An experimental and haunting collection of vignettes, Deborah Stratman’s O’er the Land weaves several picturesque and arresting strands into an evocative essay on freedom as defined by The American Way. At once contemplative and jarring, the film quietly ricochets from one emblem of patriotism and of the American experience to the next: football, recreational vehicles, Civil War re-enactments, and war stories, to name a few. A recurring motif in the film is the story of Colonel William Rankin, a Marine pilot who in 1959 ejected from his F8-U fighter jet and parachuted into a thunderstorm 48,000 feet above Virginia. Incredibly, Col. Rankin remained aloft for nearly an hour, tossed by air pockets and electrical fields, before crashing to the ground and, miraculously, surviving. One might say O’er the Land keeps the viewer aloft for a turbulent and rapturous hour as well. TMRead More »

Synopsis:
The naive cowboy Tod Lohman accidentally kills the son of the powerful land baron Hunter Boyd. Tod runs for his life, pursued by the dead man’s vengeful brothers. Tod shelters on the ranch of Amos Bradley and he falls in love with his daughter Juanita. However, Tod is concerned that he’ll eventually have to leave when his pursuers catch up with him.Read More »

Set in a fishing village named Kalpitiya, explores tradition and exploitation because of capitalism in this small village.Read More »

Directed by Martin Scorsese, George Harrison – Living in the Material World is a stunning double-feature-length film tribute to one of music’s greatest icons.

Scorsese uses never-before-seen footage from George Harrison’s childhood, throughout his years with The Beatles, through the ups and downs of his solo career, and through the joys and pain of his private life, to trace the arc of George’s journey from his birth in 1943 to his passing in 2001. Living in the Material World features private home videos, photos and never before heard tracks to chronicle the incredible story of the extraordinary man.Read More »

Friedrich Ermler (1898-1967) remains one of the shadowy figures of the early Soviet cinema, known if at all for his psychological parable Fragment of an Empire. But he was a major force among the Leningrad filmmakers of the 1920s and ’30s, whose sympathies lay closer to youth and realism than to the monumental frescoes of the Moscow ‘masters.’ The Parisian Cobbler is impossible to hide from inquisitive looks and gossips in a small provincial town. Film tackled a controversial theme head-on: the sexual exploitation of women by party activists in the name of ‘free love.’ Hapermill worker, Young Communist Leaguer Katya and Andrei are not hiding their love. All of a sudden Katya’s radiant hopes break to pieces: Andrei is indignant to hear the news that Katya is expecting a baby. He does not want “to change diapers”, this “trivial life” will interfere with his plans to “build bright future”. Katya is befriended by a cobbler who, as a mute, knows what it is to be a social outcast. Ermler’s spare and uncompromising style reveals the extent to which realism was already on the agenda before it became a repressive slogan in the mid-thirties. As usual with Ermler, the film is not only about a problem, but is also about everyday life.Read More »

Sokurov shows the official manifestation and fireworks on the 1st of May, one of the ritual celebrations of Soviet times, as a gathering of tired participants of a mass scene falling into pieces without the director’s orders and without any aims. Outbursts of joy without reason, mixed here and there with equally unmotivated signs of anxiety are given in brief sketches of a restless and pitiful crowd. A part instead of the whole, individual instead of common, a symbol growing up from details are the postulates of Eisenstein’s representation of the “people’s masses,” both the chorus and the protagonist of the Soviet official culture. Sokurov revises these postulates in the context of our time when the chorus has gone out of action, both in the aesthetic and in the social sense, and the protagonist is absent. However, both chorus and soloist are introduced into the picture of the festivity by the hand of the author: Sokurov puts a church canticle into the soundtrack of the film. It is an evening Orthodox prayer of repentance: “let my prayer be like incense before Thou, like my hands uplifted, an evening sacrifice.”Read More »

Ο Ηρακλής, ο Αχελώος και η γιαγιά μου

Dimitra Koutsiabassakos is 88 years old and lives alone in the village of Armatoliko in the Pindos mountain range, on the banks of the ancient river Acheloos, named after the mythical river god who fought Heracles for the favors of a woman and who could take on many forms. Dimitra’s home is located near the place where a great dam is being built and lies right in the middle of the area destined to become a lake after construction is completed. By a strange quirk of fate, the materials used in the construction of the dam are a product of a cement company named “Heracles”, so that it seems that the age-old contest between Acheloos and Heracles continues to the present day! Dimitris, Costas and Petros decide to pay their grandmother a visit and make a documentary.

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SYNOPSIS
This highly experimental twist on the ethnographic documentary visits the town of Yumen, in China’s northwest Gansu province, a once-thriving, oil-rich community in the 1980s that has been left depleted and derelict. Strikingly shot on film, Yumen tells the story of this ghost town through a series of wandering characters and inventive vignettes in which even the spirit of Bruce Springsteen is summoned to comment on a world in ruins. A collaboration between Chinese and American filmmakers, Yumen pushes the boundaries of the documentary aesthetic in depicting China’s past and present. Read More »

大学は出たけれど

Yasujirô Ozu wrote:
I cast Takada Minoru and Tanaka Kinuyo for the first time in this film. I had made a good number of student films, but when it came to filming young actors, it was hard to go beyond the old themes of salarymen or college life. However, in those days, the images of white-collar types were limited. As for students, they were of course a different breed from the ones nowadays, who get into fights with the police. They were all very carefree, and comparatively easy fodder for jokes in nonsense comedies. Shimizu Hiroshi originally wanted to direct this film, but somehow, the script fell into my lap. I thought, if I was determined to be a director, then I must get to grips with any genre and make every film as well as I could. It’s all very well for the so-called film auteur to have artistic ideas but one also needs the professional flair for handling all the different aspects of filmmaking. Admittedly, excessive professionalism could spell trouble, but I was nonetheless extremely grateful for the chance to develop my professionalism through making these kinds of films.Read More »