Bursting with the ideas of a who’s-who of the Central European avant-garde, this eye-opening rediscovery is the missing link between Buñuel and Vertov, the Surrealists and the Soviets. Modernist novelist Vladislav Vancura joined forces with the famed Surrealist poet Vitezslav Nezval and the founder of structuralism, Roman Jakobson, to channel their movements’ missions into one superbly energetic film loosely structured around two children caught between their variously incompetent parents and an experimental reform school (“Education by Freedom!”). Vancura unleashes a dizzying storm of competing ideas and aesthetics, mashing up genres and accepted narrative norms to subvert the framework of conventional cinema, and, by extension, society. Anchoring the film’s dizzying camera angles and bizarre vignettes is some pointed commentary, as witnessed in the excesses of the Jazz Age bourgeoisie and the struggles of the Great Depression. On the Sunny Side pulsates with an energy that’s still ahead of its time.Read More »

In the fall of 1939, the German heavy cruiser (referred to as a pocket battleship) Graf Spee seems to have command of the Atlantic. In the first three months of World War II, she was responsible for sinking nine ships. The British sent three cruisers commanded by Commodore Henry Harwood to confront her. The battle took place on December 13, 1939 and the British came out on top. The Graf Spee headed for the neutral harbor of Montevideo, Uruguay. They were given only a short time to effect repairs and the British did their best to make them believe a British fleet of six or eight ships awaited them. Rather than chance the loss of his men, the German Captain ordered the Graf Spee scuttled.Read More »

In the wake of the ferocious repression by the Bourbon reign of the 1828 uprisings, three Southern Italian young people whose families are involved decide to join Giuseppe Mazzini’s Young Italy movement. In the course of four episodes, each corresponding to a little-known page from the history of Italian unification, the lives of Domenico, Angelo and Salvatore are tragically marked by their mission as conspirators and revolutionaries, leading to an existence suspended between moral rigour and murderous instinct, spirit of sacrifice and fear. (~europeanfilmawards.eu)Read More »

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An assistant director working in Iraq finds himself caught up in the attack on the Nassiriya army barracks.Read More »

Summer Night is Lina Wertmu ller s outrageous, and outrageously funny, response to her own Swept Away, updated with the politics and conspicuous consumption of the 1980s. Mariangela Melato (Swept Away) stars as Signora Bolk, a self-made tycoon interested in ecological preservation. She is fed up with the terrorists who poach Italy s rich beauty, and as part of a crazy retaliation scheme she hires a former CIA agent to abduct the number one violator, Giuseppe Beppe Catania (Michele Placido). Catania is taken to her villa on a private island where he insists that as a man, he cannot go without sex. She relents and hires two prostitutes to pleasure him. Blindfolded and chained, Beppe realizes that the third woman is none other than the woman who kidnapped him and agrees to pay the $100 million but only with a twist.Read More »

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The history of the city symphony is dominated by artists who identified as progressives and radicals, or in some rare cases, such as that of Walter Ruttmann, artists whose politics appear to have undergone a rather startling transformation, from a position that was at least centrist or moderate, to one that was far to the right of center. Stramilano (1929), directed by Corrado D’Errico (1902-41) and produced by the company of the Za Bum music hall by Mario Mattoli and Luciano Ramo for instituto LUCE, was not only Italy’s first contribution to the city symphonies cycle, it was also the earliest example of such a film to emerge from a fascist nation. Read More »

A horror comedy with fake news and commercials section, that was filmed on old video cameras to make it look like a real VHS recording of a commercial television station’s Halloween special from 1987.Read More »

In this classic conspiracy thriller, screen icon Robert Redford (Tell Them Willie Boy is Here, The Sting, All the President’s Men, Indecent Proposal) stars as CIA Agent Joe Turner. Code name: Condor. When his entire office is massacred, Turner goes on the run from his enemies…and his so-called allies. After reporting the murders to his superiors, the organization wants to bring Condor in—but somebody is trying to take him out. In his frantic hunt for answers, and in a desperate race for his life, Turner abducts photographer Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway, The Thomas Crown Affair, Eyes of Laura Mars), eventually seducing her into helping him. Every twist leads Condor to the end of his nerves…and will take you to the edge of your seat. And as he zeroes in on the staggering truth, he discovers there are some secrets people would kill to keep. Masterfully directed by Sydney Pollack (Jeremiah Johnson, Tootsie, Out of Africa, Havana) and also starring Cliff Robertson (Charly), John Houseman (The Paper Chase) and the icy Max von Sydow (Needful Things), 3 Days of the Condor endures as one of Hollywood’s finest tales of political paranoia.Read More »

Based on the true story of the Canaro of Rome.
Marcello, a small and gentle dog groomer, finds himself involved in a dangerous relationship of subjugation with Simone, a former violent boxer who terrorizes the entire neighborhood. In an effort to reaffirm his dignity, Marcello will submit to an unexpected act of vengeance.Read More »