Synopsis:
Having escaped her abusive ex-husband Goss (Harry Connick Jr.), recently released from state prison, Agnes (Ashley Judd), a lonely waitress with a tragic past moves into a sleazy, run-down motel and her lesbian co-worker R.C (Lynn Collins) introduces her to Gulf War veteran Peter (Michael Shannon), a peculiar, paranoiac drifter and they begin a tentative romance. However, things don’t always seem as they appear and Agnes is about to experience a claustrophobic nightmare reality as the bugs begin to arrive…Read More »

Western auteur Anthony Mann and aging Western icon Gary Cooper team up in this stark tale of a trio of train passengers stranded in the middle of the desert after a railway holdup. Taking responsibility for his helpless compatriots (Julie London as a sad-eyed prostitute and Arthur O’Connell as a garrulous but cowardly banker), craggy-faced Link Jones (Cooper) takes them into a veritable viper’s nest in a desperate gamble. It turns out the respected town elder is a former member of the outlaw gang that robbed them, and he’s welcomed back by patriarchal gang leader Dock Tobin (Lee J. Cobb) like the prodigal son. Read More »

In the northern Chinese city of Manzhouli, they say there is an elephant that simply sits, unaffected by the pain and tribulations of the world at large. Manzhouli becomes an obsession for the protagonists of this film – a longed-for escape from the downward spiral in which they find themselves inextricably bound together. Among them is schoolboy, Bu, on the run after pushing Shuai down the stairs, who was bullying him previously. Bu’s classmate Ling has run away from her mother and fallen for the charms of her teacher. Shuai’s older brother Cheng feels responsible for the suicide of a friend. And finally there’s Mr. Wang, a sprightly pensioner whose son wants to offload him onto a home. In virtuoso visual compositions, the film tells the story of one single suspenseful day from dawn to dusk, when the train to Manzhouli is set to depart.Read More »

“After” plot starts one summer night, when three old friends meet after a long time. The three of them get inside a night spiral which brings them back to adolescence and that serves as the only way to breaking free from their ghosts.Read More »

Quote:
56 Up is the latest instalment of the landmark TV documentary series which has returned every seven years to focus on a group of people from varying social backgrounds who were first filmed at the age of seven. The new series revisits all but one of the original group.Read More »

A collective film of 33 shorts

Review:
The specter of the death of cinema and the communal movie experience hangs like an ironic shroud over “To Each His Own Cinema,” a mostly engaging compilation of 33 three-minute films made by leading international auteurs on the occasion of the Cannes Film Festival’s 60th birthday. Venture was conceived and produced by fest prexy Gilles Jacob as a way to celebrate the cinema rather than Cannes per se, and the directors were asked only to express “their state of mind of the moment as inspired by the motion picture theater.” Collection was televised throughout France on Canal Plus simultaneously with its Cannes preem and will be released on DVD in Gaul on May 25.Read More »

Synopsis
Three actresses at different stages of their career. One from before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, one popular star of today known throughout the country and a young girl longing to attend a drama conservatory.

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Elisabeth of Austria left the scene long before her death. “I want to travel the world,” she said, “the Wandering Jew will be a homebody compared to me. I want to sail the seas, roam as a female Flying Dutchman until I have sunk and disappeared.” This is the start of Ruth Beckermann’s cinematic journey.

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Quote:
Unique, arresting and often grotesquely funny, Songs from the Second Floor presents us with 45 obsessively composed dramatic vignettes of decaying civilisation, set in and around a clammy Nordic city resembling a 1930s surrealist prophecy of Y2K apocalypse. There’s no plot, only a cumulative sense of impending doom as the hapless cast of failed businessmen, insurance swindlers, crucifix salesmen and senile fascists fitfully negotiate their way towards the ultimate betrayal of future generations. — BG

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