Quote:
As the 1987 trial of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie unfolds on television, Victor Bastien (Hippolyte Girardot — Lady Chatterley) reviews old family documents and finds a distressing “Aryan declaration” authored by his late father, a discovery that throws Victor’s conception of his family’s history into darkness. His mother, Rivka (legendary actress Jeanne Moreau — Jules and Jim, Eva), keeps a stubborn silence about the past, while Tania (Dominique Blanc), his sister, defends their father’s declaration. At the same time, Victor’s wife (Emmanuelle Devos — Kings and Queen) and children grow concerned about his increasing distraction. Burning with the need to unearth the truth, Victor takes his family to the tiny village where Rivka’s parents were forced to hide during the war.Read More »

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Giorni di Gloria has been called “the first documentary on the Resistance” (Antonio Vitti) and “the most revolutionary film in existence” (Paolo Gobetti). I prefer the film’s own dedication:

«A tutti coloro che in Italia hanno sofferto e combattuto l´oppressione nazifascista è dedicato questo film di lotta partigiana e di rinascita nazionale»

“For all those in Italy who have suffered and fought Nazi oppression, this film is dedicated to the partisan struggle and national rebirth.”

The film is raw, brutal, humane, outraged and unflagging in its celebration of resistance in the service of political justice. The photography – credited to a dozen cinematographers, including Gianni Di Venanzo’s first film credit – is starkly beautiful.Read More »

Synopsis
Hans Meyer and Roland Lessafre are a couple of buddies who get mixed up with a white-slave trader. Pursued by a pair of mob-connected brothers, Lessafre is killed. Meyer retaliates by killing one of the brothers, then enlists the aid of his friend Anna Gael in tracking down the remaining sibling. When Meyer himself is killed, Gael is abducted by the slavers…Read More »

Introduction
A factory siren sounds, workers punch in, the machinery starts. A worker opens small bags under a spout that spews beans into the bag. The worker must open a new bag quickly before the spout…Read More »

Synopsis:
A story about a boy who gets into an adventure with a stranger hoping to meet his grandmother.Read More »

Quote:
Raised as a rigorous vegetarian, doe-eyed freshman Justine following in her parents’ footsteps, she is sent off to the reputable Saint-Exupéry Veterinary school where the black sheep of the family, her big sister Alexia, is already studying. There, young virginal Justine, leaving the familial shelter, will abruptly move into a mad new world of school traditions, vicious initiation tests and hard partying, utterly unprepared though for the rough year start only rush week’s mandatory hazing can offer. As a result, with Alexia reluctantly showing her the ropes but only halfway, Justine during the long-established trial of raw offal-eating, she will be forced to chew over her devout herbivorous beliefs and swallow a fresh chunk of bright-red rabbit kidney, unknowingly descending deep into her uncharted animalistic tendencies. Before long, repulsion will be replaced with an unprecedented, equally unquenched and palpable craving for raw meat, transforming Justine into a monstrous carnivore …Read More »

Plot summary:
The storyline centers around Sonell, a 30-something bachelor working as a translator of comics, who, when he laughs, makes a weird sound, frightening people away.
In order to deal with this he sees a psychiatrist…Read More »

In 1960s China, French diplomat Rene Gallimard falls in love with an opera singer, Song Liling – but Song is not at all who Gallimard thinks.

Quote:
René Gallimard, an accountant at the French Embassy in China circa 1967, is invited to a party at the Swedish Embassy where he sees a performance of highlights from Puccini’s opera, Madama Butterfly, performed by a Chinese ensemble led by the stunning star of the Beijing opera, Song Liling. René tells the beautiful chanteuse that he was captivated by her performance as the Japanese woman who kills herself when she is abandoned by her lover, a United States Naval officer. Song counters that it comes as no surprise that he likes it since the submissive Oriental woman is a typical Western male fantasy. Read More »

Does India have a national cinema? Does it, indeed, require one? Mrinal Sen is not quite sure. Yet, his latest celluloid essay, And the Show Goes On, a British Film Institute-funded tribute to the world’s largest movie industry in cinema’s centenary year, is quite polemically categorical about what India’s filmic output should be.

But can it ever be what it ideally ought to be? Again, Sen, as is his wont, is not forth coming with a clear answer. His prescription, however, is rather unambiguous: cinema should confront social realities, no matter how harsh; it cannot continue being as cavalierly escapist as it is in India and yet expect to be taken seriously on the global stage. As film director and critic Chidananda Dasgupta says on camera: “India lives too much by myth and too little by fact”. That, for Sen, is where the problem begins. And ends.Read More »