A mysterious radio message is beamed around the world, and among the engineers who receive it are Los, the hero, and his colleague Spiridonov. Los is an individualist dreamer. Aelita is the daughter of Tuskub, the ruler of a totalitarian state on Mars in which the working class are put into cold storage when they are not needed. With a telescope, Aelita is able to watch Los. As if by telepathy, Los obsesses about being watched by her. After some hugger-mugger involving the murder of his wife and a pursuing detective, Los takes the identity of Spiridonov and builds a spaceship. With the revolutionary Gusev, he travels to Mars, but the Earthlings and Aelita are thrown into prison by the dictator. Gusev and Los begin a proletarian uprising, and Aelita offers to lead the revolution, but she then establishes her own totalitarian regime. Los is shocked by this development and attempts to stop Aelita, and then reality and fantasy become confused, and Los discovers what has really happened.Read More »

From Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art:
A disembodied, ‘live’ hand invades the life of an artist-puppet, instructing him what to create, bringing him TV and newspapers (filled with ‘Hand’ activities), finally compelling him to make sculptures of itself. After his death in frustration, the Hand gives him an ornate State funeral as a great artist of the people. A courageous early work of the Czech renaissance.Read More »

Viridiana, a young novice about to take her final vows as a nun, accedes, moved purely by a sense of obligation, to a request from her widowed uncle to visit him. Stirred by her resemblance to his late wife, he attempts to seduce her and tragedy ensues. In the aftermath, Viridiana tries to assuage her guilt by creating a haven for the destitute folk who live around her uncle’s estate. But little good comes from these good intentions.Read More »

A group of friends are to celebrate the summer on a small island in the Stockholm Archipelago. The plan is to eat crayfish and drink snaps, a fundemental Swedish tradition. Some are already in the house on the island (with the food) and the rest of the group arrives by boat (bringing the snaps), but they experience great difficulties while trying to come ashore. Their only neighbor on the island, an eccentric, Hollywood-obsessed, hot-tempered hermit doesn’t make the situation better.Read More »

The film is based on a true story of the 9th company during the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan in 1980s. Young Soviet Army recruits are sent from the boot camp into the middle of the war in Afghanistan. The action is not like the boot camp at all. It is very bloody and dirty. The 9th company is defending the position 3234, and is hopelessly calling for help. But help never comes. “This is war, you kill, or get killed”, says the 9-th company leader Khohol (Bondarchuk). The guys are killed one by one, by the viciously fighting dushman guerrillas. The last guy survives to learn that the war was over, and the 9th company was simply forgotten… They believed that they served their country. But two years later that country seized to exist.Read More »

Plot
20 years old Casanova Jan falls in love with the 3 years younger Turkish girl Yasemin, who lives in Germany with her family. She’s well protected by her father, who believes in the Turkish traditions. She has to struggle for every little freedom that’s certain for her German friends, but still respects and loves her father and keeps the appearance of an honorable Turkish girl. Her love to Jan however disturbs this fine balance. So it’s not hate or quarrel that interferes with their love, but the differences of their cultures.Read More »

An ambitious young woman manipulates everyone around her to become a famous choreographer in the world of traditional Japanese dancing.Read More »

A 1998 mystery film written and directed by Jake Kasdan (son of writer/director Lawrence Kasdan). It stars Bill Pullman as “the world’s most private detective” Daryl Zero and Ben Stiller as his assistant Steve Arlo. The plot of the film is loosely based on the Arthur Conan Doyle short story “A Scandal in Bohemia”.
The film was shot in Portland, Oregon. It was scored by The Greyboy Allstars. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.Read More »

‘Courrier sud’ dramatizes the exploits of a French commercial airline, making the treacherous run from Paris to Africa and back. Pilot Jacques tries to rekindle a romance with old flame Genevieve, now married to a prominent foreign ambassador…Read More »