Dare Mo Shiranai (nobody knows)

Best picture screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival aka VIFF.

Nobody Knows
Best actor prize at Cannes Film Festival 2004.

By Lucia Santiago Dantes
This movie really touches the heart of the audiences, it's really heart breaking. The story deals about a woman who literally hides her 4 children from society. The film opens with a woman arriving to her new appartament in company of her only son Akira (Yagira Yuya, Best actor prize Cannes 2004). Later you can see how 2 more kids arrive inside her luggage and one more during the late night. Once the familly is in the house, the woman stablish rules for her kids: they are not allowed to be seen outside that means no one can leave the appartament, not even to the balcony. Needles to say they cannot go to school because they might be seen by their neighborgs. Akira is in charge of taking care of his younger brother and sisters. But one day, her mother decides to leave to live with another man but never returns. And that's when the children beguin their journey that nobody knows.

The movie is extremely moving and it was based on a real incident occured in 1998.
No wonder Yagira Yuya won over Canne's audience and critics' favorite: Gael García Bernal.
Directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu.

terkel in trouble

Terkel inTroble (along with The Five Obstructions were my favorite pictures at the Vancouver International Film Festival this year


synopsis:
Terkel is eleven years old. He's having trouble with Steen and Saki, two bullies in his class at school. Luckily, Terkel has a really good friend, Jason. But when Terkel teases Dorrit, an obese girl, so badly that she jumps out of the window, it almost ends their friendship. Jason is pretty fed up with Terkel and his tendency to suck up to the bullies. Maybe Terkel ought to be worrying about who is throwing bricks through his bedroom window at night, and Gunnar, the slightly too smug substitute teacher. From the director of the critically acclaimed box-office hit "Help, I'm a Fish"/"Hjælp, Jeg er en Fisk" (2000), an award-winner at Chicago Film Festival.

The Five obstructions

The danish film directed by Lars Von Trier and Jorgen Legth The Five Obstructions was selected by the Danish Film Institute to be the entrant at the oscars in the category of Best Foreign Film for next years competition.