On 22 June 1941, Germany and Romania attack Soviet Russia. Several days later, Curzio Malaparte, the Italian writer who would one day pen the novel « Kaputt », a war correspondent for « Corriere de la Sera », arrives in Iasi, in the north of Moldova, on his way to the front, which is nearby. He is incapacitated by a severe allergy and his only chance of recovery is to find a Jewish doctor, an allergologist who had studied in Florence, called Josef Gruber. All his attempts to find him are unsuccessful. While looking for him, Curzio discovers that in Iasi, several days prior to his arrival, a violent anti-Semitic pogrom took place and that a large number of the Jewish citizens of Iasi were deported by train and that Dr Gruber may be among them. In order to find him, Curzio, aided by Guido Sartori, the Italian consul in Iasi, tries to obtain an official warrant to bring Josef Gruber back. Read More »

In her debut feature, which has drawn comparisons to late French masters Rohmer and Rouch, Letourneur insightfully and humorously portrays the seemingly quite happy daily life of a small group of bohemian girls living together on the left bank in what they call their “Ranch.” A tight-knit circle of 20-somethings, Lola, Pam, Manon, Chloé and Jude—all played by non professionals, and all friends in real life—are smart, somewhat naïve, and often temperamental, spending their days drinking, smoking, laughing, dancing, gossiping, and discussing their love lives, until each realizes they must break from the group to pursue their own lives.Read More »

Sasha is a young girl living in a block flat with her family in Moscow. Once she falls in love with Antonin, a bohemian artist and hard drinker. Their short love affair is pulling her down, to the bottom of her subconscious. Overwhelmed with beautiful and frightening visions, she starts to paint – violently, until she can stand on her feet.Read More »

A verité legal drama about Judge Kholoud Al-Faqih, the first woman appointed to a Shari’a court in the Middle East, whose career provides rare insights into both Islamic law and gendered justice.Read More »

from amazon:
The Cinema of Norman Mailer: Film is Like Death not only examines the enfant terrible writer’s thoughts on cinema, but also features interviews with Norman Mailer himself. The Cinema of Norman Mailer also explores Mailer’s cinema through previously published and newly commissioned essays written by an array of film and literary scholars, enthusiasts, and those with a personal, philosophical connection to Mailer.Read More »

Evan wrote:
It is for the film Hi wa shizumi, hi wa noboru AKA Sunset, Sunrise (1973) by Koreyoshi Kurahara. The soundtrack was composed by Nino Rota in between the first two Godfather films. Unfortunately the film is not available online, but at least we have this to remember it by (at least until someone finally releases the film itself…maybe someday).Read More »

Uncle Deshan (played by Sun Yunkun) lives in a national-level poverty-stricken county on the plateau, and he himself is a well-known poor household. On this day, deputy county magistrate Liu (played by Zhao Shenglin) came suddenly and left him some money before leaving, which caused a sensation in the whole village. The village head (played by Jiang Zhikun) found Deshan and told him that deputy county magistrate Liu had sent two imported sheep to him to raise them properly. As a result, Deshan’s family fed the two babies like their ancestors. After many days, the sheep were not fattened, and even a little of the family’s savings were used. Reporters from the county came to interview, and after seeing it in the newspapers, the leaders at all levels were very satisfied. The township head (played by Chen Dajiang) also conveyed the opinions of the county leaders, asking him to find a way to let the sheep have cubs. A day of special singing. Unexpectedly, when the ewe gave birth, the lamb died, which made the mayor very anxious…Read More »

Quote:
“In all chaos there is a cosmos. In all disorder a secret order.” Experimental theater director Evangeline (Molly Parker) says this to her troubled teenage star Madeline (Helena Howard) early on in Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline, and it’s a sentiment the movie both takes to heart and persistently questions. Decker’s film, the best thing I saw at Sundance this year, is built around tension and chaos: Its unruly scenes emerge out of disorder, out of chants and shrieks and fractured images, and always threaten to fade back into abstraction. The focus slips; the camera drifts. Whispers and wails intrude. A simple dialogue exchange might suddenly splinter into tight-angled close-ups of a face; a shot might disintegrate into a shimmering field of red. But one senses a method in this madness. The narrative might be shattered, but the film’s slipstream of emotion is powerful and inescapable.Read More »

Quote:
A story of Naoufel, a young man who is in love with Gabrielle. In another part of town, a severed hand escapes from a dissection lab, determined to find its body again.Read More »