Arthouse

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David spends the last of his money on a room at the luxury hotel Waldhaus, where he plans to commit suicide. As part of his final act he invites his unsuspecting brother Gian along, ostensibly to spend his last days with him. Unexpectedly, Gian comes along with his girlfriend Valeria. David’s decision to end his life is constantly with them, and as the trio float through the days at the hotel, they come face to face with their past, unfulfilled dreams and an almost unbearable present. Eventually, Valeria becomes so captivated by David’s suicidal romanticism that the three of them end up in a ménage à trois – either their salvation or the end for each of them.Read More »

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One of the wonders that a good movie can sometimes achieve is to take us entirely outside the framework of the society to which it will eventually be shown. Fred Schepisi’s “The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith,” an Australian film about a half-aborigine who goes on a savage murder spree against whites, is a movie like that. Its story is told entirely in the moral terms of the raw Australian outback of about 1900, and the racial attitudes in the movie are firmly drawn from that period.Read More »

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Two emotionally distraught lovers find life is too much for them and enter an insane asylum. He is beaten and watches as she is raped. An attending physician fondles and kisses her during an examination in front of an X ray machine. The poor girl is driven to suicide, and the man learns too late of the psychological and physical assaults that led to her death in this tragic drama. This feature was invited to appear at the Venice Film Festival in 1970.Read More »

From the Chicago Reader
One of the best films of James Benning, one of this country’s leading experimental filmmakers, is this multifaceted look at the landscape and history of Utah (or Deseret, as the Mormon Church prefers to call it). Benning condenses 93 news stories from the New York Times from 1852 to 1992 (read offscreen by Fred Gardner) and sets them against contemporary Utah landscapes, the shots changing with each sentence. Benning’s eye for evocative beauty is as sharp as ever, and his complex invitation to the viewer to create a narrative space between his separate elements keeps this 1995 film continually fascinating. 82 min.Read More »

Locarno International Film Festival
1969 Won Golden Leopard

The best Chilean film ever made.
This movie is the best portrait of Chilean society. Ruiz show us like a group of little people with little problems, with a very special way of life. The strangest Spanish in all South American with the funniest accent too. This movie is like Martin Scorsese’s Mean Street but without the crime ingredient. You must see it if you wanna know what’s to be a Chilean, how you can feel believing that you’re in the center of the world but actually living in the end, almost hanging from the continent. Raul Ruiz right now is living in Paris and making the most bizarre but fascinating films of the french production. “Tres tristes tigres” is very difficult to find but if you can, i tell you that you’ll have a real gem.Read More »

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The Conscript (Dutch: De loteling) is a 1974 Belgian drama film directed by Roland Verhavert based on the eponymous novel published in 1850 by Hendrik Conscience. It was entered into the 24th Berlin International Film Festival. It was also selected as the Belgian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 47th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.Read More »

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The unconscious dream state that connects each of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s films begins in his latest when frequent collaborator, Jenjira Pongpas (Her characters’ names devolving film to film from ‘Pa Jane’, ‘Jen’ and now simply ‘Je’), stumbles into the frame with her ft. high platform sandal keeping her stumpy left leg in proportion with her right. This familiar image is the proverbial blanket Weerasethakul pulls over his audience, tucking the viewers into his familiar world, allowing for a communal drift into his drowsy landscapes. It’s only a testament to Weesrasethakul’sself awareness as a filmmaker that he has a narcoleptic soldier drop into a lethargic mess as we see him glance upon a movie screen, reflecting how he makes his films onto the characters who inhabit them. This scene, among others, provides a self reflexive exploration of Weerasethakul’s oeuvre, adding to a film that exudes more passion, thoughtfulness and complexity than any of his other major works.Read More »

Synopsis
In the American suburbs, over the course of languorous summer days and nights, two women mysteriously and sensuously enter into a twitchy, sensuous symbiosis. A hypnotic performance piece, it is a slow-burning, saucy, abstracted fable on the longing and laboring female body.Read More »

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In 1998, the Festival de Cannes created the Cinéfondation to inspire and support the next generation of international filmmakers. Since then, with the help of the Festival, the Cinéfondation has developed complementary programmes to help achieve its goal.
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Nine years ago the Cannes International Film Festival established Cinéfondation, a not-for-profit organization that promotes the work of student filmmakers. In 2007, an international jury headed by Jia Zhangke (China), and including J.M.G. Le Clézio (France), Niki Karmi (Iran), Dominik Moll (France/Germany), and Deborah Nadoolman Landis (USA), handed out four awards to filmmakers from schools in Argentina, China, Korea, and Serbia.
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