The Song of Ceylon was originally commissioned as a series of short travelogues, but spawned an ambitious film transforming travelogue (exotic animals, eye-catching scenery, quirky customs) into a dreamlike film poem. Critics have since argued every possible position on the film’s portrayal of colonialism and its subjects. Only during editing did the film find its intricate design, a documentary ‘song’ in four movements. The first, ‘The Buddha’, is an impression of religious and cultural practices. ‘The Virgin Island’ is the most factually informative, featuring fishing and agricultural scenes. ‘The Voice of Commerce’ highlights the film’s most controversial aspect, its ambivalence towards British imperialism. The final section, ‘The Apparel of a God’, returns to ritualistic images, as if synthesising the verse and chorus of Ceylon’s ‘song’.Read More »

Marc and Rebeca travel to an old country house that used to belong to their family: once there, they will write the shared history of their roots, creating a huge family tree that harbours relationships of love, heartbreak, sex, madness, jealousy and infidelity… and under which also lies a history laden with secrets.Read More »

The Buddhist concept of reincarnation, while both mysterious and enchanting, is hard for most westerners to grasp. UNMISTAKEN CHILD follows the four-year search for the reincarnation of Lama Konchog, a world-renowned Tibetan master who passed away in 2001 at age 84. The Dalai Lama charges the deceased monk’s devoted disciple, Tenzin Zopa (who had been in his service since the age of seven), to search for his master’s reincarnation.Read More »

A shipping magnate goes bankrupt and the family being used to a high spending life. Moving to a summer resort with moonshine and smuggling as a way out. Love and art are sacrificed in the hunt for old honor, with the children as victims.Read More »

imdb:
In the film Battle for Ukraine Andrei Konchalovsky, the famous Russian director, analyzes how Ukraine, a former part of the Soviet Empire and present big European country, struggles to escape from the close embrace of the former big brother, Russia, and not to become one of the American satellites. This extensive study lasted for almost three years. Many Ukrainian, Russian and American historians, politicians and journalists took part in this study, as well as the ex-President of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski, the ex-President of Slovakia Rudolf Schuster, the ex-President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, the ex-Prime Minister of Russia Viktor Chernomyrdin, and the businessman Boris Berezovsky.Read More »

This 1966 production is the world’s first interactive film. Created by Czech filmmaker Radúz Cincera, “Kinoautomat” caused a sensation at the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal. It’s a black comedy in which you make decisions for the central character at key moments in the film using a wireless voting system. Groundbreaking and great fun, “Kinoautomat” has been restored by Cincera’s daughter, Alena Cincerova.Read More »

From New York Times:
Four different comedy vignettes highlight the particular, idiosyncratic viewpoint of Roberto Benigni, a television comedian who originally wrote these four segments with Giuseppe Bertolucci for home TV. In the first sketch, the year is 5 A.D. and Benigni has to baby-sit for his old girlfriend Mary so she and her husband Joseph can have a night out. As Benigni is giving their child Jesus a bath, he muses philosophically about the nature of God and without a word, the little boy stands up on the bath water and leaves the outlines of his face on the bath towel. In the next segment, Benigni is in a quandary because his guardian angel, disillusioned with their relationship, has fallen in love with God and left him. Read More »

In the black market, a war orphan is confronted with the struggles of people living in the immediate aftermath of WWII.Read More »

Imdb:
Mika’s (Ilkka Koivula) mother marries a man who is getting out of the jail. At the beginning everything seems to be all right. Mika leaves Oulu, an industrial city up in Northern Finland, to study in the capital, Helsinki. He does very well with his studies and also begins a relationship with the girl he knew already back in Oulu. Meanwhile the new husband reveals his true self – and all of a sudden things get very serious.Read More »