Oscar-Nominated The Milk of Sorrow plays at MIFF

Two of MIFF's hot tickets are films that festival director Tiziana Finzi picked months ago and were recently nominated for the Oscar's Best Foreign Language Picture. Asked which of the two she thought would win, Finzi explained: "The Secret in Their Eyes is closer to the American blockbuster. For me, I like The Milk of Sorrow, but it's very tough; it works very well in Europe but not in America."

The other Oscar-nominated film is the Peruvian The Milk of Sorrow (La Teta Asustada, which more accurately translates to "The frightened tit"). The film was directed by Claudia Llosa, a 34-year-old director who was inspired to make the picture after learning of a Harvard anthropological study that traced the lasting effects of rape and violence on women in Lima during the political uprising in the early '90s. Llosa centers the plot on the old wives' tale that such trauma is passed on to future generations through breast milk. The film won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival. Finzi called it tough to watch, and so far no American distributors have picked it up, so the festival might be your only chance to see it on the big screen.
Sun., March 14, 9:30 p.m., 2010