2001-2010

  • Nobuhiko Ôbayashi – Riyû AKA The Reason AKA The Motive (2004)

    2001-2010AsianJapanMysteryNobuhiko Obayashi

    Quote:
    A storm rages over Tokyo. Meanwhile, inside a high-rise apartment block, the bodies of four people are discovered – apparently the victims of a brutal crime. At first, the victims are all thought to be members of one family, but then it transpires that they were not related to each other at all. Investigations run aground. Who were the victims? Who was responsible for – it has to be said – having slaughtered them in such a way? And why on earth were the murders committed? What could possibly have been the motive? Innocuous citizens who do not normally have anything to do with such horrific crimes are dragged onto the case. And the more testimonies that are collated, the closer the case moves towards a surprising conclusion.Read More »

  • Michael Glawogger – Das Vaterspiel AKA Kill Daddy Good Night (2009)

    Drama2001-2010ArthouseAustriaMichael Glawogger

    Quote:
    Ratz wishes he could kill his father who is an Austrian Minister. At least virtually. He develops a computer game that allows him do so as often as he pleases. On the opposite path, we follow Jonas’ suspenseful journey who has devoted his entire life tracking the Nazi Official who killed his father and who, as the records state, is in hiding. One day, Mimi, Ratz’ first love, calls him up from New York to join her and renovate a cellar. She promises him in return to help him sell his video game. This will unexpectedly bring Ratz face to face with uncomfortable questions about history and his own filial relationships to his father.Read More »

  • Lynn Hershman-Leeson – Teknolust (2002)

    2001-2010DramaLynn Hershman-LeesonSci-FiUSA

    Anxious to use artificial life to improve the world, Rosetta Stone, (Tilda Swinton), a bio-geneticist creates a Recipe for Cyborgs and uses her own DNA in order to breed three Self Replicating Automatons, part human, part computer named Ruby, Olive and Marine (also played by Tilda Swinton). The SRA’s act as ‘portals’ on the internet, helping users to fulfill their dreams. The SRA’s are nourished through touch. Because they were bred only with Rosetta’s DNA, they need the balance of an X chromo or male sperm to survive. Read More »

  • Gen Sekiguchi – Survive Style 5+ (2004)

    2001-2010AsianComedyGen SekiguchiJapan

    A man continually trying and failing to get his wife to stay dead; a self-absorbed ad agency creative director who comes up with one unworkable inane idea after another; a British hitman who only wants to know everyone’s function in life; and an unfortunate office worker and father whose brain is left scrambled after a stage hypnotist is murdered in mid-performance. Starting off as unrelated plot lines, they intertwine with each other as they continue on their respective ways.Read More »

  • Yimou Zhang – Ying xiong AKA Hero [Director’s Cut] (2002)

    2001-2010AsianFifth Generation Chinese CinemaHong KongMartial ArtsYimou Zhang

    Quote:
    In ancient China, before the reign of the first emperor, warring factions throughout the Six Kingdoms plot to assassinate the most powerful ruler, Qin. When a minor official defeats Qin’s three principal enemies, he is summoned to the palace to tell Qin the story of his surprising victory.Read More »

  • Pascal Hofmann & Benny Jaberg – Daniel Schmid – Le chat qui pense (2010)

    2001-2010ArthouseBenny JabergDocumentaryPascal Hofmann

    Quote:
    Jaberg and Hofmann’s film takes us on a cinematic journey through the life and work of Daniel Schmid, one of the most unusual artists within Swiss film. Born into a hotelier family of the 1940s in the village of Flims, surrounded by snow covered mountains, visited by exotic guests from around the world, Daniel Schmid always was a dreamer. The young filmmakers offer a mysterious kaleidoscope of people and places related to the director. Even as a child, Daniel Schmid knew that there was a hidden world, caught between reality and imagination.Read More »

  • Pierre Barougier & Jean-Pierre Pozzi – Ce n’est qu’un début AKA Just a Beginning (2010)

    2001-2010DocumentaryFranceJean-Pierre PozziPierre Barougier

    “Just A Beginning” follows a nursery school class for a period of two years. But this is a very unusual class as the children, aged three to five study… philosophy! Seated in a circle around a ritually lit candle, the children, in a fresh, funny and sometimes merciless manner, approach the universal subjects of love, power, difference, growing up, death etc. Little by little the philosophy workshop becomes a privileged moment where each child reflects on the words of the other, learns how to listen and to build a discourse. From now on they will be able to think for themselves! With their emotions, their unusual expressions and their contradictions, the children of this nursery school deliver a single testimony on an innovative experiment. “Just A Beginning” is the fabulous true story of a school with an eye on the future.Read More »

  • Raoul Peck – Sometimes in April (2005)

    2001-2010DramaRaoul PeckRwandaWar

    The story centers on two brothers: Honoré Butera, working for Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, and Augustin Muganza, a captain in the Rwandan army (who was married to a Tutsi woman, Jeanne, and had three children with her: Anne-Marie, Yves-André, and Marcus), who bear witness to the killing of close to 800,000 people in 100 days while becoming divided by politics and losing some of their own family. The film depicts the attitudes and circumstances leading up to the outbreak of brutal violence, the intertwining stories of people struggling to survive the genocide, and the aftermath as the people try to find justice and reconciliation.Read More »

  • Ulrike Ottinger – Die koreanische Hochzeitstruhe AKA The Korean Wedding Chest (2009)

    2001-2010ArthouseDocumentaryGermanyUlrike Ottinger

    The Korean Wedding Chest is a 2009 documentary film about Korean wedding traditions directed by Ulrike Ottinger. The German language film was described as “capturing the collision of ancient tradition and modern culture on the subject of love and marriage in Korea in a film that echoes the beauty, precision and care of the rituals she examines” by the Los Angeles Times. The Washington Post’s website refers to the surrealist style of the film as being well suited to “the regal pacing of the ritual” and calls the film one of Ottinger’s most praised works.Read More »

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