Blessed By Fire
The near-death of an old friend forces a man to look back at a painful chapter in his life in a wartime drama from Argentinean filmmaker Tristan Bauer. Esteban (Gastón Pauls) is a writer edging into middle age who has received word that Vargas (Pablo Ribba), who served with him in the Argentine Army during the 1980s, has attempted to commit suicide and is now in a coma. The news floods Esteban's mind with memories of their days in the Falkland Islands war of 1982. Esteban, Vargas, and Juan (Cesar Albarracin) were all new recruits who knew next to nothing about battle when they were sent to the rocky islands to fend off a possible invasion by the British military. Juan and Vargas both have more on their minds than imminent battle -- Juan worries about his young son at home, while Vargas left for the islands on bad terms with both his parents and his girlfriend. As the soldiers struggle to pass the time while waiting for the seemingly inevitable war to start, Esteban, Juan, and Vargas capture and roast a sheep; Vargas is severely punished for his part in the sheep-napping, and is on emotionally shaking ground when the British Navy begins raining death upon the ill-equipped Argentineans.
No Mans Land
The grim futility of the war between Bosnia and Serbia is reduced to its essence as two enemy soldiers are forced to share a wary trust for one another in this drama. A group of Bosnian soldiers are advancing upon Serbian territory during a misty night when the fog lifts at daybreak, making them plainly visible to their enemy. Serb forces open fire upon them, and soon only Chiki (Brancko Djuric) is still alive, after diving into a trench in no man's land. Two Serbian soldiers scouting the area set up a land mine using the body of a Bosnian soldier as "bait;" if moved, the mine will jump into the air and explode. Chiki watches as the soldiers set the trap, and furious at the disrespect to his fallen comrades, he kills one of the Serbs, and takes the other, Nino (Rene Bitorajac), hostage. With both soldiers alone and equally armed, they find themselves at a stalemate, and begin trying to attract help from either side. Eventually, the two men are found by a squadron of French soldiers attached to a U.N. peacekeeping unit; now held by supposedly neutral forces, Chiki and Nino are with the French troops when it's discovered that the dead Bosnian soldier isn't dead after all, though no one is sure how to disarm the mine without killing him in the process.
Divided We Fall
A man and a woman battle with deceit and infidelity as they struggle to survive Hitler's fascist regime in this period drama. Marie and Josef Cizek (Anna Siskova and Boleslav Polivka) are a couple living in a small Czechoslovakian village during the Nazi occupation of World War II. Marie and Josef's marriage is showing signs of strain as a result of the political tensions surrounding them, as well as frustrations over their inability to have children due to Josef's sterility. When a neighboring Jewish family is deported and sent to Theresenstadt, their teenage son David (Csongor Kassai) manages to escape, and the Cizeks warily agree to hide him in their home. An acquaintance of the couple, Horst Prohazka (Jaroslav Dusek), has become a Nazi collaborator and a minor local functionary with the party; he's never made a secret of his interest in Marie, and he now uses his new authority to pay a number of uninvited visits to the Cizeks' modest home. Marie and Josef begin to suspect that Horst knows they're hiding David, so when Horst asks the couple to board a Nazi clerk (Martin Huba) in their spare bedroom, they have to quickly fabricate a plausible excuse to keep him away. Marie tells Horst they need the spare room as a nursery, because they will soon be expecting a baby. Now, in order to make the lie real, Marie must convince David to impregnate her; this will keep the Nazis at bay and allow her to have the baby she's wanted, but it drives an even deeper wedge between herself and Josef.
