“A fresh perspective on contemporary life in Eastern Europe infuses this winning comic drama” (Bangkok I.F.F.). Reminiscent of recent films by young Czech directors, and a popular success at home in Slovakia, Two Syllables Behind concerns young Zuza (Zuzana Sulajová, from Martin Sulík’s The Garden), an attractive art history student who lives in Bratislava, dreams of Paris — and, like many of her more carefree, more materialistic post-communist generation, is eager to have it all, and to have it as fast as she can. Zuza is also more fortunate than most: in addition to her studies, she earns a good living as a voice actress dubbing cheesy soap operas, and barely has time to juggle her multiple boyfriends. Her Westernized life andattitudes are a far remove from those of her beaten-down parents, to say nothing of her eccentric grandmother, a wise Old World woman who embodies a time when people spoke multiple languages but led much more modest lives. Yet for all the excitement in her life, Zuza can’t shake the feeling that something is missing ... "Scriptwriter Katarina Sulajová’s debut feature says a lot about the post-communist world of Eastern Europe, where a carefree younger generation is growing up ... This is fast-moving, easy-watching entertainment" (Deborah Young, Variety). Colour, 35mm, in Slovak with English subtitles. 90 mins.

Veteran director António da Cunha Telles’s Portuguese box-office hit features popular actress Marisa Cruz as a young woman who escapes her unhappy small-town life by fleeing into a fantasy world in which she is Marilyn Monroe. Kiss Me is set in the late 1950s, with Portugal under the Salazar dictatorship. Cruz plays Laura, who has made a disastrous marriage with a violent brute. She abandons her husband to live in another town with her eccentric aunt, a free-thinking woman whose liberated American ways are loathed by the locals. Shy provincial girl Laura decides to liberate herself by transforming into a Monroe-like blonde bombshell. Imitating every aspect of her Hollywood idol — hair, dress, comportment — she begins turning the heads and igniting the passions of the town’s men folk, single and married alike. Kiss Me was named best feature at Toronto’s first annual Fantasy World Wide Film Festival in 2005. Colour, 35mm, in Portuguese with English subtitles. 110 mins.