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Teen beat Les 400 Coups puts the kids front row centre by JULIANNE PIDDUCK
This year's third annual event draws an exciting roster of award-winning international children's features and shorts to Montreal. Variety and quality are the two selling points here, with a choice of films from 16 countries, including 11 Montreal premieres. Two teen flicks merit special attention. The Danish film Belma, making its Montreal premiere, effectively balances a believable love story with some deep messages about war and peace. Belma traces the relationship between Rasmus, a Danish teenager, and Belma, a young Bosnian refugee. At the outset, Rasmus is an average cool dude obsessed with computer war games. When he meets Belma and her father, a survivor of a Bosnian prison camp, Rasmus has to rethink a few things. After Belma's father encounters the man who tortured him in prison, Belma and Rasmus agonize over revenge, forgiveness and how to pick up the pieces of lives shattered by war. For another unique and moving story, check out the Canadian/New Zealand production The Whole of the Moon. Blessed with blond good looks, nice rich parents and a passion for inline skating, 15-year-old Kirk Mead wasn't ready for the discovery of bone cancer in his leg. In the children's ward of an Auckland hospital, Kirk meets Mary, a gruff and enigmatic street girl hospitalized for leukemia who makes Kirk's life hell and then, well... interesting. Ian Mune's superb direction and show-stopping performances, from leads Toby Fischer and Nikki Si'Ulepa (plus sympathetic support from Montreal's Pascale Bussières as the nurse) carry this film, which walked away with most of the major 1996 New Zealand film and TV awards. Look to Canadian West Coast director Philip Spink's Once in a Blue Moon, an offbeat Canadian-style Wonder Years set in 1967 and featuring a nine-year-old aspiring artist and rocket man. Smaller tots will enjoy Lotta Leaves Home, last year's Swedish crowd pleaser, the Chinese tale of Djijo and the Fawn and the Oscar-nominated British animated short, Wat's Pig. Les 400 Coups runs from Friday to Monday, March 28-31. Info: 499-2929 LANGUAGE KEY: All films will be shown in their original language with subtitles (usually English) and live narration (usually French) Belma: original Dutch with English subtitles, live French narration The Whole of the Moon, Once in a Blue Moon: live French narration Lotta Leaves Home: original Swedish, French narration only Djijo and the Fawn: original Chinese, French narration only Wat's Pig: no dialogue |
Tired of subjecting your kids to a one-course commercial movie meal? Les 400 Coups young people's film festival might be just the ticket for Easter weekend.