We’re halfway through Cinequest 2015. What are the biggest hits and the most delightful surprises?
Cinequest’s Director of Programming/Associate Director Mike Rabehl was definitely right: he predicted BATKID BEGINS and WILD TALES to be among the biggest audience pleasers. The opening night audience reveled in BATKID BEGINS, and WILD TALES, the darkly comic Argentine collection of revenge stories, rocked the California Theatre.
And how about those surprise gems?
- CORN ISLAND: This exquisite and lyrical Georgian drama is a Must See for Cinephiles. If it doesn’t turn out to be the best contemporary art movie at Cinequest 2015, I’ll be shocked.
- ANTOINE ET MARIE: A brilliantly constructed French-Canadian drama with two unforgettable characters.
- THE CENTER: An absorbing and topical American indie drama about the seductiveness of a cult.
- IN THE COMPANY OF WOMEN: Unexpectedly sweet, this starts out with a Boys Behaving Badly set-up and then morphs into a tribute to enduring love.
- FACTORY BOSS: I haven’t yet seen this narrative about the manager of a Chinese sweatshop factory getting squeezed, but I’ve hearing good things around the fest. One of my friends, who has been to factories in Shenzen, entered a screening a little late and initially mistook it for a documentary.
The most underrated movie at Cinequest? Somehow, the biting darkly hilarious Mexican social satire LOS HAMSTERS is flying under the radar. I think this tale of a dysfunctional family is both very smart and very funny.
It’s also been a notably strong year for the documentaries at Cinequest:
- ASPIE SEEKS LOVE: A surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a guy looking for love like anyone else, but whose social skills are handicapped by Asberger’s.
- MEET THE HITLERS: Tracking down real people burdened with the Fuhrer’s name, this successful doc weaves together both light-hearted and very dark story threads.
- SWEDEN’S COOLEST NATIONAL TEAM: A character-driven take on the sports movie takes us into a Nerd Olympics.
- THERE WILL BE NO STAY: a powerful examination of American capital punishment from the perspective of the executioners.
Most promising film yet to come? I’d say Tuesday night’s L’ATALANTE:, rarely seen on the big screen. It’s the 1934 masterpiece of French writer-director Jean Vigo, who died at age 29 soon after its completion. Richard von Busack, the highly respected film critic for Metro, will receive a Media Legacy Award at the screening.
See you around the fest. You can find my festival coverage, including both features and movie recommendations, on my Cinequest page. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest.
