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The Port Townsend Film Institute Presents the Global Lens Film Series
The Global Lens films series was launched in 2003 to support the distribution of unique and critically acclaimed cinematic works from around the world. Since its founding, the series has provided a platform for exceptional storytelling and opened a window into the diverse world in which we live.
For complete information: http://catalogue.globalfilm.org or phone the PT Film Institute office at 360.379.1333.
Screenings take place at 10:00 A.M., Saturday mornings in the Rosebud Cinema. Admission: $5; students at no charge. These films are not rated, and some material may not be suitable for children.
MOURNING (Soog) - October 13
Director: Morteza Farshbaf
Iran | 2011 | 85 minutes
Persian, with subtitles in English
FILM INFORMATION
Synopsis From a black screen, a man and a woman are heard arguing and hurrying away from a house. Afterward, the screen radiates brilliant green countryside, traversed by a small black car. Subtitles relay a conversation by another man and woman, but now we hear no voices. Kamran and Sharareh, a deaf couple, are driving Sharareh’s young nephew, Arshia, back home to Tehran. Something terrible has happened. But the couple keep the news from Arshia, debating his future in a language not as private as they believe, and turning a car trip into a subtly humorous and deeply compassionate meditation on communication and emotional disability.
About the Director:
Morteza Farshbaf was born in Gonbad-e Qabus, Iran in 1986. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film from the University of Art in Tehran and has been working as a director, writer, editor and cinematographer since the age of 18. He has directed five short films (Halloween, The Carpet, Taxi, Flakey and The Wind Blows Wherever it Wants) and has also worked with acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. Mourning is his first feature film.
PEGASUS (Pegase)- October 20
Director: Mohamed Mouftakir
Morocco | 2010 | 104 minutes
Arabic, with subtitles in English
FILM INFORMATION
Synopsis Zineb is an emotionally exhausted psychiatrist assigned to Rihana, a traumatized and pregnant young woman found in the street muttering unintelligibly about “The Lord of the Horse.” A flashback sequence returns us to Rihana’s childhood, where her dictatorial father, horseman chief of his tribe, raises her as the son his legacy demands. Trapped in parental delusions, Rihana falls in love with a young man with whom she carves out the beginnings of her own life. Soon, Rihana’s story awakens repressed thoughts in Zineb’s own troubled mind, and reality merges into a haunted fever-dream of fear and denial in this visually striking, award-winning psychological thriller.
About the Director
Mohamed Mouftakir was born in Casablanca, Morocco in 1965. He has co-written several film and television scripts and served as first assistant director on a number of feature films. His short films, La Danse du Foetus and Fin du Moins, both received the Grand Jury Prize at the Tangiers National Film Festival in 2005 and 2007, respectively. Pegasus is his first feature film.
THE PRIZE (El Premio) - November 3
Director: Paula Markovitch
Argentina | 2011 | 99 minutes
Spanish, with subtitles in English
FILM INFORMATION
Synopsis Under the cloud of a military dictatorship, a young mother and her daughter flee Buenos Aires for the seclusion of a ramshackle cottage along the windy dunes of an Argentine beach. As her mother listens for news from the radio with sad stoicism, restlessly curious seven-year-old Cecilia joins a nearby school overseen by a kindly teacher. A childhood idyll, however, soon becomes contaminated by the general political crisis, as the teacher recruits the class for a patriotic essay contest sponsored by the army—the very people that may have already disappeared Cecilia’s father—in this superbly acted and engrossingly atmospheric drama about innocence in illicit times.
About the Director
Paula Markovitch was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1968. She has taught screenwriting at the Center of Cinematographic Capacitation (CCC) and is writer and director of the short films Perriférico and Ambulance Music. She has also served as an adviser for the Fundación Toscano-Sundance Lab, the Mexican Institute of Cinematography (IMCINE) and the National Fund for the Arts and Culture (FONCA). The Prize is her first feature film.
QARANTINA - November 17
Director: Oday Rasheed
Iraq | 2010 | 90 minutes
Arabic, with subtitles in English
FILM INFORMATION
Synopsis A broken family under an incestuous patriarch lives uneasily within the gated courtyard of a dilapidated Baghdad house. The pregnant daughter has fallen silent, finding some protection from the patriarch’s young second wife and his preteen son. Meanwhile, hard up for money, the household must live with a sullen and imperious boarder, a contract killer. In such a house, though, it may be that freedom and safety actually lie beyond the gates. Iraqi filmmaker Oday Rasheed’s second feature gorgeously captures contemporary Baghdad’s moody interior and stunned atmosphere, echoed in performances by a formidable cast who suggest unexpected resilience in the wake of catastrophe.
About the Director
Oday Rasheed was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1973. He founded the production company Enlil Film and Arts and co-founded the Iraqi Independent Film Centre, an educational center in Baghdad for young filmmakers. His first feature film, Underexposure, received the Best Film Award at the Singapore International Film Festival in 2005, the Golden Hawk Award at the Arab Film Festival Rotterdam in 2005 and the Best Script Award at the Oran International Arab Film Festival in 2007. Qarantina is his second feature film.
TOLL BOOTH (Gise Memuru) - December 1
Director: Tolga Karaçelik
Turkey | 2010 | 96 minutes
Turkish, with subtitles in English
FILM INFORMATION
Synopsis A taciturn tollbooth attendant shuffles between a suffocating home life with his ailing father and the monotony of the box where he works. Desperate to resist his father’s attempt to marry him off while determined to prove his worth by fixing his family’s broken-down car, he drives himself toward a nervous breakdown. After a reassignment to a desolate country road, he begins a flirtatious relationship with a woman who drives by each day. But is this salvation for the aging bachelor, or the further unraveling of his mind? An expert cast and keen art direction contribute to this wry, heartbreaking ode to lost dreams in a sleepwalking world.
About the Director
Tolga Karaçelik was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1981. After receiving his law degree from Marmara University, he studied film at New York Film Academy. His short film, Rapunzel, received the Audience Award for short films at the SOHO International Film Festival in 2010. He also wrote and directed the music video for Çelik Çomak by the Turkish band Gevende. Toll Booth is his first feature film.
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