Film / Right now, at this very moment, all over the world, nothing much is happening. Businesses are closed. Libraries are closed. Museums are closed. Whole cities –great cities, like Paris and Delhi and Stockholm–are closed, or at least reduced to near-ghost towns. There’s nobody around, and those that are around aren’t doing much of anything. You know why? Because it’s August. August–if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, and probably even if you don’t–is a hot, heavy month that lends itself to swimming in the ocean, taking naps and going to matinees… pretty much anything but working.

Our society sadly does not see fit to honor the tradition of the month-long August holiday, thus consigning us to still more work-a-dog-day quotidian hell…but every once in a while, we get lucky–for example, when someone throws a three-day movie marathon featuring hard-to-find cinematic gems from around the Pacific basin, all watched over by air-conditioning machines of loving grace.

The Hawai’i International Film Festival has teamed up with the Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Doris Duke Theatre to offer us a weekend filled with six intriguing cinematic offerings. And while the one true heavy-hitter in the bunch will garner most of the attention, this new mini-fest also offers what may be our only chance to catch several promising efforts from parts west of here on the big screen.

Werner Herzog, who’s been enjoying a bit of a late-career hot streak in recent years, is the headliner with Encounters at the End of the World. This new doc, Herzog’s first since Grizzly Man, follows that film’s exploration of human survival in harsh conditions to its southernmost extreme–Antarctica’s McMurdo Station. This is an intimate portrait of men and women who have chosen to make their homes in one of the most remote and unforgiving outposts on Earth, and with the German New Wave master at the helm, it’s likely to be worthwhile even if it has nothing to do with chickens.

Herzog aside, most likely to succeed honors may well go to Mr. Cinema, an homage to Giuseppe Tornatore’s classic Cinema Paradiso from director Samson Chiu. Set against the tumult of modern Hong Kong, the film follows Zhou, a young, politically active movie projectionist, over three decades as he struggles to cope with crises writ large and small, including the SARS panic and the end of British rule in 1997. Leading man duties are handled by Sino-Aussie actor Anthony Wong, who’s having a pretty good summer: Wong appears as General Yang in the newest Mummy release, currently in U.S. theaters.

Other selections include Walking My Life, an end-of-life drama from Japan’s Isaka Satoshi and A Little Love, A Little Magic, an Indian film which from the press materials sounds like it might appeal to folks who liked the concept of Bruce Almighty but didn’t see it because they think Jim Carrey movies are dumb. Two South Korean films round out the weekend’s offerings: Once Upon A Time in Corea, a WWII adventure piece from director Jeong Yong-gi, and Public Enemy Returns (see review, p.22), Woo-Suk Kang’s action/thriller. The much-hyped Public Enemy Returns, which is a sequel, was expected to be the big summer blockbuster in Seoul… no word yet on final box office numbers.

In addition to providing a much-needed dose of thoughtful filmmaking in an otherwise barren season, HIFF’s Summer Film Fest presents cinephiles with a great excuse to sign up as HIFF members: every member, including new signups, gets two tickets free.

Hawai’i International Film Festival’s Summer Film Fest, at the Doris Duke Theatre at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. See Film Blurbs, p. 24, for prices, dates and showtimes.

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