The MIFF has been called “the Cannes of the Americas” by the New York Times and “a Sundance for Ibero-American films” by the Wall Street Journal. The quotes may be hyperbolic but there is substantial truth to them. Since its inception, the MIFF has strived to serve as the premiere showcase for Spanish and Portuguese-language films in the United States.  Moreover, over the past five years, the festival has developed an outreach program called Encuentros (Spanish for encounters) involving a different Latin American country each year. Nevertheless, Europe and North America are well represented, and there are enough films from the rest of the world for the festival to rightfully regard itself as “international”.

     It is no surprise that one of the best European films at the festival hails from Romania, where cinema has experienced a creative revival in recent years. In Medal of Honor, Ion (Victor Rebengiuc) receives a letter announcing he is to be rewarded for his bravery at a ceremony commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the end of WWII. Ion does not remember any remotely heroic deed that would merit such honor and decides to investigate. The film gradually incorporates a second mystery: the story behind his wife Nina’s feelings of contempt and resentment towards Ion, and their son’s migration to Canada. Delicious ironies begin to pile up.  Medal of Honor sustains a bittersweet tone, perched between tragedy and comedy like many of the best East and Central European films. Theater veteran Rebengiuc shines as the flawed but sympathetic Ion. Hopefully this sophomore effort by director Calin Peter Netzer will avoid the fate of his impressive debut, Maria (2003), by receiving theatrical distribution on this side of the Atlantic.

     The Russian film Buben, Baraban paints a bleaker picture of life in the former Soviet Union during the 1990s. The narrative revolves around Katya, an uptight, middle-aged spinster in charge of a provincial town’s library. Her rectitude and strict enforcement of library rules is contrasted with the dishonesty of almost everyone in the economically depressed mining town. When it becomes public that Katya is profiting from the sale of library books, she undergoes a severe breakdown. Her fall from grace is devastating to watch. Writer/director Aleksei Mizgiroy won a Silver Leopard at Locarno for Buben, Baraban, which eloquently dramatizes how governmental corruption and fraud seeps into the fabric of society and the psyche of its members.

     Persecution is not only the worst European film I watched at the MIFF but the most disappointing of the entire festival. Given the artistic trajectory of writer/director Patrice Chéreau (Queen Margot, Gabrielle) and lead actors Romane Duris and Charlotte Gainsbourg, one would expect to find redeeming features. However, the conspicuousness of the neurotic and arrogant narcissist played by Duris and the actor’s inability to suggest anything remotely likeable in the character render a film that is a chore to sit through.

     Two of the MIFF’s most accomplished films hail from Iran and the Philippines. Lola is the latest dispatch from the slums of Manila by prolific director Brillante Mendoza (Slingshot, Kinatay). No other director has so earnestly showed the materialist basis of a life in poverty. Typically his films depict the criminality ingrained in slum culture. In Lola, a Tagalog term for grandmother, Mendoza addresses the theme of justice. The grandmother of a youth fatally stabbed during a robbery tries to hustle the money needed for the funeral. Meanwhile, the perpetrator’s granny visits her grandson in jail and attempts to raise the funds she might need for a settlement with the victim’s family. The handheld camera of Mendoza’s talented DP, Odyssey Flores, tracks closely behind these “lolas” as they make their way around narrow alleys and circuitous waterways.  Ultimately Lola astutely portrays how a kind of community justice negotiated between the grandmothers trumps the institutional justice served by the State. Lola was the deserved winner of the MIFF’s Grand Jury Prize in the world competition.

     Over the course of four award-winning feature films, Bahman Ghobadi (Turtles Can Fly) has dramatized the plight of Iranian Kurds. No One Knows about Persian Cats is a cri de coeur from a filmmaker who has concluded that it is untenable to be an artist in today’s Iran and planned to immigrate after the shoot. It was shot clandestinely in Tehran, the first time Ghobadi sets a film in the capital city. No One Knows About Persian Cats is structured as a fictional narrative about Negar and Ashkan, young marrieds who have been invited to play a gig in London and aspire to give a concert prior to their departure. The fact that the couple, and practically everyone else, are playing themselves and the on-the-fly camera style render a film perched daringly on the tenuous border between fiction and documentary.  Ghobadi follows the couple as they attempt to recruit backing musicians and obtain the documents necessary to travel. No One Knows About Persian Cats incorporates several arresting musical performances in barns, condemned buildings, and dingy basements. The vibrancy and resilience of the underground arts scene in Tehran is evident. Ghobadi effectively offers an opportunity for these musicians to showcase their talent. As the film progresses, the repression of artistic expression and the abuse of human rights by the authorities provides wrenching closure. No One Knows About Persian Cats is a testament of fearless, political defiance from a first-class filmmaker.

      The Caribbean films shown at the MIFF exhibit a wide range. Cuba was poorly represented by Chamaco, in which director Juan Cremata does nothing to hide his lurid, vulgar film’s theatrical roots. Children of God is the first Bahamian film shown at the festival. It concerns the contrasting reactions of a woman and her preacher husband to the coming-out of their gay son. Children of God is entertaining and well-made, but sacrifices nuance and subtlety at the altar of didacticism. On the other hand, Moloch Tropical, the new film from Haiti’s former Minister of Culture Raoul Peck (Lumumba), is a gem. Like the title suggests, it is a Caribbean take on Aleksander Sokurov’s dictator trilogy. It is set on Haitian independence day, which turns out to be the last day in power of Jean de Dieu, a fictitious dictator who is a composite of several recent Haitian presidents. The narrative is peppered with borrowings from Shakespeare, most notably King Lear and Hamlet. Moloch Tropical is brilliantly executed, bitingly funny political satire.

     The MIFF included some of Latin America’s most celebrated recent films. These include the Peruvian Golden Bear winner The Milk of Sorrow, and a refreshingly original, soulful meditation on Mexican migration to the US titled Northless. The gorgeously lensed Alamar depicts a Mexican fishing village through the eyes of a native father and the boy who resulted from his brief but lovely relationship with an Italian tourist. The father and child reunion is depicted with great attention to detail in a naturalistic style. Not a single overwrought moment to be found in this largely improvised film. Alamar was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the Ibero-American category. Other outstanding films from Latin American include Last Summer of Boyita: an impeccably acted Argentinian coming-of-age yarn about a prepubescent intersexual kid and the girl who helps him/her acquire self-esteem and acceptance. Director Julia Solomonoff deserves special recognition for the casting, training, and direction of the child actors, which are crucial to the success of Last Summer of Boyita. 

     And finally, perhaps the MIFF’s biggest surprise: two remarkable films from Colombia, a nation that lags behind several Latin American countries in terms of the quality of its film output.  Both Ciro Guerra’s The Wind Jouneys and Oscar Ruiz Navia’s Crab Trap endeavor to insert  neglected, remote regions of that country into its cultural map. The Wind Journeys tells the story of Ignacio, a recently widowed, veteran musician, who embarks on a journey to return a mythical accordion to his estranged, elderly mentor. To his chagrin, a teen with no discernible talent but lots of ambition tags along. Ignacio has vowed never to play again, but fate pushes him into a duel with an arrogant accordionist. The duo encounters a number of adventures along the way while the widescreen vistas regale the viewer with splendid panoramas.  In The Wind Journeys, the rich cultural tradition of the Colombian countryside gets its due. The Pacific coast of the country, specifically a fishing village perched between jungle and ocean, is the setting for Crab Trap. The protagonist is a rather mysterious white man, traveling on foot, who comes to the Afro-Colombian village of La Barre intending to rent a boat. He is forced by circumstance to remain in the village for a few days. His interactions with several locals, including a plucky little girl and two men with disparate opinions about the future of the village, form the basis of this thinly plotted but engaging, poetic and atmospheric debut. Crab Trap and The Wind Journeys are perfect examples of the films on which the MIFF has built its sizable reputation.

Contributor details    

Oscar Jubis is a psychotherapist and cinephile living in Miami. He is a Ph.D. candidate in Film Studies at the University of Miami and author of the book The Films of Lucrecia Martel: The Salta Trilogy.