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IT’S A WONDERFUL AFTERLIFE (Gurinder Chadha/UK)A Gurinder Chadha filmScreenplay: Paul Mayeda Berges & Gurinder ChadhaCast: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Steve Morphew, Steve Jones, Jamie Sives, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Mark Addy, Shabana Azmi, Goldy Notay,Sacha Shilov, Teghvir Gujral, Harry Rance, Ray Panthaki, Jack Gordon, Shaheen Khan, Lalita Ahmed,Saraj ChaudhryRunning time: 100 min.Mrs Sethi, a widow, can't bear the thought of her daughter being alone andunhappy. Okay, she's a little plump and opinionated...but she would makea great wife for some lucky man, if only she were given a chance. WhenMrs Sethi can no longer stomach the rudeness of families who refuse herdaughter, she takes matters into her own hands in the only way she knows.Suddenly a police hunt begins for a serial murderer who cooks a killercurry. Mrs Sethi doesn't feel too guilty until the spirits of her victims comeback to haunt her, as they can't be reincarnated until their murderer dies.Mrs Sethi has no qualms about killing herself -she'll get to see her deadhusband again- but how can she go before her daughter is married? Thespirits realize that helping Mrs Sethi's daughter find a suitable husbandbefore the police catch her is their only chance of a wonderful afterlife.Acclaimed director Gurinder Chadha, who brought us Bend it Like Beckham – with the future sex symbolKeira Knightley – and Jane Austen’s revisited Bride and Prejudice, is back on screens with this horrificcomedy. Don’t look for a rebooted version of Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, the script being a confrontationbetween Indian and British traditions, a matter Chadha knows pretty well. Using the Masala genre instead ofa social drama, she gets the opportunity to deal with ghosts, poisoned vindaloo chicken breasts and colourfulcharacters like Golden Globe winner Sally Hawkins.JULIA’S EYES (Guillem Morales/Spain)A Guillem Morales filmScreenplay: Guillem Morales & Oriol PauloCast: Belen Rueda, Lluis Homar, Pablo Derqui, Francesc Orella, Joan Dalmau, Boris Ruiz, Daniel Grao, Clara Segura, AndreaHermosa, Julia Gutierrez Caba, Mia Esteve, Jordi LlordellaRunning time: 112 min.Julia returns to Bellevue with her husband to visit her sister Sarah, who is near blinddue to a degenerative illness for which she has unsuccessfully undergone surgery.When they arrive, Julia finds that Sarah has taken her own life and none of hermysterious neighbors seem to be at all surprised. Julia has to confront not only the lossof her sister, but also the loss of all hope of halting her own impending blindness, as shesuffers from the same illness and would appear to be destined for the same end as hersister.Expectations are high when you have a producer like Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’sLabyrinth, Hellboy, The Devil’s Backbone) and the creative team behind A.J. Bayona’smassive hit The Orphanage (2007) attached to your film. Director Guillem Morales,whose first long feature was the Sitges prize winning The Uncertain Guest (2004), presents us with a tenseand sadistic thriller that reminds you of an Italian giallo or even Terence Young’s Wait Until Dark (1967).Needless to say, the strong performance given by Belen Rueda (The Orphanage) and the cold, composedimages of cinematographer Oscar Faura (The Machinist, The Abandoned) only add to the appeal of thisSpanish terror flick.22