South East European Film Festival

These two films got
big audience responses last week at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles.

“Pina,” a 3-D documentary
about the legendary German choreographer Pina Bausch, starts with her
re-envisioning of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” as a thrilling discovery of
female sexuality. The film jumps—you cannot gently segue away from “Rite”—into
other dances she choreographed, along with brief interviews with her dancers.
When Wenders voices that this is not the film he was planning to make before
Bausch’s untimely death last year, it makes you regret her loss all over again.
But at least we have this remarkable film document, by the director of the Oscar-nominated
film, “Buena Vista Social Club.” You’ll have a chance to see “Pina” next month
when it will be released by IFC’s Sundance Selects.

Another Don’t Miss,
but for very different reasons, is “The Lady,” about Aung San Sui Kyi, the
Nobel Peace Prize winner who has been fighting for years for Burma’s right to
democracy, and her British husband Michael Aris. Actress Michelle Yeoh
(“Couching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) plays Aung San with grace, steely
determination and great emotion as the film covers 20 years of a profound love
story in the midst of political upheaval. It is a most inspiring film, and will
also be released this December. Don’t miss either one! – Deirdre