Feature
Running time: N/A
Cinequest opens its nightly After Hours program with the latest fun from Troma, makers of Toxic Avenger. Femme is the kind of gal who'd make Camille Paglia stand up and cheer. Watch her as she Annie Oakleys and chop-sakis a whole host of despicable desperadoes.
Running time: N/A
As another day dawns deep in the mountains of the Chinese Hani tribe, Ruoma wakes up to her seventeenth birthday. Just another day of selling sweet corn in the local village market and smiling for the cameras of tourists. That is, until she catches the eye of Ming, a struggling young photographer. Noticing RuomaÕs popularity, Ming hits on the idea of cashing in on her bright smile by having her pose with tourists against the scenic vistas of the Yunnan valley. Ruoma, who dreams of going to the big city and "riding in a glass elevator," jumps at the opportunity.
Running time: N/A
Philip is a successful architect, a single dad having a difficult time with his 16-year-old son. When he learns of his fatherÕs death, a father who abandoned him years ago, Philip makes an obligatory journey to the funeral, only to find that he has a burning need to discover who this man was that he had resented for his entire life. At the funeral, Philip meets Karl, his fatherÕs friend at the nursing home, and Karl sees an opportunity he canÕt pass up. As Karl moves out of the nursing home and in with Philip, both father and son use Karl as the surrogate dad they had always hoped for.
Running time: N/A
He trained Laurel and Hardy and Orson Wells, he opened for the Marx Brothers, and he was publicly admired by George Burns and Ed Sullivan. Even Harry Houdini tried to recruit him for his exclusive inner circle. A brilliant acrobat and magician, Chinese-born Long Tack Sam was one of the greatest international vaudeville acts of all time. Trained from childhood in the ancient art of necromancy, Long Tack Sam married an Austrian shop girl and fathered three Eurasian children at a time when interracial marriage was rare.
Running time: N/A
This wondrous, luminous film is more than simply the story of a family of nomads and their camels in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia; it is, in fact, a small miracle and not just another film. Occasionally, when a young cow has a particularly painful and protracted delivery, she will shun her calf, a potential disaster for the nomads, for whom every animal is precious. The Story of the Weeping Camel is the amazing story of one such birth, and the astonishing methods employed to coax the mother to accept her child.
Running time: N/A
Inspired in part by the TalibanÕs rule in Afghanistan, The Silence Between Two Thoughts is a remarkable, austere, provocative film. It is also an astonishing and important film. In a remote village in an unspecified land, a fundamentalist HajiÕs decree that a young woman be executed is halted because "criminals must go to hell, but an executed virgin will go to heaven." However, the Haji is determined that his sentence be carried out, so he orders the executioner to marry the young woman, thus making him both her husband and her potential executioner.
Running time: N/A
Hemingway wrote that September was "the month when the great fish come. Anyone can be a fisherman in May." Juan faces similar tests of his choices in life in Jos? Luis Garc?a AgrazÕs haunting The Mystery of the Trinidad. Already in a funk as an unsatisfied physician, Juan is forced to come to terms with the double life of his recently deceased father - an undersea treasure hunter who had two families, one of which Juan was never allowed to contact.
Running time: N/A
Great stories are timeless. Great people are inspirational. Sometimes, on a rare occasion, we are lucky enough to discover both. A Polish Jew, Moritz Rabinowitz, was an astute businessman who built his clothing empire from scratch, after years of selling textiles and watches from village to village. Before the war, he was an outspoken fighter against Nazism and was the first person the Germans wanted to arrest after the occupation.
Running time: N/A
"I tried to introduce information. Risky business." - Jean L?opold Dominique. Following a brief meeting in Haiti in 1987, director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs, Something Wild) videotaped conversations with Jean Dominique in exile in New York during the 90s - a man whose passion, style and wit captivated Demme. Although Dominique's education was in agriculture, his life took a radical turn when he became the owner and admired personality of Radio Haiti-Inter, the country's only independently owned station.
Running time: N/A
Set in the twin worlds of high-stakes gambling and the law, May Miles ThomasÕ psychological drama, Solid Air, displays the skillful artistry of a confident filmmaker, as she explores mortality, injustice, betrayal and paternal love. In his late 50s, lonely divorcee, Robert Houston, suffers from asbestosis, a progressive and fatal disease. In a pursuit to win compensation, he embarks on a civil action case against his former employers.