Fantasy

Quote:
Der kleine Prinz (1966/1972) has been even more thoroughly buried by history than the rest of Wolf’s work, or the corpus of DEFA production in general. The reasons for this neglect are multiple on the one hand, the film got caught in the crossfire of the Eleventh Plenum, which took place during the shooting of the film. Although the project had been conceived of as a vehicle for the eventual launch of color TV in the GDR (an undertaking that was repeatedly started and stopped), Heinz Adamock (1921-2010), Intendant of the DFF from 1954 to 1989, sought to get out of his commitment to fund the film, until Albert Wilkening insisted he honor it.Read More »

Harrowing drama is set in an alternate version of the 1990s in which World War II never ended and the citizens of Japan are subjected to nightly bombing raids.

Hakuchi (1999) is based off of Ango Sakaguchi’s novel of the same name and directed by Makoto Tezuka, Osamu Tezuka’s son. “Hakuchi” means “Idiot” (and is in reference to a mentally handicapped woman in the storyline). It stars my favorite Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano (Kakihara in “Ichi the Killer”, Mamoru in “Bright Future”, etc.) as a directing assistant named Izawa who works at a television station in a war-ravaged Japan. He gets harassed and abused by a pop star/actress named Ginga who he works for. One day Izawa returns home to find that the mentally-challenged wife of the crazy man next door is hiding in his closet.Read More »

This is a story of Protestant pioneers, a single family that travels into the wilderness following the prophetic misguidance of a single man whose desires outweigh his prudence. At the height of the witch terrors, this historical horror is more accurate than many another film, and does not overstretch its portrayals to suit audience expectation.Read More »

Synopsis:
An English mystery novelist invites a medium to his home, so she may conduct a séance for a small gathering. The writer hopes to gather enough material for the book he’s working on, as well as to expose the medium as a charlatan. However, proceedings take an unexpected turn, resulting in a chain of supernatural events being set into motion that wreak havoc on the man’s present marriage.Read More »

A wax museum hires a writer to give the sculptures stories. The writer imagines himself and the museum owner’s daughter in the stories.Read More »

Quote:
“The rule of coal is gone. The bios plants will provide power to the world from today!” In this rediscovery of Weimar cinema, a dystopian vision of unfettered capitalism that is eerily contemporary, a coal miner makes a Faustian pact with the otherworldly Algol, an alien who teaches him how to harness the energy of his home star and become the most powerful man on earth. Together they become megalomaniacal CEOs of the “Bios-Werke,” lording over the nations of the world by monopolizing renewable energy and by turning workers into slaves.Read More »

On Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the spirit of his former partner, Jacob Marley. The deceased partner was as mean and miserly as Scrooge is now and he warns him to change his ways or face the consequences in the afterlife.Read More »

The story unfolds as young Rosaleen lies dreaming in her bed. A violent nightmare transports her back in time to a world of primeval forests and werewolves. In this netherworld she learns that her only sister has been killed by a wolf. Her Granny weaves vivid tales of folklore and fantasy with warnings of fantastic beasts that lurk within men and foretelling the fate of all young girls who stray from the path…Read More »

A girl dies in a provincial summer house and is buried by her family. By night a wild dog unearths the corpse and takes it to the woods. Under the shade of the trees, the girl wakes up and decides to return home accompanied by the dog.Read More »