1. House
At a stone quarry above Hebron, Arab stonecutters work without explosives to cut away slabs shipped to cities to build houses. We visit a site in an old Arab quarter of Jerusalem where Palestinian laborers are enlarging a house for a Jewish family that had been an Arab family’s home until 1948. We meet the house’s present owner, a Jewish professional. We meet a stonemason at work on the addition; he talks about his hatred of Jews. We meet an older man who had built the original house, and we meet the physician who had lived in the house until he and his family evacuated it. He explains why they left. History, class, labor, and attitude on display at a construction site.Read More »

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Pastorali explores what is truly valuable in human relationships, when one cuts away the non-essentials. The story shows what happens when a highly cultured group of musicians from a string quartet spend the summer rehearsing in a small village in the Georgian countryside. In this contemplative, idiosyncratic and somewhat humorous film, they get embroiled in local controversies, and share their gusto for living, loving and drinking with the villagers, to whom they are otherwise incomprehensible, while they rehearse and bicker among themselvesRead More »

971 Swedish erotica from Sarno starring the lovely Marie Liljedahl. Sequel to Inga (1968).

This is the Grindhouse cut.

After her boyfriend leaves her alone and penniless, Inga can only long for the love of another man devoted to satisfying her body and soul. Rolf, a young pop singer and musician, tries his best to seduce her, but she ultimately falls for Stig – a dashing older man and writer. Stig owns a beautiful villa, and Inga gladly becomes his personal secretary – and lover. When business takes Stig away, Inga’s loneliness and unfulfilled sensual desires lead her straight into the arms and bed of Rolf. Inga’s life is further complicated by the arrival of the young and beautiful Greta Tillstrom (Inger Sundh) who admits to an on-going affair with Stig and professes a blossoming attraction for Inga herself. As passions surge and forbidden lust is embraced, Inga will be forced to confront a shocking secret and reconcile an aching heart with a tireless young body that can’t say no.Read More »

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Berlin, the Romantic Era. Young poet Heinrich wishes to conquer the inevitability of death through love, yet is unable to convince his skeptical cousin Marie to join him in a suicide pact. It is whilst coming to terms with this refusal, ineffably distressed by his cousin’s insensitivity to the depth of his feelings, that Heinrich meets Henriette, the wife of a business acquaintance. Heinrich’s subsequent offer to the beguiling young woman at first holds scant appeal, that is until Henriette discovers she is suffering from a terminal illnessRead More »

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Sandra Larson has always been fascinated by the entire sensory experience surrounding death: its touch, smell and look. As a child, she would search out dead animals and perform ritualistic burials. As a young woman, Sandra gets a job at Wallis Funeral Home, first as a general assistant, then progressing to study to become an embalmer. At the funeral home, she begins to take her fascination with death to the next level by becoming a necrophiliac. But she also begins her first ever relationship with Matt, a medical student, with who she is totally open about her necrophilia. He finds this aspect of her compelling. He becomes all consumed with her as she is consumed with dead people. The questions become how far he will take this fascination with her to understand fully what is going through her emotional being, how far she will allow him to go, and how far can her feelings for him extend as a live being.Read More »

A python slithers and curls over the abandoned control room of Chernobyl’s sister, the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, its radioactive core an unleashed monster that will slither through time for a million years.Read More »

Summer 1900, Switzerland.

Elisabeth, 17, is about to take her vows when the sudden death of her older sister forces her to leave the convent and return to the family farm. Stifled by the suffocating and strict rules of the village, walking in her sister’s step to uncover the mystery of her death, Elisabeth is slowly driven to rebel against the local order and for her right to live her life.Read More »

For his sophomore feature, “Beautiful Beings,” playing in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama, Icelandic helmer-writer Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson returns to the subject of his prize-winning first feature “Heartstone” (2016): fraught adolescent friendships and difficult family lives. In “Beautiful Beings,” a horrendously bullied youth forms a tentative rapport with a trio of tough outsiders. Together, the boys experiment with aggression and violence, but also learn about loyalty and love.Read More »

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Returning home from the front line after being held captive for two months, soldier Lilia (29 y.o.) discovers that she is pregnant after being raped by her warden. Will she manage to survive this trauma and save the child in a society that is not ready to accept either of them?Read More »