by MATTHEW HAYS

It is certainly ironic that the World Film Festival has spent so much of the past three weeks talking about Karla, the L.A.-produced and shot film that was to have its premiere at the event. Ironic because what has usually made this festival even remotely interesting was not the North American product - most of that would end up at the Toronto International Film Festival and, subsequently, at Montreal's Festival du Nouveau Cinéma - but rather the films from abroad.

This year is no exception. For all the bile that's been spilled this year (and for the past decade) about WFF, I do have to hand it to them, they collected well over 300 movies, and many of them do look intriguing. Though I haven't seen any of these yet, here's a glimpse at my movies-to-see list.

Emanating from Australia - and that's usually good enough reason to attend in itself - is Three Dollars, the latest from director Robert Connolly (The Bank). The film recounts the story of Eddie (David Wenham), a government employee who has always played by the rules, and expected that his needs would be taken care of as a result. Sadly, government cutbacks mean dear old Eddie, who's pushing 40, is out of a job. All the man has as he walks away from his job are $3 in his pocket. Based on Elliot Perlman's novel of the same name, Three Dollars examines morality in contemporary Australia.

The Headsman looks pretty grim, frankly. Set in the 16th century, it shows us the romantic life of a headsman, that is, the executioner who must chop people's heads off when they misbehave. Some of this film is very graphic - they showed clips from it at the WFF press conference two weeks ago, and the faint of heart may not want to attend. Directed by Simon Aeby, this Austrian-Swiss-German-Hungarian-British-Luxembourgian co-production will no doubt please history buffs with a fetish for the Inquisition.

Beauty and the beast

The latest from director Miel van Hoogenbemt, Miss Montigny, will screen. This film tells the heart-warming story of a Belgian woman trying to make it in an economically depressed former mining town. Sandrine is a 19-year-old who sells cheese in the supermarket by day and does manicures in the evenings. Her long-held dream is to open up her own business and gain hold of her own destiny. But getting the money together isn't easy, and things get very complicated indeed when Sandrine decides to enter a local beauty contest in an effort to raise some cash.

Continuing the recent trend of intrigue with the life of Hitler, Hitler Kantate (Hitler Cantata) recounts the fictional story of three very different people who are brought together to plan for the Führer's 50th birthday party. An ex-communist composer, a Hitler groupie and an SS officer combine forces when creating a cantata to mark the dictator's big 5-0.

This year's line-up will feature an Iraqi feature, the North American premiere of Hiner Saleem's Kilomètre Zéro. The film depicts a Kurd who is devastated to find that he's been drafted into Saddam Hussein's army. He gets leave, however, in order to return the body of a dead soldier to his family. The country's sharp ethnic divisions become clear when the Kurd finds his assigned driver is an Arab who hates all Kurds. Ethnic divisions are also explored in Miguel Littin's La Última Luna (The Last Moon), a film set in 1914 Palestine. Two old friends, an Arab and Jew, bicker as they build a house together.

In the Bosnian-Croatian entry Go West, the Bosnian civil war of the '90s is given a different spin: here, a gay couple struggle to deal with surviving the siege of Sarajevo while manoeuvring through ethnic hatred and homophobia. Director Ahmed Imamovic illustrates the dire and complex steps people are forced to take to survive bitter civil war.

From Russia comes Parnikovniy Efekt (Greenhouse Effect), Valery Akhadov's film that puts the issue of homelessness front and centre. Here, a teenaged girl leaves her small town for the big city. Upon arrival at the train station, she finds her luggage has been lost and she has virtually nothing. She finds friendship with a homeless boy, but the two find that friendship is not enough to get by on in the dark underbelly of Russia's rough and unforgiving streets.

The World Film Festival screens Aug. 26–Sept. 5.
Info: www.ffm-montreal.org

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