Mania is the venerable Burke and Hare story, previously cinematized by producer Val Lewton as The Body Snatcher. Peter Cushing plays a respectable 19th-century Edinburgh doctor who needs fresh cadavers in order to continue his crucial research. Since the exhuming of bodies for medical purposes is illegal, Lee must rely upon grave-robbers George Rose and Donald Pleasance for his corpse supply. What Lee doesn’t know is that Rose and Pleasance frequently cut out the middleman by “creating” their own corpses. The good doctor catches on when the latest cadaver turns out to be his own fiancee. Its excessively violent climax has prevented Mania from being shown completely intact on commercial television.Read More »

Independent filmmaker Nina Hedenius Det speglar i mitt öga [My Eye Is Reflecting] is a poetic film on the act of seeing and on the details that rarely gets our attention. The film is a collage of diverse scenes depicting life, death, objects and people; a Swedish crayfish party, a classroom, cows in the meadow, the Stockholm subway… With musical effects by Ralph Lundsten.Read More »

Synopsis
The story of four fellow students who fall in love with the same girl (Adriana / Maria Perdiki), who has shook up their lives with her unexpected appearance as well as her enigmatic presence, and who will give them up in the same dramatic way, as if she never existed. The incurably romantic Takis Kanellopoulos returns to his favorite theme of “lost youth”.

This autobiographical film by Takis Kanellopoulos won an honorary photography distinction at the 19th Thessaloniki Film Festival.Read More »

Synopsis / Plot
A woman travels from Peru to work as a housekeeper in Chile.
Awards
2019: Mar del Plata Film Festival: Official Selection – Ibero-American FilmRead More »

The third and final collaboration between Marco Bellocchio and controversial pyschotherapist Massimo Faggioli following Il Diavolo in Corpo (1986) and La Condanna (1991). Despite being selected as an official entry in Cannes, some award nominations (which it won for its cinematography) and admiration in a few quarters, the film was condemned by the majoriry of critics who lamented Bellocchio’s talents being wasted by the pretentious Faggioli. Usually considered Bellocchio’s worst film, Il Sogno della Farfalla is undeniably well made and does contain some haunting imagery. Read More »

Peter High wrote:
Fushimizu Osamu’s immensely successful China Nights works the rich metaphorical possibilities afforded by the commonplace image of China as a disreputable “woman” in need of redemption. As early as 1911, popular historian Yamaji Aizan had characterized the nation as “not a powerless country like a single woman, but an infelicitous one like a prostitute.” Although it’s discretely muted, the film’s first scene introduces Ri Koran’s character as something perilously close to a “fallen woman”.Read More »

Quote:
The incomparable Federico Fellini (La Dolce Vita) directs this visually stunning portrait of Casanova, the infamous Italian womanizer, adventurer, author and libertine. In a remarkable performance, Donald Sutherland (MASH) portrays the great seducer not as an amorous anomaly, but an everyday man living in extraordinary times. Featuring dazzling European settings (although it was filmed entirely in Rome), an unforgettable musical score by Nino Rota (The Godfather), and Academy Award®-winning costumes, Fellini’s Casanova is a cinematic experience to fall in love with.Read More »

Quote:
A taut, economical policier-cum-gang-hostage thriller.Read More »

Plot Synopsis
Future best-selling novelist Irwin Shaw made his screenwriting bow with the modest RKO Radio sports drama The Big Game. The story revolves around the efforts by a group of crooked gamblers to fix the outcomes of college football games. When star quarterback Clark (Philip Huston) refuses to be bribed, the villains kidnap him on the eve of the titular Big Game. Clark is rescued by his burly teammates just in the nick of time, but the film’s not over yet: there’s a riot on the football field during the final scenes, reportedly inspired by a real-life incident during a 1935 NYU-Fordham game. Adding to the enjoyment of The Big Game is the presence of several genuine members of the 1936 All-American football squad: The University of Chicago’s Jay Berwanger, Notre Dame’s William Shakespeare, Southern Methodist’s Bobby Wilson, NYU’s Irwin “King Kong” Klein, Ohio State’s Gomer Jones, and Stanford’s Robert “Bones” Hamilton, Monk Moscrip and Frank Alustiza.Read More »