2001-2010

Lisbela is a young woman who loves going to the movies. Leléu is a con man, going from town to town selling all sort of things and performing as master of ceremonies for some cheesy numbers, such as the woman who gets transformed into a gorilla. He gets involved with Linaura, a sexy and beautiful woman who happens to be the wife of the most frightening hitman of the place. The hitman finds out his wife’s affair and goes after Leléu, who has to leave in a hurry. In another town, he meets and falls instantly in love with Lisbela, who is engaged to Douglas, a hillbilly who tries hard to pass for a cosmopolitan Rio de Janeiro dweller.Read More »

Cornered by the DEA, convicted New York drug dealer Montgomery Brogan reevaluates his life in the 24 remaining hours before facing a seven-year jail term.Read More »

Kriv Stenders’ Boxing Day is a harrowing film, with moments of absolute release and relief.

It is a low-budget work, filmed on digital video – with Stenders behind the camera – in a single location, with a cast of six. It takes place in real time, and it’s shot in long, sometimes relentless scenes that give the appearance of being a single, continuous take. It’s a film that puts its characters under pressure, and in some ways, its audience too. But it’s also a rewarding work to watch, a raw, vivid, risky movie that juggles intensity and excess, yet shows moments of restraint and grace.Read More »

A celebrity actress who gets her dream role playing real-life 19th century serial killer Belle Gunness in a feature film, starts to take on the characteristics of the character both on-screen and off.Read More »

A trucker, leading a life free of depth and on the way to nowhere, is forced to make a decision about her aggressive loner 11-year-old son whom she openly deserted ten years previously.Read More »

An impossible tale. Taro, an old man who dies homeless in Tokyo has told Yosuke, a weak-willed out-of-work salaryman about a golden statue that he left years ago in a house by the sea in Noto. Yosuke goes and he’s captivated by Saeko, a young women who lives in the house where Taro left the statue. She has a strange affliction: water builds up in her and she can only vent it by wicked acts, such as shoplifting, or, more powerfully, through orgasm. Yosuke obliges, the water gives him life, as well as the plants and fish it reaches. Saeko feels shame, and she has a past. Taro’s ghost urges Yosuke to fulfill his desires, but can the relationship survive? Written by Read More »

Begins with a narration extolling the virtues of a solar energy complex over maps and shots of the place. The focus then shifts to an elderly gentleman lumbering about a section of the complex not doing much of anything. The film unfolds in near total silence save the waves crashing against the shoreline nearby, occasional gusts of wind, and a closing excerpt from Vivaldi’s Sonata No. 6 in A Minor. At one point, a few police cars drive up, but nothing much comes of it. Then we are taken inside the man’s small room to catch glimpses of his daily life. Very reminiscent of Saless’ Still Life, with no dialogue after the opening narration, which by the end appears to have been rather sardonic, if not poignant. Produced by Filmgrafic, the company Shirdel founded in 1968.Read More »

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Ozren is a small boy of Croatian descent who lives in Vienna with his mother, Silvija in the mid-1980s. As a single parent she emigrated to Vienna from the former Yugoslavia in the hope of a better life. Like any child, he very much looks up to his mother. She is a waitress and when she goes out to work at night, his aunt, Ljiljana comes to take care of him. Then we see him back in elementary school, where he is called as whore’s boy. Although he does not understand the meaning of the swear word, he is intrigued by it: his mother works as a waitress, right?Read More »

A S&M comedy about a masochist barber.Read More »