Rob Ty has prepared these descriptions -- culled from the Internet -- of the films to be screened in Cinemanila 2007.

Control is a biopic film about the late Ian Curtis (1956-1980), lead singer of the legendary post-punk rock band Joy Division. The screenplay is based on the book Touching From a Distance, by Curtis' wife, Deborah, who is also a co-producer of the film.
The film details the life of the troubled young musician, who forged a new kind of music out of the punk rock scene of 1970s Britain, and the band Joy Division, which he headed from 1977 to 1980. It also deals with his rocky marriage and extramarital affair, as well as his increasingly frequent seizures, which were thought to contribute to the circumstances that led to his suicide on the eve of Joy Division's first U.S. tour. MUST SEE
U-CARMEN is a feature film based on Bizet's nineteenth century opera filmed on location in a modern South African township setting. The energy, compassion and heat of township life in all its elements will create a constantly visually interesting and dynamic background for the unfolding of the story. WON THE GOLDEN BEAR.
The Edge of Heaven. College professor Nejat (Baki Davrak) has a simple life -- classes, work, the occasional visit to see his father Ali (Tuncel Kurtiz). Ali is a widower, and one day makes an unusual proposition to a prostitute in Bremen's red light district, Yeter (Nursel Köse): Move in with him, so that she'll make money and he won't be alone. And she does. Nejat's not crazy about this -- nor should he be, as Ali and Yeter's arrangement becomes curdled and complicated. After a brief moment of anger on Ali's part results in Yeter's unintended death, Nejat tries to find the daughter she was sending money to back home in Turkey, Ayten (Nurgül Yescilay). Nejat doesn't know what Ayten even looks like, but he's trying to find her. LIKE BABEL.
The Unseeable. The story tells of a pregnant village girl, Nualjan, who left her hometown in search of her lost husband. En route to Bangkok, she gets put up at a boarding house, with few inhabitants, and owned by a mysterious rich widow Ranjuan who lives in a separate house in the same compound. Making few friends, and slowly becoming the disdain of the housekeeper, Nualjan encounters inexplainable incidents and strange folks, helped in no way by stories about the spookiness of the premises. The usual motley crew of horror movie characters - an old scrawny lady, a young child, and plenty of shadowy figures. WATCH IT

Love`s Lone Flower is a period drama about lost loves and social transition. This epic romantic tale traces the life of a Taiwanese musician in Shanghai in the 1940s, and bridges the worlds of wartime Shanghai`s social dancers and post-war Taipei`s bar hostesses in the 1950s. In Shanghai, high-class patrons courted 'flowers' of the music-halls like Yunfang, nicknamed 'The General' for her formidable yet chivalrous conduct in both personal relationships and business. After the KMT retreat, Yunfang finds employment at a Taipei nightclub where the guests are a rather sordid variety of nostalgic mainland émigrés, Japanese businessmen, and Taiwanese gangsters. Two disparate stories chart her rise to popularity in Shanghai, and her retreat from the world of commercialized companionship in Taipei, as well as her romantic liaisons in both countries. FORGET IT
Invisibles. Jude and Joy escape to her Parisian flat for a private detox. A dark comedy of word games, sex, fantasy and pop tarts. PORTIA DE ROSSI. HMMM. GOOD REVIEWS. HMMM.
Red Dust. Police officer Dirk Hendricks (Bartlett) files an amnesty application for Alex Mpondo (Ejiofor), a member of the South African Parliament who can't remember the torture he once endured as a captive political activist. South African-born attorney Sarah Barcant (Swank), meanwhile, returns to her homeland to represent Mpondo, as well as Steve Sizela, Mpondo's friend who arrested along with him and never heard from again. COURTROOM DRAMA.
Vanaja. Vanaja, the 15 year old daughter of a financially troubled fisherman goes to work in the local landlady's house in hopes of learning Kuchipudi dance. She does well, but when the Landlady's son returns from the US, what begins as innocent sexual chemistry turns ugly, ending in a rape - a rape of a minor. Set in rural South India, a place where social barriers are built stronger than ancient fort walls, the film explores the chasm that divides classes as a young girl struggles to come of age.
Yesterday. Yesterday lives in Rooihoek, a remote village in South Africa's Zululand. Her everyday life is not easy but she takes great joy in her seven-year-old daughter, Beauty. The unsteadiness of Yesterday's life is thrown when she is diagnosed with AIDS and must journey afar to understand and confront her illness. Yesterday's key driving force is Beauty, who is a year away from starting school and so Yesterday sets herself the goal of living long enough to see Beauty start school. DRAMA, BLAH.
The Namesake. American-born Gogol, the son of Indian immigrants, wants to fit in among his fellow New Yorkers, despite his family's unwillingness to let go of their traditional ways. GOOD REVIEWS.
Faith's Corner. Faith and her two young sons, Siyabonga and Lucky sleep in an abandoned BMW. Each day they store their worldly possessions with Auntieand hustle in time for rush hour, taking up their positions at the lights on one of Johannesburg's busiest intersections.Their rough life is balanced on the edge of a tough and dangerous world where desperate neighbours need avoiding and kindness is sparse. Aware that her children deserve more than the fear and hunger she provides, in South African society Faith has no voice and few choices. And every day that she begs indifferent strangers with as much dignity as she can muster, she inches closer to loosing the little that she still has.
2 Days in Paris. 2 Days follows two days in the relationship of a New York based couple; a French photographer Marion and American interior designer Jack-as they attempt to re-infuse their relationship with romance by taking a vacation in Europe. Their trip to Venice didn't really work out,--they both came down with gastroenteritis. They have higher hopes for Paris. But the combination of Marion's overbearing non-English speaking parents', flirtatious ex-boyfriends', and Jack's obsession with photographing every famous Parisian tombstone and conviction that French condoms are too small, only adds fuel to the fire. Will they be able to salvage their relationship? Will they ever have sex again? Or will they merely manage to perfect the art of arguing? Not Before Sunset, but still good.
Volver. Raimunda lives in Madrid with her daughter Paula and her husband Paco, who is always drunk. Her sister, Sole, is separated and works clandestinely as a hairstylist for women. The two sisters lost their parents in a fire in La Mancha, their birth village, years ago. Their aunt, Paula, still lives in the village and continues to speak about her sister Irene, mother of the two sisters, as if she were still alive. When the old aunt dies the situation changes and the past returns(volver) in a twist of mystery and suspense. Must see.
Love Conquers All. Small town girl Ah Ping moves to Kuala Lumpur to work in her aunt's chicken rice stall. She encounters John at the public phone booth while making her ritual calls to her family and boyfriend back home. John follows her everywhere pursuing her fervently until she finally succumbs to him. First it transpires that he is involved in some shady deals. Then he casually reveals his familiarity with the tricks pimps use to lure girls into prostitution. When he does a disappearing act we watch helplessly as Ah Ping's fate is sealed
Requiem. An epileptic girl suffers a breakdown during her first year at university, then decides to seek help from a priest in battling the troubles associated with her strict upbringing. Sister movie of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. The latter is better.

Leaf on a pillow. In Yogyakarta, the center of Javanese royal traditions, three street urchins live their lives begging, taking drugs, and doing odd jobs. They dream of the future and focus their need for maternal love on the figure of Asih. But their destinies can only be tragic.
Ebony, Ivory & Jade. Three young girls are kidnapped in Hong Kong during an international track meet. 1976 exploitation movie by a Filipino director.
The Secret Life of Words. Hannah, who wears a hearing aid, is forced to go on holiday. On holiday she manages to find a job: caring for Josef, a burn victim on an oil rig who temporarily lost his sight, until he's stable enough to be transferred. There is almost no one on the rig, except a cook, an oceanographer and a few others out at sea. Hannah tends to Josef and he slowly breaks her shell of silence. Romance in an oil rig. Tim Robbins. And Tom Waits. Woohoo.
The Home Song Stories The Home Song Stories is the story of Rose, a glamorous Shanghai nightclub singer, who struggles to survive in seventies Australia with two young children. Based on writer/director Tony Ayres' own life, this is an epic tale of mothers and sons, mothers and daughters, unrequited love, betrayal and secrets.
No Regret. Leaving the country orphanage where he grew up, Su-min comes to Seoul to study design. However, after several tough jobs, he unexpectedly ends up working as a prostitute in a gay bar. There he meets Jae-min. Su-min refuses Jae-min who's been trying everything he could to win Su-min's heart. Jae-min is from a rich and conservative family that doesn't accept his sexual identity. Can this relationship between two men with different backgrounds have a future? After experiencing a brief happiness as passionate lovers, Su-min and Jae-min fall into tragic situations Korean gay movie.
God Willing. It's the summer of 1975 and Stockholm is in the grip of a record heat wave. During daytime Juan packs fruit in the market place halls, as does his brother who he also lives with. In the evening he starts his second job as a cleaner in a fast food restaurant. His wife is coming to Stockholm in seven days time and then everything must be perfect. The lack of sleep and the oppressive heat make his loneliness more apparent. Early one morning his spot at the bus stop is occupied by a beautiful woman, Juli. After a couple of chance encounters the nightly meetings with Juli become the most important thing in Juan's life. God willing, fantasy can become reality.
Wonder Women. Dr. Tsu is a brilliant surgeon with her own exotic island off the coast of Manila. Using her sexy, all-girl army of martial-arts experts, Tsu kidnaps some of the world's greatest athletes. She is able to transplant any body part, so she uses the athletes for spare parts to sell to the world's richest men. Mike Harber is a womanizing, wise-cracking insurance investigator for Lloyd's of London sent to Manila to investigate the disappearance of a jai-alai player, and becomes involved with Dr. Tsu's mad mission. Interesting exploitation film.
Village People Radio Show. The film is a sequel to The Last Communist, and presents the stories of Malay former communists exiled in southern Thailand. Banned in Malaysia.
Love for Share. In the Indonesian drama Love for Share, the lives of three women in polygamous relationships are presented, end to end, as a way of exploring how women deal with polygamy, a tradition that has once again achieved mainstream acceptance under the current government. One of those three movies in one things.
Ploy. A violent death of a relative brings Wit and his wife, Dang, back to Bangkok from America, where they own a Thai restaurant, for the first time in 7 years. As soon as they arrive in Bangkok at 5.30 am. Wit and Dang check into a five-star hotel downtown. The girl from the table in the dark corner comes to Wit to ask if she could borrow his lighter. Wit learns that her name is PLOY. This is how our little tale of love and jealousy begins. A highly detailed psychological drama with three strangers locked inside one hotel room. It starts with subtle suspicions and builds up to hilarious jealousy, as the appearance of the young woman triggers the couple to suddenly realize how they had grown apart in their seven-year marriage, before reaching a devastating climax. In the final act, the couple is faced with the choice of going separate ways or turns around and embraces each other for a new beginning. Very interesting.
Pleasure Factory. A series of intertwining tales involve pleasure seekers and pleasure providers during the course of one night in Geylang, Singapore's red-light district. Among the tales: an army boy loses his virginity with the help of a more-experienced friend; a teenage girl is initiated into prostitution; and an older prostitute pays a young busker for a song he never sings. Poor reviews.
Mukshin. The arrival of a boy called Mukhsin (Mohd Syafie Naswip) to the village provides a cool peer for Orked to hang out and do stuff with - cycling through the villages, climbing trees, flying kites. And as what is desired to be explored, the crossing of that line between friendship and romance, both beautiful emotions.
Children of Glory. The Soviet suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in parallel to the water polo competition at the Melbourne Youth Olympics, which saw a heroic semi-final between Hungary and the USSR. Noone will watch this movie.
Love and Honor. The story of a blind samurai and his wife who is forced to become the lover of a rich warlord. Now the samurai, although a blind man must recover the hand of his wife. Watch this movie
The girl who leapt through time. Makoto Konno, a girl attending high school in Tokyo, gains the power to go back in time and re-do things (the time-leap) when she gets involved in an accident at a train crossing one day. A little bewildered with her new powers at first, Makoto uses them extravagantly to avoid being tardy and to get perfect grades on tests. However, things began to turn bad as she discovers how her actions can adversely affect othWers. Along the way, Makoto's aunt, Kazuko Yoshiyama, offers some advice to her niece, with the hint that she herself had done something similar in the past.
Hula Girls. It is 1965 and in Japan, the country has started to shift from coal to oil. One by one the old mining towns begin their long slow decline. But for one small town way up north, its leaders and mining company officials have come up with an idea to develop Japan's first Hawaiian Village. And what's a Hawaiian Village without a troupe of Hula dancers? The only problem is, no one knows how to do the dance, or even knows what the Hula is! In this hilariously touching comedy, the skepticism and conservatism of the locals is gradually overcome as their daughters fall under the spell of one talented and determined dance instructor from the big city of Tokyo.

Based on a true story, HULA GIRLS is a heartwarming comedy about coal miners' daughters who took a once-in-a-lifetime chance to escape their monotonous lives, only to become unwitting heroes to their depressed mining town as well as the whole of Japan.
Getting Home. The touching story of the friendship between a man and a corpse. Zhao (Zhao Benshan, a Chinese stage comedian) is a dirt-poor construction worker trying to get the corpse of his best friend, Liu (Hong Qiwen, in the performance of his life), home for burial after he drops dead while drinking. Unable to afford any transport beyond the bus, he has to rely on a never-ending series of scams and tricks to transport his dead buddy thousands of miles through China and along the way he meets a road movie's worth of oddball characters from the corpse of a lonely rich man (played by Hong Kong veteran, Wu Ma), to an angry trucker, a family of beekeepers who've dropped out of society and a scruffy homeless woman who makes her living selling blood. Slowly accumulating power, this flick isn't another depressing Chinese movie about how hard it is to be a peasant. Instead it's a funny, cross-eyed look at modern day China told from a worm's eye view and, astonishingly, it's based on a true story.
Beyond the Call. Beyond the Call is a perfectly fine name for Adrian Belic's extraordinary documentary about three old men -- occasionally with white beards -- traveling the world with presents. Unlike Santa, they don't travel just once a year and they don't cover all of the earth in one mission. Also, instead of toys, they give out food, medical supplies, clothing and blankets. Sometimes, though, they bring something like a solar-powered oven, which certainly looks like a big toy.

Meet Ed Artis, Jim Laws and Walt Ratterman, aka Knightsbridge, a three-man humanitarian organization that provides aid to needy people, one impoverished country at a time. In the Tribeca Film Festival guide, the film's synopsis describes them as "part Mother Teresa and part Indiana Jones," which earned a few rolled eyes from the Cinematical staff at first. Well, wouldn't you know their interpretation is spot-on? Sure, they don't recover artifacts or fight Nazis, but their role is just as much adventurous as it is altruistic.
Sarafina. The plot centers on students involved in the Soweto Riots, in opposition to apartheid; the story is told from the point of view of an ambitious school girl actress-activist named Sarafina. She feels shame at her mother's acceptance of her role as domestic servant in a white household in apartheid South Africa (played by Miriam Makeba in the film), and inspires her peers to rise up in protest, especially after her inspirational teacher, Mary Masembuko (played by Whoopi Goldberg in the film version) is imprisoned.
Paris, je t'aime. Paris, je t'aime. is about the plurality of cinema in one mythic location: Paris, the City of Love. Twenty filmmakers will bring their own personal touch, underlining the wide variety of styles, genres, encounters and the various atmospheres and lifestyles that prevail in the neighborhoods of Paris. Each director has been given five minutes of freedom, and we, as producers, carry the responsibility of weaving a single narrative unit out of those twenty moments.
GOODBYE BAFANA is the true story of a white South African racist whose life was profoundly altered by the black prisoner he guarded for twenty years. The prisoner's name was Nelson Mandela.
The Arsonist. Curiously based on a William Faulkner story, this gripping Malaysian drama concerns a proud and embittered farm worker, not averse to taking a match to the possessions of those who he feels have caused him grief. At home, he bullies his family, instilling in them the traditional values and beliefs of his Japanese heritage. His youngest son attempts to rebel, but it would seem he has more in common with his father than he would like to admit.
Persepolis. Poignant coming-of-age story of a precocious and outspoken young Iranian girl that begins during the Islamic Revolution.