Best of the Fest

The rising waters behind the Three Gorges Dam, under construction since 1994, submerge older communities and have displaced a million people — "the small family sacrificing to help the big family," a slogan repeated like a mantra throughout Yung Chang's Up the Yangtze. Yung's documentary centers on a 16-year-old peasant girl who works on a cruise ship for tourists, and whose family ekes out a living on the edge of the rising river. Along the way we visit other people displaced by the dam, glimpse some protests, and see the cruise ship in operation. The fat, clueless Midwesterners peopling the boat fit every negative cliché you've ever imagined about Ugly Americans abroad. One striking scene finds a gibbering tour guide touting a Potemkin village of suburban-style housing allegedly used by displaced peasants, all of whom are conveniently absent while "farming." The complaisant visitors survey the tacky decor, worthy of a HGTV cable show on fixing up your add-on, and murmur about how lucky those farmers are. The film's focus is on Yu Shui, the middle-school graduate who yearns to go on to higher education, but whose family's desperate financial need forces her onto the boat. There, her name changed to Cindy, she gradually assimilates into the world of English lessons and makeup, crying as she is assigned to wash dish after dish after dish. Gregg Rickman
At the Sundance Kabuki Sun., May 4, 12:30 p.m.; Tue., May 6, 5:45 p.m.; at the Pacific Film Archive Thu., May 8, 8:55 p.m.

Vasermil
(Mushon Salmona, Israel)

In the desert development city of Beer-Sheva, a melting pot far from the cosmopolitan hubs of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, new immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union vie with native Israelis for tiny scraps of opportunities. Fractured families, petty crime, racism, and resentment are pervasive, with little prospect of improvement. This isn't news to Israelis, but Mushon Salmona's terrific, tough-minded drama is an eye-opener for Americans. Three diverse teenagers cross paths through a stolen pizza-delivery scooter and a soccer team, gradually forming delicate bonds of trust and respect. Despite the conscientious efforts of teachers and coaches, the Ethiopian soccer prodigy Adiel, the Russian Ecstasy dealer Dima, and homeboy Shlomi are trapped by the combination of weak and unhelpful parents, peer pressure, and illegal activities. Instead of raising the stakes with cheap jolts of violence, Salmona adds layer after layer after layer of character development to cement our involvement with the smart but overmatched teenagers. The film brims with echoes of hip-hop, but it isn't trendy or derivative so much as solid street. Michael Fox
At the Pacific Film Archive Wed., April 30, 6:30 p.m.; at the Sundance Kabuki Sun., May 4, 1 p.m.; Mon., May 5, 6:45 p.m.; and Wed., May 7, 7 p.m.

Water Lilies
(Céline Sciamma, France)

The camaraderie of the undesired: Invisible to everyone else, pinched, late-blooming Marie (Pauline Acquart) pairs with Anne (Louise Blachère), a heavy girl with a pasty food-court complexion. Cruelly cloddish on dry land, Anne provides their only link to the larger social world through her synchronized-swimming extracurriculars. Complications come at poolside, where the two-girl clique meets Floriane (Adele Haenel), a swimmer who has come through puberty with all the right proportions and whose beauty entrances Marie. Flo won't give it up to her appropriately hot partner, François, after whom Anne ineptly pines — and so a trickle-down chain of exploit-the-weaker is set in motion. The p.o.v. is fixed: Neither object of desire is seen outside of Marie's and Anne's lives; adult authority is alluded to but never present (the effect is more Massacre at Central High than Peanuts). Completing the convergence of rare young talents is the director, Frenchwoman Céline Sciamma. Her feature debut doesn't quite have the stun of discovery — mortified adolescent sexuality is something of a national specialty, after all — though she inexhaustibly endeavors after the indelible image. Nick Pinkerton
At the Sundance Kabuki Sat., April 26, 9 p.m. and Mon., May 5, 1:30 p.m.

You, the Living
(Roy Andersson, Sweden)

The title is from Goethe: "Rejoice, you the living ... ere dark Lethe's sad wave wetteth thy fugitive foot." A trolley car in the film bears that underworld river's name for a destination, and everybody in Swedish director Roy Andersson's film is destined to go there someday. But while they're still alive, he treats us to vignettes of these inherently hilarious humans, most of them caught in midstare by a becalmed camera and the greenish tinge of a world's last days. A disgruntled woman chases off her boyfriend and sits on a park bench, singing and complaining. A man recalls a nightmare in which he is condemned to fry for a tablecloth trick. My favorite vignette is one near the end, as a forlorn girl dreams of being a newlywed in her kitchen when the scenery mysteriously rolls by outside and wellwishers stop her and her guitar-playing groom for a sendoff on, as it turns out, a train. Frako Loden
At the Castro Fri., April 25, 6:15 p.m.; at the Pacific Film Archive Sun., April 27, 8:30 p.m.; at the Sundance Kabuki Tue., April 29, 7:00 p.m.

Asia Rising
No flesh in the pan, Argento plays prominently in two featured movies at the Film Fest this year.

Q&A with Medicene for Melancholy Director Barry Jenkins
Local film director gives this town a dose of its own Medicine.

Glass, Jazz, and Black Francis
Music takes the stage at the Film Fest.