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Film addresses Cambodian genocide

Provided/Halsey Institute

On Friday The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston will present Cambodian-American filmmaker Socheata Poeuv as part of the Southern Arts Federation's Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers.

Born in a Thai refugee camp but raised in Dallas, Socheata Poeuv had scant knowledge of the circumstances that ushered her family to the United States, until undertaking an odyssey of her own.

When the filmmaker turned 25, her parents dropped a bombshell: She and her two sisters actually were cousins and her brother, only her half brother. Each member of the family was a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, smuggled to Thailand by Poeuv's father before the family immigrated to the West. But the revelation raised more questions than it answered. Traveling with her brother and parents back to Cambodia, Poeuv established a link with her past and discovered the horrific scope of the Killing Fields.

This was the genesis of her award-winning documentary "New Year Baby." The 2007-08 Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers, hosted locally by the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, continues Friday with an 8 p.m. screening of Poeuv's film in Room 309 of the Simons Center for the Arts at the College of Charleston.

"New Year Baby" is a personal documentary/travel diary reveals how Poeuv's family survived the Cambodian genocide. The film received Amnesty International's Movies That Matter Award at its 2006 premiere and earned Best Documentary honors at both the AFI Dallas International Film Festival and the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

The 2007-08 Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers is a program of the Southern Arts Federation. All events are free and open to the public. For information, call 953-7891 or go online at www.halsey.cofc.edu. The Tour is a program of the nonprofit Southern Arts Federation (www.southarts.org).

'Caramel'

Beirut, like much of the Middle East, elicits images of political upheaval and violence. Not so with the sensual romance "Caramel," debut writer-director Nadine Labaki's story of five women at a beauty salon.

Labaki also stars as a Christian beautician who's preoccupied with her married lover's wife. Joining her is a salon employee in anguish over her attraction to women, a soon-to-be-Muslim bride terrified her husband will discover she isn't a virgin, a woman struggling to age gracefully and an elderly lady longing for elusive love.

There is nothing especially new in this take on the issues facing Christian and Muslim women in this complex, cosmopolitan small nation, whose capital city was once the cultural crossroads of the entire region. But the performances are naturalistic, the characters touching and the cinematography polished to a gilded glow.

Also in the cast are Yasmine Elmasri, Joanna Mkarzel, Gisele Ost and Sihame Haddad.

Hobbit-size

December's announcement that Peter Jackson would serve as executive producer, but not direct, New Line Cinema's planned two-film telling of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit," leaves the project still waiting for someone at the helm. Production is tentatively slated to begin in 2009 with the release of the first movie planned for 2010, the second in 2011.

Sam ("Spider-Man") Raimi publicly expressed his interest, but few other names have been mentioned with any assurance.

Jackson, with producing and writing partners, wife Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, have committed to the adaptation of the Alice Sebold novel "The Lovely Bones" in 2008, followed by "Tintin," based on the Belgian comic strip, for Steven Spielberg.

As producers, they may be able to ensure the "Hobbit" films will be made with a like measure of quality and care as "The Lord of the Rings" trio, but "The Hobbit," very much a children's story, is unlikely to draw the same kind of pivotal mass male audience that the extremely violent "Rings" films managed.

Think Hobbit-sized box office.

Makers Marc

Born in Germany in 1969 and raised in Switzerland, director Marc Forster came to the United States in 1990 to attend NYU Film School, graduating in 1993. After such films as "Monster's Ball," "Finding Neverland" and "The Kite Runner," he has taken on a decided change of pace, currently shooting the 22nd James Bond film in London.

And it's finally been given a title, "Quantum of Solace," which is the name of Ian Fleming's finest, and most uncharacteristic 007 short story.

Daniel Craig reprises his role as 007 for the film, which is slated for release in November. Speaking of which, Olga Kurylenko and Gemma Arterton are the latest Bond Girls. Kurylenko ("Paris, je t'aime") is a Ukrainian model-turned-actress who will play "the dangerously alluring Camille," while Arterton ("RocknRolla") will portray an MI6 agent.

Bits and Pieces

Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" will be showcased along with new films from Mike Leigh and Isabel Coixet at the annual Berlin Film Festival (which runs today through Feb. 17), the first of the year's major European festivals. Among entries for the festival's main competition were Coixet's "Elegy," based on Philip Roth's novel "The Dying Animal" and starring Penelope Cruz, Ben Kingsley and Dennis Hopper. The festival also will feature Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky," Robert Guediguian's "Lady Jane," Johnny To's "Sparrow" and Erick Zonca's "Julia" with Tilda Swinton. ... The French "Lady Chatterley" is said to be among the most frankly sensual movies to come out in years. Winner of five Cesars (the French Oscar), including best picture and best actress for its star, Marina Hands, word has it that the film has found the soul of the D.H. Lawrence "scandalous" 1928 novel "Lady Chatterley's Lover." It is directed by Pascale Ferran, who won the Camera d'Or at Cannes in 1994 for her first film, "Coming to Terms With the Dead." Jean-Louis Coulloc'h co-stars in what is essentially a two-actor piece.

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