6. Bastardo (Nejib Belkadhi, 2013) Tunisia
Bastardo is Tunisian film-maker Nejib Belkadhi's first fiction feature, though he's had a feature length documentary air at Cannes and Sundance in the past. Bastardo is being shown Sun. 8 at 6:00PM, Tues. 10 at 10:00PM and Sat. 14 at 9:00AM, as part of the Contemporary World Cinema programme. It will be making it's World Premiere at TIFF. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjIjXuIZ16E It's a, "spellbinding combination of film noir and magic realism, which follows a downtrodden orphan now grown but still saddled with a cruel nickname who has a reversal of fortune and takes on the thugs who control his ghetto." Bastardo becomes relatively wealthy when a sell phone company builds a tower on his house- paying him a nice stipend. With his newfound wealth, he decides to challenge the local gang of thugs who have a stranglehold over his neighbourhood. In the end, it becomes a, "a contemporary allegory on the corruptive nature of power, set in a ruthless Tunisian ghetto and peppered with mysterious, larger-than-life characters some of whom have supernatural powers". It's said to magically combine "noir and magic realism" to paint a portrait of the "cruel illusions of progress".