THE GLOBAL LENS COLLECTION 2004

Mango Yellow
A film by Cláudio Assis, Brazil

The hothouse atmosphere of Brazil comes alive in Mango Yellow, where lust and economic desperation combine in a volatile brew of provocative cinema.

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Rachida
A film by Yamina Bachir-Chouikh, Algeria

This acclaimed debut feature offers a unique glimpse into Algeria, where terrorism was commonplace during the 90s. Rachida, a young and self-assured teacher at an elementary school, becomes the target of terrorists when she refuses to place a bomb in her classroom.

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Angel on the Right
A film by Djamshed Usmonov, Tajikistan

Ten years after leaving Tajikistan, the gangster Hamro is tricked into returning to his home village, where he must confront old foes, debts, his tradition bound mother and a son that he didn’t know he had.

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Nada +
A film by Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti, Cuba

Carla, a postal worker in Havana, fulfills her romantic longings by opening letters and rewriting them into passionate prose before sending them out again to their intended recipients. Cuba’s 2003 Oscar entry, Nada+ combines visual humor, poetry, satire of Cuban bureaucracy and a lighthearted love story.

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Margarette's Feast
A film by Renato Falcão, Brazil

A modern silent masterpiece, Margarette’s Feast tells an allegory of Brazil’s social struggles without words while making dazzling use of exhilarating Brazilian music.

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Shadow Kill
A film by Adoor Gopalakrishnan, India

In 1940s southern India, a hangman named Kaliyappan struggles with the guilt and implications of the executions he obediently carries out.

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Khorma
A film by Jilani Saadi, Tunisia

Residing in Bizerte, a small Tunisian provincial town, Khorma is a young orphan whose red hair and white skin give him a striking appearance. He is under the protection of Bou Khaleb, who treats Khorma like a son. Bou Khaleb teaches him his philosophies on life and trains him to become a professional announcer of marriages, births, and deaths.

Women's Prison
A film by Manijeh Hekmat, Iran

This taboo-breaking film is based on Manijeh Hekmat's long fieldwork among women prisoners in Iran. She depicts the lives of Iran's lost generation in the two decades since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, using the claustrophobic life of women behind bars as a metaphor for the entire society. Her protagonist, Mitra, is in prison for killing her violent stepfather. On the eve of a prison riot she confronts Tahereh, the new warden, whose dogmatic views she challenges fearlessly.

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Jaber tries to make ends meet for a good life with his wife in the Palestinian refugee camp near Ramallah, just north of Jerusalem. A kind, gentle man in his early 40s, Jaber runs a mobile cinema, bringing entertainment to both children and adults throughout the disputed territory of the West Bank. One day, Jaber is encouraged by Rabab, a female school teacher, to organize a screening in Jerusalem's old city. Tension erupts in Jaber's relationship with his wife, Sanah, who questions her husband's motives for continuing to take risks in his repeated trips to Jersusalem.

Wretched Lives focuses on Vanessa, a cosmetics consultant who is forced to care for her troubled and mentally challenged sister after the sudden death of their mother. Her hustler boyfriend, Olivier, seems unreliable and Vanessa soon abandons him for Uno, an ostensibly liberal and caring substitute. But Uno isn’t exactly as he seems. In fact, he makes Olivier’s petty crimes look like a choirboy’s indiscretions, underscoring the film’s critical premise: the corruption of the political elite and their exploitation of the poor.