Arthouse

A group of men set out in search of a dead body in the Anatolian steppes. (IMDb)Read More »

Both trifles and structure are tossed out the door by director Ken Russell in this film. Here, historical content matters not so much as metaphors, feelings, emotions, and interpretations, and pay close attention, as every word and frame is intended to be important. The film takes place on a single train ride, in which the sickly composer Gustav Mahler and his wife, Alma, confront the reasons behind their faltered marriage and dying love. Each word seems to evoke memories of past, and so the audience witnesses events of Mahler’s life that explain somewhat his present state. Included are his turbulent and dysfunctional family life as a child, his discovery of solace in the “natural” world, his brother’s suicide, his [unwanted] conversion from Judaism to Catholicism, his rocky marriage and the death of their young child. The movie weaves in and out of dreams, flashbacks, thoughts and reality as Russell poetically describes the man behind the music.Read More »

A Western couple (played by Melissa Leo and James Wilby) working in Pakistan visit an unconventional holy shrine to harness its spiritual powers to help them conceive a child. They are lavished with the attentions of the shrine’s leader (an exceptional performance from Zia Mohyeddin – Lawrence of Arabia, Khartoum) and her followers, but their methods and motives are not all that they seem, and the couple’s lives are plunged into darkness.

This ravishing, unsettling film from director Jamil Dehlavi (The Blood of Hussain, Born of Fire) is a deeply personal work which raises questions of cultural and sexual identity, religious fanaticism and the abuses of power. The brand-new 2K restoration from the original negative was supervised and approved by Dehlavi and cinematographer Nic Knowland.Read More »

The internet is an integral part of Rudolf Thome’s feature, VENUS TALKING. Novellist Venus lives with her family out of Berlin and moves temporarily to the city where she is starting to write a new book. Her fans can watch her via a webcam. Away from husband and children she begins an affair with Fabrizio…Read More »

PLOT: “Before we started work on the film “Les Favoris de la Lune” , I tried to capture on film my first impressions of the city and the people who inhabit it. This etude of Paris, slightly shortened, was shown on television.” – Otar IoselianiRead More »

Synopsis
Natalia and Carlos, both aged 20, are in love and struggling to survive in today’s Spain. Their limited resources prevent them from getting ahead as they’d like to. They have no great ambitions because they have no great hopes. To earn some money, they decide to shoot an amateur porno film. The birth of their daughter Julia is the main catalyst for the changes they make.Read More »

Quote:
Icelandic Film Centre wrote: The film is based on the novel by Indridi G. Thorsteinsson, which is set in a remote valley in the North of Iceland in the year 1937.The slump and sheep disease are crippling farming; young peple are streaming to the centres of urban expansion in this period of rapid economic and social change in Iceland. One farmer and his sons live in the valley alone with their debts and anxieties. The ties which bind the father to the land he has cultivated and lived upon are unbreakable.Read More »

Quote:
The intertwining storylines of an art dealer, a thief, a police chief inspector, a gun dealer, an inventor, a beautician, several bums, and a crazy old man play out as an 18th century chinaware set and a 19th century portrait pass in and out of their hands. This absurd, hilarious, intricate and surreal cinematic Rubiks cube examines the bizarre twists of fate that draw people and possessions together and apart.Read More »

Old Thorgeir must leave his home far off in the Icelandic ‘countryside’ and move into a home for senior citizens in Reykjavik. There he meets his long-lost love from his childhood, Stella. Thorgeir soon becomes unhappy living there and together with Stella he steals a jeep. Together they leave the city for Stella’s old home in northwestern Iceland.Read More »