1991-2000

Ο Ηρακλής, ο Αχελώος και η γιαγιά μου

Dimitra Koutsiabassakos is 88 years old and lives alone in the village of Armatoliko in the Pindos mountain range, on the banks of the ancient river Acheloos, named after the mythical river god who fought Heracles for the favors of a woman and who could take on many forms. Dimitra’s home is located near the place where a great dam is being built and lies right in the middle of the area destined to become a lake after construction is completed. By a strange quirk of fate, the materials used in the construction of the dam are a product of a cement company named “Heracles”, so that it seems that the age-old contest between Acheloos and Heracles continues to the present day! Dimitris, Costas and Petros decide to pay their grandmother a visit and make a documentary.

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The Silence (Sokhout), a startlingly fresh and elegant work, is about a ten-year-old boy, Khorshid, who is blind. Khorshid’s father, in Russia, has abandoned him and his mother, who in order to sustain their existence fishes in the river on which the rural dwelling that includes their threadbare apartment is situated. This woman has no other choice but to rely on Khorshid’s meager income for rent. It is not enough, however, and in a few days’ time they will be evicted by the landlord, a greedy, powerful presence whom we never see except for, once, as a hand knocking at the door. A strange, elliptical film of haunting, limpid visual beauty, The Silence ends with two events: the eviction, as the mother, who is calling for her son, and her one great possession, a wall mirror, symbolic for art and inspiration, that is, humanity’s spirit, are rowed across the river, the mirror’s reflection in the water symbolically linking human spirituality and Nature; and the boy, as usual off on his own, passing forever into a life of the imagination in which he is able to orchestrate sounds in his environment—to which his blindness has made him acutely sensitive and receptive—into a finished piece, one in fact familiar to us as the opening movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Only a fool could miss the social and political implications of such a film, and the government, not at all fooled in this regard, responded brusquely. The Silence was banned in Iran.Read More »

Venus, the Roman goddess of love, visits present day Budapest to strengthen intimate relationships between men and women.Read More »

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The hero of Alfonso Cuarón’s “Sólo Con Tu Pareja” is Tomás Tomás (Daniel Giménez Cacho), a young man living alone in a roomy Mexico City apartment with a tedious job writing advertising copy and a hyperactive romantic life. Apparently and perhaps not quite plausibly irresistible to women, he is also unable to resist them, which is believable enough, since the women in this movie favor garter belts, half-slips and other kinds of retro-sexy lingerie, which they seem happy to display, or to remove, in Tomás’s presence.Read More »

Young, naive and innocent, Pierre (Manuel Blanc) has dreams of becoming an actor. He is a good-looking and personable boy, and he has just moved to the city to see if he can’t accomplish his dreams. He gets a job as an orderly at a hospital and is further supported by an older woman (Helene Vincent), a nurse he has met there, in return for his sexual favors. However, in his acting class, he quickly discovers that he is not overflowing with talent, and his dream of becoming an actor grows dim. Instead, despite the advice of a knowledgeable and worldly older gay man (Philippe Noiret), he becomes a sex worker. It has long been a staple of the movies that certain hustlers and prostitutes maintain a distinction between their work and their lives by not kissing their clients, hence the title of this film, J’embrasse Pas. He grows to love the seedy, degraded lifestyle, and seems to be adapting well to his new profession until he has the poor judgement to fall in love with a high-class prostitute (Emmanuelle Béart) and earns the antagonism of her pimp. allmovieRead More »

Drawing from an actual incident, artistically audacious director Raoul Ruiz and writer Pascal Bonitzer turn a story of psychoanalysis gone awry into a labyrinthine psychological mystery in Genealogies of a Crime. Weaving together flashbacks, flashbacks within flashbacks, multiple renditions of the alleged crime of le monstre, and surreal, voyeuristic compositions, Ruiz skewers psychoanalysis’ excesses in a narrative mind-bender that takes on such heady topics as nature vs. nurture, repetition-compulsion, and the nature of certainty. The dueling psychoanalytic societies provide moments of black comedy, with Michel Piccoli’s certifiably insane Georges as the ultimate dark joke. The flashback structure trickily melds Catherine Deneuve’s two identities as Rene’s lawyer and the embodied memory of the victim, suggesting that she may indeed be Rene’s karmic punishment. Yet there’s still the matter of that little girl holding a cat and a knife. Though some critics were put off by Ruiz’s pretensions, others deemed Genealogies of a Crime a beautifully shot and acted intellectual game, with Deneuve channeling an eerie psychosis reminiscent of her work with Roman Polanski and Luis Buñuel. — Lucia Bozzola, All Movie GuideRead More »

IMDB wrote:

In Jersey City, an African American hit man follows “Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai.” He lives alone, in simplicity with homing pigeons for company, calling himself Ghost Dog. His master, who saved his life eight years ago, is part of the local mob. When the boss’ daughter witnesses one of Ghost Dog’s hits, he becomes expendable. The first victims are his birds, and in response, Ghost Dog goes right at his attackers but does not want to harm his master or the young woman. On occasion, he talks with his best friend, a French-speaking Haitian who sells ice cream in the park, and with a child with whom he discusses books. Can he stay true to his code? And if he does, what is his fate?Read More »

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Renko’s mum and dad are splitting up, and her heart is burning. So she plays with fire, tears up the rule book, holds herself hostage, even starts talking to the weird girl in school who’s the only other one with divorced parents. But as Renko watches her childhood go up in flames, she learns how to forge a new self from the embers. Director Shinji Somai is hugely regarded in Japan, but only starting to be known in the West, more than a decade after his death. Formally surprising and emotionally thrilling, Moving is the work of a remarkable filmmaker at the height of his powers.Read More »

Siegfried A. Fruhauf

Born:1976 in not specified

Foto: Siegfried Wöber
Born in Grieskirchen (Upper Austria) in 1976 and grown up in the small village of Heiligenberg (Upper Austria). 1991 – 1994 Training as commercial manager.
Studied experimental visual design at the University of Artistic and Industrial Design in Linz where he first came into contact with the Austrian Film Avantgarde. From 1995 to 2010 he lived and worked in Linz and Heiligenberg. 2002 Supporting Award for Filmart by the Austrian Federal Chancellery.
Since 2001 organization of film and art events. Since 2009 lecturere at the University of Artistic and Industrial Design, Linz. Numerous works and shows in the area of film, video and fotography. Participation in various important international film festivals (Festival de Cannes – Semaine Internationale de la Critique, Intenational Filmfestival of Venice – Section Nuovi Territori, Sundance Film Festival Park City, …). Member of sixpackfilm.
Has a son (Jonas Theodor) with the Austrian journalist Anna Katharina Laggner. Lives and works in Vienna and Heiligenberg since 2010.Read More »