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Independent Film Festival, Boston started in 2003 is an annually conducted film festival normally around the end of April.It showcases some of the best independent cinema (mainly the US independent film scene) and also some upcoming mainstream movies from US and other countries.

This year the festival had 96 independent films and in addition to 150 screenings, the festival will also featured more than 100 filmmaker Q&A sessions, panel discussions and appearances by filmmakers and stars.

Luckily I knew the guy who actually shortlisted these 96 movies from the thousands of entries which he received. So, he gave me a list of movies (which had a mix of independent cinema as well as mainstream cinema) to watch out for and saved me on the painful task of short listing the movies myself.

I watched around 8 movies spread over 3 days and here are couple of movies which I thought were the best of the lot:

1) 1) Time Crimes

Dir: Nacho Vigalondo

We have seen lot of time travel movies in the past but the point with time travels movies is that they too often fall in the bracket of fantasy series like the Back to the Future or movies where there are people with weird futuristic costumes and complex scientific theories. There may be very rare cases where a time travel concept is used to narrate a crime thriller.

Time Crimes tells the story of a man called Hector who accidently travels two hours in the past unleashing a horrifying ramifications.

The film starts with Hector, a middle aged man relaxing in his garden at his villa with his binoculars.

When hector spots a naked girl in the woods, he tries to get a closer look at her and ventures into the woods where he finds a man with a bandage wrapped around his head and scissors in his hand chasing him. He runs to escape from him and enters a room with a weird time machine and hides in it. When he comes out of the machine he realizes that he has travelled few hours back from the present and sees himself running through the woods being chased by the man with scissors. This forms the basis plot for the movie. As you see the plot is twisted but it’s easy to understand and the plot becomes interesting minute by minute as the film moves on.

This was easily the crowd’s favorite and received a standing ovation.

2) 2) Mongol

Dir: Sergei Bordov

Mongol is about the early struggles of Genghis Khan. We meet the future Genghis as a 9-year-old named Temudgin, the son of a tribal chieftain who expects the boy to choose a future bride for political reasons. Instead, Temudgin picks a brash girl they encounter during their journey. The girl is Borte, and she will remain a key figure throughout the movie. On the way home, Temudgin’s father is killed by a rival who violates Mongol traditions of hospitality, robbing the boy and making him a prisoner. This opening is a distillation of what’s to come, with its focus on the hardness of nomadic life, the role of custom and the frequency of its abuse, Temudgin’s resilience and strong will and the endlessness of tribal intrigue and conflict. Temudgin will undergo experiences that transform him into a fierce leader and a wise man.

This movie is about his path to greatness more than the story after his greatness.

Contradicting the conventional image of Genghis as the monstrous conqueror, Bodrov’s work is influenced by Lev Gumilev’s “The Legend of the Black Arrow” and is based on “The Secret History of the Mongols,” the 13th century Mongolian account. It’s the director here taking a “larger view” on the life of the Khan.

The acting is perfect, the cinematography is breath taking and overall Bodrov’s work is engrossing, spectacular, and memorable.

A must see.

3) 3) Perfume : The Story of a Murderer

Dir: Tom Tykwer

This movie wasn’t screened in the festival, this is something which i saw last weekend at a movie club.

The title of the movie makes it feel like a B grade thriller but its far cry from it. This is a stunning movie directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) and *ing the talented Ben Whishaw (I’m not there) and ably supported by Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman.

Based on the best selling novel by Patrick Susskind , this is a story of a deadly obsession set in 18^th century France.

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with an amazing gift of sense of smell is the creator of the world’s finest perfumes. His work, however, takes a dark turn as he searches for the ultimate scent. Grenouille is fearless when it comes to the pursuit of a perfect perfume. When he discovers the most intoxicating scent he has ever experienced – the natural fragrance of a beautiful young girl – he learns that only method to preserve her innocence and fresh beauty will require murder. So, he starts killing to make his masterpiece i.e the perfect perfume.

I won’t give away much of the plot if you are planning to watch this. This was a huge hit in Europe but was released in only few theaters in US. This also has one of the most stunning climax scenes that I have seen in a while.

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