"Perspectives" - is a new competition program at the Moscow film festival.
It's made up of movie director's debuts and second films. These films will
be judged by a separate jury.
Alexei UCHITEL — Chairman, director, producer (Russia)
Diana DUMBRAVA — actress (Romania)
Stefan LAUDYN — festival director (Poland)
The goal of this new program is to foster interest to debuts, while broadening the geography of our festival and adding colors to the concept of genres. MIFF "Perspectives" are aimed at unearthing brave artistic assertions, which young filmmakers quite frequently display.

The films screening in the new Perspectives section:

FEAR OF INTIMACY ( Hong Kong, 2004, 97 min.)
director: Vincent Chui
screenplay: Anna Lai
cast: Tony Leung Ka Fai, Stephenie Lim, Cheung Wing Hong, Michelle Saram

Fai and Po were in love, yet, they were close physically but distant at heart. One placid summer day, Po disappeared ever since, leaving only a photo and pieces of memories to Fai. Five years have passed, Fai is no longer a photojournalist but a paparazzo. One night when his team is tracing a rich lady on her secret affairs, a young girl Michelle joins them. Fai accepts Michelle for the paparazzi job and falls in love with her…

FRAULEIN PHYLLIS ( Austria, 2004, 80 min.)
director: Clemens Schonborn
screenplay: Clemens Schonborn
cast: Sophie Rois, Bernhard Schutz, Susi Stach, Hertha Schell

An Austrian film about a woman who refuses to leave home, and about how there is nothing in the world better than being able to say: I inherited some money.

THE HOTEL VENUS ( Japan, 2004, 125 min.)
director: Hideta Takahata
screenplay: Aso Tetsuro
cast: Kusanagi Tsuyoshi, Nakatani Miki, Kagava Teruyuki, Ichimura Masachika

In the back alley of “Cafй Venus” nestles a boarding house, which has long since become a refuge for wounded souls. Keeping an eye on the lodgers is transvestite Venus, owner of the establishment, along with Tyonan, the doorman, cleaner and barman who cannot forget about his now deceased sweetheart.

THE KING OF THIEVES
KONIG DER DIEBE-KRAL / KRAL ZLODEJU ( Germany / Slovakia / Czech Republic / France / Austria, 2004, 101 min.)
director: Ivan Fila
screenplay: Ivan Fila
cast: Lazar Ristovski, Yasha Kultiasov, Katharina Thalbach, Julia Khanverdieva

A Ukrainian father sells his 9-year-old son Barbu and his older sister Mimma to Caruso who promises, that both children will be featured in his Berlin Circus. He smuggles kids across the border and than he leaves the girl at the brothel, and initiates Barbu into a life of crime.

THE LOST LOVE
PERDUTO AMOR ( Italy, 2003, 83 min.)
director: Franco Battiato
screenplay: Franco Battiato, Manlio Sgalambro
cast: Corrado Fortuna, Donatella Finocchiaro, Anna Maria Gherardi, Lucia Sardo

A childhood Sicily in the 50s, suspended like a dream with its ancient rituals and patient women, is the lyrical world of a nine-year-old boy with a passion for music. With his father in France, little Ettore grows up enveloped in the warm and doting tenderness of women, above all his mother and grandmother, amidst the riotous colors and fragrances of this timeless magical land. An aristocrat in the town becomes the boy's mentor and these idyllic early years are refined with the joyous discovery of classical music and literature.

THE MOONLESS NIGHT
NATA PA HENE ( Albania, 2004, 80 min.)
director: Artan Minarolli
screenplay: Artan Minarolli
cast: Niko Kanxheri, Genc Fuga, Enerieta Jani, Kledi Kapexhiu

16-year-old Rudina and her grandfather have left their village. In the train, Rudina meets Gjergj. The grandfather tries to keep the two away from each other, but Rudina and Gjergj miss the train at the station. When they reach the beach, the local Mafia is busy organising the smuggling of people and goods. When the train arrives there too, it becomes clear why Rudina's grandfather doesn't want the two young people to be together

MY MOTHER
MA MERE ( France, 2004, 110 min.)
director: Christophe Honore
screenplay: Christophe Honore
cast: Isabelle Huppert, Louis Garrel, Emma de Caunes, Joanna Preiss

Pierre, 17, lives with his grandmother. Over summer, he joins his parents in the Caribbean islands and is exposed to the unbridled behavior of a couple who hate and tear each other apart. After his father’s sudden death, his mother initiates him into a world of perversion. Although aware that his mother’s life is one steeped in alcohol and sex, Pierre still adores her.

MYSTERIUM. OCCUPATION
MYSTERII. OKKUPATSIYA ( Belarus, 2004, 90 min.)
director: Andrei Kudinenko
screenplay: Aleksander Katchan
cast: Aleksander Kolbyshev, Aleksander Molchanjv, Anatoly Kot, Zvetlana Zelenkovskaya

Three dramatic stories: there are the vicissitudes of a deaf and dumb woman who, after losing her little boy, expresses her maternal feelings on a wounded Nazi soldier; a boy who thinks his long lost father was the murderer of his mother and stepfather; and of a young recruit who is forced by an older partisan to rob, rape and take out his revenge on a partisan deserter.

NINA ( Brazil, 2004, 85 min.)
director: Heitor Dhalia
screenplay: Heitor Dhalia, Marcal Aquino
cast: Guta Stresser, Myrian Muniz, Juliana Galdino, Sabrina Greve

Young Nina, an intelligent and talented comic-strip artist. Her activity is however not very successful and she has great difficulty coughing up the rent for landlady Eulalia. The two housemates make life as difficult as possible for each other and the everyday harassment goes from bad to worse.

POSSIBLE CHANGES
GANEUNGHAN BYEONHWADEUL ( Korea / , 2004, 114 min.)
director: Min Byung-Kook
screenplay: Min Byung-Kook
cast: Chan Jeong, Kim Yu-seok, So-mi Shin, In-chon Yu

Two childhood friends, Moon-ho and Jong-kyu, in their mid-thirties, feel the acute loss of their younger years. Moon-ho pursues for an extramarital sexual affair with Yun-jung, a woman he meets through the internet. Jong-kyu meets his first love, Soo-hyun, for the first time in ten years and together they head for a hotel... But the story goes on as if the two couples had never met...


RUSSKOYE ( Russia, 2003, 112 min.)
director: Alexander Veledinsky
screenplay: Alexander Veledinsky
cast: Andrey Chadov, Galina Pol'skih, Michail Efremov, Dusya Germonova

The film is based on the events described in Limonov’s Kharkov trilogy Memoir of A Russian Punk (“Podrostok savenko”), A Young Scoundrel (“Molodoi negodyai”) and Ours Was a Great Epoch (“U nas byla velikaya epokha”).