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Set in the 1960s, Judy Fong Bates’s much-talked-about debut novel is the story of a young girl, the daughter of a small Ontario town’s solitary Chinese family, whose life is changed over the course of one summer when she learns the burden of secrets. Through Su-Jen’s eyes, the hard life behind the scenes at the Dragon Cafe unfolds. As Su-Jen’s father works continually for a better future, her mother, a beautiful but embittered woman, settles uneasily into their new life. Su-Jen feels the weight of her mother’s unhappiness as Su-Jen’s life takes her outside the restaurant and far from the customs of the traditional past. When Su-Jen’s half-brother arrives, smouldering under the responsibilities he must bear as the dutiful Chinese son, he forms an alliance with Su-Jen’s mother, one that will have devastating consequences. Written in spare, intimate prose,  Midnight at the Dragon Cafe  is a vivid portrait of a childhood divided by two cultures and touched by unfulfilled long...

Marcela, an immigrant woman with grave economic problems, finds a job as the caretaker of Amador, an old man who can not move from his bed. Day by day, Marcela earns money that she desperately needs while Amador enjoys company that his own family has denied him. Through this, they develop a special connection with each other. However, this connection is prematurely cut when Amador dies. Marcela, desperate to keep her job, finds herself in a difficult moral dilemma. Having investigated unemployment (“Mondays in the Sun”) and prostitution (“Princesas”) in his past two films, Fernando Leon de Aranoa tackles immigration in the thoughtful but severely overstretched “ Amador .” Blending black comedy, lyricism and social critique into a well-intentioned if diffuse slice of urban poetry that can’t decide whether it wants us to laugh, cry or just feel guilty, pic reps the first time the helmer has put style before substance. Aranoa’s reputation could bring restricted offshore arthouse play, ...