Arthouse

Variety’s Robert Koehler:
Martin Rejtman takes a break from his droll contempo comedies and applies his sharp eye to the docu form with “Copacabana,” a largely non-verbal film about Bolivian emigres living in one of Buenos Aires’ poorest districts. Expectedly for Rejtman watchers, pic (helmer’s first in HD) is exquisitely composed and paced, but what surprises is work’s strong ethnographic qualities — docu records Bolivian folkloric dance performed for the annual Virgin of Copacabana celebration. With a prestigious fest and awards tally, doc’s content, under-hour playing time and Rejtman’s rep makes it a natural for tube play worldwide.Read More »

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Cas (filmmaker Courtney Stephens), an academic assistant and amateur musician, moves into her aunt’s old home. In the bedroom closet, she finds a cache of mysteriously labeled microcassette tapes, containing cryptic recordings of sounds ranging from everyday objects to abstract soundscapes. Cas’s curiosity to discover the origin of these tapes leads her on a meditative journey through unknown verdant Californian landscapes, encountering experimental music performances, eccentric shop owners, and early music treasures along the way. As her adventure progresses, the mystery unravels in equally enigmatic and enlightening ways, reflecting Cas’s own evolving relation with time and sound.Read More »

Inspired by Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Jean-Luc Godard Bernardo Bertolucci’s third feature is the schizophrenic parable of Jacob, a would-be revolutionary whose lonely existence is shattered by the appearance of his exact double at the moment he contemplates suicide. While his doppelganger urges Jacob towards a greater commitment to protest against the Vietnam War, the young teacher falls in love with the daughter of his academic predecessor, forging a romance that defies the revolutionary ideals of his alter-ego.Read More »

In a small village in southern Morocco, Amrouch cannot, because of his social position, marry the daughter of a wealthy farmer from the nearby village. Based on Federico Garica Lorca’s novel. This was filmed in French, but the DVD only had a Spanish dub.Read More »

A man invites a woman to share his room in a hostel in Djibouti because she seems to have some problems. Gradually he falls in love with her. They embark on a trip to the towns in the desert and, on the way, they learn more about each other. The man never appears on screen, so the camera becomes his point of view.Read More »

After opening a convent in the Himalayas, five nuns encounter conflict and tension – both with the natives and also within their own group – as they attempt to adapt to their remote, exotic surroundings.Read More »

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One of the most controversial productions by the late German writer-director Rainer Werner Fassbinder was his stage play The Garbage, the City and Death; when he sought to film the play in Germany, Fassbinder was denied state funds on the basis of a charge of anti-Semitic content. Swiss filmmaker Daniel Schmid, a film-school colleague and longtime friend of Fassbinder’s, undertook the project in 1976, employing Fassbinder’s now-familiar repertory company including Fassbinder and his then-wife Ingrid Caven. Set amid the Frankfurt lowlife–prostitutes, pimps, sadistic police and perverted businessmen–the story concerns a streetwalker (Caven) who is reportedly too chic for her own good and can’t make a go of it among her only available clientele. She is brutalized by her pimp (portrayed by a very slim Fassbinder), who continues to send her out on the streets while he indulges his preference for men. Luck comes her way in the form of a Jewish businessman (Klaus Lowitsch); he hires her only to listen to him talk and, occasionally, pose as his bride in the murky nocturnal street scene.Read More »

Different black-and-white animation techniques tell several scary stories. There’s a story of a teenage boy who meets the wrong girl. Another tale deals with a small community where people disappear and are never seen again. Then there’s the narrative of a little Japanese girl who suffers from horrible nightmares followed by a tale where a man doesn’t get the rest he hoped for in an old not-so-abandoned house. These stories are connected by the story about a man with a devilish smile and four enormous dogs from hell and by a woman’s monologue about her fears.Read More »

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“A Princesinha das Rosas”, maybe the most known of the series, and is about Naíde, a girl born from the union between a fisherman and a mermaid, adopted by monarchs of a country with no heirs, but to whom the call of the waters will inevitably attract. Noémia films the story with a naïve simplicity that accentuates the film’s dark fairytale tone.Read More »