Unmade Beds – “Unmade Beds is this year's coolest paean to good music, bad hangovers and lost love.” Two young foreigners living in a vibrant, hip squat in London's East End embark on separate quests. Axl is searching for his long-lost father. Vera seeks to mend a broken heart as she begins a sexy, playful relationship with a charismatic stranger. Unmade Beds will also be our Closing Film. Trailer.

Meet the Head of Juan Perez - Juan Perez the Great is a circus magician that must re-invent his act with a sensational performance in order to get the circus back to its former glory. The performance involves his own beheading, but he chooses a cursed guillotine to do the chopping. Trailer (no sub-titles).

Love Simple – Love Simple is not a simple romantic comedy like the title may allude to. It’s a complicated matter as both characters begin to tell lies to each other in order to cover their severe insecurities and personal baggage. Once they find each other out, they must decide if they can get past the fact that everything they knew about another was a lie. Trailer.

Lost Cause (Canadian) – (aka Sans Dessein) A young man is visited by the ghost of his older self in order to change his destiny. The winner of Best Quebec Film at the 2009 Fantasia Film Festival, Sans Dessein is an absurdist Québécois comedy about a soul-searching janitor. Trailer.

Excited (Canadian) - Eight years after his marriage ended in divorce, Kevin (Cam Cronin) is doing well in his career as the owner of a successful golf course, but his personal life is another matter altogether. Director Bob Sweeney says Excited is "a romantic comedy about sexual dysfunction." It also goes back to his roots in the sense that he would write several pages of the script, gather the actors to rehearse it and then go back and write some more. Sweeney states that process continued until, "the end of the script." In an interview with Playback Online Bruce said, "There is so much media saturation with the topic of sex in our culture, but it's never very serious. I wanted to make something that would contrast with that kind of coverage."

Coopers’ Camera (Canadian) –Starring Daily show correspondants Jason Jones and Samantha Bee (also a real life married couple), Coopers’ Camera is a holiday film sure to make you laugh. A dysfunctional family’s Christmas disintegrates into madness once an estranged uncle shows up for the holidays. A Canadian film, produced by UVic alumni Nicholas Tabarrok, and directed by Warren P. Sonoda who has previously had a Victoria Film Festival screening. Trailer.

Year of the Carnivore (Canadian) – Canadian star Sook-Yin Lee makes her directorial debut with Year of the Carnivore; A bitter-sweet, coming-of-age comedy, about a girl with an unrequited crush on a boy who thinks she’s bad in bed, so she goes out to get more “experience”. She does this by using her authority as a supermarket security guard and blackmailing shoplifters.

Defendor (Canadian) – Woody Harrelson stars as Arthur Poppington in this funny super hero movie. Fueled by the death of his mother, Arthur creates the alter ego, Defendor, and with the help of a prostitute he befriends, starts on his way to try find his mothers killer, falsely chasing who he calls Captain Industry. Trailer.

Made in China – A naïve inventor has complete faith in his humorous domestic hygene product and goes about to do whatever he can to get his invention out into the world. A very funny film, that will leave you asking, “where can I get one of those?” Trailer.

ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction – A zomedy with a political twist. A very funny and well made zombie movie to appease fans of all types. Trailer.

Three Blind Mice – In this Australian comedy/drama, three young Navy officers hit Sydney for one last night on land before being shipped over to the Gulf to fight. Sam has been mistreated at sea and is going AWOL, Dean has a fiancé and the future in-laws to meet, and Harry just loves playing cards. Throughout the night the boys lose each other, find themselves, and along the way discover courage, friendship and redemption. Trailer.

(Untitled) – Funny man Adam Goldberg stars in this hilarious romp
through the world of contemporary art that has serious implications for
those whose lives intersect at the corner of artistic integrity and
commercial success. Full of brooding savants and glass breaking, bucket
kicking performances, (Untitled) is sure to generate plenty of laughs on
even the rainiest west coast winter day. Trailer.

Focaccia Blues - Too often we hear of McDonald’s or other large corporations shutting the little guy down, but in Focaccia Blues, an Italian baker opens up shop next to the fast food giant and brings the competition to their door. The portrayal of the McDonald’s character is particularly humorous but the real town characters hold their own in the humour department. A ton of laughs and a great story. Trailer (no sub-titles).

DRAMA

Rain – Director Maria Govan’s powerful debut, one of the first films produced indigenously in the Bahamas, shows a darker side of the country that tourists rarely see. Rain takes us on a journey into the heart of a child, into the pulse of a country and the spirit of its people.

A Shine of Rainbows (Canadian) – Director Vic Sarin captures the beauty of Ireland in this dramatic masterpiece. An orphan’s life is transformed when an extraordinary woman teaches him to conquer grief and discover the magic in nature and himself. Trailer.

I Killed My Mother (Canadian) – Written, produced, directed and starring 19 year old Quebec native Xavier Dolan, I Killed My Mother has been winning many awards since it first screened. A semi-autobiographical story about Dolan as a young homosexual at odds with his mother. Trailer.

Crackie (Canadian) – “…Gorgeously made, this hushed, intelligent movie has no sentimentality and marks the arrival of a major filmmaking talent.” - John Doyle, The Globe and Mail – 4 stars. Life on the Rock never seemed easy, but for Mitsy it is especially rough. The teenager has been abandoned by her mother, a particularly unfit parent prone to both the bottle and the sex trade. She is left to be brought up by her mercurial grandmother Bride, who is well-meaning but oppressively suffocating. Mitsy's dreams for the future hinge on her desire to be a hairdresser, but her current emotional well-being revolves around a wee dog named Sparky, an unwanted canine misfit to whom she becomes hopelessly attached. Trailer.

Cooking With Stella (Canadian) - A warmhearted social satire about a Canadian diplomat (Lisa Ray) and her chef husband Michael (Don McKellar) who are posted to New Delhi. Upon arrival they inherit a household of Indian servants headed by the charming, totally inspiring and wily cook, Stella (Seema Biswas). When Stella agrees to become Michael's cooking guru, to teach him traditional Indian dishes, little does he know that she's cooking up a scheme of her own. Trailer.

Vision - One of the major auteurs to emerge from New German Cinema and a leader in feminist filmmaking, Margarethe von Trotta has made a film rich in history, imagery and heart. With a keen attraction to understanding human strive and nature and balancing in with scientific discourse, set in what we now know as Germany, the story paints the story of a woman that felt she was beckoned by God to be a Messenger of light. This period was one of much social turmoil and suffering. Trailer.

Private Lives of Pippa Lee - David Gritten of The Telegraph observed, "Buttressed by a formidable cast . . . Miller navigates her story between sharp satire, dark comedy and wrenching drama. Pippa feels like a character from films of an earlier vintage, including Diary of a Mad Housewife and The Graduate. Hints and traces of a playful, late 1960s mood abound. Yet Miller's film is a triumph. Uniformly well acted, it boasts a psychologically knowing script, clearly written by a smart, assertive human being rather than a software program." Trailer.

Usta – This magnificent Turkish film, Tucker-esque in its portrayal of one man’s dream to re-invent an accepted and established product, is one of this years most uplifting films. Shot amidst the chaos of day-to-day life in rural and urban Turkey, Usta is a great story, told well. Trailer (no sub-titles).

Espiral - Santiago and Macario live in Mixtec, Oaxaca. They decide to migrate north with the desire to improve their lives and economic situation. Santiago tries to raise money in order to marry Diamantina and Macario wants to take his family out of poverty. When the men return to their hometowns years later, nothing is the same and both men try to recover what they left behind. Trailer (no sub-titles)

Perfect Day (Un giorno perfetto) - Director Ferzan Özpetek knows how to push your buttons. Slowly and deeply. Emma and Antonio, married with two children, have been separated for nearly a year. Antonio is living alone in the house where he used to live with his wife, while Emma has gone back to her mother, taking the children with her. Then, one night, a flying squad is called to the palazzo and the police burst into the apartment where gunshots have been heard. In a rapid succession of events, Un giorno perfetto describes the twenty-four hours before this moment, the simple but “unique” life of a group of people who are shadowed every step they take. Trailer (no sub-titles).

Like Dandelion Dust - In Like Dandelion Dust, Vancouver Island star actor Barry Pepper plays a character that goes through therapy for alcoholism and anger management and while in prison he trains himself physically and spiritually in order to be reunited with his daughter. Being a father of a nine-year old daughter himself, he was deeply moved by the emotionally provocative material. "You'd have to have ice in your veins not to be moved by this story," Pepper says. "It doesn't allow you to turn away from the honesty of the situation." Behind the scenes.

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky – Our Opening Gala Film brings the world of fashion and music to the big screen. Focusing on the passionate and intense love affair between two creative giants and the effects it has on Stravinsky and his family. Trailer.

THRILLER

Darfur (Canadian) - Set against the genocide in Darfur, six Western journalists visit a small peaceful village and find its people overshadowed by fear. Hearing that the state sponsored Janjaweed militia is heading to the village, the journalists are faced with a difficult decision – leave and report the atrocities to the world, or risk their own lives and stay in the hope of averting a certain slaughter. Trailer.

Rule #1 - Derek has embezzled money and now he is on the run. He has his five rules to keep him safe but when he meets Donna, he has to choose been his beloved rules, and her. Trailer (no sub-titles).

Terribly Happy – A thriller about a Copenhagen cop who moves to a small town after having a nervous breakdown. Entertaining and full of surprising twists, this vivid tale of a Copenhagen policeman working punishment duty in the provinces plays with genres as expertly as do the Coen brothers or David Lynch. In what represents his best work by far, director Henrik Ruben Genz sustains a unique tone that smoothly incorporates Western, noir, horror, and psychological-thriller elements without feeling like pastiche. Trailer.

The Wild Hunt – “Alexandre Franchi's debut feature is beautifully made, rich with texture and colour, be it the deep blues of the forest at night, or the thin cold light of morning in a crappy apartment. It is also packed with enough moods and tonal qualities that you never quite know what to expect. The film was shot in an actual role-playing village, near Shawinigin, with real life-action role players playing themselves. There's a certain meta-level of reality implicit in this notion. It is this level of interactivity that reminded me of couple of recent documentaries.” Trailer.

DOCUMENTARY

ACTIVISM

The Yes Men Fix the World - A screwball true story about two gonzo political activists who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world’s most outrageous pranks. It’s like Punked, but for adults. Trailer.

A Bridge Life: Finding our Our Way Home - Josh Grossberg brilliantly tells the story of a good samaritian who volunteers to bring back ten families from the Astrodome to South Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. After dealing with issues of mistrust and more, he ends up with seven families willing to make the trek to the sunshine state. Trailer.

The Coca-Cola Case (Canadian) – Coca-Cola has flexed their high high priced lawyers at the filmmakers, but being an NFB film, their lawyers knew their rights as filmmakers and knew that they hadn’t done anything wrong and have decided to keep screening this important documentary. Colombia is the trade union murder capital of the world. Since 2002, more than 470 workers’ leaders have been brutally killed, usually by paramilitaries hired by private companies intent on crushing the unions. Among these unscrupulous corporate brands is the poster boy for American business: Coca-Cola. Trailer.

Plastic Planet - Werner Boote presents an up-close and personal view of the controversial and fascinating material that has found its way into every facet of our daily lives: plastic. He takes us on a journey around the globe, showing that plastics have become a threat for both environment and human health. Trailer.

Yodok Stories - Today, more than 200.000 men, women and children are locked up in North Korea's concentration camps. Systematic torture, starvation and murder is what faces the inmates. Few survive many years in the camps, but the population is kept stable by a steady influx of new persons considered to be 'class enemies'. A small group of people have managed to flee from the camps to a new life in the prosperous South Korea. Some of them gather and decide to make an extraordinary and controversial musical about their experiences in the Yodok concentration camp. Despite death threats and many obstacles, the musical becomes a tour de force for this ensemble of refugees and for them a possibility opens to talk about their experiences and inspire others to protest the existence of the camps. Trailer.

Boyhood Shadows: I Swore I’d Never Tell with My American Exodus - “I had a secret I swore I’d never tell” is the opening lyric of the title sequence for the feature-length documentary, Boyhood Shadows: I Swore I’d Never Tell. In a new documentary, Monterey filmmakers Steve Rosen and Terri DeBono shine a light on the hidden problem of male sexual abuse. My American Exodus sees Jesse face his inner-demons by taking a road trip with his father back to where he was born. However, during the trip, the ride turns into an historical and personal exploration. Boyhood Shadows trailer.

Under Rich Earth - Under Rich Earth is a story about ordinary people with extraordinary courage. In a remote mountain valley in Ecuador, coffee and sugarcane farmers face the dismal prospect of being forced off their land to make way for a mining project. Unprotected by the police and ignored by their government, they prepare to face down the invaders on their own. Their resistance ultimately leads to a remarkable and dangerous stand off between farmers and a band of armed paramilitaries deep in the cloud forest. In a world dominated by news of massacres and terrorism, Under Rich Earth offers a surprising and poignant tale of hope and determination. Trailer.

Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space – Hot off it’s best documentary title at the Whistler Film Festival, the film, created by Frenraich-Canadian Denis Delestrac, is a two-hour masterpiece that includes interviews with many space warfare advocates as well as many of those in the keep space for peace movement.

Who Killed Miracle (Canadian) - Screening with short Ways On Wheels and FilmCAN winner, Technology Is a Dead Bird, this is one the whole family can attend. A true west coast story that caught the heart of not only Victoria, but the entire world. Bill Davis found an injured baby killer whale swimming alone near Campbell River, BC, in the summer of 1977. When Miracle was to be transported to Sealand, they discovered the baby whale had been shot and need immediate medical care. Despite pressure to release Miracle, Sealand argued that Miracle would not be able to fend for herself. In 1982, Miracle die suddenly under a cloud of controversy. Trailer.

Finding Farley (Canadian) - Screening with the FilmCAN junior winner WannaBe, Finding Farley is another good movie to bring the whole family along to. An invitation from Farley Mowat begins Leanne Allison (Being Caribou) and Karsten Heuer's journey overland from Calgary to Cape Breton retracing the iconic writer's literary footsteps from Owls in the Family to People of the Deer. Trailer.

Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride (Canadian) – Beyond Gay travels to countries where pride is steeped in protest and helps open eyes to the oppression and hatred that still exists elsewhere in the world towards pride. Trailer.

SOCIAL CONSCIENCE

Collapse - A documentary on Michael Ruppert, a police officer turned independent reporter who predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter, From the Wilderness. Trailer.

Mark (Canadian) - “Mark died at age 35, and Hoolboom went looking for answers, talking to friends, probing Mark’s life of service to others and to animal rights, collecting images and stories. What he finds are only faint traces of Mark’s time on earth, in the streets and sad apartments, in a child he meets by chance. What he makes is a deeply moving reflection on relationship and the mysteries of absence and presence. A film that breathes with an urgent necessity all its own. Hoolboom’s finest work to date.” Bruno Dequen, Festival de Nouveau Cinema, Montreal

When You Die As a Cat (Canadian) - After the war in Bosnia, poet Goran Simic immigrates to Canada, hoping that he could be what he was before. Even in his new life, the War keeps walking beside him. Trailer.

Taqwacore (Canadian) - The word Taqwacore is a combination of hardcore, a genre of punk music, and taqwa, an Arabic word that translates as "piety" or "god-fearing." The first to use the term was writer, journalist, and Muslim convert Michael Muhammad Knight. His novel The Taqwacores, about a group of young Islamic punk rockers, received a storm of recognition among young American Muslims and prompted the formation of various Muslim punk bands. Trailer.

Anne-Perry Interiors – Anne-Perry Interiors accompanies the writer and offers a uniquely intimate insight into the world of one of the most intriguing figures of the mystery writing genre. The documentary tells a story about the burden of guilt-not just as part of the past but as part of present day life. Trailer.

Love At the Twilight Motel (Canadian) – Part confessional, part broken love story, this series of remarkably intimate interviews softly penetrates the darker side of desire to test our comfort level with other people's secrets. Mr. B loves his wife "more than life," but has a plethora of dubious justifications for his hooker and heroin habit. Beautiful, soft-spoken Rose was a straight "A" student until she fell in with the wrong crowd. Whatever you need, she can hook you up. Richard feels it's his destiny to be a "special treat" for married women missing a little "heat." And Sara, the Bible Belt wife-next-door, believes that a little extracurricular sex isn't a sin as long as there's no lying.

Last Train Home (Canadian) - The Zhangs (Yang Zhang playing himself and Suquin as herself) have left their village in China and their newborn daughter to find work in the Guangzhou province garment factory for 16 long years.  They see her only once a year during the Lunar New Year taking The Last Train Home in a disturbing filmed sequence. Trailer.

Lebanon - In the first Lebanon war in June of 1982 a lone tank and a paratroopers platoon are dispatched to search for a hostile town – a simple mission that turns into a nightmare. The four members of the tank crew find themselves in a situation that they are not equipped to handle. Motivated by fear and the basic instinct of survival, they desperately try not to lose themselves in the chaos of war. Trailer (no sub-titles).

Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – An exploratory through a surprising and delightful universe of individual creativity, Trimpin: The Sound of Invention will delight anyone interested in the challenges, pitfalls, and sheer joy of creative experiment. Hailed by the Austin Chronicle as “an excellent documentary… a testament to the endless possibilities afforded by a free imagination,” and praised as “a superb portrait” and “delightful.” Trailer.

Shadow Billionaire - Much of Spraic's film is narrated by opposing legal counsels, all of whom (particularly David Lujan who may be the smartest guy in the room) are articulate and as puzzled by the deepening mystery of Hillblom's back alley life as you will be. The winning team produces a strangely satisfying verdict in this court battle, though you may leave the theater ready for a cleansing dip in the South Pacific.

Most Dangerous Man in America - Co-winner of this year's Freedom of Expression Award from the National Board of Review (and one of their Five Best Documentaries of the Year), Winner of the Special Jury Award at IDFA, and in contention for the year's Best Documentary Oscar, The Most Dangerous Man in America tells the story of Daniel Ellsberg, a high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist, who in 1971 concluded that the war is based on decades of lies and leaks 7,000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times, making headlines around the world. A riveting story of how this one man's profound change of heart created a landmark struggle involving America's newspapers, its president and Supreme Court. With Daniel Ellsberg, Patricia Ellsberg, Tony Russo, Howard Zinn, Hedrick Smith, John Dean, and, from the secret White House tapes, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who called Ellsberg "the most dangerous man in America." Trailer.

Open Your Mouth and Say… Mr Chi Pig - a look at the personal life of Kendall Chinn, AKA Mr. Chi Pig, singer of legendary punk band SNFU. The film documents the journey from Kendall’s troubled youth in Edmonton, Alberta to playing in front of thousands. The film recounts Kendall’s battles with mental disorders and drug addiction and their impact on his art. Open Your Mouth And Say… Mr. Chi Pig is a story of a man who impacted so many lives and his attempt to change his own life. Trailer.

Unmistaken Child - Unmistaken Child inevitably leads you to consider the material world and to contemplate the balance in your own life between physical gratification and spirituality. The rugged landscape, in which mist filters through craggy cliffs and wild flowers seem to dance in the mountain meadows, suggests that religion and geography are profoundly intertwined. How we perceive the universe, time, death and rebirth has everything to do with altitude and latitude." - Stephen Holden, The New York Times. Trailer.

The Mirror - The Mirror is a documentary about bringing sunlight to a forgotten village and how this extraordinary idea affects the lives of the people in the village and the surrounding valley. Touching and whimsical, it’s about the light and the dark and the things in between – a documentary film about some extraordinary people and their extraordinary dreams of light. Trailer.