Overview
Lo que le pasó a Santiago aka What Happened to Santiago (1989) is directed by Jacobo Morales, Puerto Rico’s most prominent director. It is the first (and so far only) Puerto Rican film to be nominated for an Academy Award for best Foreign Language Picture and, at the time of this upload, the earliest Puerto Rican movie on KG.Read More »
Roy is a handsome Surinam man, who studies in Amsterdam. He hurriedly left his Dutch girlfriend Karina to visit his dying mom in Paramaribo. Back in his homeland, Roy soon becomes obsessed with his own country and its culture. When he falls for the Hindu nurse Rubia, the conservative Hindu and Black communities are in revolt. One day Karina arrives in Surinam too.Read More »
In Jean Gentil, a man looks for a job in a cacophonous city that wouldn’t notice if he had never existed. He’s wearing a tie and the kind of sadness that removes from the face any immediately recognizable expression—the awkward and self-effacing sadness of the unwelcome immigrant. The man (Jean Gentil, playing a filmic version of himself) is an unemployed Haitian polyglot in Santo Domingo with a background in accounting and a tendency to question whether or not he’s even alive. While initially aiming for an office job in line with his experience and goals, he quickly has to settle for a construction job and a hard floor to sleep on after being evicted. He eventually makes his way to the countryside, where he retreats from the unforgiving madness of the big city and, ironically, away from “civilization” he can finally find a place to sleep, something to eat, and water to bathe.Read More »
Documentary about the effects of market economy and globalization on director Raoul Peck’s homeland, Haiti.
Icarus Films wrote:
Who said that the economy serves mankind? What is this world where one third of the population, in the rich countries, or more precisely the wealthiest two percent in these countries, control everything? A world where the economy is law, where this law of the strongest is imposed on the rest of humanity? Why do we accept this cynical and immoral state of being? What happened to Solidarity? And to the militants? These are the questions Profit & Nothing But! asks.Read More »
Amaryllis Campos is a young, classically trained Latina ballerina, who dreams of leaving her impoverished home in Puerto Rico to pursue fame and fortune as a dancer. Amaryllis heads for New York City, where she is forced to work in a seedy strip club to make ends meet. Setting audiences afire with her erotic moves, Amaryllis quickly becomes the strip club’s hottest attraction, but must finally decide between true love and realizing her dream of becoming a star.Read More »
A story of conflict between the police and the Black community in Notting Hill at the start of 1970s.Read More »
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Review (Popeye Pete, The Deuce: Grindhouse Cinema Database)
Director/Producer Perry Henzell created one of the most popular films to come out of Jamaica. The Harder They Come was a triumph for the Jamaican culture and it gave an honest look at life within the ghettos of that part of the world. It also became a legendary cult film. Ivan (Jimmy Cliff) is a country boy looking for fame and fortune in the big city of Kingston, Jamaica. He has dreams of becoming a star in the new reggae scene. When Ivan gets to town, he finds out things wont be as easy as he expected. When Ivan visits his mother and she explains that even though he has good intentions hes headed for a rough road ahead.Read More »
One of Hondo’s enduring masterpieces, West Indies is a stunning widescreen musical that takes place entirely on a single set – a giant slave ship that symbolizes the triangular relationship between Africa, Europe and the Caribbean – as it explores the parallels between the forced migration of the Atlantic slave trade and the contemporary migration of Afro-Caribbean subjects to former colonial metropoles. In a breathtaking display of virtuosity, Hondo deftly uses an array of filmic techniques (a vertically oriented mise en scène, dexterous tracking shots, beautifully orchestrated long takes) to explore four centuries of history within his single location, signalling temporal shifts through fluid camera movements and sumptuous staging; meanwhile, the remarkable range of musical styles, witty, poignant, and rousing lyrics, and brilliant choreography dazzle the senses and invite the spectator to join in the struggle to transform the world. –Aboubakar SanogoRead More »
Set in Brooklyn, New York this Dutch film is based on a true story that appeared on a New York newspaper in 1980. Desirée lives in the past. A series of flashbacks expose us to her psychologically troubled childhood very much affected by a promiscous mother. Her present life evolves around three people: her employer Mrs. Resnick, Freddy, her lover and Father Siego, leader of the church “The True Confessors”. Desirée’s relationship with each one of these characters is at the origin of her falling apart. Freddy is an insecure black man who finishes their love affair with a sad note, Father Siego is the leader of a rigid narrow-minded religious sect and Mrs Resnick is a racist, prejudiced white woman who feels black people are inferior and incapable of living their own live. Rejected by all because of her pregnancy, Desirée blames her child as the source of evil. She is then possessed by evil and wants to exorcise it. The only way is to get rid of her daughter…Read More »