2001-2010

Ester Krumbachová – an artist, screenwriter, director, one of the most important names of the Czech New Wave. She worked for the theatre, wrote, illustrated. She was in the middle of the artistic life in Prague in the sixties. The director Věra Chytilová asks those who knew Ester Krumbachová, cooperated with her, were her friends, loved her. She puts together a picture of an inspiring person. She starts a search which should end with the answer to the question: Who was Ester? Evening with the presence of the film authors.Read More »

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Soderbergh has brought us SPALDING GRAY’S FINAL MONOLOGUE with the film, “And Everything Is Going Fine”. He compiles what is essentially a final autobiographical testament of Gray’s life using rare footage of his TV interviews, recordings of his theatrical monologues, and even some footage taken personally by Gray with his family members. A simple mash-up of such footage gives Gray the oppourtunity to bring us one final monologue- from the grave- speaking about himself, just as he loved to do…for our pleasure, and his sanity!!! He truly was the best monologist, one-man-show and storyteller to ever grace the stage. Read More »

Ivan Golovnev (filmmaker) was born in 1978 in Omsk, a city in Siberia. His father is a scholar of history, ethnography, and anthropology who teaches at universities around the world, including the United States. His mother is a history teacher. As a child, he took part in ethnographic and anthropological expeditions in North-Western Siberia. He graduated from music school with a degree in piano performance. In 2000, Golovnev graduated from the History Department of the Omsk State University, where he majored in Ethnography. In 2002, Golovnev entered a Graduate Program for Screenwriters and Directors in Moscow. He directed a documentary television series “The Time of Myths” about the traditional culture of two indigenous peoples of Russia’s North-West Siberia– the Khanty and Mansi. Ivan is currently working on a documentary on the lives of representatives of different denominations in Siberia.Read More »

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Creatures of the night find new prey on the scariest night of the year in this horror story. It’s Halloween night, and four friends — Allison (Vanessa Horneff), Elliott (Wil Horneff), Trevor (Karl Jacob), and Brian (Sean Reid) — are on a road trip en route to a friend’s wedding when their car breaks down after running into something. Looking for help, the four happen upon the farmhouse of an elderly couple, Elvin (Richard Little) and May (Barbara Wilhide), which is located next to a huge barn. Elvin and May have already become lost in the darkness of the barn, and soon two of the lost travelers are suffering the same fate as they search for friendly strangers. However, while they can barely see a hand in front of their face, they discover they’re not alone in the barn, which has become home to a huge swarm of bloodthirsty bats. The Roost is framed by an introduction and postscript from a television horror show host, played by Tom Noonan. ~ Mark Deming, RoviRead More »

The second feature film directed by award-winning screenwriter Cemal Þan following his debut Ali, which was not publicly screened, tackles urban themes such as alienation, love, loneliness, desperation and confinement through the eponymous heroine Zeynep, who leads an obsessively ordered life. Shutting herself to the outside world to build a life of her own, with almost all her days the same. One night, at a bar she goes to for a friend’s birthday, Zeynep meets a young man named Ali. From then on, there will be unexpected changes in Zeynep’s life. (Istanbul Film Festival booklet – 2008)Read More »

About the film
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In “The Soul of A Man,” director Wim Wenders looks at the dramatic tension in the blues between the sacred and the profane by exploring the music and lives of three of his favorite blues artists: Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson and J. B. Lenoir. Part history, part personal pilgrimage, the film tells the story of these lives in music through an extended fictional film sequence (recreations of ’20s and ’30s events – shot in silent-film, hand-crank style), rare archival footage, present-day documentary scenes and covers of their songs by contemporary musicians such as Shemekia Copeland, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Garland Jeffreys, Chris Thomas King, Cassandra Wilson, Nick Cave, Los Lobos, Eagle Eye Cherry, Vernon Reid, James “Blood” Ulmer, Lou Reed, Bonnie Raitt, Marc Ribot, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Lucinda Williams and T-Bone Burnett.Read More »

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Warner isn’t sure how he got where he is, but he’s not particularly happy to be there: mid-thirties, married, two kids, dead-end career in fund raising, cramped town house, old car, clothes slightly frayed around the edges. His latest job has landed him and his family in a boom-town where everyone else seems to have more than Warner – and more is what Warner wants. But it’s not what he gets. Instead, the probation period of his job has just been extended; his wife, Claire, thinks her own job is in jeopardy as well; their entire savings are going towards a house that won’t be big enough for them; and their four-year-old daughter, the preschool teacher tells them, is “a couple of beats behind” the other children. Read More »

Pascale (Isabelle Huppert) lives with her adult twin sons, aimless François (Yannick Renier) and headstrong Thierry (Jérémie Renier, star of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s L’ENFANT and LA PROMESSE), in a renovated Belgian farmhouse. Each is still reeling from the divorce that divided the family some years earlier. Both boys pursue their respective interests, but neither seems compelled to embrace adulthood or the responsibilities that come with it. However, all that is about to change. Pascale has fallen in love again and dreams of a new life for herself and her lover a countryside B&B that they aspire to own together. But what would seem to be a happy time in her life takes a turn for the worse as she finds herself unable to rise from the shadow of her ex-husband and selfish children. In a bid for survival, Pascale leaves the house in the hands of Thierry and François, never suspecting that in her absence, long-buried resentment and rivalry will boil over, igniting a war between the brothers. (DVD Backcover)Read More »

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In New York’s storied Chelsea Hotel, a novelist, a dancer, a painter, a poet, an aged jazz singer, and a young troubadour sort out their personal and artistic lives within walls haunted by the likes of Dylan Thomas, O. Henry, and Sarah Bernhardt. A boozy novelist balances wife, mistress, and stories. A dancer who’s a waitress in the basement club chooses between a Hollywood jerk and a local painter. A youth from Minnesota who composes and sings may be the next Bob Dylan. A poet decides to give her feckless boyfriend another chance, even as her eyes tell us she knows what’s ahead. An old jazz artist wants to place a bet and share his love for Lady Day. These walls do seem to talk.Read More »