Montreal 2005

Montreal. Serge Losique, the founder and long-time director of the Montreal World Film Festival, was confronted this year with unexpected problems caused by the withdrawal of some public sponsors and the establishment of another festival, the New Montreal Film Festival, taking place only a few weeks later. It seems, however, that he was not fazed by these problems. He organized his festival as if nothing happened, and even got back the official FIAPF status of a so called A-Festival. As always, a jury of film critics jugded the international competition and found Kamataki by Claude Gagnon the best film of the selection. Read Chris Fujiwara's review of the film, as well as notes on other films written by our jury members. Details

Reports
The Place of Art. In our prize-winning film, Claude Gagnon's Kamataki, Chris Fujiwara discerns "a mastery of ellipsis and condensation ... and a sustained subtlety of emotion that becomes deeply satisfying."
The Perception of Reality. Angela Baldassarre speaks about the films selected for the festival's inernational competition.
Five Images. Now that the festival has ended, five images from five films linger in the mind of Rainer Gansera.
The Resistance. Javier Porta Fouz finds in Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Sex & Philosophy and Milos Radivojevic's Awakening of the Dead evidence "that cinema can be more intelligent, more fascinating, more daring than the dull and clumsy proposals of most of the films in the main competition."
Natural Born Raconteur. Christian Monggaard discovers in Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party a good documentary about an excellent storyteller.

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