Arthouse

Synopsis:
Satoko is a mistress by trade, or fate: when her master, the silkscreen artist of the Kohoan Temple in Kyoto, dies, she is given to the temple’s lascivious head priest Kikuchi. She is drawn to a melancholy young acolyte, Jinen, who has observed the profligacy of his cruel master and Satoko’s utter dependence on the man. Jinen is both fascinated and disturbed by Satoko’s interest in him; he is similarly caught between loathing of Kikuchi and of the dark circumstances of his birth and his own moral weakness. The story unfolds in a dreamlike manner, a flashback inspired by a now-infamous image on a silkscreen in the souvenir shop at the so-called Temple of the Wild Geese.Read More »

This video contains the short film Blood Countess with soundtrack by Foetus Inc., followed by music videos by gothic groups Requiem in White and The Shroud.Read More »

A man tries to find out who his real mother is after the woman who raised him tells him the truth.Read More »

Synopsis:
‘Papusza’ is a film based on a dramatic story of Bronislawa ‘Papusza’ Wajs – the first Romani poet, who wrote down their poems. It is also a story about the meeting between two poets: Papusza and a Polish poet Jerzy Ficowski, who noticed her great talent, encouraged to record her works and who then translated them into Polish. In 1956 Papusza’s first poetic book was published. It wouldn’t be possible without the help of a third poet, Julian Tuwim. Papusza’s songs permanently enriched Polish culture, providing it with an insight into the Roma soul.Read More »

Synopsis:
A gruff highlander leaves his village and heads to the town and harbor where he will embark for Australia. We follow his descent to the sea through three stories.
At first, he works with a blacksmith he knows, but his erotic attraction to the pure girlfriend of his friend puts him to flight.
Later on, he meets a sensual tomboy who symbolizes all the enchantment of wild nature, and her destiny is to end up in a brothel.
Finally, at the harbor of Piraeus, where he stays in the humble house of a couple who are separating, he meets a crestfallen woman, who is weary from poverty and abandonment, and together they take the ship of voluntary exile.Read More »

Grenouilles (Frogs) is perhaps his strangest film. Anne Wiazemsky plays a beautiful Russian spy, Nora, who arrives on an island in the middle of the ocean, to avenge the betrayal of her lover, the artist Tibor. Other characters include a spy from UNESCO, a mysterious stranger who is plotting the end of the world, and a gang of thieves disguised as frogmen….Read More »

Winter Twilight by Stanislaw Lenartowicz is one of the films that presaged the emergence of the Polish Film School as a recognised and independent trend. Shot in 1956, it had its premiere on 1 February 1957, three months before the screening of Kanal/They Loved Life by Andrzej Wajda at Cannes. If we were to analyse the film using the most frequently applied criterion for distinguishing works of the school – provoking audience awareness by raising topics concerned with recent history – Lenartowicz’s debut would hardly pass this benchmark. However, if we consider the Polish School to be a complex artistic formation of diverse films created by directors debuting on the verge of a cultural breakthrough – the October 1956 phenomena that was characterised by expressive direction and widespread divergence from the established poetics of social realism – Winter Twilight should be recognised as one of it most important precursory works.Read More »

A woman inherits her father’s fireworks factory, as he had no son. The business does well and everything works in an orderly fashion until one day, an itinerant painter is hired to decorate the doors and vases at the factory. The woman, forbidden to marry and thereby involve outsiders in the factory ownership, finds herself drawn to the headstrong painter. When they fall in love, the situation throws her entire life into disarray.Read More »

In a mountain town in Mexico, three young girls take over the houses of those who have fled, dress up as women when no one is watching, and have a hiding place to remain safe from those who would take them away; but dark echoes of violence become an inescapable threat.

Based on the novel Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement.

Special Mention – Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2021Read More »