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Just when her family starts believing that she is dead, and that they can expect a rich heritage, Tieta returns from São Paulo to her native village in Bahia, which she had been forced to leave long ago because of some involvement with a goat herd. Believed to be fabulously rich – and nobody knows how – she brings to the great disappointment of her family a young step-daughter and heir. With the arrival of Tieta turmoil enters into the life of her family and their fellow villagers. Most particularly into the life of her nephew – promised to the Church – and the young aspiring mayor.Read More »

Synopsis:
Fresh off the box-office success of Violated Angels, an eroticized dramatization of the Richard Speck case, director Koji Wakamatsu turned his attention to another real-life criminal, Yoshio Kodaira, the rapist who terrorized Tokyo in the post-WWII period. Renamed Marqui de Sadao here, and played with a skillfully detached cruelty by future director Osamu Yamashita (Joji Zankokushi), the rapist is depicted as far more perverse than his real-life model, including whipping and mutilation in his bag of evil tricks. As in Wakamatsu’s previous film, capitalism takes the blame for nearly every wrong in Japanese society, but in the context of such an exploitative and calculated attempt to earn box-office attention, much of the social criticism falls flat. Miki Hayashi co-stars with Kazue Sakamoto and Mikiko Ohkawa.Read More »

Synopsis: In the Edo era, two man arrive in a village and engage in criminal activity. While one of them becomes successful and rich, the other gets betrayed and ends up in prison, burning for revenge. The truth changes with the viewpoint in this previously unavailable Wakamatsu film, which has inspired comparisons to Rashomon.Read More »

A touching story of brothers raised apart and then brought together under tragic circumstances, this drama by Valerio Zurlini remains true to Vasco Pratolini’s novel. Told in a series of flashbacks as Enrico (Marcello Mastroianni) remembers the past, the brothers are separated after their mother dies. Enrico is raised by a humble guardian who works as a butler, his brother Lorenzo (Jacques Perrin) is taken in by a grandmother who gives him all he wants or needs. Enrico grows up to become a hard-working journalist, spending most of his time in Rome. Lorenzo is a young idealist living in Florence with no real need to work. The brothers rarely see each other, but when they finally meet after an extended absence, Lorenzo is gravely ill and dying. (-allmovie.com)Read More »

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Amar Lenin is a 1970 black and white documentary film directed by film director Ritwik Ghatak made for Government of West Bengal in the centenary year (1970) of the birth of Vladimir Lenin.

After making the film, countries such as the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of Poland approached Ritwik Ghatak for him to show the movie in those countries. However, issues arose with the National Film Censorship Board of India which did not approve of the movie and banned it in India. Ghatak and his team had to work hard to have the movie passed by the censorship board. Ritwik Ghatak personally met with Indira Gandhi on this matter.Read More »

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A Slavonic Mass by Leos Janácek plays as historical figures, biblical characters, and mythical creatures gather in the pleasure dome. Aphrodite, Lilith, Isis, Kali, Astarte, Nero, Pan, and the Great Beast and the Scarlet Woman are part of a visual feast of images superimposed, hallucinations, and the spirit of decadence of the “Yellow ’90s.” Mythological images from Aleister Crowley, cabalistic symbols, artifice, and magic combine to render the pleasure dome both as prison and as celebration.Read More »

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Le Roi et L’Oiseau (The King and the Mockingbird) is one of the true classics of animation in France, and although its renown and popularity haven’t made it across to this side of the channel, it has been a source of inspiration to many of the current generation of Japanese animators. Scripted by the celebrated poet, Jacques Prévert (who also scripted Quai de Brumes and Les Enfants du Paradis), designed by the master of French animation, Paul Grimault, based on a story by Hans Christian Anderson, Le Roi et L’Oiseau’s credentials are impeccable and its reputation unassailable.Read More »

Synopsis:
Facing a mid-life crisis, a woman rents an apartment next to a psychiatrist’s office to write a new book, only to become drawn to the plight of a pregnant woman seeking that doctor’s help.Read More »

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The story centers on a group of young people who travel back in time when they are in a movie theater just before closing time. They witness deaths during the closing days of Japan’s feudal times and on the battlefront in China before they are sent to Hiroshima just before the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of the city.Read More »