NORTH BEND THEATRE
VIRTUAL CINEMA
THE INVISIBLE WITNESS (ENGLISH)
A locked-room mystery with a twist: A slickly successful businessman wakes up next to his dead lover and becomes the chief suspect. His defense lawyer’s never lost a case, but can even she help him?
“When I woke up, the nightmare began.” So begins the account of Adriano Doria (Riccardo Scamarcio), a wealthy Italian entrepreneur, describing the murky events of the worst night of his life, when he discovers himself in a resort hotel room with a nasty cut on his forehead and the lifeless body of his young mistress, Laura (Miriam Leone), lying on the floor amidst a pile of scattered banknotes. Though he protests his innocence, Adriano is the obvious prime suspect. With just hours to go before his arrest, he arranges a meeting with Virginia Ferrara (Maria Paiato), a notoriously tough attorney who has never lost a case, to plan his defense strategy and find evidence to exonerate him. Largely told in flashback, this noirish thriller from director Stefano Mordini recreates the days of intrigue that lead up to that terrible night as guilt-ridden Adriano, still in love with his wife, tries to break off the affair with Laura while on a clandestine trip to the mountainous Trentino region—until fate intervenes and forever alters their lives. As more facts are coaxed out by Virginia, the characters’ motivations begin to blur until no one is quite who they first seemed, leading to a pulse-pounding conclusion that will leave audiences guessing until the final shot. (SIFF 2019)
THE GIRL WITH A BRACELET (ENGLISH)
Lise (16 years old) is accused of murdering her best friend. As the trial starts, her parents stand right by her side. But once her secret life is revealed in court, the truth becomes indistinguishable.
“I love you” means nothing. Everyone says “I love you”. A young girl called to the witness stand casually drops these disarmingly simple words that are enough to give one chills. That is a recurring feeling throughout this unusually precise courtroom drama, where words and their power are at the center of attention. In this case, the legal proceedings become the ritual of a society putting its own youth on trial. (Locarno Film Festival)
BALLOON
With a theatrical release to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Germany’s reunification, BALLOON is based on the true events of one of the most daring escapes of the Cold War in which two families living in Communist East Germany sailed over the heavily fortified border in a homemade hot-air balloon.
In the summer of 1979, the Strelzyk and Wetzel families—who had been working on their audacious plan for more than two years—try to flee East Germany in a self-made hot-air balloon. But after the balloon crash-lands just before the West German border, the Stasi find traces of the attempted escape and immediately launch an investigation. In a nerve-wracking race against the clock, the two families attempt to build a new escape balloon as the Stasi get closer and closer each day…
SANTIAGO, ITALIA
In the early seventies, the world was watching as Chile democratically elected Socialist leader Salvador Allende. His political ideals and aspirations—among them providing education for all children and distributing land to the nation’s workers—terrified the country’s right-wing, as well as the U.S., who helped orchestrate a military coup that replaced him with dictator Augusto Pinochet. This tragic history has been well documented, but Italian director Nanni Moretti (Caro Diario, Ecce Bombo) adds an angle many viewers may not know about: the efforts of the Italian Embassy to save and relocate citizens targeted by the fascist regime. Told through the testimonies of those who were there, Santiago, Italia is a chilling depiction of living under junta rule and an ultimately inspiring expression of hope amidst dire circumstances.
PAPICHA
Algeria, 1990s. Nedjma (Lyna Khoudri starring in Wes Anderson’s upcoming ‘The French Dispatch’), an 18 year-old student passionate about fashion design refuses to let the tragic events of the Algerian Civil War to keep her from experiencing a normal life and going out at night with her friend Wassila. As the social climate becomes more conservative, she rejects the new bans set by the radicals and decides to fight for her freedom and independence by putting on a fashion show.
SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE
In this Parisian bitter sweet romance from Cédric Klapisch, warehouse employee Rémy (François Civil) and research assistant Mélanie (Ana Girardot) have never met, but they live parallel lives: they reside in neighboring apartment buildings, ride the same subway route, and are troubled by bouts of insomnia and depression. Their days punctuated by unfulfilling jobs, they seek meaningful romantic and platonic connection. As they stumble through psychotherapy, dating apps, fainting spells, and family visits, the seemingly star-crossed duo orbit around each other but remain just out of reach. Klapisch spins a delicate “what-if” from their compartmentalization, exploring our increasingly hermetic modern urban life.
(In French with English Subtitles)
DIANA KENNEDY: NOTHING FANCY
Featuring extensive interviews with Diana Kennedy and famed chefs José Andrés, Rick Bayless, Gabriela Camara and Alice Waters, Diana Kennedy provides an intimate look at the leading expert on Mexican cuisine. The author of nine acclaimed cookbooks and a two-time James Beard Award winner, Diana is called the “Julia Child of Mexico”, but the feisty cook prefers “The Mick Jagger of Mexican Cuisine”.
INCITEMENT
In September 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin announces the Oslo Accords, which aim to achieve a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians after decades of violence. Yigal Amir, a law student and a devoted Orthodox Jew, cannot believe that his country’s leader will cede territory that he and many others believe is rightfully – by the word of God – theirs.
DEERSKIN
In this black comedy of middle-aged masculinity gone awry, Academy Award winner Jean Dujardin (The Artist) is a recent divorcee who becomes obsessed with a vintage fringed deerskin jacket that begins to exert an uncanny hold on him. Set in a sleepy French alpine village, he falls into the guise of an independent filmmaker and befriends a trusting bartender and aspiring editor (Adèle Haenel, Portrait of a Lady on Fire) who becomes his collaborator on a movie that will document a surprising new goal he sets himself.
THE BOOKSELLERS
Antiquarian booksellers are part scholar, part detective and part businessperson, and their personalities and knowledge are as broad as the material they handle. They also play an underappreciated yet essential role in preserving history. THE BOOKSELLERS takes viewers inside their small but fascinating world, populated by an assortment of obsessives, intellects, eccentrics and dreamers.
THE TIMES OF BILL CUNNINGHAM
Narrated by Sarah Jessica Parker, The Times of Bill Cunningham features incredible photographs chosen from over 3 million previously unpublicized images and documents from iconic street photographer and fashion historian Bill Cunningham. Told in Cunningham’s own words from a recently unearthed 1994 interview, the photographer chronicles, in his customarily cheerful and plainspoken manner, moonlighting as a milliner in France during the Korean War, his unique relationship with First Lady Jackie Kennedy, his four decades at The New York Times and his democratic view of fashion and society.
BACURAU
A few years from now... Bacurau, a small village in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants (among them Sônia Braga) notice that their village has literally vanished from online maps and a UFO-shaped drone is seen flying overhead. There are forces that want to expel them from their homes, and soon, in a genre-bending twist, a band of armed mercenaries led by Udo Kier arrive in town picking off the inhabitants one by one. A fierce confrontation takes place when the townspeople turn the tables on the villainous outsiders, banding together by any means necessary to protect and maintain their remote community. The mercenaries just may have met their match in the fed-up, resourceful denizens of little Bacurau.