Fifteen great films fill the Open Seas category at this year's RIFF. Open Seas presents acclaimed films from many of the most talented and respected filmmakers in the world. These include films which have been successful at festivals around the world in the last few months. Among films in the category this year is a film about a transsexual, a weird Finnish family and the life in a Danish prison.
These are the films in the Open Seas category this year:
Winter's Bone (USA, 2010)
Deep in the Ozark Mountains, clans live by a code of conduct that no one dares defy - until an intrepid teenage girl has no other choice. When Ree Dolly's crystal-meth-making father skips bail and goes missing, her family home is on the line. Unless she finds him, she and her young siblings and disabled mother face destitution. In a heroic quest, Ree traverses the county to confront her kin, break their silent collusion, and bring her father home. Winter’s Bone depicts an archetypal rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood. Only this time, the young warrior is a girl. As our heroine braves immoveable obstacles, she redefines the notion of family loyalty and, in the process, discovers her own power.
The Hunter (Germany, Iran, 2010)
Recently released from prison, Ali makes the most of his return, amidst much talk of the upcoming elections and promises of change. Despite working nights, he tries to spend the most time possible with his beautiful wife and young daughter. To escape the stress of urban living, Ali retreats to his favorite pastime of hunting in the secluded forest north of town. Tragedy strikes and Ali’s wife Sara is accidentally killed in a police shoot-out with demonstrators. After a long and frustrating experience at the police station, Ali’s own search for his missing six-year-old daughter ends in horror and pushes him over the edge. In broad daylight, overlooking the busy city’s surrounding highways, Ali randomly shoots and kills two policemen. After a high-speed car chase outside of town, Ali flees into the northern forest where he is captured by two police officers. Ali is resigned to his fate and watches quietly as the arguing policemen lose their way in the woods. Situations complicate and the line between hunter and hunted becomes difficult to define.
Strella – A Woman's Way (Greece, 2009)
Yiorgos is released from prison after 14 years of incarceration for a murder he committed in his small Greek village. He spends his first night out in a cheap downtown hotel in Athens. There he meets Strella, a young transsexual prostitute. They spend the night together and soon they fall in love. But the past is catching up with Yiorgos. With Strella on his side he will have to find a new way out.
An extraordinary and spellbinding relationship, a post-modern Greek tragedy in the glowing nights of Athens.
The Cameramurder (Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, 2010)
Sonja has found her own heaven with Thomas. However, for Thomas the Garden of Eden is located in a remote piece of the countryside, right on the shore of beautiful Lake Fertő. They are expecting Thomas’ old friends from Vienna, Heinrich and Éva for an Easter weekend visit. However, what starts out as a relaxing weekend in an idyllic environment is overshadowed by the news that three children have gone missing from the neighbouring village. As tensions increase appearances cannot be maintained and the "friends" start showing their true colours. Éva and Heinrich keep making comments that unsettle Sonja’s trust in Thomas. Boundaries begin to merge into one another. They all have something to hide - but none of them is aware of what old wounds lie just beneath the surface.
Drifting (Spain, 2009)
Anna has been in Africa working as a nurse for a non-governmental organization on the front lines of a violent conflict. But when she returns to Spain, she finds that her inability to process the experience upends her old life. She leaves her husband Ricard and moves out of their home, refusing to tell anyone where’s she’s going. While working as a security guard at an exclusive clinic she meets a troubled young man. He is unable to walk and refuses to reveal his identity, but the two are immediately drawn to one another. They begin a powerfully sexual and deeply codependent relationship as they struggle to get free of their respective demons.
One Hundred Mornings (Ireland, 2009)
Set in a world upended by a complete breakdown of society, two couples hide out in a lakeside cabin hoping to survive the crisis. As resources run low and external threats increase, they forge an uneasy alliance with their self-sufficient hippie neighbour. With no news from the outside world they can’t know how long they must endure living in such close quarters, and with such limited supplies. Unspoken animosity fills the air, and a suspected affair is driving a wedge between them all. Poorly equipped to cope in a world without technology and saddled with completely conflicting worldviews, everything begins to disintegrate. Finally, each of them faces a critical decision they never thought they'd have to make.
Bad Family (Finland, 2010)
Tragicomedy about an overly concerned father, who messes up his relationship with his children and new wife. Followed by an ugly divorce the father has been bringing up the son by himself while the mother has had the custody of the daughter. Sixteen years later the mother passes away and the brother and sister meet again. The brother has a crush on his sister and rebels against the father, who copes poorly with the situation. The father ends up alone with his dementic father.
R (Denmark, 2010)
The prisoner R arrives to Denmark’s toughest prison, where he is to serve a sentence for violent assault. R is reduced to a number, a letter, just another inmate. The prison is a parallel world filled with rules, honor, and debts. A world, in which bars cover the windows and blood stains the floor. R is placed in the most hardcore ward. Here he must find his place in the system, learn to navigate, and fight for survival.
How I Ended This Summer (Russia, 2010)
The place is a polar station on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean. A day up here in the far north lasts weeks, since the sun never sets during the summer at this high latitude. This used to be an important research station but, Sergei, an experienced meteorologist and Pavel, a high school graduate, are now the only inhabitants. Soon a ship will arrive to pick up the two men. For Sergei this will mean the end of a sojourn that has lasted several years. He is anxious about returning to his wife and child on the mainland. For his part, Pavel hopes that he might yet be able to experience the kind of real adventure he was dreaming of when he volunteered for an internship in this desolate region. And then one day when Sergei is out angling, Pavel picks up a radio message that he daren’t communicate to Sergei.
Three Seasons In Hell (Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, 2010)
Prague 1947 – a time of sensuality, extravagance, wit and great expectations. Ivan Heinz, a good-looking dandy has just turned 19. Running away from home he devotes himself to the celebration of freedom, revolutionary politics and artistic aspiration. Ivan meets a fascinating, stylish woman who awakes his powerful sexuality and throws himself whole-heartedly into a destructive romance with independent, bisexual Jana. The new Communist regime begins however to reveal its repressive side and confrontation with the very regime that Ivan espouses comes harshly and unexpectedly. His redemption is as profound as it is unexpected.
Three Backyards (USA, 2010)
From writer-director Eric Mendelsohn, (winner of the directing prize at Sundance for Judy Berlin) comes Three Backyards, the story of three residents of the same suburban town over the course of one seemingly perfect autumn day. A businessman (Elias Koteas) with marital troubles gets "lost" on a business trip without ever leaving town. A little girl (Rachel Resheff) steals her mother’s jewelry in the morning and finds herself entangled in a web of frightening, adult implications by late afternoon. A well-meaning housewife (Edie Falco) offers her celebrity neighbor (Embeth Davidtz) a lift and the trip detours into unsettling territory. By day's end, the familiar geography of the suburban landscape has dissolved into a dreamscape where identities are created, lost, and ultimately reclaimed.
Fake Orgasm (Spain, 2010)
Lazlo Pearlman is a conceptual artist, an activist capable of dynamiting our prejudices and dogmas on sex and identity. What is apparently an amusing reflection on lies in our sexual lives soon becomes a biting discussion on the gender theory and the constant evolution of our identity. Fake Orgasm obliges us to change our way of thinking and reconsider some of the concepts with which we were educated and grew up. We’ll have to find new drawers in which to rearrange things like our virility, our libido and our Barbie superstar.
Nuummioq (Greenland, 2009)
After being diagnosed with a terminal illness, Malik joins his best friend on his last boat trip into the fjord. Malik is a 35 year old carpenter living in Nuuk. Things are starting to look bright in Malik's life, when he´s diagnosed with terminal cancer and faces a difficult decision: Leaving his hometown to recieve medical care that would perhaps prolong his life - or stay in Nuuk with family and friends and die within a few months. Malik and his childhood friend Mikael decide to go on a last boat trip into the fjord, where they seek out the carefree world of their childhood. During this boat trip, the two friends rediscover their friendship and Malik is given an opportunity to come to terms with his own imminent death.
A Somewhat Gentleman (Norway, 2010)
Ulrik is a somewhat gentle man. He has no special wishes and makes no demands. He does not give too much thought to what he does either. If he's given some food and a place to sleep, he will give people what they want in return. Whether this be a little affection or a killing.
Features Stellan Skarsgård (Angels & Demons, Breaking the Waves, The Hunt for Red October, Good Will Hunting, Pirates of the Caribbean and Mamma Mia!.
The Experiment (Denmark, 2010)
In 1952, Danish government officials select 16 Greenlandic children to participate in an experiment. They are removed from their families and accommodated in a children's home in Nuuk. Here, the headmistress is put in charge of turning them into good, Danish citizens in a long-term effort to bring Greenland out of its current state of destitution. This becomes an uphill battle.