In early 20th century Ireland, rural workers ally to form volunteer freedom fighter armies to take on the brutal British ‘Black and Tan’ squads. Brothers Damien and Teddy form a resistance unit in their dangerous and violent fight for liberation, and use increasingly daring tactics. When the 1922 Partition divides Ireland into two politically opposed states, the Black and Tans march north and a violent civil war erupts, fracturing families.

In The Wind, film-maker Ken Loach presents a close-knit community in County Cork. This localised story tells of ordinary men and women who fight for their ideals and resist occupation. Like the titular song, The Wind addresses the personal sacrifices of war, of careers lost and of relationships destroyed. However, while it is steeped in melancholy, Loach’s characteristic humour’doubly entertaining in the brilliant Irish accent’introduces wonderful moments of grace and levity.

The song’s rustic lyrics are also visually replicated by the camerawork of Barry Ackroyd. The accelerating bloody events are sharply juxtaposed with the Cork countryside in all its soft, lush beauty. Similar references are made throughout the film to the momentous song, which mourns severed relationships and ‘the shame of foreign chains around us.’

The film delivers an uncertain emotional journey. The ideological rupture between the brothers seems lengthy and overtly contrived, while characters bitterly despair their country’s post-occupation fragmentation. The conclusion, in typical Loach style, is shocking to the core. Yet when both young and old echo the same words at the end of the journey, you will no doubt be astounded to find that you have come a full circle.

Sonia works at a high school on the industrial outskirts of Paris. Her lover, a talented journalist, has been unable to find work in over a year. Penniless and principled, Cheyenne decides to leave the system entirely and live as a gleaner, as best she can, in the French countryside. It is winter. Sonia briefly dallies with Beatrice, a B-movie horror fan with leopard print sheets. She also beds a charming idealist whom we shall call ‘Leaflet Man’. However it is Cheyenne that Sonia loves and she must find her.

This film is full of grace and humanity and absurdist triumphs. Its central message celebrates intuitive acts, living, loving and finding your own way in the face of adversity.

Valerie Minetto adroitly crafts an ambience of suspense that carried me to the end. A vibrating string or plucked high notes accompanies the action. This audio texture mirrors a scene when Sonia demonstrates to her earnest and attentive class how sound waves work.

Cheyenne’s hard but pure existence in the countryside reminded me of Agnes Varda’s ‘The Gleaners’. There are some Woody Allen touches when characters that should be separated by walls are permitted right of reply.

Sexy Thing by Denie Pentecost is a sweltering film about a young girl finding connection with a luminous performance given by Hana Mangan-Lawrence.

What’s the truth behind the headlines? Want to know more about the challenges facing the Middle East?

The Homelands Now category was first introduced at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2003, when Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami was invited to showcase his films. As MIFF programmer Nick Feik recalls, Kiarostami was astonished at being so well received by audiences when his films, like this year’s Filmmaker in Focus Jafar Panahi’s, are extremely difficult to screen in their home country of Iran.

‘It was a socio-cultural thing. There were so many exciting film-makers coming out of the Middle East’so many with aesthetic genius.’

During the Talking Pictures sessions, Panahi described the difficulty of clearing approval with the authorities in order to shoot his film. He spends seventy percent of his time negotiating with authorities for permission to film. In order to gain approval for Offside, Panahi submitted a script that was different to the one that was eventually used.

Nick Feik enthuses, ‘Offside is sold out. It was interesting to listen to the audience reaction’there was a moment of overwhelming hope at the end, an off beat moment, but nevertheless a positive note.’

As for a pick of this year’s collection, Nick said he has been most astounded by Iraq In Fragments. ‘I don’t know how the film-maker made Iraq In Fragments. It’s got an amazing style. How did he survive the making of it? He really gets into the Shi-ite neighbourhoods and talks to Al Saji and his brigade.’

For an alternative look at the issues facing the Middle East, check out one of the 10 films on offer as part of Homelands Now’you won’t be disappointed.

The musical possibilities of jazz and toys intrigued me. I thought of the brave contemporary territory created by Margaret Leng Tan and her toy pianos, of Architecture In Helsinki and instrument swapping.

Adam Simmons’ eight piece band are, indisputably, a solid jazz outfit that accessorise with and dabble in…toys.

When jazz did fuse with toy play, Adam called these ‘toy pieces’, the music and ambience was at its most fun, and, musically, the band at its most creative.

The audience delighted in the whimsy of toy pieces like ‘Circle’, a rhythmic sequence of swannee whistle with distinct plastic toy noises that defy spellchecker. This piece was all boinging, squeaking, chiming, screeching, tinkling, tweeting, rubber chicken bashing, miaowing and plastic trumpeting noises. The audience participated with distributed party blowers – Great! – a sound that resembled a child crying.

I couldn’t help wondering whether Adam and his band were part of a cunning ruse to inflict jazz on the very young. A kind of jazz version of ‘Do you want a sweetie little child’?

The shirt of Monsieur Camembert’s consummate flautist, saxophonist and clarinettist, Edouard Bronson, may have had a hint of tassel, but at half past seven, the new Council Chambers room was markedly free of tassels, tables and??well, essential seedy atmosphere. This well-loved, triple ARIA award winning Australian cabaret band, known for their riotous musical spirit, was being watched by an audience sitting politely in rows of seats. Was this really the way to go?

It was hard for the audience to be uninhibited, do freewheeling whirly jigs, sing, and clap each other on the back in an absinthe-sipping state of delirious abandonment. Although to give them their due, Monsieur Camembert tried hard to encourage this. They are a band to accompany naughtiness and late night inebriation. But they were inhibited by a society of sobriety.

They performed as a five-piece, playing an audacious range of gypsy, klezmer, Leonard Cohen, Django Reinhardt, and kitschy Italian (Think Renato Carosone’s ‘You Want to Play the American’.). The wedding party just failed to show up.

There was deliciously indecent carnal wit direct from NSW’s Anna Hoffman who had dry delivery, balanced poise and a strangled guitar ditty about looking a bit like a lesbian. Coriander loving Josh Thomas’s stage presence was fresh and awkward, self-effacing and charming and contained buzzy material about family ‘outings’. Matt Kenneally, looking uncertain, served up sharp, contemporary, political gems’we didn’t want him to stop. Ben Payne delivered a cautionary tale about having a vasectomy with gravitas (ahem) and pure timing. There was a biology story from a man comic! Yes! And Jess Moir’s routine was all energy and squeaky excitement, some worn gags, but she lobbed us fabulous observations about the Catholic Church and bling. Sam Bowring divided the audience with a villainous sleaze and please routine. Yet there was still gleeful delight left for athletically wordy absurdist the Bedroom Philosopher whose polished performance included a song of wicked nerdery c/o the blogger’s diary. All held together with MC Yianni’s self-conscious chatty repartee.