An old woman’s poignant reminiscence of her youth in a convent school: the happy moments, the sad ones and the tragic love for a Garibaldian.Read More »

On Oct. 30, 2004, acclaimed Japanese musician Okuda Tamio held a one-day-only concert at Hiroshima Stadium. The project that started as the documentary of the concert soon evolved into a story of teenage girls who also do a band, and what they feel in the concert by 39-year old rocker.Read More »

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In 2021, 26 objects from the Kingdom of Dahomey leave Paris and are returned to present-day Benin. How should these art treasures, stolen from ancestors, be received in a country which has reinvented itself in their absence?Read More »

Strikingly progressive and beautifully crafted, Bagrat Oganesyan’s Autumn Sun tells the story of Aghun (a bravado performance by the director’s own wife, Anahit Gukasyan), a simple woman forced to contend with the banal cruelties of the men who populate her small village: from her father to her husband, in-laws, neighbours, and boss. Filmed in the hometown of screenwriter Hrant Matevosyan, who adapts from his own novel, this is a compassionate portrait of resilience and resignation.Read More »

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Inspired by stories from the fantasy graphics magazine Heavy Metal, this five-part animated feature combines the talents of hundreds of artists and animators from 17 different countries. A glowing green orb called Loc-Nar that contains the sum total of all evil in the universe travels through space and time, spreading violence and discord in its wake. The stories that follow demonstrate Loc-Nar’s malevolent presence throughout the universe. In New York in the year 2023, cabbie Harry Canyon picks up a fare who turns out to have Loc-Nar in her possession, and it turns out to be one trip he wishes that he had never made. In contemporary suburban America, a nerdy high school kid finds the orb in his backyard and is transported to a comic-book universe where he’s a mighty warrior and famous spoiler of women.Read More »

A look at the life of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe from his rise to fame in the 1970s to his untimely death in 1989.Read More »

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Cult filmmaker Hisayasu Sato’s second comedy of the year, this silly softcore effort stars pretty Nao Kikuchi as a young married woman who takes a job at a call-girl agency with the mistaken belief that it is a maid service. After she is raped on her first assignment, Kikuchi is understandably shocked, but quickly warms to her new career and becomes quite the professional. Unfortunately, her husband soon discovers the true nature of her work.Read More »

Shot entirely on day for night, this wildlife eco-horror follows the trajectories of endangered species fleeing to escape extinction, in a sombre plot in which the animals look back at us.Read More »

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An audacious teen movie from Japan, concentrating on a bored middle-class quartet: two hustlers, Tatsuro and Shin, and their two female best friends. Tatsuro is the better hustler. He spends his days skipping school or coolly entertaining clients; but when Shin declares his love for him, Tatsuro has to enter the real world . . . a raw, honest movie about the loves and loneliness of Tokyo late teens.Read More »