Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening March 3-9, 2016

Hail, Caesar!

With Hail, Caesar!, the Coen Bros. return to the Hollywood Golden Age at Capitol Pictures, which they first mined for screwball-comedy hijinks in Barton Fink, which was set in the 1940s.

Now in the 1950s, Capitol has a brash new executive “fixer”, played by Josh Brolin, who has his work cut out for him when the studio's biggest star, matinee idol Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) goes missing during the production of a swords-and-sandals epic. Turns out he's been kidnapped by a shadowy group known as "the Future".

Aside from Coen veterans like Clooney and Brolin, there's also Frances McDormand as a film editor and Tilda Swinton in dual roles as rival twin sister gossip columnists. Channing Tatum and Alden Ehrenreich are a couple other young leading men at the studio. Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett Johansson and Jonah Hill also star.

The Coens have stated that this is the third entry in their Numbskull Trilogy of films with their favorite numbskull Clooney, following O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and Intolerable Cruelty (2003), though 2008's Burn After Reading might also fit in there too.

Critical reception is mostly positive, putting Hail, Caesar! somewhere in the Coens' middle realm, below A Serious Man and above The Man Who Wasn't There. Rated 13+

---

Also opening

London Has Fallen – Remember 2013, when there were two back-to-back "Die Hard in the White House movies"? One was Roland Emmerich's stupidly fun White House Down, with Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, and the other was the straight-faced, grimmer-toned and much-less-fun Olympus Has Fallen, which was directed by Antoine Fuqua and starred Gerard Butler as a disgraced Secret Service agent who redeems himself when the White House comes under attack. He's back in London Has Fallen, protecting president Aaron Eckhart as he attends a British prime minister's funeral, which becomes a target for a Pakistani arms dealer who wants to wipe out all the world leaders. Charlotte Riley joins the cast, playing a British agent. Returnees include Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster and Melissa Leo. Babak Najafi, an Iranian-born Swedish filmmaker, takes over as director, making his English-language debut. Rated 18+

Love Say Hey .. Yaak Say Wa Rak Ther (เลิฟเซเฮ.. อยากเซว่ารักเธอ) – High-school seniors have to figure out how to balance love, friendship and their studies as they work to make a film together for their graduation project. Napat Jaitientum directs. He previously directed the gay romances, last year's Love Love You and 2014's Love's Coming. Rated G

Office – An office supervisor (Bae Sung-woo) snaps after a long day at work, kills his family and disappears. A police detective (Park Sung-woong) is on the case, but co-workers are tight-lipped about the man, until, one by one, they start getting killed off too. It's directed by Hong Won-chan, who makes his debut as helmer following screenplays on such acclaimed South Korean thrillers as The Chaser, The Yellow Sea and Confession of Murder. In Korean with English and Thai subtitles at SFW CentralWorld and Esplanade Ratchada. Rated 18+

Mojin: The Lost Legend – An infamous tomb robber (Chen Kun) has settled down to retire with his new fiancee when an old girlfriend (Angelababy) who he thought died 20 years ago resurfaces and lures him back to China and the tomb of a Mongolian princess, which holds an artifact that has the power to raise the dead. Thai-dubbed it seems. Rated 13+

Jai Gangaajal – Priyanka Chopra portrays the first female police superintendent in Bankipur, Bihar. She decides to take on a corrupt local politician and his henchmen. Manav Kaul, Rahul Bhat and Queen Harish also star. In Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Pattaya.

---

Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Danish films, David Lynch, "controversy!", a tribute to cinematographer Donald Slocum and Donald Trump: What's the Deal? are featured this month. The abstract movies of David Lynch are featured on Thursdays, beginning with The Elephant Man. Friday's "controversial" film is A Clockwork Orange. This Saturday is a one-off special event, the fourth edition of the 9 Film Fest, which will screen the winning entries in this year's online contest. To compete, filmmakers have to come up original nine-minute films that contain a "signature item" that is unique from year to year. This year's "9SI" was "flower". Sunday has the films shot by Slocum, beginning with the screwball British comedy The Lavender Hill Mob. Later in the month, the club has scheduled Saturday screenings of Trump: What's the Deal?, a 1999 documentary that is reportedly "the movie Trump doesn't want you to see". It's set for March 12, March 19 and March 26, for Bt150 per person. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

Signes de Nuit in Bangkok – The Reading Room, Filmvirus, the Goethe-Institut and the International Festival Signet de Nuit present an extensive selection of experimental short films and documentaries from this year's International Festival Signet de Nuit in Paris. Screenings are on Friday and Saturday night and Sunday afternoon at the Reading Room on Silom Soi 19. For the full schedule, please check the Facebook events page.

Wim Wenders: A Retrospective – The Thai Film Archive lets light filter through its state-of-the-art 3D projector for the first time, with back-to-back Saturday screenings of two 3D films by influential German director Wim Wenders. First up at 1pm is Pina, Wenders' tribute to the late German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch. That's followed by the drama Every Thing will be Fine, which has James Franco as writer who kills a child in a car wreck. These are two films in which the filmmaker seeks to use 3D to "immerse" the audience in sights, sounds, experiences and storytelling, rather than just titillate with gimmicks and flashy special effects as most mainstream commercial 3D films do. It's an approach that contemporaries of Wenders have taken, such as Werner Herzog with his 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams or Martin Scorsese, with his epic childhood drama Hugo., and Jean-Luc Godard with Goodbye to Language. For more details, check the special post, the Archive's website or the Goethe website.

German Film Week – Following the recently concluded Open Air Cinema season, the ongoing Wim Wenders: A Retrospective and the monthly German Film Series, German cinema remains in focus with German Film Week from March 7 to 13 at Paragon Cineplex. It will screen seven contemporary German films from 2013-14. Here's the line-up:

• Monday, March 7: Who am I – No System is safe – Baran bo Odar directs this thriller about a hacker who uses the virtual reality to become "somebody". An opening reception precedes this screening, beginning at 6pm.
• Tuesday, March 8: Schönefeld Boulevard – A plus-size teenage girl gets her first taste of the wide open world when construction of a new Berlin airport comes to her neighborhood.
• Wednesday, March 9: The Age of Cannibals (Zeit der Kannibalen) – Two longtime business consultants who make their living travelling to far-flung countries advising companies, are both in for disappointment when they are passed over for a big promotion.
• Thursday, March 10: Inbetween Worlds (Zwischen Welten) – In Afghanistan, a German soldier becomes conflicted between duty and his conscience as he works in a Taliban-controlled area with a young Afghani interpreter.
• Friday, March 11: A God send (Ein Geschenk der Götter) – An unemployed actress takes a job teaching a theater class to chronically jobless folks. They will try to put on the play Antigone.
• Saturday, March 12: Jack – A 10-year-old boy goes looking for his mother after she fails to turn up to collect him after school. A nominee for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, the drama is directed by Edward Berger, who co-wrote the screenplay with Nele Mueller-Stöfen.
• Sunday, March 13: Patong Girl – There's conflict for a German family on vacation in Phuket, when the teenage son falls for a local lass and runs off. Mum runs off too, to search for the boy, but instead goes on a journey to find herself. Susanna Salonen directs this Thai-German comedy-drama, filmed in Phuket with a Thai and German cast.

Shows are at 7pm. All films will have English subtitles. Tickets cost 120 baht and 150 baht at the Paragon box office.

---

Sneak preview

Kung Fu Panda 3 – The Dreamworks Animation franchise returns with Jack Black's rotund martial artist Po and his friends getting up to more adventures. Po, the orphaned panda, finds his homeland and bonds with his father and other panda family members. Meanwhile, an evil new adversary arises in the former of master Kai, voiced by J.K. Simmons. Along with Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, David Cross, Seth Rogen and Jackie Chan in returning roles, newcomers to the franchise include Bryan Cranston and Kate Hudson. It's in sneak previews from Saturday until Wednesday, with kid-friendly screenings starting between 2pm and 5pm . Rated G

---

Take note

There's no free film screening next Wednesday at the Alliance Française, which instead will have a one-off concert Duo Brunetti-Pachioli. The free French films return on March 16.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening February 11-17, 2016

The Act of Killing

The perpetrators of genocide in Indonesia in the 1960s are given a chance to tell their side of the story in The Act of Killing, which has these colorful military figures and politicans re-enacting their gruesome deeds in often self-aggrandizing fashion, in scenes from their favorite types of movies – westerns, film-noir mysteries and lavishly staged musical numbers.

The Act of Killing rubbed me the wrong way when I saw it in a one-off special screening in Bangkok a few years ago. I felt it let those men mostly off the hook for their wave of politically motivated killings in 1965-66. But it was part of a one-two punch by director Joshua Oppenheimer and his "anonymous" team of filmmakers, who followed up the The Act of Killing with the powerful and essential counter-punch, The Look of Silence, which focused on one gentle survivor's personal search for truth and justice.

Brought back by the Documentary Club, this is the 159-minute "director's cut" of The Act of Killing. It won many awards, including the European Film Award for Best Documentary and the Asia Pacific Screen Award. It was also a nominee for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

The Act of Killing opens this week, and the must-see followup The Look of Silence is released next Thursday. There's a special screening of both films from 6pm on Saturday in an event put together by the Documentary Club and Film Kawan, an academic group that specializes in Southeast Asian films. It's at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld.

Apart from that special screening, regular venues for The Act of Killing are SF World, SFX Central Rama 9, SFX Central Lad Phrao and SFX Maya Chiang Mai. For further details, check the Documentary Club Facebook page or SF Cinemas booking site

---

Also opening

Luk Thung Signature (ลูกทุ่ง ซิกเนเจอร์, a.k.a. Love Beat) – Star-studded stories unfold to the toe-tapping beat of Thai country songs in this sprawling musical drama by producer-director Prachya Pinkaew (Ong-Bak, Tom-Yum-Goong. The stories include a brooding business executive (Krissada Sukosol Clapp) who is searching for the cleaning lady he heard singing while he was in the toilet. She's played by Rungrat "Khai Mook The Voice" Mengphanit. Another story centers on a washed-up overweight pop singer (Chalitit "Ben" Tantiwut) who finds new popularity when he switches to luk thung. Other stars include The Voice Thailand Season 1 winner Tanon Jamroen as well as Siraphan Wattanajinda, Chaiyathat Lampoon, Sombat Metanee and Pitsamai Wilaisak, Sumet Ong-art, Su Boonliang and luk thung songwriter Sala Khunawut. Read more about it in a story in The Nation. Rated G

Deadpool – Marvel Comics’ wisecracking "Merc with a Mouth" comes to the screen in this origin story starring Ryan Reynolds. He's a mercenary former Special Forces operative who has cancer and submits to a rogue experiment that leaves him horribly disfigured but with heightened healing powers and superhuman abilities. Deadpool is officially part of the X-Men franchise, which is held by Fox. It's been in development a long time, but it seems with all the tinkering they may have got it right, leaving critics impressed. Rated R in the States, mainly for baudy language, this comic-book movie is not necessarily for the kiddies. Rated 15+

Carol – One of the big titles of awards season, Carol has been widely praised for its performances by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara as women in a taboo lesbian relationship in the U.S. in the 1950s. Blanchett is the housewife Carol who attracts the curious eyes of shopgirl and aspiring photographer Therese (Mara). They gradually grow closer while Carol is in the midst of a messy divorce. Todd Haynes (I'm Not There, Far from Heaven) directs. Listed among the year's best by many, many critics, Carol has six Academy Award nominations, including best actress for Blanchett and supporting actress for the co-lead Mara. Critical reception is wildly positive. This opened in sneak previews last week and now movies to general release. Rated 15+

The Choice – Ick. It's Valentine's Day weekend, so here's yet another movie adaptation of yet another weepy Nicholas Sparks romance novel. It's the story of the evolving relationship between a womanizing small-town veterinarian (Benjamin Walker) and his neighbor, an attractive young woman (Teresa Palmer) who is a medical student. Critics think it's yucky. Rated G

Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong – Combining the spirit of two holidays, last weekend's Chinese New Year and this weekend's Valentine's Day, here's a love letter to Hong Kong. The story has a young Chinese-American woman (Jamie Chung) visiting Hong Kong for the first time. She meets an expat American (Bryan Greenberg) who is working in finance. The two hit it off as they tour the sights. They then meet again a year later. Critical reception has been generally favorable.

The Monkey King 2 – This actually came out last week, but wasn't in cinemas until Friday, so I got confused when it didn't appear last Thursday and didn't list it. Sorry about that, campers. An obligatory release for Chinese New Year, The Monkey King 2 is a sequel to a 2014 big-budget blockbuster fantasy based on ancient Chinese literature. Aaron Kwok steps into the role of the Monkey King, taking over from Donnie Yen. He is released from prison after 500 years and tasked with undertaking his "journey to the West" to retrieve sacred scriptures. Gong Li also stars, playing the chief villain, the White Bone Demon. Soi Cheang directs with action choreography by Sammo Hung. Special effects were handled in New Zealand by the same folks that did visual effects for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. It's in Chinese with English and Thai subtitles in select cinemas. Rated 13+

Fitoor – Charles Dickens' Great Expectations receives the Bollywood treatment in this sweeping romantic drama starring Aditya Roy Kapur, Katrina Kaif and Tabu. It's the story of star-crossed relations between a poor boy who lives by the docks and the beautiful daughter of the wealthiest man in town. It's in Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Pattaya.

---

Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – "Blue baby syndrome" is at the heart of tonight's selection, Something the Lord Made, a well-regarded made-for-HBO drama starring Alan Rickman as a pioneering American researcher in the 1930s, who performs medical studies with help from a gifted young black man (Mos Def). Tomorrow, talented cinematographer Haskell Wexler takes his place in the director's chair, mixing fiction with documentary footage in Medium Cool, a counter-culture drama about a TV cameraman caught up in the violence that erupted during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Saturday's "kinky" movie is The Night Porter, starring Dirk Bogarde as a sadomasochistic former Nazi concentration camp officer who is in a twisted relationship with one of his former prisoners. Sunday has a special Valentine's Day movie – The Road Home – Zhang Yimou's timeless love story of a schoolteacher and the young woman (Zhang Ziyi) who falls for him. Next Wednesday, it's another of David Bowie's cinematic contributions, the Japanese prisoner-of-war drama Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

German Film Series – Struggling Berlin artists collaborate on a project sponsored by a biotech company and they become the next step in human evolution in the science-fiction comedy-drama Art Girls. The show is at 1pm on Sunday at the Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom and at 6pm on Tuesday in the fifth-floor auditorium at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center. Keep in mind, the Archive and the Goethe have special event coming up, Wim Wenders: A Retrospective, opening on February 25 with a Lumpini Park screening of Wings of Desire.

Alliance Française – Voilà! The AFThailande.org website appears to be back up. Next week's show is Brooklyn. Not to be confused with last year's current critical hit with the same title, this Brooklyn is from 2014 and is the story of a runaway girl who tries her luck with the hip-hop scene in Paris. It's at 7pm on Wednesday, February 17, at the Alliance.

---

Sneak preview

Bakuman – Japanese teenage comic-book artists meet in high school and try to get their stories published in a weekly comics magazine. This is a movie adaptation of a popular manga about manga artists that has also been adapted as an animated TV series. It's by the same folks who did the popular manga-based horror Death Note. It's in sneak previews with shows from around 8 nightly in most multiplexes. It opens in general release next week. Rated G

Bangkok Cinema Scene: January 14-20, 2016

Spotlight

Nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, Spotlight went home empty handed from the first big show of Hollywood's awards season. But don't count Spotlight out just yet – it's likely to be a major Academy Award nominee and is already a nominee for Baftas, Screen Actors Guild Awards and many more. Spotlight also already won the Film Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award for best ensemble cast.

A newspaper drama in the grand muckraking tradition of All the President's Men, Spotlight is the fact-based account of investigative reporters at the Boston Globe in 2002, who get wind of a massive official cover-up of rampant sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. They blow the lid off the story and win a Pulitzer.

Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, Brian d’Arcy James, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup and John Slattery star. It's directed by Tom McCarthy, who debuted to much acclaim with The Station Agent. He's also an actor, having previously played a quote-fabricating Baltimore Sun reporter on TV's The Wire.

Critical reception is mostly positive. Rated 15+

---

Also opening

Cop Car – Two boys find an abandoned sheriff's cruiser in the countryside and, with lights flashing and siren blaring, take the Crown Vic for a joyride. Meanwhile, the absent sheriff – a corrupt and dangerous lawman played by Kevin Bacon – angrily sets out to find his missing car. The debut feature by young indie director Jon Watts, Cop Car picked up solid buzz from its premiere at Sundance last year, helping to propel Watts into the top ranks as he was selected to helm yet another Spider-Man reboot. I have actually seen Cop Car and am here to say it is a terrific little movie. Many critics think so too. Rated 15+

The 5th Wave – Yet another talented young actress is dropped into yet another young-adult science-fiction franchise. Adapted from the 2013 novel by Rick Yancey – the first in a trilogy, of course – The 5th Wave stars Chloë Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass, The Equalizer) as a 16-year-old heroine who has survived four apocalyptic waves of an alien invasion. She needs to find her little brother before he becomes a weapon in the fifth wave. Critical reception is just forming. Rated 13+

Ip Man 3 – Donnie Yen tangles with Mike Tyson in this third installment in director Wilson Yip's series of biographical dramas about Ip Man, the 1950s Hong Kong kung-fu grandmaster who, according to legend, taught Bruce Lee. The story has Ip Man keeping a low profile as he quietly teaches martial arts and looks after his family. He returns to the public eye to tangle with a street-brawling property developer (Tyson) who is bullying residents. Yuen Woo-Ping choreographed the action. He's the painterly martial-arts wizard behind such films as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Matrix and Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmaster (which was also about Ip Man). Critical reception is mixed. Rated 13+

Sweet Alibis – Mismatched, bumbling police partners investigating the death of a poodle stumble onto a drug case involving gay gangsters in this Taiwanese crime farce. Alex Su is a cowardly, more-seasoned cop with Ariel Lin as a rookie cop trying to prove herself to her father. Matt Wu (Sway) also stars. A nominee for awards at 2014's Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards the and Osaka Asian Film Festival, Sweet Alibis got some decent reviews. It's at Esplanade Ratchada and Major Ratchayothin. Seems it is in Thai only. Rated G

Wazir – An anti-terrorism police officer (Farhan Akhtar) who is grieving over the death of his daughter bonds with the girl's chess master (Amitabh Bachchan) and comes up with a strategy to battle the terrorist threat. In Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Pattaya. Opens Friday.

---

Also opening

The Friese-Greene Club – Sayajit Ray's restored epic Apu trilogy wraps up tonight with 1959's last chapter Apur Sansar. Tomorrow, cue the banjo music for a relaxing canoe trip with Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox in Deliverance, part of a month-long tribute to the late cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond. This Saturday's Paul Thomas Anderson entry is his "documentary" on the "golden age of porn", Boogie Nights. And Sunday has another great Audrey Hepburn film, 1953's classic Roman Holiday. Next Wednesday is another "U.S. meet World" entry that exposed flyover-state hayseeds to "foreign" films, 1994's Il Postino. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

German Open Air Cinema – A young computer whiz joins masked hackers who stage increasingly daring raids on corporations and the government in Who Am I – No System Is Safe. Tom Schilling stars and Baran bo Odar directs, tossing in Fight Club references. It was a major nominee at last year's German Film Awards and won for editing, sounding and production design. The show is at 7.30pm on Tuesday, January 19, outdoors at the Goethe-Institut on Sathorn Soi 1.

Alliance Française – There are two free French films to report this week. First up at 2pm on Saturday is a children's matinee, the animated Gus - Petit oiseau, grand voyage (Yellowbird). Featured at last year's World Film Festival of Bangkok, it's about an unusual orphaned yellow bird who becomes the unlikely leader of a mass migration to Africa. And then the usual 7pm Wednesday screening is Séraphine, an award-winning 2008 historical biographical drama about painter Séraphine Louis. Yolande Moreau stars.

Bangkok Cinema Scene special: Thailand International Film Destination Festival, February 4-12, 2015

Now in its third year, the Thailand Film Office's Thailand International Film Destination Festival – a showcase of foreign films made in Thailand – has 10 movies screening from Saturday until Wednesday at Paragon Cineplex. The line-up is as follows:

Saturday, February 7

• 5.30pm – The Lost Medallion – Youngsters travel back in time after they encounter a mysterious medallion. They then come to the aid of peaceful islanders who are enslaved by a diabolical warlord. With Q-and-A afterward.
• 8pm – Pernicious – A dream trip to Thailand for some young women turns into a nightmare when they accidently awaken the evil spirit of a murdered child. With director's Q-and-A afterward.

Sunday, February 8

• 5.30pm – The Prince and Me: The Elephant Adventure – A direct-to-video offering in a tween-girl-oriented franchise, the story has the former-commoner princess and her blue-blood husband visiting a fictional Southeast Asian kingdom and getting mixed up in a jungle conflict with the locals. Stars include Selina Lo, doing some decent action sequences, and noted newcomer actor Vithaya Pansringarm (Only God Forgives, The Last Executioner) in his debut role. Of course, a Q-and-A follows.
• 8pm – Pale Moon – Winner of the Audience Award at last year's Tokyo film fest, this Japanese drama follows the moral decline of a housewife and bank employee who suddenly turns into an embezzler and embarks on an affair with a much younger man.

Monday, February 9

• 5.30pm – It's Entertainment – Akshay Kumar stars in this Bollywood comedy as a hapless guy who suddenly learns his true father is a very wealthy man. However, before the rich guy learns he has a son, he dies and leaves his fortune to his dog. Followed by Q-and-A.
• 8pm – Stretch – Infamously, this the film David Carradine was in Bangkok for in 2009 when he died under mysterious circumstances. A French-produced thriller, it's about a disgraced horse-racing jockey who seeks to restart his career in Macau, but runs into conflict with a crooked trainer and local gangsters.

Tuesday, February 10

• 5.30pm – Bikers Kental – A Malaysian guy on a motorcycle journey through Thailand falls for a local lass. Followed by Q-and-A.
• 8pm – Zero Tolerance – Thai director Wych Kaosayananda, infamous for his universally panned Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, returns to the scene with this gritty action film featuring direct-to-video butt-kickers Scott Adkins and Gary Daniels along with Vietnamese star Dustin Nguyen. Followed by Q-and-A.

Wednesday, February 11

• 5.30pm – Last Flight – A Chinese production, this thriller tracks the crew and passengers of a late night flight over the Pacific encountering supernatural phenomena. Ed Westwick of Gossip Girl is among the stars. Followed by Q-and-A.
• 8pm – The Railway Man – Colin Firth stars in this biopic about a former prisoner-of-war from Death Railway of World War II. Taking in the actual Kanchanaburi locations that include the famous railway bridge, the film follows Firth's character as he seeks to make peace with his Japanese captor. Nicole Kidman, Stellan Skarsgaard and Jeremy Irvine also star. Followed by Q-and-A.

Admission is free, but as with most of these "free" festivals there's a catch – you'll have to first register by phone and then pick up your tickets from a special table in the cinema lobby 30 minutes before showtime. To register, call 091-757-0467 or 091-757-1067.