Santa Fe Film Festival 2008

An animated slice of Mesoamerica from a New York City cartoonist.

A day in the life of a bourgeois housewife, who, reconciling herself to the end of an affair, realizes, that in its absence her marriage cannot continue.

The father of co-director Thavisouk Phrasavath helped the CIA during the U.S. military’s secret operations in Laos in the early ’70s. Essentially, at the height of the Vietnam War, Phrasavath senior helped America bomb his own country to keep out the reds. It’s no surprise then that when the Americans withdrew, the Communists took over and imprisoned Phrasavath’s father as an enemy of the state. At age 12, Phrasavath became the father figure to his eight siblings and with his mother made a harrowing escape from Thailand. His resilient but politically naïve mother chose the U.S. as their new home, expecting America to reward the family for their loyalty. Instead, their sponsor crammed the entire family into a single room inside a roach-infested crack house. Remarkably, the film shifts from a political tale to an immigrant story as Phrasavath struggles to keep his family together in a hostile land. However, America is not the only betrayal Phrasavath’s family endures. Out of the blue, his father surfaces in the States and drops a bombshell on the family he lost. Betrayal caused a buzz at Hot Docs and was one of a handful of films to earn a repeat (sold out) screening. For starters, the film is beautifully shot by co-director Ellen Kuras (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Neil Young: Heart of Gold) and has intimate access to its subjects, filmed over the course of 23 years. What elevates Betrayal to a different league of filmmaking is the double betrayal that hits Phrasavath’s family: first political, then personal. The family’s struggle to stay together lends this film its resonance and power. -- Allan Tong, www.exclaim.ca

Between The Folds depicts a cast of fine artists, intrepid mathematicians and theoretical scientists who have abandoned conventional careers and scoffed at hard-earned graduate degrees - all to forge lives as modern-day paperfolders. As these provocative minds converge on the unlikely medium of origami, they reinterpret the world in paper, bringing forth a fascinating mix of sensibilities towards art, expressiveness, creativity and meaning. And together, they demonstrate the innumerable ways that art and science come to bear as we struggle to understand and honor the world around us - fusing science and sculpture, form and function, ancient and new.

This moving drama tells the story of elderly and somewhat bitter widow Gemma (Ilaria Occhini) and her young Romanian caretaker, Angela (Doroteea Petre). Though fraught at first, the relationship between the two lonely women develops and they come to depend on one another. When Angela’s husband goes missing in Romania, Gemma must decide how far the bonds of loyalty go and the distance she is prepared to travel in order to help her friend. Bondi’s first feature precisely and interestingly delineates the differences between his two protagonists and touchingly shows how each crosses divides of age and culture in the name of friendship. -- San Francisco Film Society notes

Body Job is a meditation on inspired physicality in the workplace. It is a profile of three people--a farmer, scientist, and preacher-- who transform their jobs with active bodies. Body Job was inspired by a dancing traffic cop, who used to work on the streets of Brooklyn, NY.

There are over six million Maya today. They have a rich and vibrant culture, and have guarded their traditions with great care. But for four centuries they have been a people cut off from the written record of their own extraordinary past.For almost 2000 years, the ancient Maya recorded their history and ideas in an intricate and beautiful script. Then, in the 16th century, Spanish invaders burned their books and ruthlessly extinguished hieroglyphic literacy. By the 18th century, when stone inscriptions were discovered buried in the jungles of Central America and bark-paper books began to surface in the libraries of Europe, no one on earth could read them.Breaking the Maya Code is the story of the struggle to unlock the secrets of the hieroglyphs, arguably one of the most complex writing systems ever created. It is based in large part on the book by archaeologist and historian Michael Coe, himself intimately involved in the decipherment story. His book has been called by the New York Times 'one of the great stories of twentieth century scientific discovery'. This is a detective story filled with misunderstandings and false leads, rivalries and colliding personalities. It leads us from the jungles of Guatemala to the bitter cold of Russia, from ancient Maya temples to the dusty libraries of Dresden and Madrid.Through one of the great intellectual achievements of the past 200 years, the words of the ancient Maya scribes have begun to speak once more.

An intimate portrait of the four film pioneers who founded and ran Warner Bros. studios for over 50 years. This epic story is told in the voice of Harry Warner’s granddaughter and includes never-before-seen footage from the family archives. Featuring Dennis Hopper, Debbie Reynolds, Angie Dickinson, Tab Hunter, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., and Haskell Wexler.