1981-1990

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The final film of “Elective Affinities”. A central element is a documentary film about paranoid conditions. Another is a flow of images of an apple tree in my back yard filmed impulsively, without forethought, the opposite of the static camera of FOG LINE. The radical breaking with the previous passivity of the camera has deep psychological dimensions. That was the first thing that led me to bring the paranoid material into the zone of the tree footage. The elements of sound and image are closely matched to each other, frame by frame. Inserted in them at the heart of the film are images of children, Kenneth and Louise, from an instructional documentary about the seasons. Cries of cattle being auctioned and sent to the stockyards are also inserted. Read More »

Famed swordsman and poet Cyrano de Bergerac is in love with his cousin Roxane. He has never expressed his love for her as he his large nose undermines his self-confidence. Then he finds a way to express his love to her, indirectly.Read More »

Abolfazl Jalili’s docudrama La Gale (Scabies) is about the painful lives of young offenders who are serving time in the reformatories of post-revolution Iran. Young Hamed, arrested for handing out political tracts banned by the Islamic Republic, finds himself in a place of great suffering, in which illiterate and penniless orphans wash floors and sell their own blood. When a disease breaks out in the prison, his life within this harsh environment becomes progressively worse, a near-daily fight for survival. The film is a searing indictment against a government that failed to deliver the on the promises with which it came to power: to deliver social justice to the oppressed and downtrodden. Initially released in the mid 1980s, at a time when Iran was at war with neighbouring Iraq, the film was an unwelcome edition to the Fajr Film Festival, as its theme of prison life was deemed critical of the Islamic Republic. In a re-edited version, the film was released in 1989 to critical acclaim.Read More »

Thugs sneak into Hong Kong to rob a jewellery store, killing a cop during their getaway. They plan another heist while hiding from the police hunting them down to avenge their slain comrade.Read More »

A man tries to find out who his real mother is after the woman who raised him tells him the truth.Read More »

Quote:
A harrowing and even ironic story of the first large, well-educated generation that was born after the war. The film tells the story of psychiatrist and Assistant Chief Athletic, and his good friend, theater director Eigil. Both are now past their youth, when they were politically active on the left. Now both are well established in powerful positions in the community. Both Athletic and Eigil have broken marriages behind them. Both have children who do not live with them. Both are struggling to keep up a facade that constantly threatens to fracture.Read More »

Grenouilles (Frogs) is perhaps his strangest film. Anne Wiazemsky plays a beautiful Russian spy, Nora, who arrives on an island in the middle of the ocean, to avenge the betrayal of her lover, the artist Tibor. Other characters include a spy from UNESCO, a mysterious stranger who is plotting the end of the world, and a gang of thieves disguised as frogmen….Read More »

In the wake of China’s first democratic revolution, three beautiful, high-spirited young women from very different backgrounds cross paths in a common quest for liberation. Fateful circumstances find the three joining forces as they muster the courage and fortitude to become female warriors.Read More »

The Russian Descendant of the Snow Leopard is based on a famous Kirghizian folktale. Apparently the Kirghizian folks had plenty of time to tell this story: to print a full synopsis would result in a novelette. Essentially, the story involves a proud group of highland hunters called the Snow Leopards, who in order to survive a brutal winter must request help from the Lowland people. The price for this assistance is the hand of the Snow Leopard’s daughter, who is promised in marriage to a wealthy Lowland trader. During the Springtime wedding celebration, the trader becomes fascinated by a stranger who wins all the athletic contests. This “male” contestant turns out to be a woman, who has arrived to seek freedom for her imprisoned husband. The subsequent romance between the trader and the beautiful stranger results in disaster and bloodshed for both the Snow Leopards and the Lowlanders. Originally titled Potomok Belongo Barssa Descendent of the Snow Leopard won a Silver Bear award for director Tolomus Okeyev at the Berlin Film Festival.Read More »