Francisco Franco’s feature film debut Burn the Bridges reads like a cliché buffet: incest, homoeroticism, broken family, death and abuse. How many other social problems can really be crammed into a film? Though reading the description is likely to make the seasoned viewer turn a cheek but there was something about the trailer that suggested more than just cliché’s and thankfully, I was listening to my inner voice that day.
Franco’s story unfolds with Sebastián and Helena, a brother and sister, looking after their dying mother, a former pop singer. When we join the duo, it’s clear that mom has been sick for some time and the two, though mostly Helena, have been caring for the woman who is slowly wasting away for some time. They live in a sprawling mansion which is slowly falling apart but even after their mother’s eventual death, the two find it difficult to move away.
Helena is the leader. She makes every effort to look out for her brother and dreams of traveling with Sebastián to far off places like Montreal. Sebastián is more of a free spirit. An artist, his relationship with Helena begins to splinter when he falls for the new boy in town and the resulting relationship threatens to pull him away from Helena. The drama that ensues when Helena realizes that her brother is attracted to men, turns physical and nearly means the end of their relationship but in the end, blood is thicker than anything and the two do manage to find a sort of understanding.
Going into Mehta’s new film 
On the surface 
It’s a simple enough premise: Kristin Scott Thomas stars as Juliette, a woman who is reunited with her sister after being away for an extended period of time. The plot works as more of a skeleton since Claudel seems more interested in the intricacies of the relationships and the nuance of the acting to move the film along than in the story itself (though that’s not to say that the story is lacking either) and the result is a quietly powerful film about friendship, family and sisterhood.
Carl Laudan’s film shares the story of a mother and daughter dealing with the most recent round of abuse. Having seen enough, Josephine, the young girl, calls the police and the pair is taken to a women’s shelter where, over the course of what appears to be a few days, the two bond and make a life change. Worry not, this isn’t some sugar coated story instead, Katherine Schlemmer’s script keeps things moving along briskly and realistically and mixed into Josephine and her mother’s story are observations on society, friendship, the hardships facing women breaking the cycle of abuse (beyond simply walking away to begin with) and the issues of funding which plague social support groups. 
Matthias Glasner’s 
A few weeks back Vancouver was home to the ten film exhibit “
