Quote:
Despite the voiceover, the text of which may seem old-fashioned, it is a loving evocation of jazz and blues,
of its origins and of some representatives. A film whose main interest lies, in my opinion, in the choice
and editing of archives (photos and films)Read More »
Synopsis
O Espectador Espantado is a documentary-essay about spectatorship, mixing interviews with staged actions in cinema theaters and other sites where we presently can watch moving images.
(imdb)Read More »
Quote:
Commissioned by French television, this is a short documentary on the neo-classical statues found throughout Paris, predominantly on the walls of buildings, holding up windows, roofs etc. (the title translates as ‘the so-called Caryatides’). As one might expect from Varda, the film is strongly feminist, as she draws out wider symbolic and social implications from these images of women holding up huge weights, both then and now, but it is playfully so. The film becomes much sadder when she talks about Baudelaire, whose Paris these ladies grace; his poetry, success, notoriety; his subsequent physical decline, loss of voice and death. These statues are now so familiar that they are barely noticed, but in mapping the mental geography of a city, foreign viewers will be ravished by this Rameau-soundtracked exploration of a forgotten Paris.Read More »
Wu Mi Le aka Let It Be is a documentary recording the lives of several old farmers in Houbi Township, Tainan Country. It generated discussion and debate in the Taiwanese civil society about the impact on agriculture due to its membership in the World Trade Organization.
It is selected as one of the Golden Horse’s 100 Greatest Chinese-Language Films in 2010.Read More »
Quote:
Dennis and Julie Parks left the eastern seaboard in the early 1960’s, settling in the former mining boomtown of Tuscarora, Nevada, population twelve. They spent the next twenty-five years operating and expanding their pottery school, raising a family and running a studio. A mining company, motivated by high gold prices, began a large open pit gold mining operation just outside of town in 1989. Nevada, encouraging mining, writes its laws to favor that industry’s interests over all others.Read More »
imdb:
After a life-threatening injury, a construction worker lies endlessly in wait to return home. A migrant poet-labourer leads students in dreaming of an afternoon river. One Muslim devotee cries while praying, wearing his “I [HEART] SINGAPORE” shirt. Having paid the average EUR10,000 “migration fee,” another fresh-faced youngster arrives, eager to try his luck here too. All this while, a social worker helping the transient-worker community in Singapore journeys to their motherland, Bangladesh, discovering deep pain and promise. The heartfelt, observational documentary I DREAM OF SINGAPORE interweaves the natural worlds and cityscapes of Bangladesh and Singapore.Read More »
Quote:
During the last half-century, Cambodia has witnessed genocide, decades of war and the collapse of social order. Now, documentary filmmaker Rithy Panh looks at an irreparable tragedy that is less visible, yet no less pervasive: the spiritual death that results when young women are forced into prostitution. Angry and impassioned, PAPER CANNOT WRAP UP EMBERS presents the searing stories of poor Asian women whose lives were violated and their destinies destroyed when their bodies were turned into items of sexual commerce.Read More »
The film investigates the death of Japanese exchange student Yoshi Hattori, killed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on October 17, 1992.Read More »
Quote:
Scenes from everyday life in Afghanistan. A film diary of sensitive intensity about what is new in the life of the people and which exists side by side with backwardness and attempted restoration of outdated structures.Read More »