2001-2010

Quote:
We all know that the white-bread cookie-cutter suburban lifestyle has its own dirty secrets, but when his camera explores the limits of this seemingly serene and ubiquitous American lifestyle, Larry Clark gives us a horrifying yet touching glimpse of what happens behind finely paved driveways and cute lawns.

The film itself portrays so many “unshowable” taboos—a threesome between three adolescents, a teen who masturbates on camera while asphyxiating himself, a tough-love alcoholic father attempting to give his son a blowjob—that you are tempted to delegate the film to nothing more than a provocation film. Yet, frighteningly, Larry Clark is able to pull off filming these morally antagonizing subjects with so much perception, light, and even humanity that he leaves the viewer stunned—stuck between laughter and disgust, horror and compassion, not knowing what we should feel or what we are.Read More »

An ill man’s dying wish reunites four old friends. (IMDb)
*
Friends brought together by tragic circumstances discover how sad their own lives have become in this bittersweet comedy-drama from German filmmaker Michael Klier. Harry (Henry Hübchen), Justus (Burghart Klaussner) and Bernhard (Armin Rohde) were close when they were young but haven’t seen each other in many years. However, they meet for the first time in decades when they learn another member of their circle, Manni (Peter Lohmeyer), has fallen ill and has only a short time to live. Manni has done well for himself and has a fine house with a pool as well as a vintage Ferrari, but as his life draws to a close he wants to spend time with his pals and asks them to help him with his one nagging regret. Manni used to date a beautiful girl named Rosi (Sibylle Canonica), but he treated her badly and she left him; all these years later, Manni asks his pals to find her so he can apologize and beg her forgiveness.Read More »

Biographer/ documentarian David Stenn, while working on a book about Jean Harlow, discovers a forgotten crime in which a 17-year-old extra was raped at an MGM party by a studio sales executive, and the studio proceeded to cover up the crime, protect the criminal, and destroy the victim. In addition to the first interview with the victim ever, 65 years after the crime, we also get a crash course in studio era history, including an interview with the illegitimate daughter of Loretta Young and Clark Gable.Read More »

Prisoners of Beckett is the meeting of two worlds that never usually converge.

One is comprised of poetry and freedom, the other silence and obscurity.

It’s a true story, which begins in a high security prison in Sweden, where a young actor, Jan Jonson, decides to stage “Waiting for Godot” with a cast of five prisoners.

Their performances turn out to be so unique and genuine that Beckett grants them the right to perform his play and follows the enterprise from his Parisian retreat.Read More »

Plainly but nonetheless effectively handled, “The Twilight” relates a case of prison recidivism with the real-life subjects playing themselves. Chance to glimpse incarceration and ex-con life in Iran will hold attention for foreign viewers, though this very modest, earnest exercise in old-school social problem cinema ultimately proves that the related issues are pretty much the same the world over. Fest and educational play are signaled.Read More »

Quote:
In February 2004, after 30 years of my life in SoHo, I made a decision to leave SoHo
and move to Greenpoint, Brooklyn. This video is about what it feels like to leave a
place in which one has spent more time than any other place, and which was also
the place of my family life. I am somewhere else now. It’s about beginning of growing roots in a new place, new home, with new friends, new thoughts,
experiences.Read More »

Quote:
still/here is a meditation on the vast landscape of ruins and vacant lots that constitute the north side of St. Louis, an area populated almost exclusively by working class and working poor African Americans. On a basic level, the film constructs a documentary record of the blight and decay of that part of the city. For the most part, still/here is not an overt assessment of social injustices but the politics of class and race within American society are integral to the film. In still/here, the ruins are emblematic of an unimaginable absence at the core of much of the African Diaspora’s experience in North America. From the countless Africans lost in the Middle Passage to the lost future generation of unborn descendant of those that perished during the voyage, to the loss of family and loved ones that were sold away during slavery, absence has been and continues to be a fundamental feature of the African-American experience.Read More »

An undocumented Chinese immigrant falls behind on payments on an enormous smuggling debt. Ming Ding has only until the end of the day to come up with the money.Read More »

Synopsis:
The solitary Daniel and Sonia share an uneasy love/hate relationship. Daniel’s life is disrupted by the appearance of a stranger that proceeds to insinuate himself in his life. The man’s persistence takes its toll on Daniel and Sonia, leaving Daniel alone with nagging questions of “Why?”Read More »