Films Screening at RIIFF 2002

Feature Films D-G

Thursday August 8th Columbus Theatre 7:15PM
Desperado Square
Director: Benny Torati
Producers: Haim Manor, Amir Harel
Director of Photography: Dror Moreh
Editor: Yosef Grunfeld
Music: Shem-Tov Levy
Sound: David Liss
Format: 35MM
At the morning of the commemoration day, Nisim, Moris Mandabon's son, has a strange dream. In the dream his father appears and orders him to open the cinema one more time and screen a movie. Signora Mandabon objects. Her objection grows even stronger when she realizes that the movie her sons choose to screen is "Sangam". But the order in the dream is stronger than her objection and the preparations for the renewed screening begin. But what seems to be an easy enough task turns into a major problem when it is realized that the only copy of "Sangam" is in the hands of Avram Mandabon, who refuses to let it go. His condition to allowing the movie's screening is to speak with Signora, but she refuses.The anger regarding his quarrel with her husband is still fresh in her memory and she refuses to forgive.As time passes by, clues start to float as to the real occurrences of the past and beneath the "official" story of the brothers' quarrel starts to unfold a tragic story of unfulfilled love.

Saturday August 10th Columbus Cinemateque 7:40PM
US Premiere
Filmclub Sonnenschien
Director: Raoul W. Heimrich
Runtime: 88min
Country: Germany
Format: VIDEO
This tart and provocative film traces a young couple's fascination with people who are on the edge and contemplating suicide. In what starts out as an attempt to document the suicides, it soon turns into something more. Dramatic and shocking, this is a true original from a unique film voice.

Sunday August 11th URI 6:30PM
Finding Jack Kerouac
Company: Garth Rach. Pictures
Director: Jeff Lyon
Runtime: 93min
Country: USA
Format: BETA SP
Eighth year senior, Mitch, reads "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac and decides to hit the road, experience life and write the next great American novel. Traveling by foot, rail and car with friends Dwight and Lisa, Mitch tries to find Kerouac. His plan is flawed, as Kerouac is dead. However, he learns valuable life lessons along the way.

Thursday August 8th Columbus Cinemateque 7:40PM
Fishing
World Premiere
Company: River Productions
Director: Joseph Lutton
Producer: Joseph Lutton
Cast: Joseph Lutton, Barry Snider, Jason Kolotouros, Jennifer Donlin, Scott Decker, Michael Medeiros, Lynn Cohen, Anthony Lauria
Runtime: 108min
Country: USA
Format: BETA SP
After severing contact for three years with old friends, his girlfriend Grace, and the last remaining member of his family (his father), an unsettled drifting musician named Stephen Williams returns home to search for the missing pieces in his life. In his uncertainty and his longing for real connection, he begins to stir up emotions in himself and others by acting on conflicted and dangerous impulses. Laced with humor, universal conflicts, desires and struggles of the heart, we witness the changes in the lives touched by the central character as he follows through with his choices and actions. It is a moving story that addresses our inability to truly grow and make healthy choices in life when we suppress our core feelings.

Friday August 9th Columbus Theatre 5:00PM
Five Years
Company: D-Train Moving Pictures
Director: Brett Wagner
Producer: David Zellerford
Director of Photography: Chad Davidson
Production Designer: Suzanne Wang
Editor: Brett Wagner
Sound: Mike Dixon
Music: Deni
Cast: Kris Carr, Tim Altmeyer, Todd Swenson, Michael Buscemi, Cathy Doe
Runtime: 90min
Country: USA
Format: BETA SP
Renee Unger is living the life she always hoped for: a little red-brick house in the small town of New Russia, Ohio, a good husband, a prospering construction business, and a baby on the way. When her husband's younger brother turns twenty-one and is released from juvenile prison, where he served five years for murder, Renee's cozy life begins to change. Colson comes to live with them, an injection of danger in the form of a strange, silent houseguest with haunted eyes and odd habits. Her husband, Eric, becomes obsessed with monitoring his little brother's every move, and Colson's moves become increasingly unpredictable. Nobody talks about what happened five years ago, but something shifts beneath the surface of their lives -- a secret that won't stay buried. Just when tensions threaten to explode into violence, the brothers disappear without a word, leaving Renee alone with a houseful of echoes and unanswered questions. She must finally step out of her rarefied world and confront the assumptions on which she's built her whole life.

Friday August 9th URI 6:45PM
Fixing Frank
Director: Michael Selditch
Producers: Michael Selditch, Randi Snitz
Music: Mark Strano
Costume Designer: Arlynn Wilson
Film Editor: Randi Snitz
Production Designer: Michael Selditch
Director of Photography: Tamas Bojtor
Screenplay: Ken Hanes
Cast: Dan Butler, Andrew Elvis Miller, Paul Provenza
Runtime: 104 min
Country: USA
Format: BETA SP
Frank Johnston is an "Arts & Leisure" reporter. Enlisted by his boyfriend, psychotherapist Jonathan Baldwin, Frank goes undercover to write an expos on Dr. Apsey, a therapist who purports to convert gays to straight. Feigning desire to change his sexuality, Frank begins sessions with Dr. Apsey. But Dr. Apsey defies Frank's expectations -- he's not hateful or close-minded -- and Frank begins to question his own sexual identity. The reason for Frank's seeing Apsey becomes blurred - is it for the article or for personal reasons? As Frank falls under Apsey's spell, his relationship with Jonathan deteriorates, and a fierce psychological tug of war erupts between the two powerful doctors over the heart and mind of Frank. With relationships, careers and even core identities at stake, Frank must make some decisions that eventually explode the lives of them all. Director Michael Selditch will be in attendance.

Friday August 9th Columbus Cinemateque 7:40PM
Get A Way (Cavalcades)
Director: Noah Nuer
Company: Baleine Sous Caillou Productions
Producer: Sam Cohen
Cast: Maxime Desmons, Agnes Roland
Runtime: 88 min
Country of Production: France
Format: BETA SP
Life's events pass us by, but how often do we really shift the way we run our life, especially when we don't intend to? Sometimes the magic of two people, without planning on it, makes that happen for each other. Didier and Anne, both trying to get away from their lives, literally bump into one another on the streets of Paris and, through a series of adventures, set about creating a revolution in their lives. Popular French short moviemaker, Noah Nuer signs here his first full-length feature film with two committed, up-and-coming talents you will grow quickly attached to. Get A Way is a charming tale of a weekend of run-away and transformation for two strangers who become touchstones for one another. Clear-eyed, witty, earnest, and entirely original, this is a film of friendship (and more?) in all its potential, an exploration of what we all have in common: our need not to get away, but rather to get a way - - to create what we really want. Director Noah Nuer will be in attendance. French subtitled in English

Monday August 12th Columbus Theatre 7:15PM
Green Lights
Company: Ithaca Movies Inc.
Director/Producer: Robert H. Lieberman
Cast: John FitzGibbon, Daniel Dresner, Shawn Randall
Runtime: 96 min
Country: USA
Format: 35MM
Fiction collides with reality in this unique film, a collaboration of best-selling novelist Robert H. Lieberman ("Baby," "Paradise Rezoned") and Emmy Award-winning Slawomir Grunberg ("School Prayer: A Community at War"). A drama/comedy featuring a small but quirky upstate New York town, seeding scripted actors into real life situations, blurring the boundary between fiction and reality, created "Green Lights". It is a funny, fast-paced film studded with original live music and even a dance number. When Bob Beeman, a lowly film scout arrives in town, bellhops begin tap dancing, children start singing and Shakespeare is waiting around every corner as the rumor spreads that he's a big time producer. Snared by Alex and Jimmy, a luckless writer/composer team, Beeman starts believing the myth swirling around him and turns the community upside down with his 'folie de grandeur'. In attempting to make their musical film, Beeman hopes to save his own failed life, and with it, the hopes and dreams of the town that has adopted him. Clearly Beeman and the town are headed for disaster.

Saturday August 10th Castle Cinema 7:00PM
Grownups
Director: Doug Finelli
Producers: Doug Finelli, Susan R. Rodgers
Writers: Mitch Galane, Doug Finelli
Cast: Jessica Walter, Meredith Salenger, Bill Sage, Tony Roberts, Daniel London, John Stamos Format: 35MM
Country: USA
Runtime: 90min
The 70's. A time of sexual freedom. For twelve year old Steve Richards and Eric Meyer, the future seems limitless. Their world is going to be one of sex, fun and more sex. If the 70's are this wild, just imagine how fun it will be when they grow up. Now in their thirties, Steve and Eric are both married, living in the suburbs and wondering what happened to the wild times they were supposed to have had. Instead of spending their teenage years inside Studio 54 and Plato's Retreat, they have Reagonomics and Rock Hudson's declining health. And with Eric's wife Ami hinting about her biological clock, he's reluctantly accepting that he's a "grownup." But Steve, not ready to admit defeat, goes to work on a plan. A plan to do something crazy, something wild, something 70's - like wife swapping. "If we plan it out so there's no consequences, no ramifications," Steve tells Eric, "What could possibly go wrong?" UH, PLENTY.




Description and Mission Statement
The Providence Film Festival
RIIFF 2002 Team
Films Screened at RIIFF

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Providence RI
NBC 10

List RI

SONY

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P Phoenix





Block Buster

Flickers