late fall 2009 series

Cornell Cinema is Ithaca's international film festival, and each calendar includes foreign films that would not be shown in the area otherwise. In this calendar, they present Liverpool, Argentine director Lisandro Alonso's sublime, lyrical fourth feature, about a merchant sailor as his ship docks in Ushuaia, the southernmost city on earth, and he disembarks to visit the remote hometown from which he departed decades earlier. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the director of Cannes hits Distant and Climates, ventures into slightly pulpier territory with his exemplary family drama Three Monkeys. On it, a politician persuades his driver to take the fall in a hit-and-run, with some unexpected consequences. Korean auteur Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) follows up his Vengeance trilogy with Thirst, a complex, funny, and erotic tale of a Catholic priest who finds himself a vampire with a conscience. But when he becomes involved with the less scrupulous wife of his childhood friend, the blood begins to flow. Master Japanese filmmaker Kore-eda's (After Life, Nobody Knows) latest work is Still Walking, a quiet gem that offers a seriocomic portrait of a family gathered at the parents' home to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the death of the eldest son. "One of the more accomplished and beautiful films released thus far this year," says the Washington Post. And veteran Polish director Andrzej Wajda brings us Katyn, the story of the 1940's Katy massacre, which saw the Soviets execute over 20,000 POWs and citizens detained after the 1939 invasion of Poland, a massacre that killed Wajda's own father. "The period sets, costumes and cinematography all superbly recreate the brutal era, grand illusions and everyday suffering of the Poles under both the Nazis and the Soviets." (Hollywood Reporter)