Arthouse

  • Shunji Iwai – Rabu reta AKA Love Letter AKA When I Close My Eyes [+commentary] (1995)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaJapanShunji Iwai

    Synopsis:
    Hiroko Watanabe’s fiancé Itsuki died two years earlier in a mountain climbing accident. While looking through his high school yearbook, Hiroko in a fit of grief decides to write a letter to him using his old school address. Surprisingly she receives a reply, not from the dead Itsuki, but from a woman with the same name whom had known Hiroko’s fiancé in school. A relationship develops between the two women as they continue to exchange letters and share memories of the dead Itsuki.Read More »

  • Aleksey German – Trudno byt bogom AKA Hard to be a God (2013) (HD)

    2011-2020Aleksey GermanArthouseRussiaSci-Fi

    Svetlana Karmalita wrote:
    A group of scientists are sent to the planet Arkanar to help the local civilization, which is in the Medieval phase of its own history, to find the right path to progress. Their task is a difficult one: they cannot interfere violently and in no case can they kill. The scientist Rumata tries to save the local intellectuals from their punishment and cannot avoid taking a position. As if the question were: what would you do in God’s place? Director’s statement Aleksei wanted to make this film his entire life. The road was a long one. This is not a film about cruelty, but about love. A love that was there, tangible, alive, and that resisted through the hardest of conditions.Read More »

  • Jack Bond – Dali in New York (1965)

    USA1961-1970ArthouseDocumentaryJack Bond

    Filmmaker Jack Bond and Salvador Dali got together at Christmas 1965 to make Dali in New York, a highly entertaining film. Dali devoted two weeks of his life to creating extraordinary scenes for the film, performing “manifestations” with a plaster cast, a thousand ants and one million dollars in cash. When he confronts the feminist writer, Jane Arden, sparks fly. “You are my slave!”. “I am not your slave”. “Everybody is my slave”.Read More »

  • Apichatpong Weerasethakul – Cactus River (2012)

    2011-2020Apichatpong WeerasethakulArthouseShort FilmThailand

    SYNOPSIS
    Since she appeared in my film in 2009, Jenjira Pongpas has changed her name. Like many Thais, she is convinced that the new name will bring her good luck. So Jenjira has become Nach, which means water. Not long after, she was drifting online and encountered a retired soldier, Frank, from Cuba, New Mexico, USA. A few months later they got married and she has officially become Mrs. Nach Widner.Read More »

  • Man Ray – Le retour à la raison AKA Return to Reason (1923)

    1921-1930ArthouseExperimentalFranceMan Ray

    More a work in experimental Dadaism than a film, «Le Retour à la raison» was the first film to be made by the celebrated surrealist artist, Man Ray. The American-born artist made the film soon after he moved to Paris in the early 1920s to found the Dada movement.
    The film is very short (three minutes in length) but includes some astonishing and evocative images. The early segments of the film iillustrates a technique which Man Ray pioneered in static photography, the rayograph (or photogramme). Here, an object is placed between a light source and photo-sensitive film, in contrast to traditional photography where photographic film captures light reflected off an object. Read More »

  • Wojciech Staron – Syberyjska lekcja AKA Siberian Lesson (1998)

    1991-2000ArthouseDocumentaryPolandWojciech Staron

    The first documentary by Wojciech Staroń. He just finished film school, his wife Małgosia just became a teacher. The year is 1997. They decide to go for a year deep into Siberia: she’ll teach Polish, he’ll shoot a film. And this is that beautiful film, narrated in the first person by Małgosia as she meets all sorts of colorful characters and reflects upon reality with her beautiful, monotone voice, seeing the good in people individually and collectively. This is also about her transformation in this travel undertaken in the centuries-old fashion of the observer who, by observing others, observes herself.Read More »

  • Evald Schorm – Kazdy den odvahu AKA Courage for Every Day (1964)

    1961-1970ArthouseCzech RepublicDramaEvald Schorm

    Synopsis:
    “Everyday Courage” or “Courage for Every Day” is a beautifully made fllm of great poetic restraint about a young man living in Prague before the collapse of communism. It is best described as belonging to the school of realism which marked the Czech films of the sixties, and its director, Evald Schorm, was noted for his refusal to compromise the subject matter or style of his films with the regime which controlled the film studios. An admirer of the films of the British director Lindsay Anderson, “Everyday Courage” has similarities with”This Sporting Life”, its hero striving to escape the repressive forces of a society against which he rebels, but which ultimately demoralizes him and undermines his personal relationships. The winner of the International Film Festival in 1965 it has been notably neglected, and was one of the most moving and lyrical films to emerge from the Czech school.Read More »

  • Borhane Alaouié – Lettre d’un temps d’exil AKA Letter from a Time of Exile (1988)

    1981-1990ArthouseBorhane AlaouiéDocumentaryLebanon

    Alaouié presents the stories of four exiles from Beirut. Their only connection is the voice of the narrator and their situation of living in exile in Europe. Told with a subtle humor, the film sketches four highly individual portraits of people, whose lives have taken unexpected turns due to the madness of the Civil War.Read More »

  • Vladimir Kobrin – Gruppovoy Portret v Natyurmorte AKA The Group Portrait as Still-Life (1993)

    Arthouse1991-2000ExperimentalRussiaVladimir Kobrin

    The unsettling atmosphere of enclosed space formed the basis of visual reflection on death.

    A man sooner or later begins to think about death… Film is about the interdependence of the world of the living and the dead, and how the world of the dead have influence on the thoughts and actions of living people.

    WINNER! Best Documentary Film at the Russian Academy of Motion Picture Arts “Niko” Awards (1993)Read More »

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