1981-1990

The concepts of synergetics within biological systems and effects of entropy on the organism of the socio, leading to the birth of Homo Insanicus.
The psychedelic surreal experiment, the last film from the biophysics cycle and the first film from the homo paradoxum cycle. The film is narrated by surreal sofisticated scientific-philosophical contemplations intermixed with a speech of Brezhnev and a speech of a schizophrenic patient.

“I have this feeling that in the world there is no politics or sociology as such, there is a field of psychiatry, and in our country – psychopathology.” – V. Kobrin.Read More »

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With his provocative feature debut, twenty-six-year-old Steven Soderbergh trained his focus on the complexities of human intimacy and deception in the modern age. Housewife Ann (Andie MacDowell) feels distant from her lawyer husband, John (Peter Gallagher), who is sleeping with her sister, Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo). When John’s old friend Graham (a magnetic, Cannes-award-winning James Spader) comes to town, Ann is drawn to the soft-spoken outsider, eventually uncovering his startling private obsession: videotaping women as they confess their deepest desires. A piercingly intelligent and flawlessly performed chamber piece, in which the video camera becomes a charged metaphor for the characters’ isolation, the Palme d’Or–winning sex, lies, and videotape changed the landscape of American film, helping pave the way for the thriving independent scene of the 1990s.Read More »

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In Herdsmen of the Sun, Herzog records a rare, bright moment for the Wodaabe, a tribe of nomads in the African Sahel. In 1988, the best rains in 60 years brought respite from the region’s chronic drought and long-delayed markets, weddings, and festivals could be held. The Wodaabe consider themselves to be the most beautiful people in the world. At the height of their festival, Wodaabe men adorn and display themselves to be chosen by women in a contest celebrating beauty and love.Read More »

Michael Pilz’s 285-minute Himmel and Erde is an essay film or an ethnographic documentary about life in the Styrian mountain village of St. Anna. It contemplates the finite lot of individuals as part of a continuum of human experience in the natural world. Himmel und Erde, which translates to Heaven and Earth, was recorded between 1979 and 1982. The documentary invites the viewer to contemplate the disruptive effects of technology on economic and social ties through circumscribed vignettes of village life which are oft repeated either as recycled footage or variations on a theme. The film is a meditation on time, nature, and the struggles of man, as well as a record of a lifestyle ceasing to exist. “If you let it happen, the film will pull you into its cosmos; it is one of those works that teaches you to see and listen again.”Read More »

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The documentary follows Gene Scott, famous televangelist involved with constant fights against FCC, who tried to shut down his TV show during the 1970’s and 1980’s, and even argues with his viewers, complaining about their lack of support by not sending enough money to keep going with the show. Werner Herzog presents the man, his thoughts and also includes some of his uncharacteristic programs.Read More »

A documentary film about a boys school in Iran. The film shows numerous, funny and moving interviews of many different young pupils of this school summoned by their superintendent for questions of discipline. The man is not severe, but clever and fair. He teaches loyalty, fellowship and righteousness to these boys. Besides these interviews, we see scenes of this school’s quotidian life.Read More »

A documentary about pornography: why it exists, the forms it takes, and how it affects the relations between men and women. It is an examination of the pornography industry: strip shows, sex shows, film and magazines. The film explores how a large portion denigrates women, including depictions of sexual violence for titillation. Includes interviews with men and women who earn their living in the porn trade.Read More »

Portraying one of the shadier details of American history, this is the story of Jack McGurn, who comes to Los Angeles in 1936. He gets a job at a movie theatre in Little Tokyo and falls in love with the boss’s daughter, Lily Kawamura. When her father finds out, he is fired and forbidden ever to see her again. But together they escape to Seattle. When the war breaks out, the authorities decide that the Japanese immigrants must live in camps like war prisoners.Read More »

Here we have a true rarity, an Icelandic WIP exploitation horror love story. Teenage girl (played by the singer Björk at the time when she was on the brink of becoming a world famous musician) is taken against her will from her dysfunctional home by the authorities and moved to an isolated and strict religious institution in the countryside where she and other girls at her age are kept imprisoned and harassed sexually. The film is loosely inspired by a true case involving the Salvation Army that became very controversial in the country two decades earlier. The film score is by Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, the current Chieftain of the Asa Faith Society in Iceland.Read More »