The Montreal World Film Festival

THE JURY OF THE FIRST FILMS WORLD COMPETITION 

Klaus Eder 
Born in Augsburg, Germany, Klaus Eder lives and works in Munich. He studied German literature at the University of Stuttgart and has worked as a film critic since the 1960s. Currently a reviewer for the Bayerischer Rundfunk national radio network he contributes to several German language film magazines. He has published books on numerous international filmmakers, including monographs on Andrzej Wajda, Luis Bunuel, Nikita Mikhalkov and Andrei Konchalovsky, Arturo Ripstein, Im Kwon-taek, Nagisa Oshima. He was programmer of the Munich International Film Festival from 1986 to 2007 and he has been a consultant for several international festivals. Since 1987 he has been General Secretary of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI). 

Eddie Muller 
San Francisco writer Eddie Muller is a contemporary renaissance man. He writes novels, biographies, movie histories, plays, short stories, and films. He also programs film festivals, curates museums, designs books, and provides commentary for television, radio, and DVDs. He produces and hosts NOIR CITY: The San Francisco Film Noir Festival, which now has satellite festivals in four other U.S. cities. As founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation, he has been instrumental in “rescuing America's noir heritage. In 2011 he presented a 40-film series of rare works at the Cinémathèque française in Paris. His debut novel, The Distance, earned the Best First Novel Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and he's a two-time Edgar Award nominee from the Mystery Writers of America. In 2007 he published Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star. 

Miroljub Vučković 
Miroljub Vučković has been general manager of the Belgrade Film Institute since 1995 and artistic director of the Belgrade International Film Festival from 1997 to 2010. A member of European Film Academy, and Serbian representative in Eurimages since 2008, he was a film critic and writer of a monthly TC program Cinema Art, from 1995 to 1998. He has written and produced several TV documentaries on international film personalities: Nagisa Oshima, Peter Greenaway, Chantal Akerman, Harvey Keitel, Atom Egoyan, Sergey Bodrov, Tsai Ming-liang, Paul Morrissey, Hou Hsiao-hsien. An adviser to many international film festivals (Busan, Thessaloniki, Venice, Rotterdam, Reykjavik), he organized retrospectives of Yugoslav films in Paris, Brussels and Pordenone, and he has served on juries at festivals around the world. 

FIRST FILMS WORLD COMPETITION 

SCHULD SIND IMMER DIE ANDEREN / SHIFTING THE BLAME - Lars-Gunnar Lotz (Germany) A young offender who committed violent crimes is expected to be rehabilitated in an institution run by one of his victims. 

LAO SHAO QIA / LATITUDE 52 – Degena Yun & Leon Du (China) 
In the late 1960s, when relations between China and the USSR were at their most hostile, a Chinese border guard enters into an unusual relationship with his Soviet counterpart. 

ZDJECIE / THE PHOTOGRAPH – Maciej Adamek (Poland - Germany – Hungary) 
Sixteen-year-old Adam who discovers an old picture of his mother with a strange man and tries to find out who his real father is. A story about first love, infidelity and an encounter with death. 

BOGHZ / HATRED – Reza Dormishian (Iran) 
Zhaleh and Hamed are Iranian refugees who left their country for political and economic reasons, hoping to live their lives in peace in Turkey. But their plans go awry. 

RAZGOVOR / THE TALK - Sergey Komarov (Russia) 
Three days earlier Boris ran over a man with his car. Now he is behind bars. But Broris can't remember a thing about the accident. 

CLOSE QUARTERS - Jack C. Newell (USA) 
Forced to work an extra shift, two young baristas must come to terms with their own relationship while being bombarded by the very different issues of their diverse customers. 

CASADENTRO – Joanna Lombardi (Peru) 
Pilar, 81, is a creature of habit and fixed routines. When her daughter calls to say that she is coming to visit, along with her daughter's husband and child, she knows that conflicts are in store. 

GRAND COMME LE BAOBAB / TALL AS THE BAOBAB TREE – Jeremy Teicher (Senégal – USA) 
In a rural African village poised at the outer edge of the modern world, a teenage girl hatches a secret plan to rescue her 11-year-old sister from an arranged marriage. 

SONO YORU NO SAMURAI / THE SAMURAI THAT NIGHT – Masaaki Akahori (Japan) 
Nakamura is released from prison after serving five years for killing a woman in a hit-and-run accident. The woman's husband has vowed revenge. 

DIE BRÜCKE AM IBAR / MY BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY – Michaela Kezele (Germany - Serbia – Croatia) 
During the 1999 civil war in Kosovo, an injured Kosovan fighter seeks refuge in the home of a Serbian woman whose husband had died in the fighting. 

BOUCHERIE HALAL / HALAL BUTCHER SHOP – Babek Aliassa (Canada) 
A young Muslim couple open a butcher in Montreal hoping to integrate themselves into Quebec society, but the husband's father, a fundamentalist imam has other ideas. 

B.A. PASS – Ajay Bahl (India) 
When 19-year-old Mukesh loses his parents in a car accident he ends up in the big city, worrying how to support himself and his two younger sisters. He stumbles into the world of gigolos... 

SOONGAVA / DANCE OF THE ORCHIDS – Subarna Thapa (France – Nepal) 
Diya's hopes of becoming a traditional Nepalese dancer are shattered when her parents arrange for her to marry a stranger. 

WELCOME HOME – Tom Heene (Belgium) 
Coming home from a long trip, Lila encounters Bilal, an Iranian returning to Brussels for the first time in forty years. She is fascinated by the old man and decides to accompany him through his search for the Brussels house he once lived in. In another sequence, Lila comes home and breaks up with her boyfriend Benjamin. We discover how the physical relation between her and Benjamin can be raw and unsettling. 

INN I MØRKET / INTO THE DARK – Thomas Wangsmo (Norway) 
An eight-year-old boy is hit by a car, and a deep rift develops between the two neighbouring couples involved, which will prove hard to repair. 

CHERRY ON THE CAKE – Laura Morante (Italy - France) 
Amanda seems to suffer from androphobia, a fear of men that causes her to systematically destroy any relationship that could become serious. 

A LA DERIVA / ADRIFT – Fernando Pacheco (Argentina) 
Deep in debt, Ramón agrees to participate in an easy drug smuggling scheme. But no scheme is really that easy. 

METAMORPHOSIS – Chris Swanton (United Kingdom) 
An adaptation of Frank Kafka's story about a travelling salesman who wakes up one morning after fretful dreams to find himself mutated into a venimous insect of grotesque proportions.