• Mark Rappaport – Sergei / Sir Gay (2016)

    Mark Rappaport2011-2020DocumentaryQueer Cinema(s)Short FilmUSA

    Quote:
    Sergei Eisenstein, one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, was also a brilliant plastic artist. His thousands and thousands of drawings are superb–as are the hundreds of homoerotic drawings he made for his own amusement, never meant for publication. In this video, the homoerotic references in Eisenstein’s films are examined and explored in ways that they never had been before.Read More »

  • Nigina Sayfullaeva – Vernost AKA Fidelity (2019)

    Drama2011-2020Nigina SayfullaevaRussia

    Quote:
    By the age of 30, Lena was able to achieve good results in life. She worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist. Colleagues respected, and happy patients tried to thank her. Her personal life also developed quite safely. Husband Sergei worked as an actor in a drama theater, showed concern and did not interfere in affairs, but recently she began to notice serious changes in his behavior. Another fact is that they did not have sex. One day she reads one of her husband’s text messages, she is convinced he is cheating on her. At one point, she does not stand up and in revenge cheats with a little-known man. For her, a new world unexpectedly opens up, filled with passion and incredible emotions, which she uses for her emotional state. But constant betrayal is becoming an integral part of double life.Read More »

  • Lav Diaz – Kagadanan sa banwaan ning mga engkanto AKA Death in the Land of Encantos (2007)

    2001-2010ArthouseLav DiazPhilippines

    Quote:
    A Filipino poet hearkens back to his village after spending years in Europe. Horrified to discover that the community has been buried under landslides, he begins wandering through the countryside, reconnecting with friends, lovers and family members whose lives teeter on the brink of destruction.Read More »

  • Masaharu Take – Jû AKA The Gun (2018)

    2011-2020DramaJapanMasaharu Take

    The adaptation of a Akutagawa Prize-winning novel about a young man who becomes obsessed with a gun he’s found, a noir-tinged tale shot mostly in luminous black-and-white.Read More »

  • Désiré Ecaré – Concerto pour un exil (1968)

    1961-1970African CinemaCôte d'IvoireDésiré EcaréDrama

    Synopsis:
    A group of African students in Paris are reaching the end of their studies. Should they return to their newly independent homelands or should they try to forge a home for themselves in a hostile and indifferent France ? In a very moving and atmospheric film, clearly influenced by the French New Wave, Ecaré beautifully captures the radicalism, sensuousness and ennui of the late 1960s Latin Quarter , as well as his characters’ sense of displacement and isolation.Read More »

  • Vincente Minnelli – The Cobweb (1955)

    1951-1960DramaUSAVincente Minnelli

    Plot Synopsis:
    William Gibson’s novel The Cobweb was brought to the screen by MGM with an impressive, hand-picked cast. Richard Widmark plays the head of a posh psychiatric clinic. Widmark’s wife Gloria Grahame jockeys for the honor of selecting new drapes for the hospital’s library. One wouldn’t think that such a trivial decision would spark so much melodrama; but thanks to those drapes, we are allowed to probe the disturbed psyches of martinet business affairs director Lillian Gish, philandering doctor Charles Boyer, lonely activities director Lauren Bacall, and suicidal patient John Kerr. Oscar Levant, who spent most of his life in and out of “little white rooms”, is ideally cast as a neurotic musician, while Fay Wray has a superb cameo as Boyer’s long-suffering wife. Cobweb served as the screen debuts for both John Kerr and Susan Strasberg. by Hal EricksonRead More »

  • Daisuke Itô – Oatsurae Jirôkichi kôshi AKA Jirokichi the Rat (1931)

    Daisuke Itô1931-1940AdventureJapanSilent

    The only completely preserved silent film directed by Daisuke Ito, this film relates the life of a legendary thief, Jirokichi the Rat in an exquisite original story and through the revolutionary use of dynamic intertitles. The skillful benshi narration featuring a mixture of Edo dialect and Kansai dialect is highly entertaining.Read More »

  • Frantisek Pilát & Otakar Vávra – Svetlo proniká tmou AKA The Light Penetrates the Dark (1931)

    1931-1940Czech RepublicExperimentalFrantisek PilátOtakar VávraShort Film

    Quote:
    Zdenek Pešánek created the first public kinetic sculpture, for the power station in Prague. This short experimental film focuses on a kinetic sculpture by Zdenek Pešánek. For a period of eight years it issued beams of light from the outside wall of a transformer station at Prague’s power utility before its destruction in 1939. Though genuine, these shots seem abstract to us. They are a rhythmically assembled ode to the light-creating devices and phenomena of electricity. Light arcs, coils, bulbs and various luminous elements support the alternation of positive and negative film images, creating an impressive universe of light and shade. In the 1920s, Pešánek had obtained financial support for his work with electric kinetic light art. In the 1930s, he was the first sculptor to use neon lights. He built several kinetic light pianos, and published a book titled “Kinetismus” in 1941.Read More »

  • Peter Nestler – Der offene Blick – Künstlerinnen und Künstler der Sinti und Roma AKA The Open View – Artists of the Sinti and Roma (2022)

    2021-2030DocumentaryGermanyPeter Nestler

    »The Open View – Artists of the Sinti and Roma« presents artists of the Sinti and Roma who shape the trauma of persecution and very personal experiences in their works. They use a wide variety of forms of expression and means, but what they all have in common is an open view.
    Peter Nestler succeeds in making this tangible by meeting them without cultural fixations and at eye level. Gitta Martl and her daughter Nicole Sevik read short texts. They commemorate the Sinti and Roma in the Austrian »gypsy detention camp« Weyer.Read More »

Back to top button