![A Gentle Breeze in the Village (Tennen kokekkô)](https://www.torontoscreenshots.com/images/gentle_breeze.jpg)
A Gentle Breeze in the Village (Tennen kokekkô) (Director: Nobuhiro Yamashita): From the director of Linda Linda Linda, one of my favourites from TIFF 2005, this is another coming-of-age story set in a sleepy small town where Soyo is one of only six students in a combined primary and junior high school. The arrival of hip transfer student Osawa from Tokyo changes everything. The photography looks absolutely stunning and this promises to be a nice antidote to some of the more violent or depressing stuff I’ll be seeing.
![Chaotic Ana (Caótica Ana)](https://www.torontoscreenshots.com/images/chaotic_ana.jpg)
Chaotic Ana (Caótica Ana) (Director: Julio Medem): I was recently mesmerized by Medem’s 1998 film Lovers of the Arctic Circle (Los Amantes del CÃrculo Polar) and wasn’t even aware he had a film in this year’s festival until Bob Turnbull posted about it. Thanks, Bob!
Medem seems to be a bit like Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski (another of my favourites) in his love for coincidences and recurring events. In this new film, “Ana’s existence seems to be a continuation of the lives of other young women, all of whom died tragically at the age of 22. Doomed to a chaotic fate, Ana must co-exist with these young women as they continue to live on in the abyss of her unconscious memory.” Another plus is the presence of Charlotte Rampling.
![Le Voyage Du Ballon Rouge](https://www.torontoscreenshots.com/images/voyage_ballon_rouge.jpg)
Le Voyage Du Ballon Rouge (Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien): I haven’t seen any of Hou’s films before but have heard great things about Three Times (2005) and Café Lumiere (2003), as well as about Juliette Binoche’s performance as a frazzled single mom who hires a Chinese nanny to watch her son. The nanny is also a film student who is making a film based on Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 classic The Red Balloon, which I dimly recall seeing as a boy.