Mike Leigh: “I would suggest that it would be impossible for any of us on this jury to make serious consideration of any of the films without looking at them each their appropriate way as much in a political, social and environmental context as much as in their artistic, cinematic or other merits. We are — if I may so — too sophisticated and intelligent to fail to do that. That is all I would say.”

“I lack real sophistication, so… In that case I would disagree,” Gyllenhaal joked in response. “I agree with you in all other cases.”

See the full scope here.

Time: Saturday, February 25, 6pm-7:23pm
Location: Tradewinds Auditorium, Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI), Crow Lane, Hamilton.

Bermuda International Film Festival (BIFF) announces that it will host a screening of “The Woman in the Fifth” on Saturday, February 25 as part of its monthly film series, BIFFlixs. The film will be shown in the Tradewinds Auditorium at Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) on Crow Lane in Hamilton.

“Lush puzzler about a frustrated novelist benefits from old-fashioned art-film approach.” (The Hollywood Reporter)

Official selection of the Toronto International Film Festival 2011.

American novelist Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke) arrives in Paris determined to renew a relationship with his estranged wife and daughter. When the longed- for meeting goes poorly, he ends up in a seedy hostel on the outskirts of the city. Unable to pay for his room and board, he agrees to work as a night guard at a warehouse for the proprietor and spends the hours writing elaborate, imaginative letters to his daughter. One evening, after he’s invited to a literary gathering, Tom meets Margit (Kristen Scott Thomas), an enigmatic translator whose magnetic presence and worldly manner intrigue the down-and-out author. She seduces him, haughtily dictating the time and place of their rendezvous in the Fifth Arrondissment. Their passionate affair coincides with a string of inexplicable events, and slowly Tom’s anxieties and inner torments begin to derange his sense of what’s real…

Running time: 83 minutes. Language: English, French (with English subtitles). Rated R.