The East Lansing Film Festival - ELFF

Synopsis: In 2000 the Professional Bowlers Association was sold for a mere $5 million to three ex-Microsoft executives who wanted to restore the sport of bowling to its former grandeur. This entertaining, informative, funny, and even thrilling documentary follows four very different professional bowlers as they try to revive their sport and their profession. The final tournament takes place in Detroit. If ever a movie could convince the masses to don communal shoes, this is the one.

Synopsis: First-time director, Phil Morrison, has created a highly atmospheric, perceptive, and hugely entertaining dramatic comedy about an English art dealer meeting her new husband's eccentric family in North Carolina. A topnotch ensemble cast with a standout performance by Amy Adams portrays honestly the complexities and unresolved issues found in every family. A rare gem of a film. Winner of several awards including the 2005 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize.

Synopsis: A bittersweet film about a lonely widow, played to perfection by Joan Plowright, who moves to London to live in a retirement hotel. Expecting visits by her only grandson and an active life, she only encounters a piercing loneliness. That is, until she befriends a young, struggling writer. Enchanting, touching and Plowright's performance is Oscar worthy.

Synopsis: Based on a true story about four young siblings who are abandoned in a Tokyo apartment by their reckless mother. Winsome and tragic at the same time, this amazing film follows the rhythms of childhood. The four children are non-professional actors and yet give very moving and realistic portrayals. Yuri Yagura, who plays the eldest and most responsible sibling, won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival - an astonishing accomplishment. ***Note that the film starts at 9:30pm, not the usual 9:15pm on the weekend.***

Synopsis: Totally fascinating and often hilarious, this crowd-pleasing film follows tough-minded state prosecutor Vera Ngassa and court president Beatrice Ntuba as they help women in their Cameroon village fight difficult cases of rape and abuse. With fierce compassion, they dispense wisdom and wisecracks with fair measure.

Synopsis: Winner of 7 major festival awards including the Cannes Film Festival, this black comedy follows Mr. Lazarescu's Dantesque odyssey into the bowels of the medical world after he calls for an ambulance. He encounters disinterested doctors, inept paramedics, caring nurses and a paralyzing bureaucracy. A masterfully conceived, directed and acted modern tale of the human condition. Engrossing and memorable. In Romanian with English subtitles.

Synopsis: From the brilliant British director Michael Winterbottom (24-hour Party, Jude), a raucous and very funny film about a film being made as an adaptation of an unfilmable book, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen." Steve Coogan (Coffee and Cigarettes) gives a hilarious performance as Tristram Shandy, an 18th century gentlemen and a 21st century actor. As the second, he is plagued with a scandal, a newborn, a coterie of hangers-on and the wiles of an attractive director. The stellar cast includes Stephen Fry, Gillian Anderson and Shirley Henderson. "THE BEST FILM EVER, EVER, EVER." - The Guardian

Synopsis: Set in Kurdistan on the eve of the American invasion of Iraq, this amazing film is a poignant, heart-tugging portrait of an unlikely gang of children who become the innocent victims of conflict. In their eyes we see the absurdity of war, the pain of abandonment and the innate instinct to survive. A soaring achievement and a truly unforgettable film. Winner, Audience Award, Rotterdam International Film Festival and Sao Paolo Film Festival; Winner, Special Jury Prize, Chicago International Film Festival and the Tokyo Filmex Film Festival; Winner, Best Film, San Sebastian Film Festival.

Synopsis: Set in the 1938 Colonial India during the rise of Mahatma Gandhi, this beautiful and fascinating begins when 8-year-old Chiyua is widowed and sent to a temple where Hindu widows must live in penitence and extreme poverty. We watch her grow up, resisting her plight and falling in love with a lower caste man and a follower of Ghandi. Profound, elegant and overflowing with incomparable beauty.

Synopsis: Like the crossword puzzles it celebrates, the documentary Wordplay is a small triumph of infusing personality into formula. Director Patrick Creadon and producer Christine O'Malley mold their film around a handful of puzzle-solvers anticipating the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, Conn. But even if you think you never want to see another fact-based or fictional feature that builds to an election, an academic test or a sports championship, Wordplay holds you with its craftiness, its playfulness and, best of all, the bounteous bonhomie of its puzzle-makers and crossword addicts. People who bring in a correctly completed New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle will get in for free.