Eleven directors from 11 countries each contribute an 11-minute short reflecting on the events of 11 September 2001: A village teacher in Iran tries to explain to her young students what’s happened; city kids in Burkina Faso think they’ve spotted Osama bin Laden; a deaf Frenchwoman in Manhattan writes a Dear John letter to a man who left that morning for work at the World Trade Center; a Chilean remembers Allende; events recall other deaths; a mother endures more than her son’s death. The tones vary, as do the locales. Most stories are about others coming to terms with the events of the day, but at least one confronts the viewer with tragedy and death.
Category: Drama
A college student goes to prison for vehicular manslaughter and unpaid tickets. He escapes with his girlfriend, becoming fugitives. The narrative explores the sustainability and consequences of their life on the run.
Japanese soldier Tôsuke Kosugi deserts his position and travels to a small town on the Sea of Japan to start over in this melodrama from director Masahiro Shinoda. When a young maid falls for him, he talks her into sleeping with an older man for money. The woman is told by a geisha that she gave up her virginity cheaply. The resort town begins to feel the influence of the modern world as the sabre-rattling that preceded World War II begins to change their lives forever.
Four Canadian girls skip off university to get to the wedding of one of their number’s relatives across the border in Portland. After the event one stays on with a guy she’s met, one returns home to get ready for her own wedding, and the other two head off for San Diego in a newly acquired Cadillac in search of the usual things.
Married with children, Réal falls in love with Angie, a singer at an adult nightclub. Leaving his family hastily to live with the woman he loves, Réal unwittingly finds himself drawn into the seedy underworld on which she depends. Through a series of circumstances, Réal becomes a stand-up comedian, and slowly sees his partner become entangled in a web of lies that threaten to destroy their relationship.
Returning from war in 1520s Switzerland, mercenary Hansli Gyr finds his homeland divided by the Reformation. As he embraces the teachings of Zwingli, his beloved Ursula is drawn into the radical Anabaptist movement. Their romance is tested by religious conflict, political unrest, and the bloody upheavals that transform their world.
Race with the Devil director Starrett’s crime-comedy pairs Stacy Keach and Frederic Forrest as working-class West Virginia good ol’ boy brothers who impulsively decide to leave behind their lives of hard labor, relocate to Washington, D.C., and try to get-rich-quick by teaming up with some local stick-up men, with the dream of opening a seafood restaurant called The Blue Grotto. Keach and Forrest, eventually joined by a charming Margot Kidder, exude hillbilly charisma; Starrett gives us a finale for the ages with a shoot-out set in a building undergoing demolition; and the screenplay is co-written by none other than a pseudonymous Terrence Malick, who here anticipates the ”Take this job and shove it” opening of his Days of Heaven.
Iran Is My Land is about a young Iranian writer, Sohrab, who has written a hefty tome about classic poetry. To get the necessary licence to publish, he has to visit the Ministry for Islamic Art and Education in Teheran. Halfway there his car breaks down in the desert. Overcome by hunger, thirst and fatigue, all kinds of poets from former times appear to him. Each of them has different advice about how Sohrab should continue on his way.