A tortured artist is stuck in an abusive relationship with a woman, whose torments (demonstrated through nightmarish scenes of disembowelment) are slowly driving him mad.Read More »

Ousmane Sembène was one of the greatest and most groundbreaking filmmakers who ever lived, as well as the most renowned African director of the twentieth century—and yet his name still deserves to be better known in the rest of the world. He made his feature debut in 1966 with the brilliant and stirring Black Girl. Sembène, who was also an acclaimed novelist in his native Senegal, transforms a deceptively simple plot—about a young Senegalese woman who moves to France to work for a wealthy white family and finds that life in their small apartment becomes a prison, both figuratively and literally—into a complexly layered critique of the lingering colonialist mind-set of a supposedly postcolonial world. Featuring a moving central performance by M’Bissine Thérèse Diop, Black Girl is a harrowing human drama as well as a radical political statement—and one of the essential films of the 1960s.Read More »

The only film by the visionary dancer and choreographer Uday Shankar is a utopian dream of cultural renewal and a celebration of Indian dance in all its variety. Unfolding as an epic film within a film, Kalpana tells the story of a dancer (the director himself) who is determined to open a cultural center and breathe new life into India’s traditional artistic forms. Meanwhile, the visible adoration between him and his lead dancer arouses the jealousy of his enterprising companion. A riot of ecstatic imagery—including swirling surrealist dance spectacles—is interwoven with anticolonial, anticapitalist commentary, making for a radical, proto-Bollywood work that is one of the most influential films in Indian cinema.Read More »

A guilt-haunted samurai warrior attempts to stop a massacre taking place.Read More »

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Anastacio, a football fan supporting the Sporting Club, meets the Baratas while on vacation with his family. They make friends and when Anastacio, his wife and two kids decide to travel from Lisbon to Porto to attend the Invicta/Sporting soccer game, The Baratas invite them in their home. What they do not know is that Anastacio is not a nouveau riche like them and when Juju, Anastacio’s daughter falls in love with Eduardo, the Baratas’son, things get complicated…Read More »

Manuli is smart enough to be an “anarchytect”, to deconstruct instead of construct, to disembody old legends or old authors giving them and their myths a completely new significance. Is in this spirit that he has constructed his body of work, consisting in some shorts such as Oh Peggy Oh!!!…Peggy Ye Ye (1989)Read More »

The rise and rise of the Fabulous Dorsey brothers is charted in this whimsical step down memory lane, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey play themselves in this vehicle for their excellent music. From being raised by their father who insists on them learning music, to the split that just saw their careers rise even further.Read More »

A former athlete runs a camp dedicated to reforming juvenile criminals, a tough job with no quick payoffs.Read More »

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Recording of the annual Christmas folklore street ritual Krampus in Austria, in which people dressed up as hairy monsters scare the wits out of the population. The accompanying metal soundtrack by The Melvins provides a curious American perspective.Read More »