Dan DaranciangIf you’ve ever decried the tendency for good independent films to run in New York and L.A., while fly-over country is left with little more than the latest Hollywood tripe, the St. Louis International Film Festival is for you. Established in 1992 by Cinema St. Louis for the purpose of “producing, promoting, and presenting annual film events to advance film as an art form in St. Louis,” the festival has grown into a cultural event that filmgoers eagerly anticipate all year.
The screenings, starting tonight and ending on Sunday, Nov. 19, will take place mostly at the Tivoli, with a handful of films to be shown at Webster University (for a comprehensive list of screenings, go to www.cinemastlouis.org/dailyschedule.cfm). Twenty-five countries will be represented at the Festival, from Iceland to Argentina to Vietnam. While it’s impossible to convey the quality and diversity of these films without actually seeing them, Cadenza has picked a few that seem particularly buzzworthy.
From Ireland: “Breakfast on Pluto”
Thursday, Nov. 17, 7 p.m. at the Tivoli
Featuring the talents of Cilian Murphy and Liam Neeson, “Breakfast on Pluto” tells the story of a young, androgynous Irish orphan named Patrick Braden (Murphy), who challenges the conventions of church-dominated Ireland in the early ’60s, and goes on a quest spanning the British Isles to find his long lost mother later in the decade. Along the way, he dabbles in magic (of the David Blaine variety), transvestite prostitution, and IRA bombing campaigns. Accompanying these shenanigans is a perfectly picked soundtrack of ’60s and ’70s bubblegum pop. This promises to be one of the more bizarre films to be shown at the festival.
From the U.S.: “Transamerica”
Saturday, Nov. 19, at the Tivoli
Continuing in the same vein of gender ambiguity as “Pluto,” “Transamerica” stars desperate housewife Felicity Huffman as Bree Osborne, a pre-op transsexual who is confronted with the knowledge that (s)he fathered a son 17 years ago. This development forces her therapist to refrain from signing a mandatory approval form for the operation, which leads Bree on a cross-country road trip to reconnect with her son, who has become a gay porn actor. Hijinx ensue.
From South Korea: “The President’s Last Bang”
Saturday, Nov. 12, 9:15 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 13, 9:45 p.m. at the Tivoli
This political thriller tells the true story of the 1979 assassination of South Korea’s authoritarian president Park Chung Hee by Kim Jae Kyu, the director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. Taking place entirely within the 24 hours surrounding the assassination, the film clinically documents the events of the evening while keeping the motivations of the characters opaque. At once comical and deeply disturbing, the film was both an object of criticism and a box office hit in South Korea. The film’s appearance at the St. Louis International Film Festival may be your only chance to see it for a long while.