Niko and Otar begin their professional career in a wine-producing cooperative. The two men are totally different: Niko is reserved, loyal and serious, while Otar is an opportunist convinced of his possibilities of succeeding. Niko establishes a sincere relationship with the workers and, because of his innate integrity, eventually enters into a conflict with Otar. The bottling of a wine which Niko considers to be of very bad quality but which the directors of the cooperative like, exacerbates the disagreement. The younger man will win the battle, which will be brought to an end with the help of the workers.Read More »

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Takahisa Zeze first assisted on three productions tailored to gay audiences by the Pink studios Shishi Productions and ENK Productions before releasing his first own feature-length film in 1989. Even this debut made it clear that the director, who had been socialized with politically engaged protest cinema, was set to exploit the artistic scope of the production context in a special way: Into the erotic film frame, Zeze carries the tragic love story between a member of the Korean minority and a Taiwanese prostitute, and turns in a previously unprecedentedly offensive way to the exclusion experienced by impoverished Asian migrant milieus in Japan – a theme that was to preoccupy the filmmaker again and again throughout his career. The setting is a pile-dwelling settlement near Tokyo-Haneda Airport that belongs neither entirely to land nor to water, an allegorically charged no-man’s-land backdrop also found in numerous of Zeze’s films to come. –Christian LenzRead More »

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1963’s Salut les cubains is a collaboration with Yves Montand that compiles Varda’s photojournalism from Cuba, ten years after the revolution, into a celebratory ode to the island, its people and culture, and the still-very-young socialist state. The images are striking from a historical standpoint, although they don’t hint quite yet at the more poetic direction toward which Varda’s work will evolve. Her photo-montage style recalls both Soviet revolutionary film and the Cuban documentaries of Santiago Álvarez, whose career was just beginning at this time. Moments are poignant, such as seeing Cuban director Sara Gomez cutting up around the ICAIC studios shortly before her death. But Salut les cubains’ dominant impression is one of boundless energy and the nation’s great hope in trying to forge a new way of life.Read More »

IMDb wrote:
In 1894, French Captain Alfred Dreyfus is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil’s island.Read More »

Europa 2005 – 27 octobre

Shot in Clichy Sous Bois, cauldron of the suburban riots that burned the winter of 2005, and composed of two panoramic shots of the substantion where Bouna and Zyed were killed whilst being pursued by the police. There is no voiceover and only one title to be translated for entire duration of this short: :Chambre a Gaz, Chaise Electrique” or “Gas Chamber, Electric Chair”. These shots and movements are repeated five times.Read More »

From the Midnight Eye review by Tom Mes:

“Miyoko is as much a biopic of Shinichi Abe as it is an adaptation of his manga. Inevitably so, since the manga was, if the film is to believed, thoroughly autobiographical, describing the daily lives and romantic entanglements of Abe and his sensual wife Miyoko. Slaving away without much success at first, Abe hits the mother lode when he decides to make Miyoko not just the model for his heroines, but the heroine period. But after the first volume is published, complications ensue. The couple’s most private details are there in the pages of the magazine for all to see and follow.”Read More »

The return of three Anglicized native people to their country, or the beginning of an encounter with the modern world that will destroy them.Read More »

The group of people gather at the house in Copenhagen suburb to break all the limitations and to bring out the “inner idiot” in themselves.Read More »

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Two icons of 60s cinema, Terence Stamp and Peter Fonda, go head-to-head in Steven Soderbergh’s stylish reworking of the lone avenger theme. Stamp plays Wilson, an ageing Cockney villain newly out of jail, who arrives in Los Angeles to ask some awkward questions. His beloved daughter, mistress of powerful rock promoter Terry Valentine (Fonda), has died in a car crash; but Wilson’s far from convinced it was an accident. With his gaunt, grim features and sparse white hair, Stamp’s a dead ringer for the angel of death. Or maybe, as Soderbergh hints with some intricate flashback and flash-forward cutting, the whole story is a dying man’s dream of vengeance. Echoes of Get Carter and Point Blank aren’t far to seek. Read More »