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In 1971, author and film scholar Donald Richie published a poetic travelogue about his explorations of the islands of Japan’s Inland Sea, recording his search for traces of a traditional way of life as well as his own journey of self-discovery. Twenty years later, filmmaker Lucille Carra undertook a parallel trip inspired by Richie’s by-then-classic book, capturing images of hushed beauty and meeting people who still carried on the fading customs that Richie had observed. Interspersed with surprising detours—visits to a Frank Sinatra–loving monk, a leper colony, an ersatz temple of plywood and plaster—and woven together by Richie’s narration as well as a score by celebrated composer Toru Takemitsu, The Inland Sea is an eye-opening voyage and a profound meditation on what it means to be a foreigner.Read More »

AMG wrote:
According to film historian William K. Everson, to offer a fully detailed synopsis of Maurice Tourneur’s delightful period piece The Wishing Ring “would do a disservice to its charm.” Suffice to say that the film’s wide-eyed heroine Vivian Martin comes into possession of a ring which she believes to have magical powers. Armed with this belief alone, the girl is able to change the course of her entire life.Read More »

John Farrow’s true-to-life propaganda history of the resistible rise of A Hitler. Der Fuhrer is played by lookalike Bobby Watson, and his “gang” are an unbeatable group of WWII era refugee German actors, all inhabiting their roles rather convincingly. Martin Kosleck is a superb Goebbels.Read More »

This is a documentary on the 70’s French porn industry. There are generally two kinds of porn documentaries–those that actually take an insightful look behind the scenes, and those that are just an excuse to show a lot of nudity and XXX porn footage. This is actually somewhere in between. It’s generously seasoned with porn footage, but there are also a lot of (fully-clothed) interviews, and they even talk to the owners of porn theaters, some typical porn customers (including some pre-adolescent boys who are walking by the the theater–I wonder what their parents thought of that?), as well as a guy who makes promotional billboards for porn movies although he claims never to have seen one!Read More »

Portraying one of the shadier details of American history, this is the story of Jack McGurn, who comes to Los Angeles in 1936. He gets a job at a movie theatre in Little Tokyo and falls in love with the boss’s daughter, Lily Kawamura. When her father finds out, he is fired and forbidden ever to see her again. But together they escape to Seattle. When the war breaks out, the authorities decide that the Japanese immigrants must live in camps like war prisoners.Read More »

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In director Santiago Loza’s Teddy Award winner (Best Feature Film 2019), young trans woman Tania is tasked with caring for her recently deceased grandmother’s closest companion — an alien, whom she and her comrades must safely return to its origins. As the group makes the journey on foot, Tania finds herself supernaturally linked with her extraterrestrial charge, confronting past trauma that manifests as remorseful childhood bullies and as past lovers with new commitments. Each traveler overcomes their fears and heartbreak on this tender, epic journey.Read More »

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The Night or Al-Lail (Arabic: الليل‎) (The Night) is a Syrian feature drama film by director Mohamed Malas. The film explores the Arab-Israeli conflict as seen through the experiences of an Arab family in newly liberated city of Quneitra, headed by a resistance fighter. Al-Lail was the first Syrian feature to be played at the New York Film Festival on October 4, 1993.Read More »

Synopsis
After 40 years of running their community arts space, The Bread Factory, Dorothea and Greta are suddenly fighting for survival when a celebrity couple–performance artists from China–come to Checkford and build an enormous complex down the street catapulting big changes in their small town.Read More »

From nfdcindia.com:
Gurvinder Singh’s first Punjabi feature film Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan based on Punjabi novelist and Jnanpeeth Award winner Professor Gurdial Singh’s novel tries to bring to screen the effect that years of subordination can bring to struggling masses in the face of events spinning beyond their control. Devoid of the power to change course of their own destiny and the invisible violence of power equations. AGDD reflects the simmering discontent etched on their faces.

The film was nominated as the Top Ten Best Films of the World in 2011 by the US Journal Film Comment!.Read More »