Amreeka

January 13
USA
Director: Cherien Dabis
Cast: Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem,
Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat
Run Time: 96 minutes Rating: PG

New York-based filmmaker Cherien Dabis was born to Palestinian-Jordanian immigrants, and her remarkable first feature tells a story very close to home. The narrative revolves around protagonist Muna, a Palestinian woman who is happy to get a green card to the United States and thereby leave her West Bank home. She sets off with her teenaged son, Fadi, and settles in small-town Illinois with her sister’s family. The journey, of course, is riddled with trouble. Challenges arise from the get-go as Muna is interrogated at the airport and left humiliated and furious when her tin of cookies is confiscated – it contained all the money she had in the world. The film’s setting in the early days of the Iraq insurgency adds a devastating intensity to Muna’s plight – everyone from her region is treated like a suspect. Though she was a bank clerk in Ramallah, the only job she can find in her new
home is flipping burgers, and her son has anything but an easy time trying to get by in the disastrous social Petri dish that is high school. Yet despite these grim circumstances, redemption and survival are indeed possible within the world of the film, in no small part due to Mona’s infectious optimism and great spirit.

“This piquant film brings a keen and serious eye as well as that feeling for affectionate human comedy to this fraught situation.”
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Cooking with Stella

February 10
Canada
Director: Dilip Mehta
Cast: Don McKellar, Seema Biswas, Lisa Ray, Vansh Bhardwaj, Shriya Saran
Run Time: 103 minutes Rating: G

Cooking with Stella is great fun to watch as it offers a glimpse of how Canadians live in India’s capital. As head housekeeper at a diplomatic residence in New Delhi, Stella (Biswas) serves up delectable dishes to a succession of Ottawa civil servants. But while she sets a divine table, some of her other activities are less above board. – she skims inflated bills to pad her modest salary and raids her employers’ pantry for her own “duty free” business. Each night, she impishly prays to the Virgin Mary to bless her crooked schemes. The arrival of Maya (Ray) and Michael (McKellar) initially disrupts Stella’s routine. To her surprise, the wife is the diplomat while the husband stays home to look after their baby daughter. Even more shocking, he has designs on her kitchen! When Michael, a trained chef, discovers Stella’s culinary talents, he asks her to be his guru and teach him the secrets of authentic Indian cooking. She warily agrees to this breach in master-servant protocol, and as the two begin whipping up mouthwatering curries and dosas together, her trepidation eventually turns to pleasure. Meanwhile, the beautiful and virtuous Tannu (Shriya Saran) joins the household to care for the baby. Can Stella make her an ally in domestic subterfuge, or will the honest young nanny topple the kitchen kingpin? Determined to protect her turf, Stella plots her slyest and most ambitious ruse yet.

A Shine of Rainbows

March 10
Canada, Ireland
Director: Vic Saren
Cast: Connie Nielsen, Aidan Quinn,
John Bell
Run Time: 100 minutes Rating: G

Tomas, a frail, shy eight-year-old boy, has been living a solitary life in a drab orphanage – sad, friendless and alone. Then a joyous burst of colour comes into his world: Maire O’Donnell, whose smile and spirit light up the darkest room – and Tomas’s heart. Before he knows it, Tomas is on a boat, sailing to wind-swept Corrie Island off the coast of Ireland, where he meets Alec, her reticent husband who cannot hide his disappointment with the boy. Undiscouraged, Maire introduces Tomas the wonders of his new world. She shares with him the secret of the seals, the mystery of the stone giant and shows him that you can find magic anywhere- if you really look. In this rugged and enchanting world, Tomas thrives. He befriends a pair of island children and rescues an orphan seal pup who join him on his journey of self-discovery. Slowly, Alec too begins to see in Tomas what Maire always has. But when tragedy strikes, Tomas is faced with his greatest challenge yet, for he’ll lose everything unless he can find – and share – the magic that’s inside him. Risking all, Tomas embarks on a perilous journey where he will need to call on all of Maire’s gifts to triumph and come home. A Shine of Rainbows is a story about the transformational power of love- about finding acceptance, discovering magic, and about realizing that rainbows are all around you – and within you, too.

The Young Victoria

April 14th
Canada, UK, USA
Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
Cast: Emily Blunt, Jim Broadbent,
Miranda Richardson, Paul Bettany,
Mark Strong, Rupert Friend
Run Time: 100 minutes Rating: PG

The Young Victoria stars the charismatic Emily Blunt as Victoria and follows her struggle to succeed as the ruler of England, a quest blocked by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, and her odious “adviser,” Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong. Widowed at a young age, the duchess has been convinced by Conroy that she must at all costs keep Victoria away from the court in order to preserve her own position – despite the complaints of King William IV (Jim Broadbent), Victoria’s uncle, who clearly wants his niece to succeed him. When Victoria is finally crowned, she’s utterly unaware of the potential ramifications ofher actions and allows herself to be misled by the dashing Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany), who may be using her youth and inexperience to further enhance his own position. Enter Prince Albert (Rupert Friend), who almost immediately charms Victoria by refusing to stick to the script given him by his scheming and Machiavellian relations. As love grows between the two, crucial questions remain unanswered: will Victoria listen to Albert’s counsel or will her loyalty to Melbourne win out?

“Anyone who complains they don’t make love stories like they used to will get a kick out of The Young Victoria”
– Derek Elley, Variety