Opening and Closing show - VisitBrussels

FILMS IN ICOMPETITIONAYU (Chun-Yu Lai/Taiwan)A Chun-Yu Lai FilmScreenplay: Chia-Ying LeeCast: Tian Ming, Chia-Ying Lee, Shiao Yao, Lu-Hao ChuRunning time: 73 min.Ayu is a 16-year-old senior high school student. She wakes up one day andfinds herself leading a life which feels familiar but somehow strange to her.Her home has been turned into a clinic and her family have disappeared! Afterstumbling into a series of bewildering incidents, she comes to the conclusionthat, just like Alice in Wonderland, she has landed in a fantasy world, whereonly an old and lonely failed businessman will talk to her. Moreover, the oldman takes her home to keep her warm and looks after her with love and care.In Ayu's dream, neither time nor space feels coherent. Nothing in this worldseems connected with reality. It has such a strange impact on Ayu that shebegins to behave bizarrely: she goes to the bathroom but forgets to have ashower; she gets lost while chasing after an imaginary figure; she can'tremember the things she has done and she falsely accuses their maid ofstealing. The old man tolerates all of this erratic behaviour, but still having noone to share his burden, he is becoming overwhelmed by feelings ofdesperation. Ayu feels the distant memories hidden inside her and tries every means of retrieving them.Known for his experimental animations and unique visual style, Lai Chunyu made his directorial debut withDying Away (2004). After a best visual effects award in 2005 for Silk (Chao-bin Su), Chunyu returns as thedirector of Ayu, a feature with a very specific subject matter: “It’s so easy for us to take our daily life forgranted, and only when we loose what we had in the past will we begin to appreciate it (…)”.CONTACT HIGH (Michael Glawogger/ Austria/Germany/Luxembourg/Poland)A Michael Glawogger filmScreenplay: Michael Glawogger & Michael OstrowskiCast: Michael Ostrowski,Raimund Wallisch,Detlev Buck, Georg Friedrich, Pia Hierzegger, Hilde Dalik, Alina Polzi,Helmut Kopping, VictorVarnado, Jeremy Strong, Alexis Santiago Hernandez, Michael-Joachim Heiss,Martin Ehrlich, Rafal Sawicki, Anna Frances dioso, MaszaBaumanRunning time: 98 min.Spanish gangster Carlos has lost a mysterious bag in Poland and wants his Austriancolleague Harry to get it back for him. But Harry doesn’t want to get his hands dirty andcalls in a favour from the Viennese small-time crook Schorsch. He just wants to sit aroundand watch car races all day, so he passes the job to Mao. She has no time either, havingto babysit her friend’s daughter, and turns to hot dog stand owners Hans Wurst and MaxDurst. This results in a crazy chase for the bag all across Eastern Europe.Austrian writer and director Michael Glawogger (Workingman's Death, Slumming) deliversa psychedelic road movie filled with slapstick humour, absurd situations andmisunderstandings. His heroes Max and Hans are dropped in a mind-expanding tripfacing colourful flying swordfish, hotel walls closing in on them, go-go girls with the heads of Germanshepherds… Hallucinations and confusion rule supreme ! Contact High, which might as well be called TheGood, The Bad And The Bag, is a weird and funny movie with a great soundtrack featuring Element OfCrime, Tiefschwarz, Calexico, Get Well Soon and Roxy Music. You’ll be crying illustrated tears, and whenyou leave the film theatre you’ll probably find everything running backwards.34