• Vladimir Kobrin – GraviDance (2000)

    1991-2000ArthouseExperimentalRussiaVladimir Kobrin

    The film is really very different from its predecessors.This is a diary written in a bright, imaginative, unique language, cipher invented by the author. Once, in the depth of ages, Leonardo da Vinci wrote his diary using languages known to mankind and his own encryption. The structure of the diary is clearly seen in the film. However, this is not ordinary, dry or memoir-nostalgic diary.
    GraviDance is the philosophical poetry. To understand the principle of its construction can the image, persistently encountered by the viewer during the film. This image is already familiar to us – we return to where we started.Read More »

  • Vladimir Kobrin – Son Plyashuschih Chelovechkov AKA The Dream of the Little Dancing Men (1997)

    1991-2000ArthouseExperimentalPhilosophy on ScreenRussiaVladimir Kobrin

    Film is about communication. Kobrin pays homage to Vasili Nalimov, to his work and life. Nalimov was a mathematician and philosopher, but was also an eccentric anarchist with mystic tendencies who spent eighteen years in a concentration camp.
    Nalimov’s philosophy relies on probabilistic methods in the natural and social sciences and applies them to the study of language and consciousness.
    The film’s name Kobrin took from Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Dancing Men”.Read More »

  • Ulrike Ottinger – Die koreanische Hochzeitstruhe AKA The Korean Wedding Chest (2009)

    2001-2010ArthouseDocumentaryGermanyUlrike Ottinger

    The Korean Wedding Chest is a 2009 documentary film about Korean wedding traditions directed by Ulrike Ottinger. The German language film was described as “capturing the collision of ancient tradition and modern culture on the subject of love and marriage in Korea in a film that echoes the beauty, precision and care of the rituals she examines” by the Los Angeles Times. The Washington Post’s website refers to the surrealist style of the film as being well suited to “the regal pacing of the ritual” and calls the film one of Ottinger’s most praised works.Read More »

  • Johannes Pääsuke – Retk läbi Setumaa AKA Journey through Setomaa (1913)

    1911-1920DocumentaryEstoniaJohannes PääsukeShort Film

    Estonia’s first ethnographic film. Made by Johannes Pääsuke in 1913 on his expedition to Setomaa, the South-Eastern region in Estonia.Read More »

  • Aleksey Fedorchenko – Ovsyanki aka Silent Souls (2010)

    2001-2010Aleksey FedorchenkoDramaRussia

    Quote:
    Two buntings—small, sparrow-like birds—sit in a cage on the back of a bike in the opening moments of Aleksai Fedorchenko’s Silent Souls. The man peddling the bike (and narrating the film from beyond the grave) is Aist (Igor Sergeyev), a factory worker and photographer who descends from the Finno-Ugric tribe known as the Meryans. After work one day, Aist agrees to help his boss and friend, Miron (Yuri Tsurilo), perform the last Meryan rites for Miron’s recently departed wife. The two buntings are brought along, flittering and chirping in their cage, on the duo’s trip, while Miron reminisces about the erotic moments with his wife and Aist drifts on to think about rituals he had once indulged in with his father.Read More »

  • Raoul Peck – Moloch Tropical (2009)

    2001-2010Caribbean CinemaDramaHaitiPoliticsRaoul Peck

    In a fortress perched on the top of a mountain, a “democratically elected” President and his closest collaborators are getting ready for a state celebration. Foreign chiefs of state and dignitaries of all sorts are expected. But in the morning of the event, he wakes up to find the country inflamed the streets in turmoil. As the day goes on, rebellion worsens. Meanwhile, expected guests are withdrawing from the party one after another… Despite the situation, the President does not want to face reality and refuses to resign. Overwhelmed, he plunges into a deep mental confusion as the events follow their course.Read More »

  • Paolo Sorrentino – Il divo – La spettacolare vita di Giulio Andreotti AKA Il Divo (2008)

    2001-2010DramaItalyPaolo SorrentinoPolitics

    Quote:
    The story of Italian politician Giulio Andreotti, who has served as Prime Minister of Italy seven times since the restoration of democracy in 1946.

    Roger Ebert wrote:
    They would seem to be opposites, but on the basis of two recent films, the longtime Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti and the longtime fashion emperor Valentino were surprisingly similar. Both are seen as intensely private, rarely happy, single-minded in pursuit of their ambitions, cool in their personal relationships, and ruling as if by divine right. A difference is that Valentino was never accused of criminal activities.Read More »

  • Luigi Zampa – Campane a martello AKA Alarm Bells (1949)

    1941-1950ClassicsDramaItalyLuigi Zampa

    Agostina is a maid turned prostitute during World War II. She sends all the money she makes to the local priest in her home village for safekeeping. After the war is over, Agostina and her friend plan to open a clothing store so they return to her home island to collect the money from the priest. But after arriving there, Agostina learns in shock that the priest has been dead for more than a year and that his eccentric successor mistook the received money for donations and spent all of it on building a new orphanage for war orphans. To make matters worse, other islanders think that Agostina is now a millionaire and beg her to help them financially.Read More »

  • Vladimír Cech – Divá Bára AKA Wild Barbara (1949)

    1941-1950ClassicsCzech RepublicDramaVladimír Cech

    Bára, the daughter of a communal herdsman, is pursued by all the young men from the village. The parents of the village boys are not pleased with this at all, because they believe the superstitious old women who claim that Bára is a daughter of a noonday-witch. The beautiful girl has one friend, Eliška, foster-daughter of the parish priest. The priest also likes Bára and always takes her side. The manorial administrator Sláma is trying to win Eliška, but Eliška loves a student from Prague. Bára decides to frighten Sláma away from his courtship. She disguises herself as a ghost, scares Sláma to death near the graveyard and makes him promise to leave Eliška in peace. But Sláma’s coachman alarms the entire village and they recognize Bára in the ghost.Read More »

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