Philadelphia Film Festival 2009

Set in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, the Palestinian city that abuts Tel Aviv, Ajami is an Israeli-funded collaboration between Israeli director Yaron Shani and Palestinian director Scandar Copti. The unlikely collaborators auditioned local actors and non-actors, and then rehearsed and wrote and rewrote the script to produce a feature film that captures the pain of these two peoples living together in a story that is an interweave of characters, families and peoples. In narrative construct, ambition and camera movement if not palette, Ajami owes a bit to John Sayles (City of Hope) and Paul Haggis (Crash). And the film earned a special distinction prize at Cannes this year in the judges’ search for best first film. Things start small with an act of petty criminality. A thug enters a café seeking protection money. He’s shot. In retaliation, his clan shoots dead the 15 year-old neighbor of the café owner by mistake. There’s a fascinating sequence of two Arab clans haggling over the worth in Dinars of the various wounds suffered on each side, fatal or non-fatal, to buy a truce that can’t hold, even if the price could be met over the next 10 days. Matters spill over into relations between Arabs and Jews, of course, with everyone along the way working their angles in hair-trigger response time, which is where Shani and Copti mean to take us all along Gripping, completely engrossing, mysterious, tragic, the film is it’s own kind of miraculous dialogue between the two directors and the home crowd. And now you. Hot from Toronto. –Harlan Jacobson

Renegade director Lars von Trier turns his attention to the horror genre with his latest, a sadistically demented, modern-day return to the Garden of Eden that explores the relationships between men and women.

The Man. The Myth. The Celebrity.

The lives of three very different teenagers intersect in unexpected ways during their final semester of high school in this edgy, sexy local indie that was a hit at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

A creative and sympathetic young heroine sets out to prove herself and win back the love of her dreams in this crowd-pleasing American indie.

Set in Paris in a not-so-distant future, an unlikely fighting duo reunites in the hopes of saving a ghettoized housing development in this Luc Besson-produced action extravaganza.

Set in the picturesque Irish waterside town of Cobh, this dark and mysterious character drama follows a struggling widower as he finds new love while being haunted by the ghosts of his past.

Things haven't been going so great for Mark. An out-of-work actor, living in a crumbling apartment, on the verge of a terrible breakup, Mark's only solace is in his friendship with his dog and the nights he spends working on a screenplay with his hilarious alcoholic upstairs neighbor, Pearce. Just when Mark thinks that things have hit rock bottom, an accident occurs that will leave him and Pearce framed for murder unless they can figure out how to dispose of a dead body . . . without accumulating more. One of the festivals deliciously darkest offerings, Ian Fitzgibbon's delivers a gem of massive proportions. Drawing from a variety of gutbusting influences (everything from Charlie Chaplin to Shawn of the Dead), Fitzgibbon's implores a playful tone, stripping the film of scares and replacing it with jokes. With pitch perfect performances and a sense of discomfort that could make the creators of The Office squirm, A Film With Me In It is this year's unforgettable, gory, slapstick romp extravaganza. –– Michael Lerman

Everything changes for 15yr old Mia when her mum brings home a new boyfriend.