THE 12TH SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL JIN JUE COMPETITION FILMS

SYNOPSIS

TITLE: WE CAN DO THAT

PRODUCTION COUNTRY: ITALY

DIRECTOR: Giulio Manfredonia

Nello, a Milanese businessman who has lost his job, finds himself managing a cooperative of former mental patients, relocated after the Italian state closed the country’s psychiatric hospitals under the Basaglia law. A strong believer in the dignity of work, Nello encourages every cooperative member to learn a trade in order to free themselves from their dependence on charity handouts, inventing a role for each of them that is amazingly adapted to their abilities, though it will end up in conflict, with the inevitable human and tragic-comic contradictions in play.

TITLE: NOWHERE PROMISED LAND

PRODUCTION COUNTRY: FRANCE

DIRECTOR: Emmanuel Finkiel

Three characters cross Europe today: a young businessman, a student, a Kurd and his son. Toward the east or the west, by truck, business class, hitchhiking, or train, with or without visas, through contemporary Europe, each is searching for his or her promised land.

TITLE: ACHING HEARTS

PRODUCTION COUNTRY: DENMARK

DIRECTOR: Nils Malmros

Set in the early 1960s, the story evolves around highschool sweethearts Jonas and Agnete, their friendships and families, trials and tribulations. Jonas fails to give Agnete the kind of

attention she craves, and when she decides to start a new romance, he feels for the first time a cold stab of jealousy. Their rocky relationship takes Jonas through the spectrum of emotions that arises with an aching heart.

Aching Hearts is shot over a period of three years, taking into account the development of the young actors, some of whom are amateurs from the actual milieus Malmros is depicting.

TITLE: ORIGINAL

PRODUCTION COUNTRIES: DENMARK/ SWEDEN

DIRECTORS: Antonio Tublén / Alexander Brøndsted

Henry tries hard to blend in. Most of his life he has been acting the human chameleon, encouraged by a fanatic psychologist. This has turned him into a pale reflection of other people\'s expectations. One day, after brutally failing and crashing straight into reality, Henry\'s best friend Jon talks him into opening a restaurant with him in Spain. Goodbye rain, depression, hello tapas and sangria! Before leaving, Henry must fix a few things, but nothing turns out as expected, as Henry is caught up in a maelstrom of bizarre events. What is real – what is fantasy? In order to gain control over his life, Henry needs to transform himself into the sparkling original he really is. This requires a passport and a journey to his own twisted mind.

TITLE: A PIECE OF ME

PRODUCTION COUNTRY: GERMANY

DIRECTOR: Christoph Röhl

During the emotional roller coaster ride that is adolescence, a 16-year-old is confronted with one of the biggest life-changing events that a man can face: becoming a father...

TITLE: SMALL CRIME

PRODUCTION COUNTRIES: GERMANY/ CYPRUS/ GREECE

DIRECTOR: Christos Georgiou

Small Crime is set on a beautiful but ragged Greek island in the Aegean. Our protagonist Leonidas is a frustrated young policeman who has just been assigned here after his graduation from PoliceAcademy and would much rather be in a hassling city than stuck on a sleepy island. He finds hope for action in the discovery of Zacharias body. Each person he talks to on the island has their own version to tell of how Zacharias died and through his unorthodox investigation Leonidas will get to know them all, fall in love, become part of the island them and in the end because of this solve the mystery of Zacharias death.

TITLE: ROMANCE

PRODUCTION COUNTRY: BRAZIL

DIRECTOR: Guel Arraes

"Gentlemen, do you want to listen, to a lovely tale about love and death? It is about Tristan and Isolda, the queen. Listen, in complete joy and great anguish, how they loved each other, and died on the same day, he for her, and she for him. (from the novel “Tristan and Isolda”). “Romance” is a love history about of two actors that live in the restless and chaotic city of São Paulo, and were separated by a ravishing jealousy. They meet each other again in a remote village in the backwoods of the northeastern region of Brazil and revive their great passion. Drawing a parallel between the romance of Tristan and Isolda, the movie is a dramatic comedy with some elements of lyricism that combines classic and poetic aspects to high spirit moments; it was directed by Guel Arraes, the same director of “O Auto da Compadecida, “Lisbela e o Prisioneiro” and others. Since 1981, the director has being at the front of some great TV Globo productions, being also creator, author and producer.

TITLE: ROUGH CUT

PRODUCTION COUNTRY: KOREA

DIRECTOR: Jang Hun

Gang-pae, No.2 in his organization, is swamped with routine violence, and his dream of becoming an actor never went away. Star actor Soo-ta lives behind a veil, away from public eyes. Over time his behavior becomes increasingly agitated, provoked by paparazzi wanting a piece of him wherever he goes. This behavior puts him in a series of spiraling and uncontrollable situations. Now he begins shooting a new movie < Rough Cut> playing a gangster. Because of his bad temper, he beats up a fellow actor and forces the production to a halt. Feeling responsible, Soo-ta requests Gang-pae, whom he met by chance, to play alongside him in the movie in order to save the production. Gang-pae agrees with the condition that the violence portrayed in the movie has to be real and not fake acting violence. Soo-ta accepts the condition and they get ready for the real match.

TITLE: SPLINTERS

PRODUCTION COUNTRY: POLAND

DIRECTOR: Maciej Pieprzyca

A tragicomedy presents few days in lives of three young people in one of the Silesian industrial towns.

Bartek, Marta, and Robert are like splinters: Sharply lone and alienated, but also spontaneous, rough, that can get under one\'s skin… The paths of these three people cross during one of the seemingly ordinary and grey weekends. Truly, they haven\'t intended to meet; truly, they shouldn\'t have met; truly, the fate gave them no choice.    

The leitmotiv of the movie is a need of love and a constant search for it. This is why, among others, the film in the end brings hope. It consciously refers to the bitter-sweet worlds of the Czech "small realism" and the British social cinema.

TITLE: CHAMELEON

PRODUCTION COUNTRY: HUNGARY

DIRECTOR: Krisztina Goda

Gabor Farkas is an office cleaner. Doing night shifts, he hardly contacts his employers, yet he learns everything about them analyzing their rubbish. Nobody suspects that Gabor is in fact a con man who carefully chooses his victims. His targets are mostly disillusioned, lonely women. In a few months he takes all their romantic illusions and savings away. Gabor is an artist in manipulation. He gets a job at a psychologist’s office and meets Hanna, an injured dancer and the daughter of a millionaire. Hanna seems to be the perfect victim for Gabor. He pretends to be a doctor who can cure her body and soul, an irresistible offer for the desperate woman. Everything goes according to plan until Gabor falls in love with her and has to make a hard decision between Hanna and the money.

TITLE: SCHEMES OF AFFECTION

PRODUCTION COUNTRY: ITALY

DIRECTOR: Dodo Fiori

Paolo, a fifty-year-old architect from Rome, doesn’t see himself in his son Matteo, and disapproves of his lack of ambition. With no way of communicating, he ends up imposing his “values” on him. And needy of his father’s attention, Matteo goes along – but at a price…

TITLE: NORMAL

PRODUCTION COUNTRY: CZECH

DIRECTOR: Julius Sevcík

Are monsters born or do we create them?

Film noir based on a true story of a legendary serial killer.

Director Julius Sevcik puts together a complex study of evil in a stylish and decadent film noir. Based on a true story and a controversial play by Anthony Neilson, Normal examines where lies the border between normality and insanity in the time of 1930s economic crisis just before Hitler’s elevation to power. In time when insanity slowly becomes Normal.

Striking performances and rich visuals mark an exceptional arthouse crime film which follows up on the tradition of expressionism and symbolism of the 30s cinema.

TITLE: THE SEARCH

PRODUCTION COUNTRY: CHINA

DIRECTOR: Wanma Caidan

A film director is accompanied by his friend and a business owner, who serves as a guide, to find an actor and actress to play the roles of Prince Drimé Kunden and Princess Mande Zangmo. In a village known for its Tibetan opera performance, the director finds a girl, an ideal candidate for the role of princess. Her melodious voice touches everyone. However, she decides to take the role only on the condition that the director and his friend find her ex-boyfriend, who had previously acted as the prince along with her. The director consents to her wish. On the way to find her ex-boyfriend, the business owner narrates his touching love story as a young man. Throughout their search, the story gradually draws in both the director and the girl with the covered face. The initial simple search for an acting cast eventually becomes a complex inner and outer search for existential and spiritual meaning. Finally, although they find the girl’s ex-boyfriend, her face is still not revealed.

TITLE: THE STORM IN MY HEART

PRODUCTION COUNTRY: NORWAY

DIRECTOR: Pål Jackman

Jernanger is a tale about the tempered Eivind who isn’t scared of anything- except love. Eivind, lives aboard a boat in the South of Norway. The boat lies low and lopsided in the water. Thirty years ago Eivind left his homestead and his teenage sweetheart behind, and he has not been back since. He was meant to go back when everything was honky-dory- only that never happened. Then young Kris appears. He wants to travel the world but didn’t get any longer than to the lifeboat of Jernanger. The two men find one another and together they hatch a great plan.

TITLE: THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

PRODUCTION COUNTRY: FRANCE

DIRECTOR: André Téchiné

Jeanne lives in a house in the suburbs with her mother Louise. The two women get on well together. Louise earns her living by looking after children. Jeanne is half-heartedly looking for a job.

One day, while checking job offers on the Internet, Louise believes that fate has come knocking at her door.

She harbours the hope of getting her daughter a job with Samuel Bleistein, a famous lawyer whom she knew in her youth.

Jeanne\'s and Bleistein\'s worlds are light years apart. However, they\'ll be set on a collision course because of an incredible lie that Jeanne puts together.

TITLE: EMPIRE OF SILVER

PRODUCTION COUNTRY/AREAS: CHINA/TAIWAN, CHINA/HK, CHINA

DIRECTOR: Yao Shuhua

China, 1899. A hedonistic young man must assume the role of heir to a banking empire he cares little about. Following the tragic kidnapping of his brother\'s wife, "Third Master" reluctantly submits to pressure from his overbearing father.

Powerful bank-owner Lord Kang is determined to prepare Third Master for financial leadership by molding his son into his own image. The ruthless businessman tries to convince his son to choose a proven unscrupulous bank manager over a more honest one. But the idealistic Third Master has always questioned his father’s autocratic rule and ethics.

The tense relationship is further complicated by Third Master\'s undying love for his beautiful young stepmother, his first and only love stolen from him by his own father.

Embarking on a metaphysical journey, Third Master must decide whether to follow his father\'s path or find his own. Greed, deception and jealousy surface under the pressures of war and the impending change from silver to paper bills...