel like the world needs another Dogme 95 movie like someone would need syphilis (did i spell that right?). I think it¹s a format that works in agressive movies, but only in those. This is an English-like comedy aboust a new priest arriving on a small city to replace the former priest, who turned against God and the church he used to preach on himself. He joins the communitary italian classes. The movie follows several characters who have in common those italian classes, including a rude restaurant manager, an impotent hotel recepcionist and a very clumsy woman.

The real strong point of thi movie are its sympathetic characters and the actors who play them. They are on the money. The cinematography, we all know how¹s gonna be like. The movie, mostly improvised, just doesn¹t flow. It goes nowhere. The situations created to make the movie move foward are kinda hard to buy. It¹s quite entertaining, I must admit, but to print a documentarian style, such as Dogme is, on this genre (a feel-good comedy) makes everything even more fake and phony.

ONE NIGHT WITH SABRINA LOVE (Uma Noche Com Sabrina Love, Argentine, 2000)

"One Night..." feels like an "All About My Mother" for men, but not that great. Yet, this argentinian movie is quite touching and heart-warming. It tells the story of Daniel Montero, a 17 year-old guy who lives in (again) a small village. Life there simply seems to lead nowhere. Daniel enters a contest which the winner gets to spend, erm.., one night with Sabrina Love, a famous host/actress on the cable porn. He ends up winning and goes to Buenos Aires, the ARGENTINIAN capital (got that, Bush?), taking a hilarious trip to get there. He uses this not only to enjoy his prize, but also to visit his estranged older brother and tell him about their parents¹ death. It has echoes of "The Catcher In The Rye" all over it.

This movies nurtures real tender for its characters. Looks at the and their simplicty with lirism. The movie features Cecilia Roth (from the very "All About...", playing Sabrina Love), Norma Aleandro and "Hannibal"¹s Giancarlo Gianini on a small part as the show¹s producer and Sabrina¹s affair. He¹s good on this movie, but, truth be told, this part could have been played by anyone else. Well, not anyone, but... ah, y¹know what i mean...

NOTE: There¹s a contant picking between Brazilians and Argentinians. It becomes evident on my favorite quote from the movie, taken from the speech given by Daniel¹s boss, teaching him how to get to Buenos Aires hitchhiking: "Don¹t trust brazilian truck drivers as well. By night, they¹ll get romantic and they¹ll want to cop a feel"... So true.

BEFORE THE STORM (Före Stormen, Sweden, 2000)

Boy, I was taken aback by this movie! Me and friends went in thinking it was gonna be one of those really heavy swedish dramas that one has to endure rather than plainly watch. But Goddammit, it was great. "Before..." is actually a drama-slash-thriller that follows two characters: Ali, an immigrant from Middle East who has established his life and family in Sweden. He lives his life in fear he and his family might suffer violent prejudice-driven reactions. One of his daughters is the object of Leo¹s affection, the other main character. They go to middle school together and Leo is constantly bullied by Danne. One day, one of Ali¹s daughters gets a package from a stranger who instruct her to deliver it to her father. Leo decides to end the bullying once for all. To say more would be betraying this movie. They¹re not parallel stories, though. They end up completing each other, not plotwise though, but messagewise.

Because of these very hard times we are living through, I would highly recommend you to watch this movie. It¹s a melting pot of two very contemporary social problems: terrorism and high-school violence. The movie had split reactions: some people called it pretensious, some thought it was a little gem, like myself. Not wanting toinfluence you, but everyone who thought it was a bad movie were ugly and all the cool beautiful people loved it. Now, it¹s up to you.

SERIES 7: THE CONTENDER (EUA, 2001)

You must have already watched it, so you gotta know what¹s it all about. Here, in Brazil, we were also affected by this real plague called "reality-tv", so you don¹t hold against me that I didn¹t get this movie. Some people don¹t like pretensious movies. Lack of pretension is exactly what keeps this movie from being a good one. It doesn¹t criticizes reality-tv, doesn¹t denounce the absurdness of it, it just spoofs, very badly by the way, those shows. It feels like a bad tv pilot, after all. The acting is this movie¹s floating device. It just falls flat, like splattered shit.

UP IN THE NEXT REPORT: Amos Gitai¹s "Kippur", "Captain Corelli¹s Mandolin", "Hedwig And The Angry Inch" and later on, some of those french goodies.

For now I'll sign off as "Policemen thought I was a Drugdealer" (it actually happened two weeks ago)

Father Geek back again... Can't make it to Brasil and Rio's Film Festival? Throw one of your own instead. If you live in the Austin, Texas area just go to Sister Satan's and Lobo's Video/DVD shop, PEDAZO CHUNK, and put together a group of films from their esoteric collection of Spanish Language, or English flicks, and Cult rarities, and Horror excesses, and Action blasts, and Martial Arts dice & slice, and... Well just mas PEDAZO.

They're located at 2101 S.1st at the corner of Live Oak in the heart of South Austin and are open from 11am till 10pm all week long. Check them out now!!!