PLOT: Nicolas Klotz and Elisabeth Perceval’s works break down the boundaries between countries, languages and genres. Their new film mixes documentary, acting, dance and song to counteract a “politics of tracking” and advocate a radical change of approach. From the story, of a Brazzaville slave who must follow his master into death, to that of a Senegalese exile who finds himself reincarnated in Barcelona, to the trance of the Bela Vista carnival. When the House Burns Down is a visual poem that celebrates the collective dimension of life.Read More »
I diari di Angela – Noi due cineasti. Capitolo secondo recounts in the first place our private lives, revealing what we went through while the movies we were making–on the violence of war, on colonialism and fascism—took shape. The film draws on the writings of soldiers, the wounded and prisoners of war. The passages describe some of the battle sites and the boundaries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and show us the face and the acute gaze of Freya Stark at Asolo, as well as reminding us of the unmistakable voice of Walter Chiari in Soviet Armenia. In those years at the same time as the Trilogia della guerra we were working on a large installation called La marcia dell’uomo. Read More »
Quote: A tour of the Hotel des Invalides, and more particularly of the Army Museum and the Saint Louis Chapel. From François I’s armor to Guynemer’s airplane, to Napoleon’s and Marshall Foch’s tombs. But this is no ordinary tour,it is rather a chilling visit guided by Georges Franju and narrated by Michel Simon emphasizing – at times through biting humor -not the glory but the nonsense of wars, but their tragic aftermath.Read More »
Every day of her life, Angela kept a diary, filled with words and drawings, in which she recorded public and private matters, meetings, things she had read, everything. Including the account of two trips to Russia (1989-90). The period of the collapse of the USSR. A diary that she had been keeping in small Chinese notebooks, since before Dal Polo all’Equatore (1986), on our uninterrupted work on the violence of the 20th century. From our tours in the United States with the “scented films” of the late seventies to the Anthology Film Archive of New York and the Berkeley Pacific Film Archive… Now I reread these diaries and see again the film-diary of all those years. I am alone now, after many years of life and artistic work together.Read More »
While looking for the cast for another unfinished project, a director discovers his ideal actor, a boy at a baker’s shop. By the time he goes to hire the young boy for his film, the shopkeeper has fired him. What ensues is a search for the homeless child and, along the way, the discovery of his solitude, his survival techniques, and the mental and physical state of surrounding adults and children. When the director finally finds his actor, the young adolescent seems to need serious medical care.The film gives the public a view of the Iranian medical system; once again the inadequacies of the social system and its contradictions are highlighted. Jalili also elaborates on generosity, once a sacred notion, individual responsibility and human limitations. Seen as criticism of the current medical system, the film was withheld for three years and only released in 1998.A True Story has found its moving actor and a life story worth discovering, but the film unintentionally dragged Jalili towards the realm of melodrama. Of this film, Godard said ‘A True Story may turn out to be a film that is not made very well, but it will always be ahead of the art.’Read More »
The second short film by Alexei Balabanov, shot at the Sverdlovsk Film Studio in 1989. He tells about the formation of the legends of Sverdlovsk rock – guitarist Yegor Belkin and singer Nastya Poleva. In essence, “Nastya and Egor” is a logical continuation of the film “Before, it was a different time.”Read More »
British Bus driver’s amateur stage show of Ridley Scott’s Alien, accidentally makes it to a famous London theatre! With awkward acting and special effects requiring more luck than judgement, will their homemade homage be alright on the night ?Read More »
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Three film diaries of Taylor Mead, a superstar of underground film. Includes: My Home Movies (1964), Home Movies Rome/Florence/Venice/Greece (1965), and Home Movies/N.Y.C. to San Diego (1968).Read More »
There’s a moment in Bob Burnett and Alan Jones’s film about Keith Rowe, What Is Man and What Is Guitar? where Rowe is spending time with Christian Wolff and reminiscing about times they played together. Wolff tells a story about a show he played with AMM where his guitar wasn’t plugged in, but he played anyway. “You don’t know what you hear, who’s making the sounds – especially when it’s dark,” he goes on smiling, “It’s a wonderful kind of feeling … Am I doing that? Are you doing that?”Read More »
