Drama

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In Hezké chvilky bez záruky (English title: Pleasant Moments), acclaimed director Věra Chytilová manages to make profound statements on the nature of humanity with such a striking concealment that most viewers won’t even notice them. It’s a continuation of her post-New Wave career; the surrealist masterpiece Daisies is often pointed to as her greatest achievement, but she continued to make equally important films under communist rule – they just had to be so subversive the censors wouldn’t even notice. One of my favorites is 1977’s Panelstory, the definitive story of life in a panelak (apartment complex) with biting political commentary so hidden that it makes it all the more worthwhile to discover. As a senatorial candidate from the political party Strana Rovnost Šancí, Chytilová no longer remains in obscurity. Unfortunately for some, her post-New Wave films still do. But for those of us willing to give them a chance, they’re still as relevant and sublime as her efforts from forty years ago.Read More »

Marie-Christine Questerbert’s La Chambre Obscure (The Dark Room) stands apart as a costume drama set in Italy in the 14th century.

Aliénor is the daughter of Gérard de Narbonne, a distinguished doctor of medicine of the 14th Century. She puts the skills she has inherited from her father to good use by curing the king of France of a life-threatening fistula. By way of recompense, she asks to marry Bertrand de Roussillon, whom she has loved since childhood. Alas, Betrand has no love for Aliénor, and rather than consummate the marriage he goes off to fight in Tuscany…Read More »

The relationship between artist-partners Tomas and Anja is put to the test after Anja gets a life-threatening diagnosis.Read More »

An engaged but apolitical nurse gets involved in a far-right political party. Based on numerous recent events in France it becomes about how Front National operates and how it is perceived by the French.Read More »

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Belmonte paints forests full of trees, naked men in strange positions, submarine fantastic scenes, men/animals hybrid creatures, gravediggers characters, well-built men going up stairs to the leap, love scenes below trees. All of his work, sometimes full of colors, shows loneliness and melancholy, but also beauty and attraction to the human body. Even though Belmonte shows himself distant to some of his family members, he is an emotional man who needs affection all the time; he is especially dedicated to his daughter, Celeste. When Celeste isn’t around Belmonte is kind of lost. There’s a new and important exhibition upcoming at the National Museum of Montevideo but Belmonte is thinking more about the changes inside his family: his ex-wife got pregnant by another man, and he feels Celeste is going to spend less time with him. Belmonte negotiates with his ex-wife about the amount of days he should live with Celeste, he wants more, he needs more days; but is not easy….Read More »

From Hong Kong International Film Festival:
Bernal’s impressive debut feature confirmed him as a prominent filmmaker who was not only capable of orchestrating a striking narrative, but also one that revealed the hypocrisy permeating the carnivalesque affairs of filmmaking. The story follows Ching, a stripper, who performs to the lustful stares of her patrons. Discovered by an idealistic film director, she rises to stardom and takes her lover Pinggoy, a taxi driver, into show business. Scrambling to the top, they reap fame and forture only to find tragedies awaiting. Bernal has made startlingly accurate observations of the dichotomies facing Philippine cinema and society, winning Best Film of the Decade in the country’s prestigious Gawad Urian Awards.Read More »

Alain, “a young wolf”, elegant and racy, is maintained by the princess Linzani. At the same time, he goes out with a girl of his age, Sylvie, who despite her bold attitude has never had a lover.Read More »

Two Vietnam deserters go their separate ways, become criminals and are eventually reunited.Read More »

Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid shows no signs of slowing down in this shattering follow-up to his bat-out-of-hell Synonyms. A film of radical style and splenetic anger, Ahed’s Knee accompanies a celebrated but increasingly dissociated director (Avshalom Pollak) to a small town in the desert region of Arava for a screening of his latest film. Already anguished by the news of his mother’s fatal illness (Lapid’s film was made soon after the death of his own mother, who had worked as his editor for many years), he grows frustrated with a speech-restricting form he is encouraged to sign by a local Ministry of Culture worker (Nur Fibak). The confrontation ultimately sends him into a spiral of rage aimed at what he perceives as the censorship, hypocrisy, and violence of the Israeli government. This boldly shot and conceived work, which won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, feels as though it has welled up from the depths of its maker’s soul.Read More »