This weekend's fiction programme is, of course, dominated by the Film Festival's illustrious opener, The Motorcycle Diaries, which screens in Glasgow tonight. Based on the autobiographical book by Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara, Walter Salles's ravishingly beautiful road movie follows the future revolutionary on a youthful voyage of self-discovery with his best friend, Alberto Granado. The angelically beautiful Gael Garcia Bernal - star of Y Tu Mama Tambien and Bad Education, and by general consensus the hottest thing to come out of Mexico since, like, tacos, plays Che, and dominates the proceedings; but don't overlook his exceptional co-star Rodrigo de la Serna. Fiery radicals might be put out by the fact that this film is more picture-postcard buddy movie than leftist polemic, but its sheer class can't be questioned.
Other big premieres include Chan-wook Park's fantastic Oldboy, a horror/thriller about the most convoluted revenge plot imaginable. Deliriously violent and executed with a dizzy high-wire confidence that justifies the utter preposterousness of its plot, it marks a stunning high point in current Korean cinema. Then there's the enticing prospect of sharing Coffee and Cigarettes with the legendary American independent director Jim Jarmusch. This playful series of short encounters features such luminaries as Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, the White Stripes and Iggy Pop. Staying stateside, there's fun to be had with the irreverent high school comedy Saved!, which stars Donnie Darko's Jena Malone as a student at a fundamentalist Christian institution who - oops! - finds herself pregnant.
For glamour and fun with a more British flavour - albeit embodied by American stars - turn to Richard Eyre's Restoration romp Stage Beauty. Billy Crudup - arguably the most beautiful man in all cinema - plays a celebrated actor of female parts, who's somewhat put out when a change in the law allows real women to take
to the stage. Claire Danes is the source of his chief competition, while co-stars include Tom Wilkinson and - almost inevitably - Rupert Everett.
Grittier territory is covered by Ken Loach in Ae Fond Kiss, the sensitive tale of a romance between a Catholic and a Muslim. The film was written by Loach's regular collaborator, Paul Laverty, and is set in his native Glasgow. Shane Meadows's Dead Man's Shoes is another eagerly awaited British outing, and marks the Nottingham director's shift away from the chiefly comic tone of A Room For Romeo Brass and Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, towards darker pieces of work.
Kenny Glenaan follows his award-winning Scottish feature, Gas Attack, with another bitingly relevant contemporary drama, Yasmin, about British Muslim life post-9/11. Marc Evans's Trauma, meanwhile - which follows his previous EIFF hit My Little Eye, and was exec produced by the Festival's former artistic director Lizzie Francke - occupies much stranger and spookier ground, as bereaved loner Colin Firth strives to separate reality from nightmare.
Tickets for the big stuff already gone? Then check out the head-meltingly peculiar Belgian horror/thriller Calvaire; the poetic Italian fable The Gift; tender Spanish domestic abuse drama Take My Eyes; the lushly peculiar Argentian oddity Los Muertos; or the flamboyant, eccentric Hungarian thriller Control, set entirely in the Budapest underground system. Nothing take your fancy? Then you are tired of life.
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