2001-2010

The film opens on the morning of December 8th 2007, in Karamay’s Xiaoxihu cemetery. Daybreak casts a cold grey light over faraway mountains and the Gobi sands. As the camera moves from grave to grave, it zeroes in on the photographs encased in glass on every tombstone. All are of children. Exactly 13 years ago, Karamay’s Friendship Hall was the site of a horrible tragedy: nearly 800 grade and middle-school students and their teachers, hand-picked to entertain a delegation of education officials, were in the midst of a performance when a fire broke out in the hall.Read More »

Tokage was commissioned by television network NHK for a series in which the works of famous Japanese authors would be narrated on film, as captured by noteworthy directors. Tsukamoto was asked to direct the short story Lizard, by Banana Yoshimoto.

Lizard concerns a love affair between two healers who are unable to heal their own psychic wounds. The narrator is a counselor for disturbed children. He has fallen in love with a profoundly sad woman nicknamed Lizard who longs for oblivion. Lizard has an uncanny ability to diagnose and treat other people’s illnesses.Read More »

Ruiz, in an a propos to the film: ‘Above all this film should not be seen as a biography of the painter Gustav Klimt (what these days we call a ‘biopic’). It is indeed a fantasy or, if you prefer, a phantasmagoria, a fresco of real and imaginary characters revolving around a single point of focus: the painter Klimt. You see images in the film as if it were Klimt himself who is seeing them. Or rather who is dreaming them. Because this film will be a daydream: exuberance of colours, distortion of space, extreme complexity of camera movements. It would take too long to explain the processes I intend to use in order to record this era, one of the richest, most contradictory and most disturbing in the history of humanity.’Read More »

Two Guinean kids do not manage to find work despite their inventiveness and creativity. That’s why they decide to travel to Europe as aircraft stowaways. Soberly told but moving indictment, based on true events.

Early in the Morning is a moving indictment and sober and atmospheric narrative that does not mythologise. It is based on a true story. The convincing tone of the film may well result from the background of Gahité Fofana, who had previously made documentaries about AIDS in Africa and about a gang member condemned to death. Fofana: ‘Yaguine and Fodé want to study, combat misery, deny fate. Read More »

Short Synopsis
…Her son-in-law, Ippolit Matwejewitch Worobjaninow, is a former nobleman and a dandy who is currently wasting away as a small town magistrate in charge of civil marriages. He eagerly takes up the quest to find the treasure. Meanwhile, over the years, the twelve chairs have been dispersed all over the country. However, Worobjaninow is not the only one in pursuit of the treasure. Hot on its trail are Ostap Bender, a clever and colorful conman, as well as Father Fjodor, a priest to whom the wealthy aristocrat has also confessed her secret. Thus begins a wild chase that ranges from North to South, West to East, across water and land, from the country to the city.Read More »

Quote:
“Lifeguards, luxury hotels from early XXth Century, mermaids, sea animals and sand castles gather in this labyrinthine essay. A “documentary” about balnearios, Argentine bath resorts and the idea of cities dedicated exclusively to idleness, empty along the winter months and crowded in the summer.”Read More »

Successful doctor Artur Planck, his wife Clara and their two daughters are seeking shelter from the Nazis storming Poland. They find a safe house in the farm of Emilia, their local grocer who is all alone after her husband fought for his country and never returned. Amidst the horrors of the war that surrounds them, an impossible love triangle erupts as Emelia uncontrollably falls in love with Artur. Such a fragile arrangement is sustained by love – or is it just the will to survive? The answer to that question may not even be made known to those who make it out alive.Read More »

A group of college students move into a dilapidated dormitory that is reputed by local people to be haunted.

From Horror.com:
The history of horror films being made in Iran goes back to the 1950’s when the late directory Samuel Khachikian cranked out titles like “A Party in Hell” (1956), “The Midnight Terror” (1961) and “Delirium” (1965). Over the years since, the horror genre in Iran has had its up and downs. One thing has remained constant, though, many Iranian movie fans welcome the chance to see domestically produced fright films. Read More »

Synopsis
Francis (Bosco Francis) is a man at the end of his tether. He has a 10-year-old son he loves desperately, but sorrow, guilt and constant inebriation have made him an ineffectual father. The son (Jathisweran) is a stoic ‘old soul’ who has learned to bury is affection for his old man and to cope with his chaotic life. A broken spirit and a single parent, Francis hopes to redeem himself and win his son’s love and respect. He makes a painful – and bizarre – return to magic. An unexpected incident one night sets father and son on the road. In dilapidated building, these two wounded souls come to terms with their love – a love which is as deep and acute as their grief.Read More »