Cinema Esperança International

New Year (2012)

Directed by: Philip Yao

Past and present, like two conflicting edges cut into people's lives, sometimes bleeding. A Chinese immigrant family confronts the dilemma, thinking that they are trapped. They only need a trigger to be released.

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El Casamiento (2011)

Directed by: Aldo Garay

The film tells the story of Julia Brian, an Uruguayan transsexual and Ignacio Gonzalez, a former construction worker. It is a story of love and friendship.

In 1993, the Uruguayan government - after rigorous physical and psychological tests - approves and carries out the sex reassignment operation. The second man-to-woman sex reassignment operation ever to take place in the country. Paradoxically, Julia had to wait till 2005 for the Uruguayan State to acknowledge her gender identity. Ignacio is 75 years old and one can see how hard his life has been. How he somehow survived with casual jobs. How he drank exessively. How he lived in the streets.

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Unto Thy Land (2011)

Directed by: Silvina Landsmann

Unto Thy Land is a documentary about a man and a place, a sculptor and the land that nourishes him. It is a journey of discovery of hidden stories of past civilizations that lived throughout the years in the region of Lachish in Southern Israel.

Accompanied by close friends and colleagues, Moshe Shek teaches us an original way of observing the landscape and by doing so exposes a cultural dialogue between remnants of ancient civlizations and the contemporary culture

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Being With Clay (2011)

Directed by: Tan Hongyu

Her first documentary, "Youku", is an example of Ms. Hongyu's intellectual and spiritual depth. She uses an oral history approach to tell a simple but profound story about 85 year old Yang Bailiang's life history. Ms. Hongyu's documentary beautifully sculptures Yang Bailiang visually whose hands and face are remarkable, while revealing the potter's simple peasant life, a constant struggle to survive using pottery making skills to barter for food, learned from her great, great, great grandmother; a heritage dating back to the Neolithic age, 6000 years ago, among the Li Minority of Hainan Island.

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Blinding (2011)

Directed by: Steve Sanguedolce

A writer, a female cop, and a former air force pilot experience major disruptions in their lives forcing them to redefine their understanding of the world. Each has to grapple wih fear and trauma and undergo massive inner transformations in which their lives are forever changed. The visual presentation is enhanced by the director's own colour palette. As a painter, he applies muted colours and hues to the film's emulsion with startling results.

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Para Cinderella (2011)

Directed by: Peter Chrzanowski

Peter “ Peru ” Chrzanowski, a filmmaker and professional ‘extreme sport’ activist, has been making outdoor adventure films for over thirty years. From the beginning of his career, Peter knew that his vagabond lifestyle would probably prevent him from ever leading a conventional lifestyle or possibly having a family and kids. He concedes that even the most forgiving of female partners would probably not last too long with him in a relationship. Chrzanowski, now fifty-one years old, and obsessed with paragliding, is still thinking of settling down a little more. He and his mother are building a house together in beautiful Pemberton, British Columbia. The house is a fifteen minute drive from a site having some of the best paragliding in the world. “It’s my nest, says Peter . Now, all I have to do is find a partner that flies!”