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At a time of year when splashy movies with big-name stars tend to hog all the DVD coverage, I’m digging way down in my pile of screeners – which was 4,216 deep at last count – to give some coverage to largely unsung indie efforts, both new and recently released.

The Day I Became A Woman (Olive Films, $39.95)

Available at: Facets Multimedia and online stores including Amazon.com.

This trilogy of three thematically related shorts comes from Iran and marks the debut of Marziyeh Meshkini, married to (and trained by) Iranian film giant Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Though one of the few female directors in her country, Meshkini does not shy from controversy in her work. Where words aren’t possible, Meshkini uses visual metaphors to make her points, which celebrate the power of the feminine amid a repressive environment. In the first short, "Hava," a 9-year-old is cut off from her male playmate on her birthday (her grandmother gets her a veil as a birthday gift). In one of Hava’s last exchanges with the boy, they trade slurps on a single lollipop – a paradoxical scene that is both innocent and sensual. In Farsi with English subtitles.

Ideal audience: Anyone in constant need of a foreign film fix.



Four Dead Batteries (Hightone Films, $19.95) Available at: Online stores including Amazon.com.

This scruffy comedy, filmed for less than $100,000, recalls the ensemble humor sensibilities of Diner and "Seinfeld" and the freewheeling New York neurotica of Woody Allen (even the soundtrack by Hot Club of Cowtown and Whit Smith’s Hot Jazz Caravan has a familiar jump-jazz feel to it.)

It follows four foundering improv comics (the film is named after their ensemble act) who are equally inept in their various love lives. Batteries throws off some errant sparks here and there with its unseasoned cast. Still, it is an impressive achievement for first-time writer-director Hiram Martinez, a former Fox News Channel editor.

Ideal audience: Those who would take pity on (or pile on) comedians who can’t get their act together on stage or at home.

Most (The Bridge) (Eastwind Films, $19.95)

Available at: www.mostthemovie.com.

It’s only 33 minutes long, but this 2004 Czech film conveys its allegorical themes of sacrifice and redemption with formidable power and not a speck of preachiness or sentiment.

It’s built around the close relationship between a bridge-operator father (Vladimir Javorsky) and his boy Lada (Lada Ondrej), and the fateful day when both try to head off an impending rail disaster. With English subtitles; nominated for an live-action short Oscar in 2003.

Ideal audience: Everyone trying to find a railroad less traveled to the reason for the Christmas season.

The Ninth Day (Kino Films, $29.95)

Available at: Facets Multimedia and online stores including Amazon.com.

I visited Dachau several years back, and while death’s stench has long left the place, there’s a creepy stillness to the former Nazi concentration camp no cemetery can rival.

Directed by Volker Schlondorff (The Tin Drum), The Ninth Day is based on the true story of a dissident priest’s temporary furlough from Dachau. As part of the reprieve deal, the priest must try to persuade his staunchly anti-Nazi bishop to capitulate to Nazi occupation. If he can pull it off, he goes free; if he can’t, or tries to escape, he not only faces certain death but puts his loved ones in grave danger. Starring Ulrich Mattes (Downfall) as Father Henri Kremer; in German with English subtitles.

Ideal audience: Those who enjoy wrestling with moral dilemmas, and can’t get enough of films such as Schindler’s List and Downfall.

Scumrock (At An Angle Productions, $24.95)

Available at: Online stores including Amazon.com.

At first glimpse, this Jon Moritsugu film looks like something that even a schlockmeister such as Ed Wood would have left on the cutting room floor: shot on fuzzy Hi8, edited and acted in a herky-jerky style befitting a C-grade college film project.

But the surface look of "Scumrock" is part of Moritsugu’s subversive charm; the Brown graduate’s plot concerns two underground artists – a filmmaker and a punk-rock girl – both closing in on 30 with their pretentious ambitions unrealized. A prize line comes when Moritsugu’s self-important filmmaker announces plans to make a movie called Death: "I want this film to be, like ... really artsy."

Ideal audience: Those who have visited the Museum of Contemporary Art and secretly snickered at the fools captivated by the vacuum cleaner sealed in Lucite.

TroutGrass (Volcano Motion Pictures, $29.95)

Available at: www.troutgrass.com.

I was reminded of the understated elegance of A River Runs Through It when I saw this documentary written and narrated by David James Duncan (The River Why, The Brothers K). Here, Duncan traces how bamboo becomes a fishing rod, from the grass’ amazing growth cycle in Southern China (3 feet per night during peak season) to how a three3-ounce split-cane fly rod takes shape in the hands of master craftsmen.

If it sounds like the stuff of a public-TV yawner, guess again: Duncan wastes nary a word as he tackles his subject with a poet’s passion and reporter’s zeal. Filmed on location in China and Montana and featuring fly-fishing legend Thomas McGuane.

Ideal audience: Those unique die-hards drawn to fish-filled streams the way faithful pilgrims seek church.



The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (DocuRama, $26.95)

Available at: Facets Multimedia and online stores including Amazon.com (releases Dec. 27).

This 83-minute documentary by Judy Irving follows bohemian birdkeeper Mark Bittner, an articulate squatter on the Bay Area’s Telegraph Hill. Bittner spends his days hand-feeding and maintaining flock histories of the cherryhead conures who call San Francisco home(many are former pets, wild birds who hated captivity, released by or escaped from their overwhelmed owners).

Not all are cherryheads, though; the flock’s eldest member is a blue-crowned conure, Connor, a loner who metaphorically mirrors Bittner. Be prepared: This is not your typical, sticky-sweet "man loves birds" story, but a film with thoughtful philosophical points to make. DVD bonuses include Bittner’s home movies and flock updates.

Ideal audience: Let’s put it this way: You don’t have to be a bird lover to take flight seeing this.

© 2005, Chicago Tribune.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.