Top Independent Films Spring 2008

Already a smash in its native Italy, MY BROTHER IS AN ONLY CHILD, which was presented at this year’s Cannes and Toronto film festivals, reunites director Luchetti with longtime collaborators Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli, best known as screenwriters of the highly acclaimed “The Best of Youth.” more

DENNIS (Simon Pegg) is an ordinary guy. He’s a little overweight and he smokes, but he’s nice, charming and unassuming. However, five years ago, Dennis did something that wasn’t so nice. On his wedding day to his pregnant fiancé LIBBY (Thandie Newton), Dennis did a runner. He just couldn’t go through with it. He didn’t think he was good enough for Libby, so instead of ruining her life, he ruined her big day. more

Jean (Gad Elmaleh), a shy young bartender, is mistaken for a millionaire by a beautiful, scheming opportunist named Irene (Audrey Tautou). When Irene discovers his true identity, she abandons him, only to find that a love-struck Jean has no intention of letting her get away. Jean’s comical attempts to gain her affections gradually evolve into setting himself up as a gigolo at a luxury hotel, more

From director Michael Radford (THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, IL POSTINO) comes FLAWLESS, a clever diamond-heist thriller set in swinging 1960s London. Demi Moore plays Laura Quinn, a bright, driven and beautiful executive at the London Diamond Corporation who finds herself frustrated by a glass ceiling after years of faithful employment, as man after man is promoted ahead of her despite her greater experience. more

Based on the terrifying best-seller by Scott Smith, "The Ruins" follows a group of friends who become entangled in a brutal struggle for survival after visiting a remote archaeological dig in the Mexican jungle - where they discover something deadly living among the ruins. more

In a world of six billion people, it only takes one to change your life. In actor and filmmaker Tom McCarthy’s follow-up to his award winning directorial debut The Station Agent, Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under) stars as a disillusioned Connecticut economics professor whose life is transformed by a chance encounter in New York City. more

Professor Lawrence Wetherhold (DENNIS QUAID) might be imperiously brilliant, monumentally self-possessed and an intellectual giant – but when it comes to solving the conundrums of love and family, he’s as downright flummoxed as the next guy. His collegiate son (ASHTON HOLMES) won’t confide in him, more

When a reclusive detective (Willem Dafoe) is drawn into the case of a serial killer who is enacting anamorphosis - a painting technique that manipulates the laws of perspective - only with human bodies; he is thrust into a dark and unsettling underworld that threatens to reveal the secrets of his tormented past. more

Adapted from Elinor Lipman’s novel of the same name, Helen Hunt makes her feature directing debut with THEN SHE FOUND ME, a touching story of schoolteacher April Epner (Hunt) and her very unlikely path towards personal fulfillment. Following the separation from her husband (Matthew Broderick) and the death of her adopted mother more

In the still of the night, three lives are about to cross…a woman abandoned, a stranger awaiting his chance and, a best-selling author who imagines the thriller of the year. Deceptively layered and intriguingly misleading, this highly anticipated new film from Oscar-winning director Claude Lelouch (A MAN AND A WOMAN) stars Dominique Pinon and Fanny Ardant as an unlikely pair caught up in a game with high stakes – and deadly consequences. more

SON OF RAMBOW is a hilariously fresh and visually inventive take on friendship, family, film heroes and the death-defying adventures of growing up in the video age. The story takes place in 1980s Britain, where young Will Proudfoot is raised in isolation among The Brethren, a puritanical religious sect in which music and TV are strictly forbidden. more

Set in the west-side of Los Angeles fight world, a world inhabited by bouncers, cagefighters, cops and special forces types, Redbelt, is the story of Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a Jiu-Jitsu teacher who has avoided the prize fighting circuit, choosing instead to pursue an honorable life by operating a self-defense studio with a samurai’s code. more

Shirley Lyner (Katherine Waterston) is a typical high school teen—she worries about her grades and the SAT’s; she wonders if her best friend’s step-brother likes her, she baby-sits a few nights to make some extra cash. Shirley even has a little crush on one of her new clients; the dad, Mr. Beltran (John Leguizamo), makes her blush when he comes to pick her up. more

Based on screenwriter Maureen Medved’s novel of the same name, THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS uses highly inventive and dynamic Mondrian-like split screens to tell the story of why 15-year-old Tracey Berkowitz (Best Actress Oscar-nominee Ellen Page) is riding out a blizzard in the back of a city bus, naked except for the tattered curtain she’s wrapped in, and looking for her missing brother (whom she fears she has hypnotized). more

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival (under its previous title: Padre Nuestro), SANGRE DE MI SANGRE is a suspenseful drama about stolen identity, family relationships and the ambiguous nature of morality. At the heart of the film lies the visceral labyrinth of deceptions and frustrated hopes that is New York City – more

REPRISE’s sexy, playful, poignant tale of two 20-something friends entering the adult world is a coming of age story like no other. The freewheeling passion of youth and the unpredictable perils of fate become both the subject and the breathtaking form of director Joachim Trier’s journey through friendship, love, madness and creativity. more

WAR, INC. is an audaciously funny and surprisingly poignant film in the vein of “Grosse Point Blank.” Co-written by Mark Leyner, Jeremy Pikser and producer/star John Cusack, the film also stars Hilary Duff, Marisa Tomei, Joan Cusack, Sir Ben Kingsley and Dan Aykroyd. more

Based on real events, THE CHILDREN OF HUANG SHI is a story set against war-torn China in the 1930’s. The film centers on a young English journalist (JONATHAN RHYS
MEYERS), an American nurse (RADHA MITCHELL) and the leader of a Chinese partisan group (CHOW YUN FAT) who meet in desperate and unexpected circumstances. more

SAVAGE GRACE, based on the award winning book, tells the incredible true story of Barbara Daly, who married above her class to Brooks Baekeland, the dashing heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune. Beautiful, red-headed and charismatic, Barbara is still no match for her well-bred husband. The birth of the couple's only child, Tony, rocks the uneasy balance in this marriage of extremes more

THE FOOT FIST WAY, an uproarious, full-contact comedy featuring one of this year’s least likely heroes, is the first project from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s Gary Sanchez Productions. Included in Ain’t It Cool News’ Top 10 Films of 2007, THE FOOT FIST WAY became a sensation at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, as audiences fell in love with the seriously self-deluded more

Award-winning Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov (PRISONER OF THE MOUNTAINS) illuminates the life and legend of Genghis Khan in his stunning historical epic, MONGOL. Based on leading scholarly accounts and written by Bodrov and Arif Aliyev, MONGOL delves into the dramatic and harrowing early years of the ruler who was born as Temudgin in 1162. more

Nazneen’s life is turned upside down at the tender age of seventeen,. Forced intoan arranged marriage to an older man, she exchanges her Bangladeshi village home for a block of flats in London’s East End. In this new world, pining for her home and her sister, she struggles to make sense of her existence – and to do her duty to her husband. A man of inflated ideas (and stomach), he sorely tests her compliance. more

Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) will star as Kit Kittredge in the first theatrical adaptation from the American Girl series, as an HBO Films production to be released by Picturehouse, it was announced today by Bob Berney, president of Picturehouse and Colin Callender, president, HBO Films. more

Arthur Morrison (Jim Broadbent), and his wife Kim (Juliet Stevenson), are doctors in the same medical practice in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales, England. They have two children, Gillian (Claire Skinner), and her older brother Blake (Colin Firth)Blake is a forty - year-old established author, married with two children and confronted with the fact that his father is terminally ill. more