Germany

Synopsis
Jupiter comes down from Mount Olympus and disguises himself as a mortal to romance a woman…Read More »

Kathi wants to make it as an actress in Berlin but she’s not particularly successful. She’s just the opposite of her control freak mother Chris, who is very successful at undermining Kathi’s attempts at independence.
When Kathi has to leave her 4-year-old son for a short while, Chris seizes the moment and takes her daughter’s child away.
To make matters worse, Kathi’s father Wolfgang suddenly appears because he wants to win back his ex-wife. Kathi finds herself caught between her parents. Wolfgang keeps reminding the two of them of the past until mother and daughter can no longer suppress their conflict. Kathi finally manages to confront her mother.Read More »

Synopsis (courtesy of Rovi):
Seventeen and Anxious was also released as O Happy Day. The film’s alternate title is a reference to a popular gospel song, which is performed often in the course of the action. The film’s official title alludes to the coming of age experienced by its youthful protagonists. The younger actors are green but eager to please, while the veterans in the supporting cast-including Nadja Tiller and Karl Michael Vogler-help make the film palatable for those among us not politely inclined to nervous teenagers. The film’s R rating is admittedly necessary, but should not suggest that the film is overtly offensive. Read More »

A “Three Movie Buffs” review:
This early Fassbinder film tells the story of two very different women, both friends, in a small German town. One is Berta an innocent maid and virgin who falls hopelessly in love with Karl, the first man she has sex with. The other woman is Alma the town slut. She is sleeping her way through all the soldiers (or pioneers as they are called) that are in town to build a bridge.Read More »

a review from the New York Times by Stephen Holden:
Quote:
In the opening moments of “Taiga,” a mesmerizing eight-hour journey into the nomadic tribal culture of northern Mongolia, the camera makes a slow 360-degree panning shot across the magnificent desolation of the Darkhad Valley, a remote steppe ringed by snowcapped mountains. The only sounds to be heard are wind, running water, bird calls and the moans of grazing herds of yak, sheep and goats.Read More »

Berlin 1943/44 (“The Battle of Berlin”). Felice, an intelligent and courageous Jewish woman who lives under a false name, belongs to an underground organization. Lilly, a devoted mother of four, though an occasional unfaithful wife, is desperate for love. An unusual and passionate love between them blossoms despite the danger of persecution and nightly bombing raids. The Gestapo is on Felice’s trail. Her friends flee, she decides to sit out the war with Lilly. One hot day in August 1944, the Gestapo is waiting in Lilly’s flat… (IMDb)Read More »

this is all imdb says about this film – Young girl becomes Alice in dreamland during menstruation. Wild dreams and nightmares about sexuality, vampirism, death, obsessions and other bizarre things.
The film visualizes the erotic nightmares of a girl, who, after a negative experience, suspects sex and violence behind every door. Without showing any emotions, Jessica F. Manera walks through her grotesque inner life, which seems to be turned inside out. This is pure horror and pornography. Sometimes, when things are exaggerated, the horror becomes comic, even in the darkness of the black-and-white film. It is not a relaxed, but overexcited and depressive cheerfulness, a shrill and anarchic orgy of rock music and fantasies about sex and violence.
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The official synopsis wrote:
On the women’s ship Orlando the flags of attack, leather, weapons, lesbian love and death are raised with a beauty which dispenses with a total domination of the viewer’s gaze.
The aesthetic is strictly stylized, exhibiting itself without overwhelming us.Read More »

The first of Schroeter’s series of documentaries about theatrical performers, Dress Rehearsal began as a commission by German television for a short report on the 1980 edition of the World Theatre Festival in Nancy, France. Inspired by a number of the performers at the festival, Schroeter created instead a feature-length film essay. In particular, he focuses on Pina Bausch and her troupe from the Wuppertal Tanztheater, the Japanese butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno and the American performance artist Pat Olesko. Out of an engrossing and entertaining collage of various impressions from the festival, including rehearsals, performances, interviews, readings and encounters onstage and off, Schroeter develops a meditation on the relationship between art and politics and presents an early formulation of his ideas about performance as a form of love.Read More »