“A road movie that poignantly juggles absurdism and melancholy” (Stephen Holden, New York Times), writer-director-actor Bouli Lanners’s Eldorado was named Best European Film in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2008 and was Belgium’s official Foreign Language Film submission to this year’s Oscars. “Eldorado is a tale of two guys, fat and thin: Stroppy vintage-car dealer Yvan (Lanners, dressed like a Walloon Kevin Smith) comes home one night to find smack-scrawny Elie (Fabrice Adde) robbing him. Instead of calling the cops, Yvan becomes oddly protective of the pathetic felon and offers to drive him to his parents’ house near the French border. The voyage provides both lovely shots of low-country landscapes — which suggest not the starker palette of Dardenne Brothers’ territory, but magic-hour prairie heartland – and genuinely funny encounters with weirdos . . . Upending all low expectations of this frequently trite genre, Lanners’s film is smart and confident . . . [and] surprisingly affecting” (Melissa Anderson, Village Voice). “Eldorado turns into a sad contemplation of fractured family relationships and eternal regrets . . . a film that reflects on the consequences of forsaking human (especially family) connections” (Holden). Colour, 35mm, in French with English subtitles. 81 mins
(Karamazovi)
Czech Republic/Poland 2008. Director: Petr Zelenka
Cast: Ivan Trojan, Igor Chmela, Martin Myšička, David Novotný, RadekHolub
The latest from New Czech Cinema luminary Petr Zelenka — director of Buttoners, Year of the Devil, and Wrong Side Up (screened in our 2006 EUFF) — was the Czech Republic’s official submission to this year’s Academy Awards. “A film that examines the relationships between lives on both sides of the proscenium, Zelenka’s The Karamazovs finds a Prague-based theatrical ensemble arriving in Krakow, Poland, where its members prepare to mount a stage production of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. The central catch behind this unusual production is the locale: the play will be conducted at the local steelworks. Zelenka’s central narrative crisscrosses two spheres of reality - the documentary-like sphere of the actors playing the characters, and the more traditional cinematic narrative involving the characters in the play itself. Soon, distinct, haunting parallels between the two begin to emerge. Then, an unexpected tragedy arrives” (Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide). “The phenomenal legit performances are alone worth the price of admission . . . The interplay among the different levels of text (novel, play, film, ‘real life’) is one of the most sophisticated in Euro cinema since Pedro Almodóvar’s Bad Education” (Boyd van Hoeij, Variety). Colour, 35mm, in Czech and Polish with English subtitles. 110 mins.
BOX OFFICE · CASH ONLY Tickets go on sale 30 minutes before the first screening of the evening.
ADVANCE TICKETS
Available for credit card purchase on this website until 4pm the day of screening.
Screenings restricted to 18+ and require a Pacific Cinémathèque membership unless otherwise indicated.
SATURDAY, NOV. 28 – 7:00 PM
