Classic British mystery thriller starring Tom Conway as suave gumshoe, Norman
Conquest. After intercepting a secret message, Conquest meets foreign femme fatale,
Nadina Rodin (Eva Bartok), in room 605 of the Park Plaza hotel. When Conquest wakes up
in the room the next morning he is lying next to a corpse and the mysterious Rodin is
nowhere to be seen. Conquest is now the police’s number one murder suspect with
Inspector Williams (Sid James) shadowing his every move. In order to clear his name,
Conquest enlists the help of Pixie Everard (Joy Shelton), but things turn even uglier when
he discovers that the murder is connected to a stash of stolen diamonds. As gun-toting,Read More »

Review:
The filmmaking team of Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel concoct fictional narratives around the real lives and professions of the nonactors with whom they work. This is an unusual formula but not an entirely novel one. While other examples of this method, or some variant of it, have yielded films that come off as condescending or creepily exploitative, Ms. Covi and Mr. Frimmel’s “Mister Universo” is a disarming and humane picture, an unexpected delight.Read More »

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The film is a day in the life of a young artist, Jean Michel Basquiat, who needs to raise money to reclaim the apartment from which he has been evicted. He wanders the downtown streets carrying a painting he hopes to sell, encountering friends, whose lives (and performances) we peek into. He finally manages to sell his painting to a wealthy female admirer, but he’s paid by check. Low on cash, he spends the evening wandering from club to club, looking for a beautiful girl he had met earlier, so he’ll have a place to spend the night. Downtown 81 not only captures one of the most interesting and lively artists of the twentieth century as he is poised for fame, but it is a slice of life from one of the most exciting periods in American culture, with the emergence of new wave music, new painting, hip hop and graffiti. — Sujit R. VarmaRead More »

Quote:
An island off the New England coast, summer of 1965. Two twelve-year-olds, Sam and Suzy, fall in love, make a secret pact, and run away together into the wilderness. As local authorities try to hunt them down, a violent storm is brewing offshore . . . Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom stars Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward as the young couple on the run, Bruce Willis as Island Police Captain Sharp, Edward Norton as Khaki Scout troop leader Scout Master Ward, and Bill Murray and Frances McDormand as Suzy’s attorney parents, Walt and Laura Bishop. The cast also includes Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, and Bob Balaban. The magical soundtrack features the music of Benjamin Britten.Read More »

Plot:
A conscious exploration of fantasy and flesh. The director talks about the novel upon which the film is based, we see the crew at work, the actors talk about what’s going on. Y, a schoolgirl of 18, chooses her first lover (rather than wait to be raped, as were her two older sisters). After phone sex with J, a sculptor who’s 38, they begin an affair that, by the second meeting, includes spankings as foreplay. J brings a suitcase full of rods, hoses, and wires; Y gathers sticks to bring. Y’s brother discovers the affair. J’s wife, studying in Paris, calls him to join her. Will the lovers part? Will the violence get out of hand? When do the lies begin?Read More »

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This Proustian documentary, made when Oliveira was 93 years old, explores the great Portuguese film-maker’s relationship with his home town, Oporto, the place which inspired his first film Douro, Faina Fluvial way back in 1931. Using old photographs and newsreels with dramatic reconstructions, he offers a vivid portrait of a city caught between the old and the new. When he was a child, Oporto didn’t even have proper cinemas, film shows were improvised in sheds, Oliveira (born 1908) recalls. Most of the landmarks familiar from his youth have vanished. The brothels and cafés where he and his artist friends used to while away their days are long since closed. Even the house where he grew up is in ruins. The city I remember only remains alive in my sad memory, he sadly reflects. Poignant and playful, this is one of the old master’s most accessible late films.Read More »

Japanese artist, Foujita, is Paris’ darling in the roaring twenties, loved for his delicate nudes. After leaving his 1st wife, Fernande, he meets Lucie Badoud and names her Yuki (snow in Japanese) after her exquisitely pale skin. Together with their friends Van Dongen, Kisling, Picasso, Modigliani & Kiki, they go to all the parties! On the outbreak of WWII, Foujita returns to Japan with his new Japanese wife, Kimiyo. He exhibits his war paintings that are much darker than the delicate whites of his Paris period. As the battles intensify, Foujita retreats to the country with Kimiyo and discover a Japan he never knew. Foujita returns to France years later. Here, newly naturalised, he takes on the French name Léonard and builds the chapel “Notre Dame de la Paix” in Reims, his final work.Read More »

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“Legendary avant-garde filmmaker and visual artist James Benning returns to the Festival with L. COHEN, one of the year’s most awe-inspiring and transcendent experiences. Benning has described the landscape as ‘a function of time’ and this film elegantly invites us to savour the relationship. Shot in a barren Oregon field, the film’s fixed camera presents us with the deceptively simple: canary-coloured jerry can, twin tires, some rusty barrels, abandoned agricultural machinery, a plain of green grass and overgrown hay, and faint, portentous details in the distance.Read More »

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A worthy documentary on the first 60 years of jazz with an emphasis on Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and swing.

Episodes
1. Gumbo – Beginnings to 1917
2. The Gift 1917-1924
3. Our Language 1924-1928
4. The True Welcome 1929-1935
5. Swing – Pure Pleasure 1935-1937
6. Swing – The Velocity of Celebration 1937-1939
7. Dedicated to Chaos 1940-1945
8. Risk 1945-1956
9. The Adventure 1956-1961
10. A Masterpiece by Midnight 1961-2001Read More »