Bermuda International Film Festival 2009

An uncompromising story of a young man, James, facing up to his own sexual identity and struggling to find footholds in his new life. Film contains mature content

Being Jean-Claude Van Damme is tough. Sure, he is an internationally recognized celebrity (and possibly the world's most famous Belgian), but this star seems to have fallen from grace with a recent history of direct-to-video flicks. In a surprising yet crafty career move, Van Damme plays himself – with all his foibles in plain view – in JCVD, a rollicking action-comedy examination of the nature of fame. Adding to Van Damme's worries are a parasitic agent, financial troubles and an emotionally fraught custody battle for his daughter in which the prosecuting attorney rips apart the action star's bone-cracking collected works to make a case for an unsuitable father figure. In order to clear his head, Van Damme returns to his family home in Belgium, where the myth of the indestructible hero hasn't been completely shattered. After bouncing a cheque to his lawyer, Van Damme goes to a post office to make a wire transfer, only to stumble into a heist and be taken hostage. When the police catch a glimpse of the superstar in the middle of the chaos, they jump to the conclusion that he has finally snapped and pulled the robbery himself. Under the barrel of a gun, Van Damme is revealed to be an ordinary guy, filled with fears, contradictions and hopes. How can he live up to the legend he has built? Both a madcap tribute to the star's martial arts moves and an examination of the true essence of a hero, JCVD makes sure that its subject is in on the joke, immersing him into a reality similar to that found in Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich. Aware of his limitations, Van Damme conveys a stoic deadpan that director Mabrouk El Mechri moulds into comedic gold. There is also a dramatic centre to the film, and Van Damme delivers a sincere and moving monologue that must be seen to be believed. A hilariously entertaining, surprising film, JCVD tells the comeback story of a screen hero who has been on the receiving end of kicks that are getting harder and harder to take.

The Lion and The Mouse is the epic tale of two countries, the United States of America and Bermuda. Using local actors, the film charts the landmark moments, relationships, conflicts and characters, that all played a part in the first four centuries of settlement in America and Bermuda. It is told through the historic perspective of Bermuda’s people and their direct role in the birth of America and its development as a nation. Bermudians embodied the necessary reinvention and adaptability to prosper in a changing Atlantic world. At times mercurial, treasonous and unprincipled but with the wiles of a small independent nation Bermuda was able to adapt its strategic location to military and trade routes and to overcome its insignificant size, and vulnerability to hostile nations through time become an unlikely but significant US ally. A shipwreck, a rebellion of stolen gunpowder to save George Washington’s revolutionary army, and a freed slave ship – as the Mouse of Aesop’s fable says to the lion, “Was I not right?”

A coming-of-age comedy about a teenage boy whose life is thrown into chaos when he discovers porn magazines, girls and the embarrassment that goes with both.

British punk band the Buzzcocks released Love You More in the summer of 1978. This film is a beautifully made short which captures perfectly the haircuts, fashions and lifestyles of a couple of experimenting British teenagers.

Belgium has a reputation for dullness (In Bruges) and being invaded by Germans (the Schlieffen Plan), but this delightful film also proves that it’s a place where unlikely love can flourish. Sometimes you just gotta love a crotchety middle-aged woman, especially when she’s played with the kind of salty charm Barbara Serafian injects into Matty, the conflicted heroine of the smart, touching Moscow, Belgium. Working a menial job, raising three kids and waiting for her husband to snap out of his mid-life crisis, Serafian’s Matty is a pissed-off spitfire who spews bile at nearly everybody she meets, particularly eccentric truck driver Johnny (Jurgen Delnaet), who accidentally dings her car. Matty’s verbal assault on Johnny is comic gold that borders on the cruel, which sparks Johnny’s interest despite Matty being 10 years his senior. What follows is a sweet mix of comic romance and family drama that never fully veers into the conventional trappings that typically make such descriptions induce cringes. The two leads have infinite chemistry, and both Serafian and Delnaet deliver charismatic performances that skimp neither on laughs or genuine emotion. The characters register because they feel real, and what we get is a pleasing story of lost souls finding their paths, a warts-and-all look at love, and a cantankerous old broad for the ages.

Rene returns to his home patch somewhere in South London only to discover that the rules have changed, his friends have changed, and his life has changed.

Terence Davies's symphonic cinematic poem was one of the surprise hits at Cannes last year and has gone on to charm audiences around the world ever since. Davies made the film on a minuscule budget (£250,000), using archive footage, some shots of contemporary Liverpool, his own inimitable voice-over (at times viciously critical) and a great deal of music. Made to celebrate Liverpool's year as Cultural Capital of Europe, the film is a personal reflection on, a paean of praise to and a lament for the city where Davies was born. Homosexuality, class society, Protestants versus Catholics, post-war aftermath: they are all examined. An extraordinarily powerful, almost magical, combination of sound and image in a way not seen on the British screen since the films of Humphrey Jennings, the film's ostensible focus is Liverpool. But its true subject - and the reason why it has won over those with no direct knowledge of Merseyside (or, indeed, postwar Britain) - is that overwelming sense of loss which lies at the heart of the human condition.