Angel Sharks/Marie Baie Des Anges
FAVOURABLY compared to Leos Carax's Les Amants du Pont Neuf (and indeed to both Jacques Demy and Pasolini), this first feature from French writer-director Manuel Pradal takes a highly stylised approach to its picture of a doomed love affair between two young drifters on the Cote d'Azur. They are played by Vahina Giocante and Frederic Malgras, neither of whom had any experience before Pradal cast them.
April 17th, 4.10 p.m.
Black Cat White Cat
ALTHOUGH Underground won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1995, it received such a critical bashing in some quarters that its director, the Yugoslavian film-maker, Emir Kusturica, vowed that he was quitting movies. Then, in the summer of 1996, he was back behind the camera, working with a largely non-professional cast in a film which returns him to the milieu of his Time of the Gypsies for a tale of doubledealing involving a petty criminal and the leader of a group of gypsy gangsters. It won the Silver Lion for best direction last autumn and restored Kusturica to critical favour.
April 18th, 11 a.m.
Buttoners
RECENTLY released briefly in London to an enthusiastic critical response, this attractive Czech feature, directed by Petr Zelenka, is said to be an ingeniously structured and delightfully droll collection of six inter-connected stories, the first of which takes place in Japan after the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, while the others are all set in the Czech Republic exactly 50 years later.
April 19th, 2 p.m.
Celebrity
THE annual Woody Allen film has become a DFF staple in recent years, and while his latest opened to decidely mixed reviews in the US, it doubtless will prove irresistible to his admirers. This one's in black-and-white, deals with fame and sex, and as ever, features an eclectic stellar cast that includes Kenneth Branagh, Judy Davis, Winona Ryder, Melanie Griffith, Joe Mantegna and one Leonardo DiCaprio.
April 25th, 11 a.m.
eXistenZ
DAVID Cronenberg follows Crash with a science-fiction thriller set in the near future where Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh participate in a virtual reality interactive game which turns into a matter of life and death. The film - which apparently was inspired by the fatwa against Salman Rushdie - features reputedly excellent special effects, and the cast also includes Ian Holm, Christopher Eccleston and Don McKellar.
April 23rd, 10.30 a.m.
In Dreams
THE new Neil Jordan film is a psychological thriller set and shot in Massachusetts. There are echoes of Jordan's The Com- pany of Wolves in its story of a woman whose dreams are the portent of real-life nightmares - to horrific effect when the subject is the abduction and murder of her nine-year-old daughter. Annette Bening takes the central role, with Aidan Quinn as her pilot husband, Jordan regular Stephen Rea as a psychiatrist and Robert Downey Jr. as an unhinged man with a tormented past.
April 17th, 9 p.m.
The Lost Son
LIGHTING cameraman Chris Menges returns to directing with a dark thriller featuring Daniel Auteuil as a French private detective (Daniel Auteuil) asked to find a 20-year-old photographer who is the missing son of a wealthy couple. The strong cast also features Nastassja Kinski, Katrin Cartlidge and Ciaran Hinds.
April 23rd, 8.40 p.m.
Love And Rage
CATHAL Black's first film since Korea (which closed the Dublin festival in 1995) has its world premiere as this year's opening night attraction. Scripted by Brian Lynch, Love and Rage deals with James Lyncheaun - an inspiration for The Playboy of the Western World - who, in 1894, attacked an English landowner, set fire to her house and escaped from Portlaoise Prison to America. It stars Daniel Craig, Greta Scacchi and Stephen Dillane.
April 15th, 8 p.m.
Next Stop Wonderland
ARGUABLY the most attractive of the US independents in the festival's Spirit of America strand is Brad Anderson's romantic comedy featuring Hope Davis (from The Daytrippers) as a lonely, introverted nurse who works the night shift, and Alan Gelfant as a plumber and aspiring marine biologist with whom she collides on the street in Boston.
April 18th, 2 p.m.
Praise
THE Australian content in this year's festival is particularly strong, and John Curran's first feature, regarded as one of the most notable discoveries on the festival circuit in recent months, may well prove one of its highlights. It brings together two of life's outsiders, a 25-year-old, unemployed, chain-smoking asthmatic (Peter Fenton) and a young woman who's plagued by eczema and introduces him to scrabble and sex. April 18th, 3.50 p.m.
All films noted on this page are showing at Virgin Cinemas.
