1981-1990

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Joris Ivens’ Rain left a lasting impression on Bergmann-Michel. The main motif of the lyrically edited film is a single rain shower, filmed over a period of two years. As a working portrait with photos, drawings, collages and sequences from the films rediscovered for this purpose, Mein Herz schlägt Blau – Ella Bergmann-Michel combines her artistic biography with her cinematic commitment to social reform. The essay by Jutta Hercher and Maria Hemmleb tells of the grotesque collages influenced by natural science, of pacifist hopes, photographic experiments and the film working group in New Frankfurt. Mein Herz schlägt Blau begins in the Schmelzmühle, the meeting place of artist friends and, during the Nazi era, an ‘underground’ retreat. – Fischfang in der Rhön comes closest to Bergmann-Michel’s free artistic work and combines it with a documentary perspective. The encounter with Ivens’ Regen echoes.Read More »

Synopsis
Before WAR GAMES there was Canada’s HIDE & SEEK. Watch this and you will see how close the movies are. High school computer wiz kid’s program accidently hooks into the main frame computer of a nuclear power plant and nearly causes a melt down!Read More »

Music icon David Byrne was inspired by tabloid headlines to make his sole foray into feature-film directing, an ode to the extraordinariness of ordinary American life and a distillation of what was in his own idiosyncratic mind. The Talking Heads front man plays a visitor to Virgil, Texas, who introduces us to the citizens of the town during preparations for its Celebration of Specialness. As shot by cinematographer Ed Lachman, Texas becomes a hyperrealistic late-capitalist landscape of endless vistas, shopping malls, and prefab metal buildings. In True Stories, Byrne uses his songs to stitch together pop iconography, voodoo rituals, and a singular variety show—all in the service of uncovering the rich mysteries that lurk under the surface of everyday experience.Read More »

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This seems to be one of Baillie’s most under-seen but it’s my favorite of his. Only an artist with beautiful heart and soul can create something like this, point camera as firmly as Lumiére’s to daily observation but instead the family unit transcends the everyday and the observational; father’s ode to his child becomes expression of the most meaningful love, the haptic communication reveals so much and every little detail that doesn’t make sense just strengthens the feeling of life and love. This is the film that should echo in the eternity – if someone from strange planet should come and visit after the earth is in ruins and all life is gone, this is what they should be seeing.Read More »

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This film consists of the images of Tama River, which runs through the western part of Tokyo. A handheld camera quietly moves along the riverside, capturing its four seasons. It is sort of a meditation in black and white, or an escape if you like, that gives you a sense of ‘Photogénie’.
Dark clouds loom over the winter sky, while in summer, the sun shines brightly on the grass. This is an attempt to conjure up the feelings of standing on the windswept riverbank.Read More »

Orestis is the richest man on the Greek island of Corfu. He’s also a sadistic pervert. Together with his nymphomaniac wife Stella, he invites young people to his villa and pays them handsomely for participating in S&M orgies. The most beloved gem in his “collection” is the young blonde Bianca, who for the time being tolerates Orestis because he pays for the expensive treatment of her younger sister in a Swiss clinic.Read More »

Based upon the famous novel by H.G.Wells. A poor scientist named Griffin discovers a way to make things invisible. Since he has no money to continue his research, he decides to perform his only experiment on himself. After becoming invisible, Griffin has a lot of trouble trying to conceal this from other people.Read More »

A fictionalized account in four chapters of the life of the celebrated Japanese writer Yukio Mishima.Read More »

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A story of the society that dominated 19th-century Cuba, a society divided between whites, blacks, and those who were mixed, the mulattos. (Since the Spanish conquistadors killed off the Indian population in Cuba not long after they took over the island, there are no mestizos, or those of mixed-Indian blood in Cuba as in other Caribbean nations.) At any rate, the drama about the life and loves of Cecilia, a Cuban girl of mixed race takes place against the backdrop of graphically violent mistreatment of slaves and the rumors of a slave rebellion after the Cubans hear of slaves turning against their captors in Haiti. Raised by her mother and grandmother as a courtesan within the ruling white establishment, pale-skinned Cecilia soon catches the eye of estate owner’s son Leonardo.Read More »