Spanning 18 years in an Iranian women’s prison, this follows two women: the new prison warden, a tough as nails devout Muslim who has served in the army on the Iraqi front, and a young midwife, Mitra, who is serving her sentence for killing her mother’s abusive husband. In the early years, Mitra is repeatedly punished as the warden tries to break her. This includes punishment for delivering a baby in the prison cell while all of the prison staff has taken shelter during an Iraqi bombing. The warden’s attitude starts to change after 8 years, when Mitra tries to protect a new inmate from rape at the hands of her older cellmates. When the baby comes back in 1991 as a 17 year old delinquent, Sepideh, the warden respects Mitra enough to protect the girl.Read More »

Synopsis
“Criterion” wrote:
Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in Akira Kurosawa’s highly influential High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku). Adapting Ed McBain’s detective novel King’s Ransom, Kurosawa moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a penetrating portrait of contemporary Japanese society.Read More »

Noir and sci-fi specialist Byron Haskin (I Walk Alone, The War of the Worlds) takes on The Boss in this gritty crime classic. Following World War I, ruthless veteran Matt Brady (John Payne, 99 River Street) inherits the clout of his political kingpin brother and climbs the ladder of corruption all the way to the top of the state. His amoral practices and sheer arrogance lead to broken friendships (William Bishop, The Redhead from Wyoming) and romances (model-turned-actress Doe Avedon and Gloria McGehee, A Child Is Waiting) along the way. Based on the real-life scandal of Kansas City politico Tom Pendergast, The Boss is celluloid dynamite from the pen of Dalton Trumbo (Spartacus, Lonely Are the Brave), originally uncredited due to Hollywood’s blacklisting.Read More »

A little info about Doris Wishman:
by Jens Hellroute
“After I die I will make movies in hell!” was a line Doris Wishman, the most prolific female independent filmmaker ever, stated many times. Well, I hope Beelzebub treats her nice because the queen of sexploitation cinema left us on August 10, 2002, in Miami. Like many ladies she lied about her age, but her nephew Norman Wishman recently informed the world that Doris was born July 23, 1912, which makes her an impressive 90 at the time when she sadly lost her long battle with lymphoma cancer.Read More »

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The Chelsea Hotel has long been considered the creative epicentre of New York City, a sort of unofficial gathering point for the most renowned artists and entertainers that the city has to offer. But while the Chelsea Hotel was once thought an impenetrable, untouchable monument to the creative spirit, an early 21st century renovation led many to believe that the new management company had little appreciation for its unique history. Dennis Hopper, Milos Forman, Robert Crumb, Ethan Hawke, Grace Jones, and a whole host of Chelsea Hotel regulars all chime in with their fondest memories about the New York landmark, and their thoughts about what may be in store for the iconic building in the future.Read More »

Description: The short is made in a typical Muratova style that merges surrealism and reality into a mesmerizing act full of understatement and metaphor.

Some trivia: this is nominally Muratova’s first short. However, she herself considers it her fourth – she prefers to think of her Three Stories as three short films instead of a single feature.

The film was made with no budget whatsoever – all Muratova was given were the camera and the film stock. None of the actors were paid. The rumor has it that the film was shot in Muratova’s own apartment.Read More »

A seemingly pleasant fellow, Arthur goes berserk and rapes any woman in front of him wearing gold earrings. One woman tells the investigating detective (who is Arthur’s uncle) she was raped, and flashes back to an erotic love making scene. Another one, a lesbian, relates a story that has to be seen to be believed. Other women flashback to their encounters with Arthur. We find out from a doctor, in another flashback, that Arthur underwent a penis transplant with a just-dead friend, unknowing his friend was a serial rapist who preyed on golden earring-ed women.Read More »

Quote:
The deconstruction of visual pleasures and the emergence of a new visual poetry.

This experimental film is about the representation and alternative views trelated to the passage of time. The visual syntheses are assembled with the voices of the woman that gives birth and dies, and is torn by the conflicts inhabiting her body. “Topos” (Place) is in dialogue with the paintings of Uccello, Carpaccio, Cranach, De Chirico and Balthus, in an attempt to deconstruct the visual pleasures of traditional cinema, but simultaneously to give birth to an innovative seductive iconography.Read More »