Big Picture Big Sound

Parvaneh, (Talkhon Hamzavi)
Boogaloo and Graham, (Michael Lennox)
Aya, (Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis)
The Phone Call, (Mat Kirkby)
Butter Lamp, (Wei Hu)

A strong group, but one stands out.

Parvaneh. A Swiss drama, featuring Nissa Kashani as a teenager from Afghanistan living in a Swiss Alps transit home for asylum seekers. She travels to Zürich when she learns that she can use Western Union to wire money to her family. Parvaneh runs into a problem because Western Union won't accept her ID. She asks a local Goth teenaged girl if she could use her ID to send the money. An unlikely friendship is formed. Good, but never quite jars you like one would hope.

Boogaloo and Graham. A charming, light tale despite its being set in war-torn Belfast in the 1970's. A dad brings home two baby chicks for his two young sons. The chicks grow into adult chickens and become beloved pets of the two young boys. When it appears the boys may be forced to give them up, dad intervenes,

Aya. Unusual story about an Israeli woman waiting for someone at the airport. A limo driver asks her to hold up a sign for an arriving passenger for a couple of minutes. When the passenger arrives he assumes that she is her driver. For some unknown reason, she pretends to be his driver and takes him away from the airport in her car. What unfolds is a slightly off-kilter psychological examination of driver and passenger.

The Phone Call. Heather (Sally Hawkins) is a shy woman working for a helpline call center. A call comes in from a suicidal older man and the entire film is their conversation. It is gut-wrenching to watch as she tries to talk him out of it, even though he has already taken pills. It's a race against the clock to save him. Hawkins is her usual outstanding self.

Butter Lamp. Definitely the most unusual of the group. Set in China, all it is, is a series of family group photo sessions. The photographer poses each group in front of a screen of different backgrounds, depending upon what he thinks will work and what the family wants. Nothing much happens, but it is difficult to look away.