Jean-Claude Lauzon’s highly praised film tells the strange story of Léolo, a young boy from Montréal. Told from Léolo’s point-of-view, the film depicts his family of lunatics and Léolo’s attempts to deal with them. Not one individual in the boy’s life is well adjusted. His brother, after being beaten up, spends the film bulking up on growth protein. The grandfather hires half-naked girls to bite off his toenails and, in a brutal rage, almost kills Léolo. As he witnesses his family decay around him, Léolo retreats into himself and the fantasy world he has constructed. In response to the weirdness of his daily life, Léolo creates a little mental mayhem of his own which Lauzon renders in an amazing series of free-form, surreal images.
Tag: FHD
Ammonites were a kind of snail-like precursor to today’s mollusks, common in the seas of the Cretaceous period, many millions of years ago. They are among the most commonly found fossils, so they must have been extremely plentiful. In this meditative and largely unstructured first feature, a young geologist is traveling by train to visit his sister in the countryside after having received a disturbing and mysterious letter from her. As he travels, he remembers his childhood fixation with rocks, nurtured by his mother, and his very strong affection for his sister.
O Sangue (Blood), tells the story of seventeen-year-old Vincente and his ten-year-old brother, Nino, who must face the departure of their abusive father and its aftermath. With the aid of Vicente’s girlfriend, Clara, the trio attempts to pick up the pieces of their fractured family life while confronting an unwelcomed uncle and mobsters who try to collect debt that their father left behind.
A “cyclo” is a bicycle-drawn taxi similar to a rickshaw, and, in this story, the nickname of an 18-year-old boy trying to scrape together a living in the desperate poverty of Ho Chi Mihn City. Cyclo lives with his grandfather and two sisters, and drives his taxi for a bitter woman who devotes most of her time to her mentally unstable son. When the pedal-cab is stolen, Cyclo is forced into a life of crime to repay the debt and falls in with a group of petty thugs led by a self-styled poet. What Cyclo doesn’t know at first is that the poet is also a pimp, and he’s been using his romantic wiles to lure Cyclo’s older sister into a career as a prostitute.
Mamá Cora is about 80 years old and she has three sons and a daughter. Mamá lives with one of them, unfortunately, the one who is in the worst economic position. One day, all the members of the family have a reunion to celebrate an anniversary. In the middle of the whole thing, an awkward question appears out of nowhere: Who’s going to be Mamá Cora’s heir? Who is going to take care of her during her last days in this world?. The answer is not easy and it doesn’t take too long for the members of this bizarre family to start a terrible and yet hilarious fight. However, in the middle of the whole thing, they’re interrupted by some disturbing breaking news.
A slaughterhouse worker appears to be romantically involved with his boss’s wife. They plan to leave the country together, but at the airport she waits for him in vain. Slowly but surely the three of them get entangled in a fateful web of betrayal, jealousy, and revenge.
This feature-length documentary introduces viewers to Ken Carter, a Montreal-born stunt driver who made a living by risking his life. The film shines a light on the intense preparation that led to Carter’s first attempt to jump a car across a mile-wide stretch of the St. Lawrence River – a 5-year period during which the dare-devil raised a million dollars, erected a 10-storey take-off ramp and built a rocket-powered car.
Danny, onto his 49th share house and in his mid 30s is probably ready for some privacy and independence but is still attracted to the friends and oddball characters that makes sharing a house so attractively horrible. We travel with Danny as he moves through shared houses in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Danny’s life is further complicated by the presence of rental goons despatched by landlords in search of unpaid rent and the police chasing him in relation to a credit card debt thanks to a dodgy housemate. Proving he is not responsible is harder than lying about his identity.