The final four films to be shown at Washington University/Brown Hall Auditorium, as part of Cinema St. Louis’ St. Louis International Film Festival (SLIFF) will be screened today. The auditorium is at Forsyth Boulevard and Chaplin Drive (two blocks west of Skinker Boulevard).
The films are:
A Cat in Paris (Une vie de chat) (Jean-Loup Felicioli & Alain Gagnol, France, 2010, 60 min., in English), will be shown at noon, today, Sunday Nov. 20, 2011.The studio behind “Mia & the Migoo” delivers a new animated classic in this beautifully hand-drawn caper set in the shadow-drenched alleyways of Paris. Dino is a pet cat that leads a double life. By day he lives with Zoe, a little mute girl whose mother is a detective in the Parisian police force. But at night he sneaks out the window to work with Nico – a slinky cat burglar with a big heart, whose fluid movements are poetry in motion. The cat’s two worlds collide when young Zoe decides to follow Dino on his nocturnal adventures and falls into the hands of a blustery gangster planning the theft of a rare statue. The Seattle Weekly raves: “‘A Cat in Paris’ is a gem, a treat not to be missed by children or their parents (or animation-loving adults without kids)…. The almond eyes, the sailor pants and tiny feet, the sun-washed checkerboard kitchen floors, the soundtrack strains of Billie and Django – all create a storybook Paris of the imagination, of the artist’s easel.”
This film is appropriate for all ages.
Eleanor’s Secret (Kérity, la maison des contes) (Dominique Monféry, France, 2009, 80 min., in English) is the 1:30 p.m. film.In this sumptuously animated movie from Academy Award®-nominated director Dominique Monféry (“Destino”), a magic library transforms a boy’s life. Nat has fond memories of his eccentric Aunt Eleanor reading to him from her enormous collection of storybooks, but he’s frustrated by his inability to read them himself. So he is less than thrilled when he learns that his aunt has left him the keys to her attic library as a gift. Just as Nat’s parents are selling the collection, Nat discovers that the library is magical – the famous characters of history’s most popular fairytales come to life. Now he must find a way to get back the books and learn to read an ancient spell to keep the characters alive for children in the future. The film features characters from such kid classics as “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” “The Jungle Book,” “Pinocchio,” “Peter Pan,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Puss in Boots,” and “Little Red Riding Hood.”
The film is appropriate for all ages.
Aurelie LaFlamme’s Diary (Le journal d’Aurélie Laflamme) (Christian Laurence, Canada, 2010, 108 min., French) will be the feature at 3:30 p.m.This delightful coming-of-age charmer from Canada is based on a popular series of books for teens written by India Desjardins. Aurelie Laflamme feels alone in the world, especially since her father’s death five years ago. She wonders whether her father was perhaps an alien who left Earth to return to his own planet. In that case, Aurelie would be an alien, too, and that would explain many things: Why she feels different from others, especially her mother; why she can’t string two words together without making a mistake; and why boys really get on her nerves. Through the pages of her diary, Aurelie confides her joys and sorrows, successes and failures, loves and friendships, and tries to find her place in the world.
Tomorrow Will Be Better (Jutro bedzie lepiej) (Dorota Kedzierzawska, Poland, 2010, 118 min., Polish) is the 6 p.m. film.Polish director Dorota Kedzierzawska (“I Am,” “Crows”), who specializes in films about troubled youth, follows the unusual journey of three boys who become mini-heroes in our strange times. A trio of Russian youngsters living at the train station set off into the world, crossing borders both real and arbitrary. Simultaneously naive and roguish, they look for a magic place where dreams come true, searching for a different life and a better world. Leslie Felperin writes in Variety: “The youthful cast members deliver extraordinary, spontaneous perfs, here in service of a heartrending, drawn-from-headlines story, which highlights the awful, daily deprivations faced by kids in Eastern Europe.” The film won a pair of major prizes, including the Peace Film Award, at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival.
Sponsored by: Union Avenue Christian Church.
