Arthouse

Synopsis:
Louis, a terminally ill writer, returns home after a long absence to tell his family that he is dying.Read More »

Kongo is writing a book on the subject of immigrants but while his editor wants a kind of traveler’s book in which ethnic exotic ingredients are offered to a European audience, Kongo has more ambitious ideas – he conceives of the idea of writing a book that follows the paths of Congolese history and its many ghosts. A brave and powerful film, made with single-mind integrity. Filmed mainly in the Congo, the film also provides a slice of life of the contemporary Congolese community in Brussels.Read More »

From Variety

Films that truly surprise are the rarest of the rare, and while “Sheep” also perplexes, its originality and intriguing docu-style approach make it impossible to dismiss as just another arty experiment. Debuting helmers Marianne Pistone and Gilles Deroo have crafted a prose poem on the randomness of life itself, at first focusing on a young man working as a prep chef and then, quite suddenly, introducing a freak event that changes the course of the picture and steers it down unexpected paths. “Sheep” should get a boost from Locarno’s tyro film award, heralding fest interest and deserved cult status. Sheep, or rather Mouton, is the nickname of the main character, real name Aurelien (David Merabet). Read More »

Synopsis:
Seven year old Sasha practices violin every day to satisfy the ambition of his parents. Already withdrawn as a result of his routines, Sasha quickly regains confidence when he accidentally meets and befriends worker Sergei, who works on a steamroller in their upscale Moscow neighborhood.Read More »

Quote:
The husband and wife team of director Jules Dassin and actress Melina Mercouri, who first enjoyed international success with the comedy Never on Sunday, collaborated for the last time on this powerful drama. Maya (Melina Mercouri) is a famous actress who is returning to the stage for a production of the classic Greek tragedy Medea, in which she will play the title character, a mother who murders her children. Kostas (Andreas Voutsinas), Maya’s former lover, will be directing Maya in the production, and when he discovers that Brenda (Ellen Burstyn), an American woman, is housed in a nearby Greek prison for killing her offspring, he suggests that Maya should meet Brenda as a means of better understanding her character. Read More »

IMDB wrote:
Nothing but silence.
Nothing but a revolutionary song.
A story in five chapters like the five fingers of a hand.Read More »

Rocha’s first film, a denunciation of exploitation and the superstition that helps maintain it; an exploration of ‘macumba’, the mixture of Christianity and African tribal religion whose superstition aids the successful subjugation and exploitation of the fishermen in the Bahia province.

Review from NY Times:
LEAD: ”BARRAVENTO” (”The Turning Wind”), opening today at the Public Theater, is the first feature by the highly regarded Brazilian director Glauber Rocha, who died at the age of 42 in 1981. The film, made in 1961, is about the efforts of Firmino, part revolutionary, part devil, to free the fishermen in his nativeRead More »

Quote:
Kaul’s film addresses the writings of Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh (1917-79), one of the main representatives of the Nai Kavita (New Poetry) movement in Hindi. Muktibodh also wrote several short stories, one of which provides the film with its title, and critical essays. The film integrates episodes from Muktibodh’s writings with material from other source, including a reinvented neo-realism derived from Muktibodh’s literary settings. The narrative is constructed around 3 characters. Ramesh (Gopi) iis one who speaks and enacts Muktibodh’s writings, functioning as the first-person voice of the text; his two friends, , Madhav (Jha) and Keshav (Raina), are Ramesh’s antagonists and interlocuters esp. in the debates about modernity. Kaul gradually minimizes the fictional settings until, in the remarkably shot sequences of the factory, the audience is directly confronted with the written text itself.Read More »

Synopsis:
Set in a rugged little Algerian mountain village, in a moslem culture, where male and female society works under a strongly patriarchal controlling influence. Insensitive and brutish Sidi has three wives, one-near suicide, and an adoptive son whom he beats and intends to force into a farcical marriage. Simple-minded Kaddour cannot find a bride and is eventually married to a mannequin dummy…Read More »