Suggestion of some films for IFFK 2009

1) Tokyo Sonata (Japanese)

The film is directed by famous Japanese director Kiyoshi Kirosawa. The film is a black comedy about a Japanese businessmen, Sasaki Hiroyuki, who lost his job and do not want to reveal the truth to his family. It is a very well made film, with lot of emotional elements.

2) Departures (Japanese)

Oscar award winning film. The main protagonist of this film Daigo Kobayashi, was a cellist in an orchestra which had just been dissolved. Daigo decides to move back to his old hometown with his wife. However, his life is revived when he starts working as an “encoffineer.” He cleans up the body, places the dead into the coffin, and sends the dead to the next world in the best way possible… he is the gatekeeper between life and death. The job is despised by his wife and the people around him, but through the “Deaths” that he encounters, he finally starts to find what “Life” is all about. Certainly this film deserves oscars. The director of this film is Yojiro Takita, who has made films like Onmyoji and When the last sword is drawn.

3) Breathless (Korean)

The film was made by a new comer Ik jun Yang. The main character of this film is Sang-hoon. he is working as a scamp to get money from debtors to creditors. One day, he encounters Youn-hee, a high school student. Both of them have gone through unhappy childhood with crashed families. She knows that Ik jun Yang has killed her mother. but she do not want to take revenge. but life is not that merciful.....something worst is waiting for him.

4) Mother (Korean)

The film was made by famous young director from Korea - Bong Joon ho and it was also a commercial hit in korea. Hye-ja is a ginseng vendor and an unlicensed acupuncturist in a small town in southern South Korea. She dotes on her son, Do-joon, who is 27, unemployed, and mentally incapacitated on some level, which Hye-ja seems to ignore.A high school girl is found dead on the roof of an abandoned building, and the local detectives arrest Do-joon based on circumstantial evidence. They coerce him to sign a confession and quickly imprison him. Hye-ja, distraught and convinced he is innocent, searches for the real killer, uncovering many secrets from the townspeople.

5) Handphone (Korean)

A thriller from Kim Han-Min. Missing of a Mobile phone can change ur life. Oh Seung-min manager of a film actress faces tragedy of his life through his lost mobile phone.

6) Tokyo !! (Japanese)

Three stories from three visionary directors who directly inspired by the vast metropolis of Tokyo. Three of world cinema's greatest visionaries: Michel Gondry ("Be Kind Rewind", "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind"), Leos Carax ("The Lovers On The Bridge"), and Bong Joon-Ho ("The Host") each direct a segment of this surreal triptych set in the ultra-modern metropolis of Tokyo, Japan.

7) Thirst (Korean)
Cannes award winning film from Park Chan Wook. The film tells about the story of a vampire.

8) Old Partner (Korean documentary)

The real story of 30-year companionship between a 40-year-old ox and an octogenarian. The Sound of the Cowbell! Neither time nor civilization can go against their companionship. 80 years old, CHOI has an old ox that has worked for 30 years, and an ox aged almost 40. However, theres something special about the way Old CHOI treats this ox, which is so worn-out that it might be dead any minute. The old man is single- mindedly focused on the ox, instinct-ively turning to the beast when he hears the cowbell even though hes nearly deaf. One spring day, however, Old CHOI heard that his ox only has a year to live, which will make big troubles for him.

9) 24 City (Chinese)

Jia Zhangke goes one (magnificent) step further in his idiosyncratic exploration of both the thin border between documentary and fiction and the self-imposed destruction experienced by China in her march toward a free-market economy. Though factories were once the temples in which socialism was built, with their workers treated as heroes, they are now being dismantled all over the country, and thousands of their employees laid off. Jia documents the closing of the "420" factory (once an airplane engine plant, with military implications) to build a luxury apartment complex, "24 City," on its site, in Sichuan's capital city of Chengdu. You see a sign being dragged over gravel, a building imploding as workers are singing "The Internationale"—but mostly you hear the stories, covering a 50-year period, of the people whose lives have revolved around the factory.

10) And the spring comes (Chinese)

Setting in a northern county of China in late 80s and early 90s of last century, this movie is about a few ordinary people who dreamed to become artists, who are stubborn enough to fight for their dreams, but eventually give in to the mundane life. This is a somehow identical theme appeared in the director's previous award-winning film "Peacock". Nevertheless, this is a totally different story. Well written and directed, this is one of the best movies of China of the year. What makes this movie magnificent is that although it's a sad story, the director was able to add in some delicate and somehow absurd humor, pushing you to the edge of breaking your heart. One thing worth to mention is that the leading actress, Wenli Jiang, is in fact the director's wife, who is very beautiful in reality but appeared to be ugly in the movie.

11) Forever Enthralled (Chinese)

Acclaimed Fifth Generation director Chen Kaige brings the tumultuous life of Peking Opera legend Mei Lanfang to the big screen in the highly anticipated biopic Forever Enthralled. The inspiration for Leslie Cheung's character in Chen Kaige's 1993 masterpiece Farewell My Concubine, Mei Lanfang was one of the greatest Peking Opera stars of modern China.

12) Home Run (Chinese)

A child's quest to return to home on his own takes center stage on the reality television program. With declining ratings and investor pressures, Li, the producer and host of the program, also faces difficulty in locating the next show's talent. In the rush of things, a thought pops inside her head and she knows exactly who can take on as her next star. She locates and brings five-year-old Lu to the set, and sends him off to find his way home alone. The cocky and resourceful boy calls his divorced father to overcome numerous hurdles, and in the process finds new and unexpected routes in a treacherous but often hilarious journey, tracked discreetly by a television crew. Lu has always wanted to find the mother whom he doesn't know. The young boy's determination to find his mother touches the heart of the entire nation, including that of his estranged mother, who happens to be....

13) Set Off (Chinese)

Set Off, directed by debutant Liu Jiang, is the first film completed under China Film Group's young filmmaker funding project. Garnering great word of mouth when it was released theatrically, this low-budget comedy is highly acclaimed for its smart script and great casting. Set Off is about Lao Cui a good-for-nothing but kind-hearted man running a Chinese restaurant in Cyprus. He comes home to Beijing only to find his wife cheated on him, pregnant with his best friend's baby. Devastated, Cui's misfortune is further compounded by the news that his business partner is going to sell his restaurant. Before he flies back to Cyprus, Cui bumps into a sassy girl named Xiao Xia, and his real nightmare has only just begun...

14) City of life and death (Chinese)

City of Life and Death takes place in 1937, during the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Imperial Japanese Army has just captured the then-capital of the Republic of China, Nanjing. What followed was known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, a period of several weeks wherein tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed. The film tells the story of several figures, both historical and fictional, including a Chinese soldier, a schoolteacher, a Japanese soldier, a foreign missionary, and John Rabe, a Nazi businessman who would ultimately save thousands of Chinese civilians.

15) Cafe Isobe (Japanese)

Written and directed by Yoshida Keisuke (Raw Summer), low-key charmer Cafe Isobe (a.k.a. Junkissa Isobe) is a minor comedy that offers major laughs. Actor and comedian Miyasako Hiroyuki (20th Century Boys, Wild Berries) stars as a flaky single father who opens a dinky cafe that seems to only attract the strangest of customers. He's happy as can be though pining after the newly hired waitress, played by popular actress Aso Kumiko (Achiless and the Tortoise). Less enthused is his disgruntled teen daughter, embodied with angsty charm by rising star Naka Riisa (Gachi Boy, Island Times). Filled with both heart and humor, Cafe Isobe has enjoyed good word of mouth for its bright atmosphere, quirky comedy, and genial portrayal of a father-daughter relationship.

16) Tulpan ( Kazakh/Russian)

Having just completed his naval service, young Asa travels back to the Kazakh steppe to take a bride and begin his new life as a shepherd. Asa is eager to go back to the countryside, where he plans on living a nomadic life along with his sister and her husband. His sister's husband is a shepherd, a career that Asa, too, hopes to someday undertake. But before that happens, Asa will have to find a bride -- not an easy task on the deserted steppe. Young Tulpan is the daughter of another shepherd family and the most obvious choice, yet she isn't attracted to Tulpan due to his big ears. Will Tulpan ever be able to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a shepherd, or is he forever condemned to lead the life of a lonely bachelor?

17) Little Note (Singapore)

Living with little wants in the countryside. Zhiren and his mother expressed their love and support for each other in a simple way - by exchanging little notes. These words of encouragement spurred their every step forward in life, helping them cast aside fear and despair in times of uncertainty. Interweaving poetic cinematography, intricate scenes of mother-and-son intimacy and a heartfelt original score, Little Note will meander its way into your heart like a clear, pristine stream.

18) Two legged hourse (Iran)

A father who has a young son with one leg and no other household members must go to India for some weeks. He hires another boy for a dollar a day to carry the son around on his back, to the school or to whatever whims may occur to the son. Actually the son is so skilled in jumping at really great speed, that he does not need any help or any "horse". The son's whims include not only verbal and physical abuse, but also repeated "horse fights" where "the horse" will continually be knocked down. Even "the horse's" tender feelings for a child girl beggar are exploited and mocked. Because of the brutal and degrading treatment "the horse" will become more and more similar to a real horse.

19) Waltz with Bashir (Israel)

Oscar nominated film made by Ari Folman. In 1982, Ari Folman was a 19-year-old infantry soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. In 2006, he meets with a friend from his army service period, who tells him of the nightmares connected to his experiences from the Lebanon War. Folman is surprised to find that he does not remember a thing from that period. Later that night he has a vision from the night of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the reality of which he is unable to tell. In his memory, he and his soldier friends are bathing at night by the seaside in Beirut under the light of flares descending over the city. Folman rushes off to meet another friend from his army service, who advises him to discuss it with other people who were in Beirut at the same time in order to understand what happened there and to relive his own memory. Folman converses with friends, a psychologist and the reporter Ron Ben-Yishai who was in Beirut at the time.

20) Vanished Empire (Russia)

The film's story takes place in Moscow in the 1970s. Its plot unfolds around the love triangle between two young men and a girl who study at the same university. They argue, make up, and face their first disappointments and victories. While busy with personal lives and loves, they miss foreseeing that the country in which they were born and live will soon disappear from the map.

21) Revolution cars (Turkey)

In the years of pulse, Turkey was unable to produce its own cars. But Pasha believed that Turkish people can produce their own cars so he ordered 2 cars. Gunduz and engineers with him must produce 2 cars in only 130 days!

22) The betrayal (Laos)

The epic story of a family forced to emigrate from Laos after the chaos of the secret air war waged by the U.S during the Vietnam War. Kuras has spent the last 23 years chronicling the family's extraordinary journey in this deeply personal, poetic, and emotional film.

23) Summer Book / Tatil kitabi (Turkey)

Mustafa is a hard-working and ambitious agricultural merchant who is cold and austere towards his family.One day he has a brain hemorrhage on a business trip and goes into a coma after the operation. Güler, who has been suspecting that her husband is having an affair, is now convinced of it. Veysel, their teenage son,wants to leave the military academy and start a civilian life of his own. Ali, their 10 year old son, has to cope both with his bully classmates and the chewing gums he has to sell. Hasan, Mustafa’s brother, chose to live a life in solitude after divorcing his wife and has always been an outsider to the family. But now he finds himself involved in his brother’s family after his brother goes into a coma. Hasan has to solve the mystery about his brother’s mistress and the money lost during his trip.

24) Ask Tutulmasi (Turkey)

Ask Tutulmasi is the story of football-crazy Ugur and career-oriented Pinar who lost all confidence in relationships. Their paths cross and more than fireworks follow. Will Ugur be able to let go of some of his love for this favourite football team and put Pinar before football?

25) Autumn / Sonbahar(Turkey)

Released from prison after 10 years for anti-government activities as a student in the 1990s, Yusuf returns to his sickly mother in a mountainous village near the Black Sea. He only sees his childhood friend Mikail. As autumn slowly gives way to winter, Yusuf and Mikail go to a tavern where Yusuf meets Eka, a beautiful Georgian prostitute. Love becomes a final desperate attempt to grasp life and elude solitude. Beyond the personal tragedy of a man who has nothing to look forward to, there lurks the bitter deception of a shattered socialist dream.