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Brief piece for the television series Aujourd’hui en France (Today in France). The review of an exhibition by Miró at the Maeght Foundation offers the opportunity to approach the surrealist artist from the central themes of the filmmaker. The theater, the interrelation between the arts and the transformation of the children’s experience through art. The set turns out to be a work of Joan Miró translated into real life. First screening after her television showing in 1980Read More »
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After SEA OF YOUTH, the film team turned itself into a full-fledged collective: the Independent Screening Organization, or Jieso for short. This was the precursor to Ogawa Productions, and as the name indicates their focus was on reception. This was because they discovered there was no easy way to show SEA OF YOUTH. Jieso networked social movements and film fans across Japan to create an alternative distribution route. Their next film, FOREST OF OPPRESSION, turns to the phenomenon of students barricading themselves inside schools to various political ends. They chose Takasaki City University of Economics, and audiences were shocked by the vigor and violence of this protest in such a minor university. The film put Ogawa on the map.Read More »
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Joshua Oppenheimer is one of the world’s most renowned documentary filmmakers. His multi award-winning films The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014) have challenged and redefined perceptions about the very nature of documentary cinema.
Dušan Makavejev on THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.
In 1996, filmmaker Tatsuya Mori received permission to tape the inside activities of Japan’s religious cult Aum Shinrikyo—the enigmatic group that released sarin gas into Tokyo’s subway system in 1995. Focusing on the group’s bumbling, confused spokesperson Araki Hiroshi, Mori caught much more than the cult’s daily life with his camera. He captured the media frenzy that engulfed the group, the vicious tactics of undercover cops against cult members, and the anger of local residents who wanted to evict the cult from their community. Looking for more than a simple depiction of this controversial group, Mori exposes and examines the contradictions in Japanese society that would produce such a cult and then feed on it. This edgy, provocative documentary created a heated debate in Japan, where the cult still resides under a different name.Read More »
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Jean-Luc Godard full (98 min) Instagram Live 2020-04-07.
Legendary Filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard discussing the topic of «images in times of Coronavirus» with Lionel Baier – Head of ECAL Cinema Department.Read More »
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Uomini, anni, vita (People, Years, Life) is an allegorical film about the subservience of the people of the Caucasus (both Christian and Muslim alike) in general and Armenians in particular by the Soviet State. Mother Russia even makes on appearance in the beginning of the film in the form of a Saint, with all the Caucasian peoples being made to bow down to her.Read More »
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There has never been a documentary like “Land of Look Behind”. Relatively unknown due to poor distribution and New York Film Festival skullduggery, this breathtaking film presents a unique epic vision with quasi-dramatic elements and cinematographic wizardry. The non-reggae original soundtrack is outstanding, as is the reggae music of Bob Marley and Gregory Isaacs. The great documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog has called “Look Behind” the non-fiction film that has influenced him most over the last fifteen years. Indeed, this film’s peers are the best of Herzog, Bunuel’s “Land Without Bread”, Flaherty’s “Nanook” and Leacock-Pennebaker’s “Louisiana Story”. With thoughtful viewing, one will see this moving documentary actually end with a lovely little dream sequence. No American has come close to making a film this ingenious in the last thirty yearsRead More »
Relationships with the people you love most are often the most complicated. This is the problem Hania and her mother Ewa face during their sessions with a psychotherapist, filmed intimately and with the utmost respect by director Pawel Lozinski. The camera always focuses on one person at a time, revealing every emotion hidden behind the words and silences. The empathetic therapist carefully but purposefully peels away the hard layers under which mother and daughter shield themselves. Little by little, the personal tragedies that hamper their communication rise to the surface, as well as the source of the longing for love and acknowledgement that they find so hard to fulfill. The documentary takes place within four walls and a tight framework, yet at the same time it makes a long and fascinating journey to the inner recesses of the human mind: sometimes dark, sometimes warm, always familiar.Read More »
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In 1968, Ogawa decided to form Ogawa Productions and locate it at the newly announced construction site of Narita International Airport in a district called Sanrizuka. Ogawa chose to locate his company in the most radical of the villages, Heta. Some farmers immediately sold their land; others vehemently protested and drew the support of social movements across the country. Together they clashed with riot police sent in to protect surveyors, who were plotting out the airport. Summer in Sanrizuka is a messy film – its chaos communicating the passions and actions on the ground.Read More »