Cocaine Cowboys

The cocaine trade
of the 70s and 80s had an indelible impact on contemporary Miami.
Smugglers and distributors forever changed a once sleepy retirement
community into one of the world's most glamorous hot spots, the
epicenter of a $20 billion annual business fed by Colombia's Medellin
cartel. By the early 80s, Miami's tripled homicide rate had made it the
murder capital of the country, for which a Time cover story dubbed the
city "Paradise Lost."








Bothersom Man AKA: Brysomme mannen, Den

Forty year old Andreas arrives in a strange city with no memory of how
he got there. He is presented with a job, an apartment and even a wife.
But before long, Andreas notices that something is wrong. Andreas makes
an attempt to escape the city, but he discovers there's no way out.
Andreas meets Hugo, who has found a crack in a wall in his cellar.
Beautiful music streams out from the crack. Maybe it leads to the
other side? A new plan for escape is hatched







Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj

The legacy of
perpetual college party man Van Wilder lives on in NATIONAL LAMPOON’S
VAN WILDER THE RISE OF TAJ, as his former apprentice Taj Mahal
Badalandabad takes the torch to jolly old England, where he
is continuing his education at stuffy Camford University. At first
things look bleak for Taj, despite his gleaming newfound confidence and
hip makeover from his days at Coolidge College, as he is rejected by
the prestigious fraternity, Fox and Hounds, and ends up boarding with a
group of misfits. Driven to live up to his former mentor’s good name
and also to make his father proud, Taj sets out to prove his
big-man-on-campus potential by unabashedly leading his outcast house mates in an attempt to defeat the wealthy elite of Camford in a
range of competitions for the coveted Hastings Cup


Like its predecessor, the film is chock ful of vulgar humor and
sophomoric antics. Although Taj is the only character to appear from
the first VAN WILDER (with the exception of Wilder’s pet bulldog), many
of the plot points are predictably similar. Occasionally peeking
through the excessive sexual references, outrageous gags, and
cringe-worthy debauchery is a laugh out loud film that encourages the
underdog and thumbs its nose at the establishment. Much like the
grandfather of all college films, ANIMAL HOUSE (1978), VAN WILDER 2:
THE RISE OF TAJ examines the lighter side of higher education, pointing
out that its not only about earning a diploma but also about
discovering one’s potential and not forgetting to have fun along the
way.







Favela Rising

Jeff Zimbalist and
Matt Mochary's documentary is a major achievement in nonfiction
filmmaking, a vibrant, important work that is as inspiring as it is
tragic. The narrative centers on Anderson Sá, a distinguished-looking
young man who grew up in the worst of Rio di Janiero's infamously
violent favelas, Vigário Geral. Though most residents of this extremely
impoverished community do their best to cobble together a piecemeal
living, the neighborhood is ruled over by murderous drug lords, whose
average age of death is between 14 and 25 years old. In 1993, after one
of these men murdered a few notoriously corrupt cops, the military
police retaliated by brutally, and randomly, murdering 21 innocent
favela residents. One of these victims was Sá's younger brother. Rather
than allow the anger and despair to propel him into a place of darkness
and revenge, Sá decided to stop the cycle of violence, using the
universal language of music as his conduit to social awareness and
rebellion. Mobilizing like-minded friends and musicians, he started a
newsletter and a band to perform his upbeat, yet courageously honest
music, which featured lyrics about the massacre and police brutality.
The filmmakers track Sá’s project as it evolves from a small newsletter
to a bona fide national music, with childhood musical education being a
top priority. Beautifully shot, with visually stunning graphic elements added, FAVELA
RISING brings vibrance and color to one of the most downtrodden
settings on earth, imbuing its people with honor. The access the
filmmakers got to the residents, from regular families to masked men
with machine guns, is incredible. In the end though, it is the music
that is the real star of the show, which demonstrates the truly
remarkable power of song and rhythm to transform lives.