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Life, Death, God, Salvation, Revolution? Those living in the abyss have left the worst behind. Dostoyevsky’s “Devils” takes place in the transition between religious belief and materialistic ideology, foreshadowing not only the approaching death of God, but also the collapse of socialism. Written in the 1860’s, the novel opens not only a philosophical panorama of different types of human quest for transcendence, but also establishes such fateful bonds among those involved in the quest that in the end only state terror can prevent widespread annihilation. Beauty and terror mate before dusk.Read More »

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Márcia is a married woman with a son. She finds that her husband has an affair. She cheats him too and decides to go to Itaipava with her son. A black horse, free in the fields, attracts her. In the end, she comes back home and memories come back while watching the footage made by her son.Read More »

A film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Syndromes and a Century, the fifth feature from Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, is a spellbinding Buddhist meditation on the mysteries of love and attraction, the workings of memory, and the ways in which happiness is triggered. Mesmerisingly beautiful to look at, it is also laced with wonderful absurd humour.

Commissioned by Vienna’s New Crowned Hope festival in 2006, the film established Weerasethakul as one of the most exciting talents in world cinema today.

Dubbed ‘a hospital comedy of a somewhat metaphysical bent’, Syndromes and a Century is inspired by the Weerasethakul’s memories of his parents, both doctors, and of growing up in a hospital environment. The two central characters interact with a bizarre array of professional colleagues and patients with their various strange maladies, including an elderly haematologist who hides her whisky supplies in a prosthetic limb, a Buddhist monk suffering from bad dreams about chickens, and a young monk who once dreamed of being a DJ and now forms an intense bond with a singing dentist, whom he believes to be the reincarnation of his dead brother.Read More »

An intense drama of an adolescent adrift in an uncaring world, Bullet Collector is the powerful debut of Russian director Alexander Vartanov. A unique and visually striking work, the film examines the traumas of a wide-eyed 14-year-old boy, struggling to cope with a terrible home life dominated by an angry mother and a stepfather who can’t stand the sight of him. His school routine is plagued by brutal attacks from bullies, and his life becomes even more nightmarish after he is sent to a hellish reform school. Losing himself in an elaborate fantasy world where he is loved by a beautiful girlfriend and able to defeat his oppressors, the boy finds the reality of his situation continually shocking him back to a very different life. But is he actually just a timid teen destined for abuse, or will he gain the strength to fight off his attackers? Read More »

In the French countryside, Céleste loves a postman who leaves her just before she realizes she is pregnant by him. For nine months, the solitary woman tries to hide her pregnancy, awaiting her boyfriend’s return rather than the coming of the baby… (IMDb)Read More »

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Mamay draws on traditional Ukranian and Tatar folktales for its Romeo and Juliet-like love story and parable about chivalry and the struggle for freedom. Hundreds of years ago, in the wild steppes of Crimea that form an uneasy border between East and West, Europe and Asia, nomad and farmer, the proud Cossack Mamay falls in love with the Tatar beauty Omai. The title, like the storyline, holds a variety of different meanings taken from different cultures. In Turkic languages, it means “no one,” but it was also the name of a famous Mongol conqueror, the great grandson of Ghengis-Khan. In Persian legends, mamay literally means “the spirit of the steppes”.Read More »

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Gabbeh is a brilliantly colorful, profoundly romantic ode to beauty, nature, love and art. Mohsen Makhmalbaf originally traveled to the remote steppes of southeastern Iran to document the lives of an almost extinct tribe of nomads. For centuries, these wandering families created special carpets – Gabbeh – that served both as artistic expression and autobiographical record of the lives of the weavers. Spellbound by the exotic countryside, and by the tales behind the Gabbehs, Makhmalbaf’s intended documentary evolved into a fictional love story which uses a gabbeh as a magic story – telling device weaving past and present’ fantasy and reality.Read More »

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With an arresting mix of eroticism and horror, Oshima plunges the viewer into a nightmarish tale of guilt and retribution in Empire of Passion (Ai no borei). Set in a Japanese village at the end of the nineteenth century, the film details the emotional and physical downfall of a married woman and her younger lover following their decision to murder her husband and dump his body in a well. Empire of Passion was Oshima’s only true kaidan (Japanese ghost story), and the film, a savage, unrelenting experience, earned him the best director award at the Cannes Film Festival.Read More »

The setting is Vienna. A young American woman is brought to a hospital after overdosing on pills, apparently in a suicide attempt. A police detective suspects foul play on the part of her lover, an American psychology professor. As doctors try to save her life, the detective interrogates the professor, and through flashbacks we see the events leading up to the woman’s overdose; her stormy and intensely sexual relationship with the professor, her heavy drinking and numerous affairs, and her estrangement from her Czech husband. A darkly erotic study of several rather unsympathetic characters. Written by Marty CassadyRead More »