2001-2010

“This film was conceived in honor of the 20th anniversary of the death of one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema – Andrei Tarkovsky. The young filmmaker Dmitry Trakovsky sets out in search of his favorite director’s legacy. His journey leads him to fifteen moving interviews in California, Italy, Sweden, and finally, Russia, as he attempts to come closer to the meaning of one of Tarkovsky’s most enigmatic beliefs… that death doesn’t exist. The result is the acclaimed documentary MEETING ANDREI TARKOVSKY, which takes an in-depth and poetic look at the late Russian filmmaker who created under the oppressive censorship of the Soviet government. It explores the life and films of Tarkovsky through diverse interviews and stories told by friends, colleagues and others who have been influenced by his art, providing a rare glimpse into Tarkovsky’s working methods and personal philosophy of humanity.”Read More »

Quote:
In a competition where no title had won widespread approval, a superb film finally arrived, drawing more than a few tears of emotion from Berlin festival-goers: acclaimed director Semih Kaplanoglu’s German/Turkish co-production Honey. The third instalment in the Yusuf trilogy, closes a journey backwards in time that began with Egg, followed by Milk.Read More »

A group of overweight people attend therapy sessions in an attempt to solve their weight and emotional problems.

“GORDOS” is a comedy about life’s excesses and deficiencies; about our insecurities, phobias, obsessions, traumas, mistakes, fears, blame, desires, hopes, challenges, concessions, goals, relationships, love, sex, health, family… about survival in the widest and “largest” sense of the wordRead More »

Quote:
Twelve-year-old Anaïs is fat. Her sister, Elena, is a teenage beauty. While on vacation with their parents, Anaïs tags along with Elena as she explores the dreary seaside town. Elena meets Fernando, an Italian law student, who seduces her with promises of love, and the ever-watchful Anaïs bears witness to the corruption of her sister’s innocence. Precise and uncompromising, Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl is a bold dissection of sibling rivalry and female adolescent sexuality from one of contemporary cinema‘s most controversial directors.Read More »

Plot : Catherine Breillat puts a new spin on an ancient story in this multi-leveled drama. In France in the mid-1950s, Catherine (Lola Creton) enjoys toying with her younger sister Marie-Anne (Daphne Baiwir) by reading her the story of the murderous and oft-married Bluebeard, embellishing the story with plenty of gore and scaring the child out of her wits. As Catherine rereads the story, we’re taken back to the year 1697, as Lord Bluebeard (Dominique Thomas) prepares to make Marie-Catherine (also played by Creton) his seventh wife. Marie-Catherine’s youth and innocence make her an especially attractive quarry to Bluebeard, and rather than murder her right away, he decides to wait a while in order to savor the terrible joy of claiming her life. Read More »

Summary:
A daring and fresh ensemble cast and crew have crafted a remarkable tribute to graffiti art and the city where it all began with Bomb the System. The director, producers, cinematographer, and other key crew members are all in their early 20s, and their debut feature deftly gives an uncompromising look at the life of urban youths. Blest, a 19-year-old graffiti writer, has just graduated from high school. With no ambition toward mainstream goals of work and family, he spends his time bombing the city with graffiti messages until he and his crew become the most wanted bombers by the corrupt NYPD Vandal Squad. He even attracts major media and gallery attention for his tags. Also part of Blest’s crew are Buk 50 and his younger brother Lune, whose arrest and beating by the NYPD causes the crew to wage a full-on graffiti war against the city. As they fight with their spray cans and their tags, Blest meets a political activist, Alexandra. Soon after, Blest’s relationship with Buk 50 and the crew fragments as Blest ponders his position in life. Writer/director Adam Bhala Lough, 23, finely weaves parallel relationships between everyone in the crew. With a lustrous production design and cinematography that utilizes the backdrop of New York City with radiant color that evokes as much as the graffiti, Bomb the System is a triumphant debutRead More »

Catherine Breillat’s bracing explorations of female mythologies find epic resonance in her latest film. The Sleeping Beauty sees the eminent filmmaker working at the height of her powers, something those fortunate enough to have seen her beguiling canon at TIFF Cinematheque this summer have already experienced.
Astonishing landscapes that circumnavigate the globe, and a dizzying mix of historical periods, provide a backdrop for the little girl at the film’s centre. Breillat’s cinematographic eye has rarely been expressed on such a large canvas or with such razor-sharp intent.
Noah Cowan (tiff.net)Read More »

“A lonely and dejected woman (Amira Casar) learns that only when all inhibitions are cast aside will she be able to truly understand the truth about how men see women in this erotically charged exploration of sexuality from controversial director Catherine Breillat. Teetering on the edge of overwhelming ennui, the woman pays a man (Rocco Siffredi) to join her for a daring, four-day exploration of sexuality in which both reject all convention and smash all boundaries while locked away from society in an isolated estate. Only when the man and woman confront the most unspeakable aspects of their sexuality will they have a pure understanding of how the sexes view one another.”Read More »

The achingly hip I LOVE YOUR WORK arrives with trappings familiar to any keen-eyed independent film fan. With a cast that includes Giovanni Ribisi (LOST IN TRANSLATION) and Franke Potente (RUN LOLA RUN), a big-star-in-a-cameo-role appearance (in this case, Vince Vaughn), and the by now obligatory roles for people you wouldn’t expect to see in such a movie (Jason Lee, Elvis Costello), Adam Goldberg’s debut feature is positively dripping in cool, and he seems to have looked up every contact in his Rolodex for I LOVE YOUR WORK–even calling on the Flaming Lips’ Steven Drozd to carve out a few songs for the soundtrack.Read More »