International Film Festival
February 6th - February 23th, 2023
Come enjoy the best of international cinema! All films will be shown in the Sharwan Smith Theater (ST 161D). All films are subtitled, free, and open to the public.
Organized by International Cinema at Southern Utah University (ICSUU).
This festival has received funding from Utah Humanities. Utah Humanities (UH) empowers groups and individuals to improve their communities through active engagement in the humanities.
FEB 6 @ 6 pm
Days of Being Wild
(1990) Hong Kong - Drama
Director: Wong-kar Wai
Having immigrated to Hong Kong from Shanghai at a young age, Yuddy is engaged in a life-long search for personal identity. His sense of loss is mitigated only after locating his biological mother. Highlighting the complexities encountered by Chinese-speaking immigrants across southeast Asia, Yuddy’s sense of homelessness also serves as a synecdoche for Hong Kong itself, which would remain a colony under British rule until the Handover of Hong Kong in 1997.
FEB 7 @ 6 pm
Les Diaboliques
(1955) – France – Psychological thriller
Director: Henri Georges Clouzot
The acclaimed French director shocked audiences in Europe and the U.S in 1955 with the story of a love triangle. Two women, the fragile wife and the wilful mistress of the sadistic headmaster of a boys' boarding school, hatch a daring revenge plot. With its unprecedented narrative twists and terrifying images, is a benchmark in horror filmmaking.
FEB 9 @ 6 pm
Coming Out
(1989) – Germany - Drama
The film tells the story of Tanya and Philipp, who work together, both teachers, in the East Berlin school system. They become close and move in together. Things get complicated for Philipp when he meets Matthias and they fall passionately in love. Philipp struggles with his identity, as it is difficult to overcome years of repressing his sexuality. While the fall of the Berlin Wall interrupted the film’s original reception, it has recently experienced a revival, in both post-Wall Germany and the Anglo-American world.
FEB 13 @ 6 pm
Abre los Ojos
(1997) – Spain - Psychological thriller/sci-fi
Director: Alejandro Amenabar
“ Open your Eyes” follows the story of handsome 25-year-old Cesar who is thrown into a strange psychological mystery after a car accident scars his face and lands him in prison. The filmic intersection of the planes of dream and reality (and the theme of "unreality") have led critics to find common elements with works such as "La vida es sueño" (Calderon de la Barca) or Phillip K. Dick's novel "Ubik". "
FEB 14 @ 6 pm
Comrades : Almost a Love Story
(1996) – Hong Kong - Drama
Director: Peter Chan
The film is not just a love story. It’s also about the immigrant experience of ordinary Chinese from post-socialist China. It depicts their longing for, as well as struggling in, the world on the other side of the Cold War. The film focuses on the repetitive divergence and convergence of Li Qiao and Li Xiaojung, two mainlander Chinese, who meet and fall in love in Hong Kong in the late 1980s. The film is also a tribute to Teresa Teng, a famous popular singer from Taiwan whose songs were regarded as “corrupted” against the ideology of socialist China. The film ends with the reunion of the two protagonists in New York City as well as the death of Teng in 1995.
FEB 16 @ 6 pm
Good Night Mommy
(2014) – Austria - Psychological thriller
Director: Ulrich Seidel
The film “Ich seh, ich she,” follows the complex, increasingly mysterious relationship between twin boys Elias and Lukas and their mother, who has brought her children to a house in the Austrian countryside to recuperate from facial surgery. The mother’s bandaged face, along with her odd manner, frightens the twins, causing them to retreat into isolation, marked by long walks through the countryside, in which their imaginations run wild as they speculate about their mother’s transformation, physically and emotionally.
FEB 21 @ 6 pm
Les Fantômes d’Ismaël
(2017) – France - Drama
Director: Arnaud Desplechin
The film Ismael’s Ghosts follows Ismael, a screenwriter whose life is sent into a tailspin by the return of his wife who disappeared twenty-one years earlier. The sudden and mysterious disappearance left both her husband and her father grieving and lost. Finally, Ismael had begun rebuilding a life for himself with another woman and is about to embark on the shoot of his new movie when everything is thrown into chaos.
FEB 23 @ 6 pm
Short films Anthology – Spain – Horror
Directors: Miriam & Sonia Albert Sobrino
Spanish filmmakers and scholars Miriam and Sonia Albert Sobrino (University of Utah) will screen a series of short films revolving around the theme of women trapped in thresholds, or transformative/liminal spaces. The Albert Sobrino sisters' work seeks to challenge the media representation of women in film. The directors often turn to the horror genre, incorporating magical and surreal narratives. Some of the films to be screened include: "Aura", "Face not Recognized. Try Again", and shorts from the anthology series "What's Next?" (Open-Ended Micro-Stories Starring Women). Miriam and Sonia Albert Sobrino will introduce their short films and lead the post screening Q&A.