A little brother to the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, Telluride by the Sea brings a unique collection of movies to Portsmouth for a weekend of film festivities. Held at The Music Hall on Chestnut Street, the 10th annual event will bring six highly anticipated foreign films to the 900-seat historic theater.

Last year’s Telluride film selection included “Into the Wild,” “I’m Not There,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” “Margot at the Wedding,” “The Band’s Visit” and “Persepolis.” This year’s international films come from Italy, Ireland, France, Norway and the United Kingdom, featuring a variety of plot lines that range from mob violence in southern Italy to a sibling adventure on the streets of Dublin.

Telluride will also give patrons their first glimpse of The Music Hall’s newly renovated Founders Lobby, which has been in the works for about eight months. Tickets are $12.50 for a single film, $85 for a weekend pass and $200 for a patron pass, which include access to other special events and benefits.

Following are short previews of all six of this year’s Telluride by the Sea film selections. For more information, visit www.themusichall.org. 

‘Happy-Go-Lucky’
U.K., 2008, 118 minutes
Miramax Films
Friday, Sept. 16 at 7:30 p.m.

The latest offering from director Mike Leigh (“Vera Drake,” “Secrets & Lies”) introduces us to Poppy, a 30-year-old North London schoolteacher whose wildly cheerful disposition tends to irritate those around her. No matter. Poppy refuses to let life get her down, using smiles and humor to keep out the gloom. The film follows her life as she hangs out and giggles with friends at the pub, visits her less cheerful sisters, takes driving lessons and interacts with her students.

For her role as the vivacious Poppy, Sally Hawkins won a Silver Berlin Bear at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival, along with much critical acclaim. Eddie Marsan has garnered rave reviews as her misanthropic driving instructor, whose temper and intolerance rises as the film progresses, culminating in a jaw-dropping meltdown.

While billed as a comedy, the film has its dark moments, too. After all, it is a Mike Leigh film. Among the dark points are Poppy’s interaction with a disturbed homeless man and the realization that one of her students is being mistreated at home. It conveys the message that Poppy isn’t blind to the sorrows of the world, nor is she just faking niceness to get by, but genuinely believes a positive outlook can make everything a little brighter for everyone.

“Poppy’s indefatigable good cheer may give you the impression she’s a simpleton,” said Elizabeth Antalek, who attended a Colorado screening. “Just wait. When her features fall quiet and still for the first time, a miraculous shift occurs.” 

‘Gommorah’
Italy, 2008, 135 minutes
IFC Films
Saturday, Sept. 20 at 2 p.m.

Based on a 2006 book by journalist Roberto Saviano, “Gommorah” follows an Italian crime syndicate known as the Camorra. Although not publicized as much as their Mafia counterparts in Sicily, Camorra mob bosses still run the business world in Naples with a savage and powerful hand, operating the shipping, fashion, construction and other industries from behind the scenes.
Directed by Matteo Garrone, the film is made up of six interconnected episodes, each with a different main character. The foreign crime drama won Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Golden Palm. Weighing in at well over two hours long, the movie is in Italian with English subtitles.

Saviano’s book includes graphic detail of the most gruesome murders imaginable (Camorra enforcers once sawed off a man’s head with a metal grinder and then blew it up, and one notorious hit man reportedly ripped out a victim’s heart with his bare hands and bit into it). The author’s account of Camorra activities was damning enough to force him into hiding, where he lives under police protection.

Just how graphic the movie gets is unclear, but count on loads of violence. The trailer shows Camorra members selling heroin, illegally dumping waste and intimidating neighborhoods, with plenty of execution-style shootings and bloody cadavers. The film is set up as a brutal tale of an Italian city where criminals are above the law and innocent people live in fear. 

‘Kisses’
Ireland, 2008, 76 minutes
Fastnet Films
Saturday, Sept. 20 at 6:30 p.m.

A prepubescent pair of suburban Irish ragamuffins hightail it away from their dismal, violent family lives to the hardscrabble streets of Dublin’s inner-city underbelly. In search of a long lost older brother, they find all manner of danger, adventure and villains along the way.

Summed up by freshman writer/director Lance Daly as a tale of “How to escape when you can’t escape,” the film boasts a thoughtful script, a great Dylan-infused soundtrack and inventive photography rich with texture and color. Early word from the festival circuit reports that Daly coaxes prime and genuine performances from his wee leads, revealing their bond gradually, and that their bond believably strengthens as their flight draws them deeper and deeper into the perils of a world they’re simply not prepared for.

A unique story of courage, self-reliance, life and love, which already walked away with the Galway Film Flagh’s award for best feature film, this one promises to be a gritty, magical, modern-day “Wizard of Oz.” 

‘I’ve Loved You So Long’
France, 2008, 115 minutes
Sony Classics
Saturday, Sept. 20 at 8:30 p.m.

Although “I’ve Loved You So Long” is the first directorial effort of novelist-turned-writer/director Philippe Claudel, it has generated enthusiastic acclaim, maybe in part because of the novelistic sensibilities he’s brought to bear in the film.

Starring Kristen Scott Thomas and Elsa Zylberstein, Thomas’ performance as Juliette, a woman just out of prison, has been widely pegged as an early Oscar contender.

The crime she served for was murder, but the story unfolds slowly as Juliette is brought into the household of her younger sister’s family and gradually thaws out in the warmth of their company.

Look for this film to be a delicate exploration of relationships and the nature of crime and guilt as both the characters and the audience learn to better understand Juliette, what she has done, and what it has done to her.

‘Helen’
U.K., 2008, 79 minutes
Desperate Optimistic Productions
Sunday, Sept. 21 at 2 p.m.

In thrillers, criminals invariably return to the scene of the crime, either to gloat or feel guilty, but what about the victims? If given the chance, would they, too, come back to the place where everything went so terribly wrong? “Helen,” the debut feature from Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, poses just that sort of question.

In a small town in England, a teenage girl named Joy vanishes without a trace one afternoon. At about the same time, Helen (Annie Townsend), on the cusp of turning 18, leaves the foster care facility she lived in since infancy. Alone and adrift, Helen is dragged into Joy’s story when she is hired by police to be in a televised reenactment of the missing girl’s last known movements. Helen, who bears a striking resemblance to Joy, throws herself into the role. She has dinner with Joy’s family, develops a relationship with Joy’s boyfriend and slowly works her way into Joy’s life. But Helen soon finds her acting might be a bit too good.

A Hitchcockian extension of Lawlor and Molloy’s “Civic Life” series of short films, which were shot in small towns throughout the United Kingdom and were populated with regular folk trying (sometimes unsuccessfully) to act, “Helen” grew out of the duo’s short “Joy.” Brimming with questions about adolescence, class and identity, “Helen” is thoughtful and moody—and, according to some critics, too long and monotonous. But Townsend’s performance and the film’s cinematography have been roundly praised, and “Helen” may be a case where returning to the (reconstructed) scene of a crime yields new meaning for both the filmmakers and audiences alike.

‘O’Horten’
Norway, 2008, 90 minutes
Sony Classics
Sunday, Sept. 21 at 7 p.m.

For the first time in almost 40 years, Odd Horten arrives late to the train station and misses his last departure through the Norwegian countryside. When the train leaves without him driving, Horten realizes that the track ahead of him is without printed schedules and well-known stations. He has reached a mandatory retirement age and the platform does not feel like home anymore without his regular patterns.

“It seems most everything comes too late … so nothing comes too late,” someone tells the willfully isolated man. With death as a metaphor, “O’Horten” is described as a sometimes dark and cold but humorous and moving film about an aging man. As the film progresses, Horten is resilient enough to make small changes in a time of transition and chaos. As Horten, Bard Owe’s acting has been credited as understated and expressive without many words.

“O’Horten” is a drama directed and produced by owner of the film production company BulBul Film AS, Bent Hamer, of Norway. Hamer’s other feature films include “Factotum” (2005), “Kitchen Stories” (2003) and “Eggs” (1995). His films have been distributed in more than 40 countries, participated in more than 80 film festivals around the world and have won him some 30 prizes.