The American I Never Was
De Amerikaan Die Ik Nooit Geweest Ben
Chris Keulemans
The Netherlands | 2004 | 45mins | Beta | Colour and Black & White

Monday 10th | 2.30pm | Triskel Arts Centre

A road-movie told in stills, about a man coming home to where he never has lived. Chris Keulemans is a Third Culture Kid. As the son of a Dutch development-aid worker he grew up in distant cities like Baghdad and Jakarta, where he attended American schools and became a true little patriot without ever having been in America. Now that he finally arrives there, he aims to discover the beauty, the sense of home, that lies beneath the grim surface of New Jersey - a state still trembling from paranoia after 9 / 11.

Will he find his home somewhere between the silent suburbia, the industrial wastelands, the sprawling shopping malls, the ghettoes and the highways? Find out by following him on a sometimes poetic, sometimes harsh sequence of photographs, music and text.

The Aristocrats
Paul Provenza
USA | 2004 | 90mins | 35mm | Colour

Monday 10th | 6.00pm | Cork Opera House

The Aristocrats is a joke that is never told in public, a private joke for comedians, so you've never heard it before. It is also the dirtiest joke you will ever hear. The Aristocrats is filthy, vile, disgusting - and hilarious. The Aristocrats captures over one hundred of the world's funniest, most gifted comics giving the joke their own interpretation. Even in comedy, it's the singer, not the song. The Aristocrats is dirtier than anything you've ever thought. That's because you leave thoughts like this to the experts so you don't have to think them yourself.

These comedians push boundaries you never knew existed. That's because they're artists. The Aristocrats has no nudity, no sex, and no violence, but it's one of the most shocking movies you will ever see. This is the power of language spoken by professionals. Professionals trying to outdo each other with the most hysterically dis-gusting, offensive, verbal images they can spit out.

You'll hear descriptions that will stay with you the rest of your life, whether you want them to or not.

Remember, these men and women are professionals. You sure don't want to try this at home.

Bhopal: The Search For Justice
Lindalee Tracey, Peter Raymont
Canada | 2004 | 52mins | Beta | Colour

Tuesday 11th | 2.30pm | Triskel Arts Centre

On 2nd December 1984, the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India leaked poisonous methyl isocyante gas killing fifteen thousand people. Hundreds of thousands more were permanently maimed. Bhopal was, and remains, the world's worst chemical disaster.

Twenty years later, survivors and their families are being re-victimized by the deliberate thwarting of scientific and medical studies concerning the disaster. To this day, they have been denied definitive information about the precise composition of the leaked gas and its long-term effects. Each day, children are born with defects that may be related to the gas leak. Beautiful Bhopal, once known as the 'City of Mosques' is a sad, disgraceful testament to the absence of environmental and human justice.

Exploring charges of corruption, graft and greed, the film follows Raajkumar Keswani, a local journalist whose prediction of the Union Carbide disaster proved prophetic. Set against the rich visual tapestry of India, Keswani travels through the Indian bastiis where the poorest victims live, and to the offices of frustrated doctors and scientists.