These programs are available in the Self Study room (Level 2, Brennan MacCallum building) should you wish to view them.

Please feel free to pass this post on to whoever might be interested.

French

Bon Voyage

An actress, a writer, a university researcher and a government official combine in an effort to flee Paris in the shadow of the Nazis’ takeover of the city. Screened at the 2004 French Film Festival, and nominated for 11 Cesar Awards.

(2003)  (France/French)  Director: Jean-Paul Rappeneau
M  V  Drama  120 mins  Repeat

Un Secret 

Francois is a sickly boy growing up in post-WWII France. His parents are athletic and obsessed with sport. Francois imagines he has a brother who is the exact opposite of him: handsome, athletic and forceful. At age 15, a neighbour reveals a dark family secret: Francois did indeed have a brother from his father’s previous marriage. Gradually a dark tale emerges of an extended Jewish family torn apart during the Nazi occupation.

(2008) (France/French)  Director: Claude Miller

Drama  105 mins

Spanish

Black Butterfly

After the brutal murder of Guido Pazos, an incorruptible judge, his girlfriend sets out to find the person who ordered the killing, and who then smeared Pazos’ name by making the death look like it occurred at a gay orgy. Nominated for a Goya Award for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film 2008.

(2006)  Spain  Director: Francisco J Lombardi
M  L,S,V  Drama  120 mins  Repeat

The good news is that yes, we will be open from 8.00 am – 4.45 pm weekdays (closed on weekends & public holidays).

Here are some reasons to drop in:

1. Watch a foreign language movie / documentary;
2. Brush up on grammar, pronunciation, & listening skills with a fun, interactive-learning style CD (available in many languages e.g. the TalkNow or World Talk series, or Rosetta Stone, etc);
3. Watch live streaming TV (news, current affairs, & movies) from French & German satellite channels (available from all computers in the Self-Study room)

For more information on the AV Language Library & how to use our resources, have a look at our brochure.

Over the past month, documentaries and movies in various languages have been recorded from free-to-air TV channels.

These programs are available in the Self Study room (Level 2, Brennan MacCallum building) should you wish to view them.

Chinese

The Blue Kite

A moving story about the experiences of a Beijing family living under the mandates of the communist Chinese government from 1953 to the Cultural Revolution in 1968.

(1993) (China/English)  Director: Zhuangzhuang Tian

M  S,N  Drama  138 mins

French

Backstage
An ordinary teenager, Lucie, is fixated on an inaccessible pop idol, the platinum blonde Madonna-like Lauren. One day, she steps into an episode of reality television when Lauren shows up at her boring suburban home to give her a personal performance. And for Lucie, fandom soon turns into obsession. From the 2006 French Film Festival.

(2005) (France/French)  Director: Emmanuelle Bercot

M  S,N  Drama  115 mins

The Double Life of Veronique

Veronika lives in Poland. Veronique lives in Paris. They don’t know each other but are physically identical to one another, and strangely aware of each other’s presence. Despite their different backgrounds, both of them have a magnificent, sublime voice and an extraordinary musical talent. Unfortunately, each girl suffers from the same, barely detectable cardiac malformation.

(1991)  (France/French)  Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
M  S,N  Drama  105 mins  Repeat

The Valet

Francois Pignon, a car service valet at a posh Paris hotel, gets caught up in a billionaire industrialist’s marriage infidelities. He and the billionaire’s girlfriend, a beautiful model, must pretend to be a couple for a month.

(2006)  (France/French)  Director: Francis Veber
M  L,S  Comedy  90 mins  Repeat

Life With My Father
Diagnosed with a terminal illness, hedonist François helps his two bickering sons reconnect before his death. Winner of the 2005 Toronto Film Festival Audience Award.

(2005) (Canada/English)  Director: Sébastien Rose

M  L,S  Comedy  105 mins

A Real Man
A strikingly original, offbeat comedy about reconciling married life with being oneself. A funny, romantic film with musical interludes and stunning locations in Ibiza and the Pyrenees.

(2003) (France/French)  Directors: Arnaud Larrieu, Jean-Marie Larrieu

M  L,S  Comedy  120 mins

German

The Baader Meinhof Complex
Director Uli Edel explores a dark period in German history with this drama detailing the rise and fall of the Red Army Faction, a left-wing terrorist organisation that became increasingly active in the late 1960s and ’70s.

(2008) (Germany/German)    Director: Uli Edel

M  L, S  Action/Biography  150 mins

Mogadishu: The Hijacking of Flight 181

Based on the real life hijacking of the Lufthansa Flight 181 in October 1977 by four members of the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, this is a breathtaking re-creation of the terrifying event through the eyes of the 86 powerless passengers on board. Winner of the 2009 German Television Award for Best Movie.

(2008)  (Germany/German)  Director: Roland Suso Richter
M  A,L,V  Drama  120 mins  Repeat

Hebrew

Ushpizin

Moshe, a former criminal who recently turned Orthodox Jew, and his wife, Mali, discover how genuine religious practices and true devotion can dramatically change their lives for the better.

(2004)  (Israel/Hebrew)  Director: Giddi Dar

M  A,L,V  Drama  90 mins 

Italian

Days and Clouds

A well-off and sophisticated couple struggles to stay together after the husband loses his job, and his wife suddenly finds herself the breadwinner. A portrait of the faltering effects on a relationship when financial security fades.

(2007) (Italy/Italian)  Director: Silvio Soldini

M  A,L,V  Drama  118 mins

Quiet Chaos

Television executive Pietro’s life takes an irreversible and devastating turn one fateful morning. During a trip to the beach, he saves the life of a drowning woman. He subsequently returns home only to discover that his wife, Lara, has just died from a fall. Struggling to cope with his new role as single parent, Pietro begins to spend his days in the park opposite his daughter’s school.

(2008) (Italy/Italian)  Director: Antonello Grimaldi

M  A,L,V  Drama  105 mins

Spanish

El Greco

An epic tale of an uncompromising artist and fighter for freedom, Domenicos Theotokopoulos, known to the world as ‘El Greco’. Set in the 16th century, El Greco’s search for freedom and love ranges from the courts of Crete and Venice to Toledo in Spain. Here he is confronted by his greatest adversary: the Holy Inquisition. Winner of 10 awards at the 2007 Thessaloniki Film Festival, including Best Film.

(2007) (Greece/Spain/Greek & Spanish)  Director: Yannis Smaragdis

M  A,L,V  Drama  119 mins

Never on a Sunday
A darkly humorous look at the tough underworld of poverty and misery in Mexico, as a family is duped by a mortician who sells their uncle’s corpse to a university medical centre and fills the urn with canine ashes.

(2006)  (Mexico/Spanish)  Director: Daniel Gruener

M  A,L,V  Comedy  125 mins

The Other Side of the Bed

Musical and romantic comedy set in contemporary Spain. Pedro tries to convince his girlfriend Paula that her desire to leave him is just a phase. Paula says she has fallen in love with someone else, and in fact the new man in her life is Pedro’s best friend, Javier. Torn between two beautiful, vibrant women and his oldest friend, Javier scrambles to maintain the status quo through an escalating series of lies and deception.

(2002)  (Spain/Spanish)  Director: Emilio Martínez-Lázaro
MA  L,S  Comedy  110 mins  Repeat

If you’d like to use this week to catch up on your foreign language studies, don’t forget that the AV Language Library & Self Study room will be open Monday – Friday, from 8am – 4.45pm.    We have interactive CDs which offer an innovative and fun learning method for you to start learning and revising the foreign language of your choice, plus many more resources.

Why not come by to watch a foreign movie?  A complete list can be found here*

* Note that this list is updated on a weekly basis.

If you’d like more information, please contact the Language Librarian.

Meanwhile, all the best in your upcoming exams! Study hard…

I have just updated the foreign movie catalogue with all the movies / documentaries you can watch from the computers in the Self-Study room.  You can now download the complete list here:

Catalogue of Foreign Language Movies

Ellen Bialystok, a psychologist at York University in Toronto, Canada, says that being “bilingual is one way to keep your brain active—it’s part of the cognitive-reserve approach to brain fitness,” Bialystok said.

And when it comes to exercising the brain by learning another language, she added, “the more the better—and every little bit helps.”

To read the full article, click on the link below

To Stave Off Alzheimer’s, Learn a Language?.

Over the past month, documentaries and movies in various languages have been recorded from free-to-air TV channels.

These programmes are available in the Self Study room (Level 2, Brennan MacCallum building) should you or your friends wish to view them.

Chinese

Life on a String

A young, blind music apprentice is told by his dying master that when he breaks 1000 strings on his sanxian he will find the prescription to cure his blindness. He becomes a master of the instrument and takes on his own blind apprentice, who refuses to believe in the promise of the cure, preferring instead to seek the love of a woman.

(1991) China  Director: Kaige Chen
M  Drama  110 mins

English

This is England

A story about a troubled boy growing up in England in 1983. Eleven-year-old Shaun is a lonely and uncool kid whose father has recently been killed in the Falklands War. He comes across a few skinheads on his way home from school, after a fight. They become his new best friends, even like family. Based on the experiences of director Shane Meadows. Winner of the 2008 BAFTA for Best British Film.

(2006)  (UK/English)  Director: Shane Meadows
M  Drama  101 mins

French

Hidden

A married couple is terrorised by a series of videotapes planted on their front porch that points to their involvement in the French repression against Algerian pro-independence groups in the ’60s.

(2005)  (France/French)  Director: Michael Haneke
MA  V  Thriller  120 mins  Repeat

Korkoro

During World War II, a gypsy family travels the roads of France before learning that the Vichy regime no longer gives them the right to travel freely. Based on the real-life stories of Gypsies rounded up in the German-occupied France of 1943.

(2009)  (France/French)  Director: Tony Gatlif
M  L,V  Drama  120 mins

The Young Lieutenant

A young police graduate leaves the safety of his low-crime town to take up a post in Paris. He is taken under the wing of the division’s new chief inspector, a recovering alcoholic who lost her son years ago to meningitis. She involves him in the investigation of the murder of a homeless man.

(2005)  (France/French)  Director: Xavier Beauvois
M  V,L,A  Mystery  120 mins

German

Fitzcarraldo

Klaus Kinski plays the visionary Irish adventurer Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (known as “Fitzcarraldo” by the Indians), who obsessively hatches grandiose schemes to finance a dream of bringing Caruso and the strains of Verdi to an Amazon trading place at the turn of the century. His objective can only be achieved by hauling a massive steamship over a mountain.

(1982)  (Germany/German)  Director: Werner Herzog
PG  Drama  165 mins

The Wave
A high school teacher’s unusual experiment to demonstrate to his students what life is like under a dictatorship spins horribly out of control when he forms a social unit with a life of its own.

(2008)  (Germany/German)  Director: Dennis Gansel
M  Drama  107 mins

Wings of Desire
Wim Wenders’ much loved film follows the plight of an angel who becomes captivated by a beautiful trapeze artist and decides to trade his gentle existence for the torturous emotions of human life.

(1987) (Germany/German)  Director: Wim Wenders
PG  Fantasy  128 mins

Hebrew

What a Wonderful Place

An ex-policeman who works for a brutal gangster rediscovers his conscience while helping Jana, a call girl from Ukraine. A melancholic farmer from the desert plains finds out that the only person who truly understands him is Vissit, one of his Thai workers. A tough nature reserve ranger finds himself preoccupied with his handicapped father. In a dramatic encounter all three stories come together.

(2005) (Israel/Hebrew)  Director: Eyal Halfon
M  Drama  104 mins

Italian

A Heart Elsewhere

An award-winning Italian romantic comedy about Nello, a sensitive and shy 35-year-old whose philandering father keeps encouraging him to seduce women.

(2003)  (Italy/Italian)  Director: Pupi Avati
PG  Drama  110 mins

The Son’s Room

Giovanni is a successful psychiatrist who lives with his wife, daughter and son in a seaside town in Italy. The tranquillity and harmony of their family is shattered abruptly when their youngest child, Andrea, is killed in a diving accident. This delicate tale of a family trying to comprehend, and continue living, amid the loss of a loved one is both poignant and moving. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.

(2001)  (Italy/Italian)  Director: Nanni Moretti
M  S,L  Drama  105 mins

Portrait of a Beauty
An extravagant period piece from renowned director Jeon Yun-su. After her brother commits suicide, a brilliant female painter must disguise herself as a man in order to maintain her family’s position in the Korean royal court.

(2008) (South Korea/Korean)  Director: Yun-su Jeon
M  Romance  108 mins

The Unforgiven

Follows the experiences of Seung-yong, a South Korean university student who has been drafted into the military for a compulsory 26 months of service. He finds it difficult to cope with the habitual violence and blind obedience of military life.

(2005)  (South Korea/Korean)  Director: Jong-bin Yun
MA  A  Drama  135 mins

Spanish

Killing Cabos

When Jaque kidnaps mob boss Oscar Cabos he becomes embroiled in a riotous night of car chases, mistaken identity and bizarre characters.

(2004)  (Mexico/Spanish)  Director: Alejandro Lozano
MA  V,L  Comedy  110 mins

Lucia, Lucia

With the help of two neighbours, a Spanish Civil War veteran and a young man, children’s author Lucia sets out to unravel the mystery surrounding her husband’s sudden disappearance on a trip to Brazil. Written and directed by Antonio Serrano and nominated for the 2004 Silver Ariel at the Ariel Awards.

(2003)  (Mexico/Spanish)   Director: Antonio Serrano
MA  S  Comedy  110 mins  Repeat

If you’d like to use this week to catch up on your foreign language studies, don’t forget that the AV Language Library & Self Study room will be open Monday – Friday, from 8am – 4.45pm.    We have interactive CDs which offer an innovative and fun learning method for you to start learning and revising the foreign language of your choice, plus many more resources.

Why not come by to watch a foreign movie?  A complete list can be found here*

* Note that this list is updated on a weekly basis.

If you’d like more information, please contact the Language Librarian.

For everyone else, thank you for filling in our short survey.  Look out for more competitions in the near future, with attractive prizes to be won!

Would you like to win 2 movie tickets to ‘The Whistleblower‘, starring Rachel Weisz?  Then help us by completing this short survey on the AV Language Library, and you could be the lucky winner!  Hurry, entries close 11.59pm tonight (Wednesday 21 September, EST).

To fill in the survey & enter the draw, click here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/AVLanguageLibrary

* Note that this is a Lucky Draw prize, and the winner will be announced via the Language Blog and also our Facebook Page on Thursday morning (22 September, 2011).

* The movie passes will be ready for collection from the AV Language Library.

Good luck!