• Fyzal Boulifa – Les Damnés Ne Pleurent Pas AKA The Damned Don’t Cry (2022)

    2021-2030DramaFranceFyzal BoulifaQueer Cinema(s)

    Fatima-Zahra and her teenage son Selim move from place to place, forever trying to outrun the latest scandal she’s caught up in. When Selim discovers the truth about their past, his mother vows to make a fresh start. In Tangier, new opportunities promise the legitimacy they each crave, but not without pushing the volatile mother-son relationship to the breaking point. The Damned Don’t Cry combines melodrama and neorealism to tell the story of a mother-son relationship on the fringes, observing the effects of oppression – both economic and affective – in a cut-throat world. Borrowing its title from a 1950s Joan Crawford melodrama, The Damned Don’t Cry employs non-professional actors for its two main actors and almost the entire cast. In his second feature which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, writer-director Fyzal Boulifa manages to avoid pastiche while ‘readily embracing some of the formal elements of melodrama’ as he takes his inspiration from Pasolini’s Mamma Roma and Le notti di Cabiria.Read More »

  • Roger Corman – Frankenstein Unbound (1990)

    1981-1990HorrorRoger CormanSci-FiUSA

    Joseph Buchanan is a brilliant scientist conducting implosion experiments in the year 2031. His humanitarian goal is to develop a weapons system that will not destroy all life on Earth, but the results are catastrophic! The very core of time and space is fractured, and Buchanan finds himself thrust into 19th century Geneva. He meets fellow scientist Dr. Victor Frankenstein, whose own monstrous experiment has gone haywire, killing his brother, and threatening the entire village. Frankenstein’s creature is even more horrible than the world ever imagined-and now Dr, Frankenstein is determined to use Buchanan’s scientific knowledge to create its mate!Read More »

  • Per Kirkeby & Jørgen Leth – Dyrehaven: Den romantiske skov AKA The Deer Garden: The Romantic Forest (1970)

    1961-1970DenmarkDocumentaryJørgen LethPer KirkebyShort Film

    Quote:
    This film about the Deer Garden, a forest park north of Copenhagen, was an assignment to celebrate the Deer Garden’s 300th anniversary. Leth and the painter Per Kirkeby above all wanted to do an attractive film about life in the forest orchestrated around the four seasons. The photography is heavily inspired by the Danish Golden Age painters’ view of nature. Kirkeby, Leth and DP Henning Camre worked on and off for a full year to find the ideal light and the optimum framing, seeking out the truly beautiful. As Leth puts it, “there was complete…golden-section control of the whole film. “The narrative holds tiny traces of romantic-poetry notions of mystical and mythical forest life: a nude woman appears among the tree trunks and vanishes again like a fairy girl on a summer night. Read More »

  • Robert Enrico & Richard T. Heffron – La révolution française “Les Années terribles” (1989)

    Robert Enrico1981-1990DramaFrancePoliticsRichard T. Heffron

    A history of the French Revolution from the decision of the king to convene the Etats-Generaux in 1789 in order to deal with France’s debt problem. The first part of the movie tells the story from 1789 until August 10, 1792 (when the King Louis XVI lost all his authority and was put in prison). The second part carries the story through the end of the terror in 1794, including the deaths by guillotine of Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, Danton, and Desmoulins.Read More »

  • Ken McMullen – OXI, an Act of Resistance (2014)

    2011-2020DocumentaryKen McMullenUnited Kingdom

    ‘OXI, Resistance’, a very important cinematographic answer to the actual economic crisis which hit many European countries and more specifically Greece behind the name of Austerity imposed by the financial markets blind power. ‘OXI’ paints a picture of Power and Beauty through the great dramas of Sophocles and Aristophanes mirror.Read More »

  • Serge Leroy – Le mataf (1973)

    1971-1980CrimeFranceSerge LeroyThriller

    When intruders interfere in the robbery of Le Mataf (Michel Constantin) and his gang and a girl is murdered, they are set up for blackmail by an underworld figure who wants them to do a job for him…Read More »

  • Claude d’Anna – L’Ordre et la sécurité du monde aka Last In, First Out aka Last Priority (1978)

    1971-1980Claude d'AnnaFranceThriller

    In the film, Helen (Laure Dechasnel), a married woman, leaves Paris for Zurich after breaking up with her lover. Near the border, a fellow passenger, mistakenly takes her passport. This sets up a situation which plunges her into the midst of international intrigue, a violent struggle between multinational corporations abetted by national secret agencies. This production features such international stars as Joseph Cotten, Donald Pleasence, Dennis Hopper and Bruno Cremer.Read More »

  • Leon Hirszman – Partido Alto (1976)

    1971-1980BrazilDocumentaryLeon HirszmanShort Film

    The history of Partido-Alto, a musical subgenre derived from Samba, with roots in the batucada of Bahia.Read More »

  • Michael Findlay & Roberta Findlay – Take Me Naked (1966)

    1961-1970EroticaExploitationMichael FindlayRoberta FindlayUSA

    From noirsville.blogspot.com
    This curiosity was directed by Michael Findlay. Findlay was probably the most famous of a small group of underground New York filmmakers that were in operation in the 1960s. Joseph W. Sarno, Joseph P. Mawra, and Lou Campa were the others and they produced exploitation “roughies” Roughies were films that combined Noir/Suspense/Thriller film elements with the new found freedom to exploit sex. These films were produced expressly for the grindhouse market. They were low budget, probably ran a week to ten days in a theater and made a profit.Read More »

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