• Peter Chan – Tau ming chong aka The Warlords (2007)

    Drama2001-2010ChinaPeter ChanWar

    The film is set in the 1860s, during the Taiping Rebellion in the late Qing Dynasty in China. The story, based on an unresolved crime in 1870, tells of three sworn brothers (played by Andy Lau, Jet Li and Takeshi Kaneshiro) who are forced to turn against one another due to the harsh realities of war and political intrigue.Read More »

  • Apichatpong Weerasethakul – Blue (2018)

    2011-2020Apichatpong WeerasethakulFantasyShort FilmThailand

    Thai master Apichatpong Weerasethakul and frequent collaborator Jenjira Pongpas Widner present a choreographed dance of scrolls and a portrait of feverish slumber.

    A woman lies awake at night. Nearby, a set of theatre backdrops unspools itself, unveiling two alternate landscapes. Upon the woman’s blue sheet, a flicker of light reflects and illuminates her realm of insomnia.Read More »

  • Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub – Geschichtsunterricht aka History Lessons (1972)

    1971-1980Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie StraubGermanyPhilosophy

    Quote:
    Based on an unfinished novel by Brecht, the 1973 feature History Lessons takes on a loose journalistic form, as a young man drives through contemporary Italy to interview an ancient Roman banker on his views of Caesars reign. The discourse turns on the interpenetrations of politics, trade, and war, and the films relentlessly demanding pace marks its makers ambitions to wedge open a space beyond capitalist production, from which some new critique might emerge.Read More »

  • Brillante Mendoza – Ma’ Rosa (2016)

    2011-2020Brillante MendozaDramaPhilippines

    Quote:
    Ma’ Rosa has four children. She owns a small convenience store in a poor neighborhood of Manila where everybody likes her. To make ends meet, Rosa and her husband, Nestor, resell small amounts of narcotics on the side. One day, they get arrested. Rosa and her children are ready to do anything to buy her freedom from the corrupt police.Read More »

  • James Benning – Him and Me (1982)

    1981-1990ArthouseExperimentalJames BenningUSA

    Quote:
    In ”Him and Me,” at the Film Forum, James Benning, one of our more highly regarded experimental film makers, appears to be looking back over his life, from the 1950’s to the 80’s, recalling it in terms of public events and private sorrows, landscapes, streets, music and colors.

    I emphasize the word ”appears” because ”Him and Me” makes no attempt to be coherent in any conventional sense. The film is composed of dozens of sometimes startlingly beautiful fragments of images and sounds, involving people who are never identified, sometimes accompanied by off-screen voices that may take the form of first-person reminiscences or of inconclusive conversations.Read More »

  • Nobuhiko Obayashi – Noyuki Yamayuki Umibe Yuki AKA To the Fields, to the Hills, to the Beaches (1986)

    1981-1990AsianDramaJapanNobuhiko Obayashi

    During the fervently nationalist months leading up to World War II, a rebellious teenager is transferred to a new primary school in a small Inland Sea town. He vies with the school’s reigning bully, who takes a romantic interest in his older stepsister. When they learn she’s going to be sold to a brothel to pay off her father’s debts, they form an uneasy alliance to free her. With surprising moments of caricature and slapstick, Obayashi celebrates the anarchic world of adolescence while also satirizing adult hypocrisy and conformism.Read More »

  • Mika Kaurismäki – Moro No Brasil AKA Sound of Brazil (2002)

    2001-2010BrazilDocumentaryMika KaurismäkiMusical

    Quote:
    This one is documentary about Brasil music scene.Expecialy about live music from the streets and from diverse region of Brasil.For me best music is somwhere on one hour of duration.So if there anyone who loves this kind of music i supose that he will love this music documentary also.Read More »

  • Metin Erksan – Bir intihar aka A Suicide (1975)

    Drama1971-1980ExperimentalMetin ErksanTurkey

    “Isn´t suicide an introverted desire to kill?”

    The man wants to die and the woman wants to be famous. According to the man, there could not be a better plan than the woman killing him. This way the man will get his wish to die and the woman will become famous. The man tries to convince the woman: “You are my killer and my life source.” The gun finally goes off and the interrogation of the woman begins.Read More »

  • Ji Huang – Jidan he shitou AKA Egg and Stone (2012)

    2011-2020ChinaDramaJi Huang

    Icarus Films wrote:
    Huang Ji’s brave personal film is one of the most auspicious debuts in recent Chinese cinema. Set in her home village in rural Hunan province, Egg and Stone is a powerful autobiographical portrait of a 14-year-old girl’s attempts to come to terms with her emerging sexual maturity. Since her parents moved to the city to work, she has been forced to live with her uncle and aunt for seven years. Alone with her own inchoate fears and desires, she grapples with a terrifying world of sexual awakening and danger. Huang Ji’s visual sophistication, narrative fluency, and technical polish belie her youth. Cinematographer Ryuji Otsuka (also the film’s producer and editor) contributes beautifully crafted cinematic images, fearfully intimate, softly pulsing with light, saturated with complex emotional power.Read More »

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