Arthouse

  • Peter Brosens & Jessica Hope Woodworth – Altiplano (2009)

    Drama2001-2010ArthouseBelgiumJessica Hope WoodworthPeter Brosens

    Quote:

    A mercury spill within the village of Choropampa during 2000 from a silver mine in the Andes is carried downslope to those living immediately below, producing blindness and other forms of sickness. In Altiplano the event is portrayed within a fictional Turubamba, Perú, where non-Spanish-speaking indigenous people center their lives around a Catholicism that puts much stress on the Virgin Mary. A clinic run by foreigners provides cataract operations, but none of the ophthalmologists is a general practitioner. When some die, they revolt against the only outsiders they know—the physicians, not the miners. Read More »

  • Bakur Bakuradze – Okhotnik AKA The Hunter (2011)

    2011-2020ArthouseBakur BakuradzeRussia

    Farmer Ivan Dunaev gets up early. He feeds his piglets, does paperwork, fixes the tractor, and weighs the meat he’ll take in his old pickup truck to the market to sell. He has a wife, a teenage daughter, and a young son. And he loves to hunt. His world revolves around these things. Then, one day, two new workers, Lyuba and Raya, on work release from the local prison colony, arrive on the farm. Ivan doesn’t notice it at first, but something begins to change.Read More »

  • Banu Sivaci – Guvercin AKA The Pigeon (2018)

    2011-2020ArthouseBanu SivaciTurkey

    Quote:
    ‘Maverdi. Won’t you talk to them? Why are you not going over there? They are your kind.’

    On a rooftop in Adana, Yusuf cares for the pigeons in his dovecote. His favourite bird is called Maverdi. To lure it even closer, he sometimes puts a seed between his lips for it to peck. The light grey pigeon is an outsider in the dovecote, just as Yusuf is in society, where he has to face ignorance and violence. The young man’s face rarely brightens up, and the pressure from his brother to go out to work makes things even worse. In her debut feature film, Banu Sıvacı evokes a genuine sense of empathy for the apparently fragile then fiercely rebellious loner who is fighting for a small joy that most people seem to begrudge him.Read More »

  • Aleksandr Dovzhenko – The Cultural Heritage [Disc 1] (1926 – 1928)

    1921-1930Aleksandr DovzhenkoArthouseSilentUSSR

    Love’s Berries 1926
    The mistress of hairdresser Jean Kovbasyuk throws a baby up to him. Jean decides in any method to be delivered from a “natural” child…Getting a call to the judicial investigator, Kovbasyuk is given up to search a child. A mistress labours for in the court of people’s “justice”. However much it turns out after registration of marriage, that Jean and in actual fact was not the father of child. But lately…Read More »

  • Aleksandr Dovzhenko – Arsenal (The Cultural Heritage) [Disc 2] (1928)

    Drama1921-1930Aleksandr DovzhenkoArthouseUSSR

    In Arsenal, Alexander Dovzhenko, perhaps the most radical of the Soviet directors of the silent period, altered the already extended conventions of cinematic structure to a degree greater than had even the innovative Sergei Eisenstein in his bold October. The effect of this tinkering with the more or less accepted proprieties of motion picture construction produced a work that is actually less a film than it is a highly symbolic visual poem. For example, in a more linearly structured piece like October, the metaphors, allusions, and analogies that arise through the construction of the various montages replace rather than comment on essential actions within the film. In Arsenal, however, the symbolism is so purposely esoteric, with seemingly deliberate barriers established to block the viewer’s perception, that the relationship of individual symbols or sequences to the various actions of the film is not immediately clear.Read More »

  • Aleksandr Dovzhenko – Zemlya – versions of 1930 & 1971 (The Cultural Heritage [Disc 3]) (1930)

    1921-1930Aleksandr DovzhenkoArthouseDramaUSSR

    Earh (1930) 59 min.
    Poetic cinema story about events related to collectivization in Ukraine at the end of 20th years of the last century, about creation of the first of a collective farm communes, about class enmity on a village.
    The best film Dovzhenko and one of the best films in history world to the cinema.
    A film “Earth” on the World exhibition in Brussels of 1958 was adopted among the twelve best films of all times and people as a result of questioning, conducted Belgian cinematic among 117 film critics andconnoisseurs of the films from 26 countries of the world. During many subsequent years “Earth” was multiple included in the various lists of the best films of the world of XX century.Read More »

  • Julie Taymor – Frida (2002)

    2001-2010ArthouseJulie TaymorQueer Cinema(s)USA

    Frida chronicles the life of artist Frida Kahlo (beautiful Salma Hayek) with her mentor and husband Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina), as they took the art world by storm. From their own complex and enduring relationship to her illicit and controversial affair with Leon Trotsky, to her provocative and romantic entanglements with women, Frida Kahlo lived a bold and uncompromising life as a political, artistic, and sexual revolutionary. Also starring Ashley Judd and Antonio Banderas.Read More »

  • Kaneto Shindô – Gogo no Yuigon-jo AKA A Last Note (1995)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaJapanKaneto Shindô

    Quote:
    Veteran Japanese filmmaker Kaneto Shindo was 82 when he directed this meditation on life, death, and loss. Following the passing of her husband, elderly former actress Yoko Morimoto (Haruko Sugimura) travels to her summer home in the mountains of Central Japan. Upon her arrival, her servant Tokoyo (Nobuko Otowa) has sad news for her — her long-time gardener has recently committed suicide. Adding to Yoko’s sorrow is the arrival of Tomie, an old friend from her days in the theater, who is traveling with her husband Tohachiro Urshikuni (Hideo Kanze), also an actor. Read More »

  • Roberto Rossellini – Il tacchino prepotente (1939)

    1931-1940ArthouseFantasyItalian Cinema under FascismItalyRoberto Rossellini

    This is an anti-Fascist short Rossellini made in 1940.

    Quote:
    La vispa Teresa was rejected and, although Ferrara said that Il tacchino was distributed by Scalera under its working title, “La perfida Albione,” there were no press notices, and no one outside of Scalera is known to have seen it. According to Ferrara, Rossellini told him it was a satire in which “Perfidious Albion,” a big turkey representing England, goes around pecking at the hens representing the nations of Europe, until defied by a rooster representing Italy. “Rossellini detested it,” said Ferrara, “[though his] genius was such that he could achieve extraordinary effects out of nothing. He used to tell me, ‘It’s the only time that, through my weakness, I made a work of propaganda.’”Read More »

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