Based on satirical short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about a vain, egotistical Etienne Gerard, a French brigadier serving during the Napoleonic Wars. He thinks he’s the best soldier and lover that ever lived and intends to prove it.Read More »

A classic BBC “Play For Today,” written and directed by the great David Hare (“Plenty”) and starring Bill Nighy and Kate Nelligan. It is NOT AVAILABLE ON DVD. Here’s a synopsis from AMG:

Dreams of Leaving is centered around the Candide-like experiences of novice journalist Bill Nighy. He is determined to experience first-hand the social and mating habits of London’s elite. Nighy gets more than he bargained for at the hands of bed-hopping socialite Kate Nelligan.Read More »

About the problems of frigidity encountered by a young married woman and how they are overcome with help of her husband.Read More »

Synopsis
Ferien (Vacation, 2007) was perhaps the festival’s best German feature. Thomas Arslan’s latest outlines the strained composition of a family and the disintegration of a marriage, set in a luminous Brandenburg summer. The film is confined: the story takes place almost exclusively on the grounds of the mother’s country house and the cinematic language speaks only static shots and long takes. Just at the very end of the film does one see the whole family together. Arslan’s feat reveals the shifting constellations of family members in individual conversations and encounters: the grandmother is tender and wise while alone with granddaughter Laura, cold when Laura’s sister Sophie enters, and bitchy in scenes with her daughter Anna. Read More »

It is 1947 and the Beskydy Mountains still display traces of war. A ten-year old boy pastures a herd of cows in a meadow housing a damaged German tank. The little herdsman lives with his half-blind grandfather in a village poorhouse. His mother Kateřina, an apathetic and unhinged woman, works for the farmer Potocký. The boy has no father. He has got used to working from morning till evening and he never attended school. No one ever stands up for him, only Uncle Králík comes from time to time and brings him a gift. He also enjoys the love of his granddad who often tells him stories about the elf king and his treasure. In the meantime, two members of the troops supporting the Ukrainian nationalist Bandera, nicknamed Blondy and Beardy, have a deal with the village mayor that a sabotage group will pass through the village…Read More »

At the age of eight, Dolkar fled her home with her father to escape Chinese armed forces, and faced an arduous journey across the Himalayas. Now 26, she lives in a Tibetan refugee colony in Delhi, where an unexpected encounter with a man from her past awakens long-suppressed memories, propelling Dolkar on an obsessive search for the truth.Read More »

The events just before, during and after World War Two have little direct effect on the inhabitants of the village inGeorgia where Zuriko lives. A schoolboy, Zuriko goes to the schoolhouse with his previously unlettered grandmother, who is receiving an education alongside him. He has some loyal, if slightly addled friends in the person of a myopic hunter named Illarion, and a one-eyed man named Illiko. So nearsighted is Illarion that on one occasion he shot Zuriko’s dog because the took it for a rabbit. The loyalty of his friends is proven after the war, when they sell the cow they all own in order to send Zuriko to college in Tblisi. This black and white film is notable for several things: its loving portrayal of the Georgian country people and countryside, and the fact that it was made by (Tenghiz Abuladze, who went on to make the extremely significant, award-winning 1984 film Monanieba, also known as Pokayaniye, or Repentance.Read More »

Quote:
World ecological collapse; the next ice-age has already begun! Lucky for us, governments know what to do…

As it was produced like a documentary and meant to be shown an episode of the series “Science Report”, many people still believe Alternative 3 was based on a true story. The fact it has never been repeated on British TV has given ammunition to conspiracy theorists who believe Alternative 3 was meant to blow the whistle on an actual government project and alien threat. The film was originally intended to be broadcast on April Fools’Day as a hoax, but it was delayed until June by industrial action
Music by Brian EnoRead More »

A fascinating chronicle of an unprecedented cross-cultural collaboration. In 1997 renowned conductor Zubin Mehta and celebrated Chinese film director Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern) joined forces on a production of Puccini’s opera Turandot in the Forbidden City of Beijing. The production was an undertaking on an epic scale with enormous sets, breathtaking hand-sewn Ming Dynasty costumes and hundreds of soldiers posing as extras. A fascinating chronicle of an unprecedented cross-cultural collaboration, The Turandot Project combines the pageantry of this opulent opera production with a spectacular cinematic portrait of the struggles and triumphs of Zubin Mehta and Zhang Yimou to mount their production in this most historic venue of China.Read More »