Saturday, June 29, 4:00 pm, Roxie Theater
Yulia & Juliet, dir. Zara Dwinger, 2018, Netherlands, 12m, in Dutch with English subtitles • West Coast première • 😐
My World in Yours (Min värld i din), dir. Jennifer Malmqvist, 2019, Sweden, 29m, in Swedish with English subtitles • International première • 👍
Ranchera (A Ranchera Song), dir. Joaquín Gómez, 2018, Spain, 6m, in Spanish with English subtitles • Bay Area première • 😐
How to Live Your Life Correctly, dir. 娄散笛 (Xindi LOU), 2018, USA, 21m, in Chinese with English subtitles • Bay Area première • 😐
Home Girl, dir. Poonam Brah, 2019, UK, 12m • Bay Area première • 👍
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| Yulia & Juliet |
Two teenage girls — immigrant Yulia and local Juliet — fall in love inside a juvenile detention center and endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune [Yes, I know, wrong play.], determined to be together at any cost. The story is loosely — very loosely — based on Shakespeare, but it comes across as a sequence of somewhat disjointed images. Tepidly recommended.
• IMDb • trailer (vimeo) • My World in Yours (Min värld i din)
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| My World in Yours |
Shams (Arabic for “Sun”) and Stella (Latin for “Star”) are in love, but Shams is keeping some secrets: first, that she is seeking asylum, and second, that she is trying to bring her girlfriend Hanine from Palestine, where her family is trying to marry her off to a man. Things get exceedingly awkward when Stella unexpectedly shows up at Shams’ asylum hearing — as one of the immigration judges. It’s a poignant story, well told and worth telling. Highly recommended.
• IMDb • (Note: title and credits are in English, not in Swedish)
Ranchera (A Ranchera Song)
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| Ranchera |
Lola (pictured, right) is heading to a wedding and picks up her younger sister Rocío (left), who is upset from just having (for the fifth time) definitively and finally broken up with her girlfriend … over an MP3 of a ranchera song that seems to be about the problems in their relationship. Apparently that was supposed to make some sort of sense, but it flew right by me. Tepidly recommended. • IMDb •
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| How to Live Your Life Correctly |
A young woman is depressed and winds up in a hospital, sharing a room with another young woman. They talk about relationships and the meaning of life, all under the watchful eye of a gigantic television that occasionally breaks in with uplifting messages of hope and patriotism. There were clearly numerous references to Chinese society, but most of them flew right past me, leaving it impossible to separate reality from the main character’s fever dreams. Visually beautiful but unsatisfying, tepidly recommended.
• IMDb • trailer (vimeo) • director: XindiLou.com • official: HowToLiveYourLifeCorrectlyFilm.com •
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| Home Girl |
Roya feels she must hide the fact that she is a lesbian out of respect for her mother’s traditional views. When the mother dies, it becomes apparent that Roya assumed more than she knew about how her mother felt. Roya then feels liberated to be herself in a way that she couldn’t before.
Having lost my own father less than a year ago, the story hits closer to home than I would have expected. Although I never would have said that I hid my light under a bushel for my father’s sake, I have felt since his death a liberation and reawakening of desire in a way I could not have foreseen. Highly recommended, even if both your parents are still alive.
Having lost my own father less than a year ago, the story hits closer to home than I would have expected. Although I never would have said that I hid my light under a bushel for my father’s sake, I have felt since his death a liberation and reawakening of desire in a way I could not have foreseen. Highly recommended, even if both your parents are still alive.
• IMDb • Facebook: @HomeGirlFilm •
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