• Raoul Ruiz – Klimt [Director’s Cut] (2006)

    2001-2010ArthouseAustriaDramaRaoul Ruiz

    Ruiz, in an a propos to the film: ‘Above all this film should not be seen as a biography of the painter Gustav Klimt (what these days we call a ‘biopic’). It is indeed a fantasy or, if you prefer, a phantasmagoria, a fresco of real and imaginary characters revolving around a single point of focus: the painter Klimt. You see images in the film as if it were Klimt himself who is seeing them. Or rather who is dreaming them. Because this film will be a daydream: exuberance of colours, distortion of space, extreme complexity of camera movements. It would take too long to explain the processes I intend to use in order to record this era, one of the richest, most contradictory and most disturbing in the history of humanity.’Read More »

  • Aleksander Ford – Mlodosc Chopina AKA Chopin’s Youth (1952)

    Drama1951-1960Aleksander FordClassicsPoland

    A story of the formative years in Chopin’s life between 1825 and 1831, a time of social unrest throughout Europe, of rising nationalism, and of cries for reform. Chopin, an outstanding student in music, and inflamed with the revolutionary spirit in his native Poland, gives a number of concerts which are praised by the aristocracy. His fame growing, he sets out on tour and, while in Vienna, hears of the November uprising in Warsaw. He makes an attempt to return and join the fight but his carriage breaks down, and his is brought back ill. Warned by his doctor, he settles down to a quieter life in Paris, and continues his work.Read More »

  • Jacques Doillon – L’amoureuse (1987)

    1981-1990ArthouseDramaFranceJacques Doillon

    French synopsis:
    Histoire et commentaires
    Des amies se réunissent en Normandie, dans une grande maison de bord de mer pour l’anniversaire de Vanessa. Mais celle-ci, quittée par Michel, n’a pas envie de le fêter. Le temps d’un week-end sur la côte normande, les jeunes filles jouent le jeu de l’amour, chacune vivant à sa manière les méandres de sa vie sentimentale, jusqu’au moment où un jeune américain vient troubler leur intimité. L’une d’elle va succomber à ses charmes, mais l’amoureuse sera-t-elle vraiment amoureuse ?Read More »

  • Kar-Wai Wong – Dung che sai duk AKA Ashes of Time Redux (1994)

    1991-2000DramaEpicHong KongKar Wai Wong

    Two years after forming his own production company, Jet Tone, Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai released ASHES OF TIME, a martial-arts epic based on THE EAGLE-SHOOTING HEROES, a series of novels by Louis Cha writing under the pseudonym Jin Yong. The film was set in jianghu, an imaginary world with its own views of good and evil. In 2008, unhappy with the many alternate versions of ASHES OF TIME available, Wong reedited and restored the film, working with the original negative and soundtrack, which were in severe disrepair. The new version, called ASHES OF TIME REDUX, which screened at such prestigious international gatherings as the Cannes, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals, is a breathtaking example of Wong’s masterly storytelling technique, combined with the stunning cinematography of Christopher Doyle and gorgeous new cello solos recorded by Yo-Yo Ma. Read More »

  • Leo Regan – 100 Per Cent White (2000)

    1991-2000DocumentaryLeo ReganUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    A decade after taking a series of photographs of skinhead members of a far-right group for his book Public Enemies, Leo Regan returns to three members of the gang to see what has happened to them in the intervening years.Read More »

  • Mariam Khatchvani – Dede (2017)

    2011-2020DramaGeorgiaMariam Khatchvani

    Quote:
    Based on true events that took place at the outset of the Georgian Civil War, Dede takes place in the high mountainous community of Svaneti, where there live a people far removed from the modern world. A purely patriarchal society that revolves around forced marriages, pride and tradition dictate the code of daily life. Dina is a young woman promised by her draconian grandfather to David, one of the soldiers returning from the war. Once a marriage arrangement is brokered by two families, failure to follow through on the commitment is unthinkable. Read More »

  • William E. Jones – Finished (1997)

    1991-2000DocumentaryExperimentalQueer Cinema(s)USAWilliam E. Jones

    DESCRIPTION
    Finished is a detective story and a love story, a film noir bathed in sunlight. It’s a film of contradictions: pornographic yet chaste, distanced yet mesmerizing, reticent yet moving. It reminds us that life in the movies is not like life at the movies.Read More »

  • Margaret Tait – Blue Black Permanent (1992)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaMargaret TaitUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    The film’s complex, ‘Russian Doll’ narrative spans three generations of an Orcadian family. Barbara’s attempt to understand her past forms its outer shell. Flashbacks to her mother Greta and Grandmother Mary form the second and third layers, as the action in both past and present switches between Orkney and Edinburgh. At its core is Tait’s abiding interest in natural cycles, which in her films seem to dwarf all human concerns. The final five minutes of the film is a leanly edited sequence of shots from the Orkney coastline, juxtaposition grand sweeps of the seafront to details of shells, driftwood and shale.Read More »

  • Anthony Hall & Christopher Laird – And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon (1992)

    1991-2000Anthony HallCaribbean CinemaChristopher LairdDocumentaryTrinidad & TobagoTV

    A fascinating documentary from Trinidad and Tobago about the domination of Caribbean television by programs from the North, primarily the US. This film ambitiously weaves together interviews, indigenous poetry and music with clips from imported French and US television programs to show how Caribbean viewers receive a distorted view of the world that alienates them from their own cultural heritage. Also included is a glimpse of how Cuba has tackled the problem and the US response in the form of Radio Marti.Read More »

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