Love & Liberty is in the air THE COMPETITION – I

Ten feature films of a variety of topics and origins are in competition for the top IFFAM Award 2019. They will be shown in Macau venues – from December 5 to 10 – as Asian or international premieres. In this first supplement, MDT presents the first five competing movies, by alphabetic order while the second installment will be published tomorrow

BELLBIRD

Ross is a man of few words, and when his wife Beth suddenly dies, so does his spirit. His son Bruce is reluctant to change his own life to help run the farm but can see his father struggling, both physically and emotionally. When young Marley keeps turning up to help Ross with the daily milking, he ignores Ross’s sullen moods.

Beth was Marley’s teacher and friend, so he is quietly determined to stick around and help out. Local Connie is also in for the long haul and they come together with others in the community to share the load, but Ross is reluctant to accept their help.

Almost a year after Beth’s death the situation unexpectedly comes to a head and Ross has to finally connect with his own grief and let go. He realises he has the support he needs to continue and that his son Bruce needs to find his own place in the world.

BOMBAY ROSE

A red rose brings together three tales of impossible loves. Love between a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy. Love between two women.

Love of an entire city for its Bollywood stars. Based on true events, Bombay Rose is a chronicle of intimate yet collective struggles of people who migrate from small towns, seeking minimal life in the maximum city.

BUOYANCY

Deep in rural Cambodia 14 year-old Chakra works the rice fields with his family. He yearns for independence and seeks out a broker who can get him paid work in a Thai factory. Without telling his family, Chakra travels to Bangkok to make his fortune.

After a grueling journey across the border with other Cambodians, Chakra finally arrives in Thailand. But there he and fellow Cambodian Kea realise that the Broker has lied to them. He sells Chakra and Kea as slaves to a fishing captain.

Trapped at sea indefinitely, they are forced to work 22 hours a day trawling trash fish and surviving on a handful of cold rice. The ruthless captain quickly weeds out those slaves weakened by the conditions or trying to escape, and throws them overboard. Schooled in brutality and with nothing to lose, Chakra starts to understand what it will take to attain freedom.

FAMILY MEMBERS

Lucas (17) and Gilda (20) travel to a small Argentine beach town to fulfill the last wishes of their recently deceased mother: scatter her remains in the ocean. Unfortunately, the only “remains” they have is her prosthetic hand, but as Gilda says when they throw it into the surf, “it’s the same as long as we get it off our backs”.

Ready to return home, the two siblings find themselves stranded by a nationwide bus strike. Lucas, obsessed with bodybuilding and contact fighting, finds the nearly deserted town fertile ground for exploring his sexuality and the limits of his body. Gilda, still affected by her recent stay at a rehab center and obsessed with her “bad energy”, tries countless therapies and divination methods in order to find some meaning in the world.

Trapped in their own limbo, the two confront the empty space left by their mother’s suicide as they bid farewell to their adolescence and face the ambiguity of life, death and fitness.

GIVE ME LIBERTY

Vic, a hapless young Russian American, drives a handicapped transport in Milwaukee where he shares an apartment with his grandfather.

Already late on a day when street protests break out, Vic reluctantly agrees to ferry his grandfather and a dozen elderly Russians to a funeral, but they’re distressed when he stops first in a predominantly African American neighborhood to pick up Tracy, a black woman with ALS. On the verge of being fired, Vic’s day goes from bad to worse.