Montreal 2007

"Samira's Garden"

"Good Night Malik"

One year after celebrating its 30th anniversary, it seems the World Film Festival (Festival des Films du Monde) has regained most of its past prestige. After surviving a couple of years of crisis, due to the unexpected competition of a born-dead event (the "New Festival of Montreal") and the subsequent loss of some of its public and private funding, the team headed by President Serge Losique and General Director Danièle Cauchard managed to attract prestigious filmmakers, both in competition (Abel Ferrara, Claude Miller) and out of competition (Claude Lelouch, Pascale Ferran). Tributes were presented to actors Jon Voight and Sophie Marceau and Montreal-born director Fernand Dansereau.
    The impressive Maisonneuve Theatre is still filled every night with film lovers wishing to discover the world competition program, while the Place des Arts, the venue of many other festivals in summer (such as the jazz fest and the Francofolies), hosts free open-air screenings of recent hits and classics. What a p leasure it is, for a cinephile, to see a young crowd overwhelmed by The Virgin Spring or The Magic Flute by Ingmar Bergman, to whose memory the festival was dedicated!
   The International Critics' Prize was awarded to the Moroccan film Samira's Garden (Samira Fi Adayaa) directed by Latif Lahlou, a sensitive journey through the life changes of a Moroccan urban woman who marries an older man and moves to a village. The jury also chose to give an additional award to the French short film Good Night Malik (Bonne nuit Malik) directed by Bruno Danan.
    (Grégory Valens, © FIPRESCI 2007)

Montreal World Film Festival: August 23 — September 3, 2007, www.ffm-montreal.org/en_index.html
Details of the FIPRESCI Prizes

Reports
A Radiography of Our World. Grégory Valens assesses the world competition, emphasizing a few films which deal with major issues of contemporary society, such as the surprisingly vivid Canadian comedy Surviving My Mother by Emile Gaudreault.
A Moroccan Garden of Desires. Hynek Pallas reviews the FIPRESCI winner, Latif Lahlou's Samira’s Garden, a Moroccan drama about a woman who is determined to follow her desires, which deconstructs most of the stereotypes of Arab society.
A Crime Film with a Difference. Ashok Rane  is extremely impressed Volker Einrauch’s The Other Boy, especially by the subtle turns of the plot.
Damaged Memory. Leopoldo Munoz is stimulated by Claude Miller's A Secret (Un secret) to speculate on the nature of cinema's uncertainty principle and the stylized manner in which the director has successfully achieved his aims.

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