• Min-suk Kim – Cho-neung-ryeok-ja AKA Haunters (2010)

    2001-2010ActionMin-suk KimSci-FiSouth Korea
    Cho neung ryeok ja (2010)
    Cho neung ryeok ja (2010)

    Cho-In can control other people’s minds when they are within his field of sight.Except one man.Read More »

  • Michelangelo Antonioni – L’Avventura aka The Adventure (1960)

    1951-1960ArthouseDramaItalyMichelangelo Antonioni
    L'avventura (1960)
    L’avventura (1960)

    Quote:
    This ground-breaking film won a Special Jury Prize at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and established its director, Michelangelo Antonioni, as a major international talent. The plot concerns a yachting trip by a small group of jaded socialites, including Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti), an aging architect who sold out for easy money long ago, his mistress Anna (Lea Massari), and her friend Claudia (Monica Vitti), who doesn’t fit in with the wealthy jet-setters’ dissolute ethics. When Anna disappears during a tour of a volcanic island, Claudia initially blames Sandro’s emotionally barren behavior toward her. As they search the island, however, Claudia and Sandro grow closer and — when it is apparent that Anna is gone forever — become lovers. Unfortunately, Sandro cannot find anything decent inside himself and betrays Claudia with a local prostitute. Caught in the act, Sandro has a heartrending breakdown on a desolate beach, but Claudia silently forgives him. L’avventura caught many audiences who were expecting a mystery by surprise; as in La notte (1961), The Eclipse (1962), and Red Desert (1964), Antonioni is interested less in developing a logical story than in exploring states of feeling and breakdowns in human connection.Read More »

  • Wolfgang Becker – Schmetterlinge AKA Butterflies (1988)

    1981-1990ArthouseDramaGermanyWolfgang Becker
    Schmetterlinge (1988)
    Schmetterlinge (1988)

    Synopsis by Dan Pavlides:
    When young Kaja (Lena Boehncke) is found dead, Andi (Bertram von Boxberg) is questioned by authorities. The two had spent time together along the railroad tracks where Kaja was promised by Andi that he would take her to the place where beautiful butterflies congregate. Andi is told that the girl died of injuries suffered in a fall as the police try to discover if Andi was involved. Peter Franke plays the father, with Uwe Helfrich as the police inspector.

    Quote:
    It won the Golden Leopard at the 1988 Locarno International Film Festival.Read More »

  • Mehmet Ada Öztekin – 7. Koğuştaki Mucize AKA Miracle in Cell No 7 (2019)

    2011-2020DramaMehmet Ada ÖztekinTurkey
    Yedinci Kogustaki Mucize (2019)
    Yedinci Kogustaki Mucize (2019)

    A story of love between a mentally-ill father who was wrongly accused of murder and his lovely six year old daughter. Prison will be their home. Based on the 2013 Korean movie 7-beon-bang-ui seon-mul (2013).Read More »

  • Raúl Perrone – Favula (2014)

    Raúl Perrone2011-2020ArgentinaArthouseSilent
    Favula (2014)
    Favula (2014)

    Quote:
    “Hypnotic” is the best word to describe Favula, the latest work from director Raúl Perrone, which comes with a recommendation from none other than Apichatpong Weerasethakul – though he used the more Joe-like epithet, “bliss.” Somewhat of a secret outside of his native Argentina, Perrone has made more than 30 movies, and in recent years has reinvented his cinema, by looking back to the past, and in doing so pointing to the future. Standing apart from any other film made this year, with its magical handmade aesthetic, Favula recalls Méliès, or silent Fritz Lang, but at the same time evokes recent silent, stage-bound aesthetics like Raya Martin’s Independencia. Loosely based on an African fable, and shot employing rear-projections techniques, Favula’s simple events take place mostly in an isolated house and a nearby jungle: a marginal family’s life is interrupted by the arrival of a teenaged girl. On top of the minimalist, pulsating images, Perrone layers a maximalist soundtrack that encompasses both the sounds of the jungle and non-diegetic music (indelible contemporary songs that appeared in his last work, the cumbia punk opera P3ND3JO5). The result is a wholly unique, mythical universe of danger, passion and magic.Read More »

  • Laurent Achard – Le dernier des fous AKA The Last of the Crazy People (2006)

    Laurent Achard2001-2010ArthouseDramaFrance

    Based on the 1967 novel by Canadian author Timothy Findley, THE LAST OF THE CRAZY PEOPLE is a French naturalist drama from director Laurent Achard. Martin is a young boy growing up in a family on the brink of collapse, the story is presented from his perspective as he passively watches it slowly crumble around him.Read More »

  • Victor A. Turin – Turksib (1929)

    Victor A. Turin1921-1930DocumentaryUSSR
    Turksib (1929)
    Turksib (1929)

    SYNOPSIS
    Turksib itself, a silent film presented here with a newly commissioned score by Guy Bartell focuses on the problems faced by regional farmers in Turkestan and the creation of the Turkestan-Siberian railway. It is filled with impressionistic images of the land and its people juxtaposed with the inevitable juggernaut of Soviet industrial expansion. I’m not so certain that the new score is always in harmony, no pun intended, with the subject matter here. The electronic instrumentation and trance music seems rather anachronistic and jarring, really a bit out of place, if I may be redundant.Read More »

  • Gérard Blain – Jusqu’au bout de la nuit (1995)

    Gérard Blain1991-2000DramaFrance
    Jusqu'au bout de la nuit (1995)
    Jusqu’au bout de la nuit (1995)

    Plot: François, perpetual rebel against society and its laws, is released after a long imprisonment, and meets up with his family and friends in Lyon. His new love for Maria, a young woman adrift, prompts him to get quick money. François will commit acts of violence that will definitely lose him.Read More »

  • Joost Rekveld – #37 (2009)

    2001-2010ExperimentalJoost RekveldNetherlandsShort Film
    #37 (2009)
    #37 (2009)

    #37
    (35mm scope, 31 min, 2009)

    “Andronicos says that in a certain place in Spain one finds small, scattered stones which are polygonal and grow spontaneously. Some of them are white, others are like wax and pregnant of smaller stones similar to themselves.
    I kept one to verify this myself and it gave birth at my place, so the story is not a lie.”

    ‘Paradoxographus Palatinus’, anonymous, 3rd century.Read More »

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