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Director  Karzan Kader ’s involvement in this project is more than professional. It is personal, even intimate. To start with,  Bekas  evokes Karzan and his family’s own flight from their native Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991, faced with the menacing advance of Saddam Hussein’s army. The filmmaker was then eight years old and his exodus took him to Sweden, where he has lived ever since. Kader’s feature debut is also based on the short of the same name with which he graduated from the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts in 2010, and for which he won the Silver Medal at the 38th Student Academy Awards (the Oscars for film school productions). Bekas  tells the story of young Zana (7 years old) and Dana (10), two orphan brothers who decide to abandon their miserable life in a Kurdish village to travel to America, a "city" they think is two or three days away. The two little boys take this firm decision after briefly seeing Superman  in the village cinema, and do the impossible to make

Rodrigo Pla's drama follows a middle-aged Montevideo woman who struggles to take care of her three children and 80-year-old father, whose health is deteriorating. The stresses and strains of looking after an elderly father prove far too much for a middle-aged Montevideo woman in  The Delay  ( La demora ), a powerfully atmospheric third feature from Uruguay’s Rodrigo Pla . Evoking a range of working-class Montevideo settings — both exterior and interior — via skilled cinematography and sound design, this slow-paced, claustrophobic nightmare is strong on mood and ambience but is let down by some questionable screenplay developments in the second half. The combination of a serious, universally applicable theme (the plight of seniors) and such palpable directorial flair will, however, ensure wide and extensive festival play.   Early scenes take us right into the cramped city apartment where 40-something Maria ( Roxana Blanco ) lives with her three school-age children and 80-yea

Newspaper columnist Elaine Harris has always written about her life with husband Charlie. Her editor and her legions of readers count on full disclosure from her, but what no one—least of all Charlie—anticipates, only a week after the couple decide to end their marriage, is the speed and inventiveness with which she begins to try him in the court of public opinion. On Monday morning, it’s a smirk by a forgettable former lover that first clues him in that something’s wrong. Then, before he’s settled in at his desk, another co-worker salutes Charlie with the title of Elaine’s new column: “Bastard!” A quick check online leads him to the column, the subtitle leaving little doubt as to what he’s in for: “Life with an Ex. He’s Gone but Not Forgotten.” Charlie’s only hope is that Elaine will get bored and abandon the weekly column—a colorful litany of his failures as a partner, father, breadwinner, and lover—or that it won’t catch on. But soon enough it’s a multimedia feeding frenzy, and ever