The summer film season in North America is usually filled with a mix of Hollywood big budget special-effects epics or low-brow buddy comedies. Despite the impressive box office take of such SFX films as INCEPTION and SALT (and the latest in the vampires-are-people-too franchise THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE), this summer has also been marked by various big budget duds like the Tom Cruise-actioner KNIGHT AND DAY, the M. Night Shymalan mystical mess THE LAST AIRBENDER and the Nicolas Cage-tr...

About the film: Directed by Jacques Audiard, winner of the Best Screenplay in 1996 for Un héros très discret, A Prophet is the first French film to screen in Competition this year. Malik is a 19-year-old boy from a North African background sentenced to 6 years in prison. There, he falls in with a gang of Corsican inmates and gradually learns how to develop his own sphere of influence and power. Filmmaker Audiard, who received a César award in 2005 for The Beat That My Heart...

At mid point of the 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival, the oldest in North America, films from European directors have been making the most impact. With its cosmopolitan air and its distinctive European ex-pat communities, San Francisco is not only a destination for European artists but also a place to sample the best of the new European cinema. Most of the European films on display are congregated in the World Cinema section. Among the highlights from European talents: BULLET IN TH...

 TROUBLED WATER  At mid point of the 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival, the oldest in North America, films from European directors have been making the most impact. With its cosmopolitan air and its distinctive European ex-pat communities, San Francisco is not only a destination for European artists but also a place to sample the best of the new European cinema. Most of the European films on display are congregated in the World Cinema section. ...