2001-2010

Laura, a shy teacher of mysterious beauty, begins a passionate relationship with one of her students, a marginalized teenager named Israel. The young man begins to frequent the decadent mansion where Laura lives with her grandparents, Irene and Luis, with the purpose of taking advantage of her. During these clandestine meetings, violence breaks out, unexpectedly revealing the dark secrets that are hidden in the house, and driving the couple’s relationship towards an increasingly dangerous game, in which it is no longer known who uses whom and who is being used.Read More »

Renowned Korean filmmaker Lee Chang Dong, the director of Green Fish, Peppermint Candy, and Oasis, returns to the director’s chair in 2007 with the critically acclaimed Secret Sunshine. This is his fourth film, and his first directorial work since his stint as Minister of Culture and Tourism from 2003 to 2004. In addition to Lee’s long-awaited return, Secret Sunshine attracted much attention with its pairing of two of the biggest names in Korean cinema – Song Kang Ho and Jeon Do Yeon, who was named Best Actress at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for her amazing performance.Read More »

Anna is a young widow who is finally getting on with her life after the death of her husband, Sean. Now engaged to be married, Anna meets a ten-year-old boy who tells her he is Sean reincarnated. Though his story is both unsettling and absurd, Anna can’t get the boy out of her mind. And much to the concern of her fiancé, her increased contact with him leads her to question the choices she has made in her life.Read More »

Experimental film director Franco Piavoli’s Al Primo Soffio Di Vento (At the First Breath of Wind) is nearly a wordless, non-narrative account of a summer’s day as appreciated by the residents of an estate in Lombardy, Italy.

The family, despite living in a idyllic mansion, live their lives very much apart from one another. The father (Primo Gaburri) is usually holed up in his study, while his wife aimlessly paces the grounds pining away after a former lover. Of the two daughters, the eldest plays sad tunes on the piano, while the younger explores the woods and struggles to understand her recent inklings of sexual attraction.Read More »

Quote:
I’m Going Home (French: Je rentre à la maison, Portuguese: Vou Para Casa) is a 2001 French-Portuguese film written and directed by Manoel de Oliveira.

Gilbert Valence (Michel Piccoli) is a grand old theatre actor who receives the shocking news that his wife, daughter, and son-in-law have been killed in a car accident. As time passes, Valence busies himself with his daily life in Paris, turning down unsuitable roles in low-brow television productions and looking after his 9-year-old grandson. When an American filmmaker (John Malkovich) miscasts him in an ill-conceived adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Valence finds himself compelled to make a decision about his life.Read More »

Oskar, a bullied 12-year old, dreams of revenge. He falls in love with Eli, a peculiar girl. She can’t stand the sun or food and to come into a room she needs to be invited. Eli gives Oskar the strength to hit back but when he realizes that Eli needs to drink other people’s blood to live he’s faced with a choice. How much can love forgive? Set in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982.Read More »

Fresh out of police training, Schrader plans to do “as little as possible”. Inspector Minks, who busted him at an illegal rave for drugs possession, has other ideas. He wants the street-smart youngster to find his missing daughter who disappeared into Berlin’s demi-monde two years before.

Minks and Schrader’s respective plans are interrupted by a series of bizarre, seemingly ritualistic murders. Someone is killing people with tattoos and skinning them.Read More »

Description from International Film Festival Rotterdam premiere:
Tony Rayns has followed up the Jang Sun-Woo retrospective he curated for the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 1997 by making an intimate portrait of Korea’s most iconoclastic director as he prepares two new films: the live-action cyber-action thriller The Resurrection of the Little Match Girl and the animated buddhist/shamanist feature Princess Bari. Divided into chapters, the documentary examines Jang’s career and films from many different angles and includes the voices not only of those who have worked with Jang but also of numerous ordinary Koreans who have been touched/shocked/excited/offended by his work.Read More »

Cho-In can control other people’s minds when they are within his field of sight.Except one man.Read More »