2001-2010

Synopsis
Freak and Jajà are in a place with no date and time. A no man’s world. The earth is no longer inhabited by man, but on rare occasions a strange survivor or two will appear. The two protagonists who have never met, meet at Bus stop in the middle of nowhere. The Bus arrives but doesn’t stop, it was the Bus that was going to GODOT, the God which manifested itself through a musical sound on the other side of the mountain. So Freak and Jajà decide to look for him on foot, in this way embarking on a journey that will have them meet the bizarre characters living on this land. Unfortunately Freak and Jajà at the end of their journey… will meet up with death before reaching their God.Read More »

Quote:
Historias extraordinarias tells the adventures of three men known only as H (Agustin Mendilaharzu, doubling as cinematographer), X (director Mariano Llinás) and Z (Walter Jakob). These adventures come across as self-conscious constructions and journeys happening in the here and now. But though the strongest literary influences on Llinás’ fascinating screenplay are fiction writer Jorge Luis Borges and disciple Adolfo Bioy-Casares, it would be wrong to label Historias extraordinarias as literary per se: Instead, a viewer would have to stretch back to the grand serial silents of Louis Feuillade for something as ambitious as Llinás’ detailed telling of the three separate, intertwined tales, all involving men on quests in situations that force them to question who they really are. Llinás jumps between the storylines over 18 episodes, usually devoting no more than about 15 minutes at a time to any single one. The governing concept uniting the tales is how each man begins with a specific task, and then veers away from the straight-and-narrow, bringing the job’s purpose into question.Read More »

Quote:
In the rarefied stratosphere of Eugene Green’s film “Le Pont des Arts,” music, literature, philosophy and aesthetics, and the characters’ engagement with them, are literally matters of life and death. Here and in his other films, Mr. Green, the American-born French filmmaker who founded the Theatre de la Sapience, a group dedicated to revitalizing 17th-century Baroque theater in modern productions, has invented a cinematic vocabulary that radically juxtaposes classical and contemporary themes and characters. … In “Le Pont des Arts,” Mr. Green’s propensity for throwing in academically heavyweight references and concepts may seem intimidating, but it is more than an exercise in name-dropping. The movie is an audacious, mythically slanted inquiry into the place of high art in today’s chaotic culture and an assertion of its primacy. … — NYTimesRead More »

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Filmmaker Eugene Green pays homage to Manoel de Oliveira, a Portuguese director whose had a profound influence on his style, with this drama of a woman eager for a new lease on life. Julie (Leonor Baldaque) is a French actress who is still nursing a broken heart after a bad breakup with her boyfriend. Julie travels to Lisbon to begin work on her latest project, in which she’ll play the title role in a screen adaptation of the novel Letters of a Portuguese Nun. Julie is fascinated with Lisbon, and spends much of her spare time exploring the city, and she opens herself up to encounters with a wealthy and prominent man (Diogo Dória) as well as one of her fellow actors (Adrien Michaux). However, Julie learns the most about herself and her heart when she strikes up a friendship with a local boy who has lost his parents (Francisco Mozos), enjoys some long conversations with a nun (Ana Moreira) who is advising the production, and learns to love Portugal’s native fado music. A Religiosa Portuguesa (aka The Portuguese Nun) was an official selection at the 2009 BFI London Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, RoviRead More »

PLOT SUMMARY
Unable to accept the the loss of their son in the 2005 Tsunami, Jeanne and Paul Bellmer have remained in Phuket. Desperately clinging to the fact that his body was never recovered, Jeanne has convinced herself that the boy was kidnapped by traffickers in the chaos that followed the catastrophe… Paul is sceptical, but cannot bring himself to shatter his wife’s last hope. The traumatized couple embark on a quest that will plunge them through paranoia and betrayal, ever deeper into an alien universe, a supernatural realm where the dead are never truly dead, and where nightmares, obsession and horrifying reality converge.Read More »

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A contemporary adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull set around catty, jealous and precocious film industry types.

The story revolves around Mado, a movie-star past her prime who owns an elegant chateau in the serene French countryside. Mado’s lover Brice is a successful director who continues to cast Mado in his films. Her son Julien, an aspiring filmmaker, despises his “sell-out” mother, but at the same time yearns for her approval. Lili, Julien’s girlfriend, is intent on escaping the lowly life of a poor country girl and dreams of stardom. When Julien screens his new DV art-film starring Lili, the delicate peace in their house begins to unravel.Read More »

A teenager’s routine visit to her father’s vacation home turns steamy when she finds herself unexpectedly attracted to her father’s fiancée.Read More »

The third film from award-winning Fifth Generation director Lu Chuan (Kekexili: Mountain Patrol), City of Life and Death (Nanking Nanking) is a devastating account of the massacre that occurred during WWII when Japanese troops took the city of Nanjing in December 1937, a tragedy remembered as the Rape of Nanking. Shot completely in black and white, this powerful war drama unflinchingly captures the shocking violence and brutality of the Nanjing massacre, from the mass executions of POWs to the raping and slaughtering of civilians, while providing a deeply human portrait of both the victims and the perpetrators.Read More »

A madcap comedy about a famous actress who gets more than she bargains for when she goes on a secret vacation in the mountains trying to cure her nymphomania.Read More »