May 4, 2006 – The sixth Forum Film Festival kicks off May 10 with "Heading South" at Market Square East. The festival continues May 17 with the documentary "The Boys of Bakara" and ends May 24 with "Go for Zucker."
All films start at 7 p.m.
"Heading South," the first film, stars Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young and Louis Portal. It is set on Haiti at the end of the 1970s, when the country was under the dictatorship of "Baby Doc" Duvalier.
The plot centers on three women who spend most of their vacation at their beach resorts. There they meet Legbra, played by Menothy Cesar, a man who takes them away from the resort to see other parts of Haiti.
The three women have very different reactions to what they see.
The Hollywood Reporter says, "Rampling, whose beauty continues to light up the screen, is wonderful as Ellen in her assuredness and her casual manipulation of others and in the small ways she betrays her insecurity. Young also is particularly good as a woman prepared to throw out everything she knows to make up for lost time. Cesar makes Legba's appeal believable, and Portal and Ambroise add solid support."
"The Boys of Barak" is a documentary about a group of boys living in a poverty-stricken area of Baltimore. They spend two years at a rural boarding school in Kenya that has the goal of educating and changing the attitudes of at-risk youth from Baltimore. They are told, in the summer before their third year, that they cannot return due to terrorist attacks and the closure of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya. The film follows the boys through a third year, where the effects of their Kenyan experience come to light.
Film critic Robert Ebert says, "Here is a movie that makes you want to do something. Cry, or write a check, or howl with rage."
"Go for Zucker" is a comedic German box office smash hit about a dysfunctional Jewish family. The movie stars Henry Hubchen and Udo Samuel as estranged brothers brought together by their mothers death and a requirement that they reconcile before receiving their inheritance. The producers of "Run Lola Run" and "Goodbye Lenin!" worked on this film.
Variety Magazine called it "politically incorrect but good-natured entertainment."
Forum Film Festival tickets are $15 and are available at the following locations: Reichhold Center for the Performing Arts (call 693-1559), Modern Music in Nisky Center, Parrot Fish Records and Dockside Books at Havensight Mall, Interiors by MSI at Fort Mylner and Home Again in Red Hook.