Arthouse

An audiovisual amalgam which, carrying on from its predecessor, Histeria de España (Spain’s Hysteria), turns the Catalonia and Spain of the independence process upside down. With Kikol Grau as the film’s Chief Minister and the most irreverent voices from the native landscape (Carlo Padial, María Cañas, etc.) making mischief, it presents recent events and hysterical historic images that are blended into a cocktail that makes for a terrible hangover. It is a choral portrait that is above all ludicrous and tragic, starring figures from popular culture ranging from Alfredo Landa and Heidi, through to Pastis & Buenri, Sergio Ramos and even Top Gun.Read More »

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With minor-key delicacy, Bad Hair (Pelo Malo) focuses on a nine-year-old boy exploring issues of identity and desire that he doesn’t yet understand, and the exhausted mother socially conditioned to suppress his self-discovery. Venezuelan writer-director Mariana Rondon trains an unsentimental eye on these two loving but conflicted figures, viewed in the vivid context of a hostile, overpopulated city. The result is a spare neorealist drama that holds attention and emotional involvement with its deft balance of toughness and sensitivity.Read More »

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“Les dames du Bois de Boulogne is a 1945 film directed by Robert Bresson. It is a modern adaptation of a section of Diderot’s Jacques le fataliste (1796), telling the story of a man who is tricked into marrying a former prostitute. The title means “the women of the Bois de Boulogne”, a park in Paris. Les Dames was Bresson’s second feature and is an early example of his dramatic experimentation and innovations in reducing dramatic form to its bare essentials, signifying his status as an auteur, rather than simply a metteur en scène. It is also his last film to feature a cast entirely composed of professional actors.The film’s editing rhythms are similar to Bresson’s later work. However, while his later work often reflects Bresson’s personal Catholic beliefs and Christian-intellectual mentality, Les Dames is a more secular work. The redemptive ending is more secular than spiritual although it does establish Bresson’s later, more refined, thematic obsessions with redemption and salvation.”Read More »

Plot from IMDB: The feared bandit Cobra Verde (Klaus Kinski) is hired by a plantation owner to supervise his slaves. After the owner suspects Cobra Verde of consorting with his young daughters, the owner wishes him gone. Rather than kill him,the owner sends Cobra Verde to Africa. The only white man in the area, Cobra Verde finds himself the victim of torture and humiliation. Later, he trains soldiers in a rebel army. Far from home, Cobra Verde is on the edge of madness.Read More »

Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson:
Released shortly after Luciano Emmer’s documentary Picasso, H. G. Clouzot’s Le Mystère Picasso managed to attain better international bookings than the earlier film, largely on the strength of Clouzot’s worldwide hit Les Diaboliques. Like Emmer before him, Clouzot offers rare and precious glimpses of Pablo Picasso at work. The film traces two of the artist’s paintings, from inception to pencil sketch to final product. The director comes as close as humanly possible to defining the genius of Picasso within the parameters of the camera lens. Oddly, Le Mystère Picasso does not appear on many of the “official” lists of Clouzot’s films, even though it won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.Read More »

A very unique and incredible film, Rolando Klein made it in 1974 after spending two years living among the Tzeltal Indians of Chiapas, collecting stories, events, and anecdotes from their culture. A graduate of UCLA film school and of Chilean birth, Klein “returned to his Hispanic roots” at the urging of director and mentor Jules Dassin in 1972. A village is experiencing a drought detrimental to their crops and, resultantly, their survival. After only failure comes from consultation with their usual shaman, they attempt to gain aid from a mysterious diviner living in the mountains, who is said to practice the ancient ways forgotten by all else in the village. After securing his help, the diviner leads twelve tribesmen on a long journey as part of the rain-bringing ceremony. Eventually they return to the village to enact the ceremony proper, and incredible events ensue. In the meantime, there is always skepticism of the diviner’s abilities; indeed, he might be merely bewitching the village for his own purposes. Or is he…?Read More »

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The story of a Prague family who decides to buy a country cottage, but also with a “grandfather”, the original owner. He currently rents one room to them and promises to sell the whole house later. However, the sale itself is constantly postponed, so the eager Praguers are forced to live with him on weekends and holidays…

From the confrontation of people from the city and the rural environment, the authors Zdeněk Svěrák and Ladislav Smoljak were able to benefit from a number of unforgettable comedic situations, and at the same time very aptly describe the phenomenon of cottage farming, which spread in the 1970s.Read More »

Dariush Mehrjui did this for France 3, during his french exile. A biopic of Rimbaud, with visions of contemporary france.

Starring :
Pierre Bayle … Arthur Rimbaud
Mathieu Joly … Arthur Rimbaud at 8
Nicolas Joly … Arthur Rimbaud at 16
The Troupe del Theatre Ern Read More »

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The the visually stunning new Thai relationship drama Malila: The Farewell Flower, former gay lovers Shane and Pitch reunite after years apart and try to heal the wounds of their past. Shane is haunted by the tragic death of his daughter, while Pitch suffers a grave illness, rejecting medical treatment as painful and ineffective.

A talented artist, Pitch creates beautiful structures made out of flowers and banana leaves as a way to cope with his deteriorating health. Meanwhile, Shane trains to become a Buddhist monk, in an effort to build karma for Pitch… to either keep him alive or to help him along in his afterlife.Read More »