• D.W. Griffith – The Birth of a Nation (1915)

    Drama1911-1920D.W. GriffithSilentUSA

    The Birth of a Nation (originally called The Clansman) is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay (with Frank E. Woods), and co-produced the film (with Harry Aitken). It was released on February 8, 1915. The film was originally presented in two parts, separated by an intermission.
    The film chronicles the relationship of two families in Civil War and Reconstruction-era America: the pro-Union northern Stonemans and the pro-Confederacy Southern Camerons over the course of several years. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth is dramatized.Read More »

  • Vera Chytilová – Sedmikrásky AKA Daisies (1966)

    1961-1970Amos Vogel: Film as a Subversive ArtArthouseCzech RepublicExperimentalVera Chytilová

    Synopsis:
    If the entire world is bad, why shouldn’t we be? Adopting this insolent attitude as their guiding philosophy, a pair of hedonistic young women (Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová), both named Marie, embark on a gleefully debauched odyssey of gluttony, giddy destruction, and antipatriarchal resistance, in which nothing is safe from their nihilistic pursuit of pleasure. But what happens when the fun is over? Matching her anarchic message with an equally radical aesthetic, director Věra Chytilová, with the close collaboration of cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, unleashes an optical storm of fluctuating film stocks, kaleidoscopic montages, cartoonish stop-motion cutouts, and surreal costumes designed by Ester Krumbachová, who also cowrote the script. The result is Daisies, the most defiant provocation of the Czechoslovak New Wave, an exuberant call to rebellion aimed squarely at those who uphold authoritarian oppression in any form.Read More »

  • Fred Guiol – The Second 100 Years (1927)

    1921-1930ComedyFred GuiolSilentUSA

    Quote:
    Thrown in prison for a hundred years, Little Goofy and Big Goofy finally break free, posing as an anarchic duo of undercover painters. Soon, the boys wind up in a private party as visiting French dignitaries; however, who are they kidding?Read More »

  • Rowland V. Lee – Blind Hearts (1921)

    1921-1930DramaRowland V. LeeSilentUSA

    In 1898 friends John Thomas and Lars Larson travel to the Yukon with their wives to make their fortunes. While in Alaska Thomas’ wife gives birth to a boy, and Larson’s wife has a girl, Julia. However, Larson spots a birthmark on his daughter’s shoulder that resembles one on Thomas’ shoulder, and he begins to suspect that he may not actually be the girl’s father. Over the next 20 years the two become millionaires, but Larson’s wife dies. Julia and Thomas fall in love and wish to marry, but Larson is determined to oppose it. Complications ensue (imdb)Read More »

  • Akira Katô – Niizuma jigoku AKA Newlywed Hell (1975)

    1971-1980EroticaExploitationJapan

    The young and beautiful Yuki decides to leave her husband. She goes back to the place where she grew up. There she is initiated to S&M & bondage. But is it really the perfect cure to forget all about her past and regain happiness?Read More »

  • Agnès Varda – Mur murs AKA Mural Murals (1981)

    1981-1990Agnès VardaDocumentaryFrance

    Quote:
    After returning to Los Angeles from France in 1979, Agnès Varda created this kaleidoscopic documentary about the striking murals that decorate the city. Bursting with color and vitality, Mur Murs is as much an invigorating study of community and diversity as it is an essential catalog of unusual public art.Read More »

  • Gerd Kroske – Galera (1998)

    1991-2000DocumentaryGerd KroskeGermany

    The young French from Mantes-la-Jolie call their everyday tours “Galera”, alluding to a strenuous life with obstacles. Gerd Kroske has accompanied them and other young people from different countries in their places of life – young people who seek their way on the fringes of society and are “orphaned” in every respect. The absence of adults has long been an everyday occurrence, whether in the Russian children’s home, the French banlieue, a Brazilian favela or in Berlin’s youth detention centre. The film questions the current media images of “Generation X”. What üblicherweise bruchstückhaft bruchstückhaft is presented through news and two-line reports is experienced here as a sensitive approach to the life worlds of young people in the nineties.Read More »

  • Antonin Peretjatko – La pièce rapportée aka Old Fashioned (2020)

    2011-2020Antonin PeretjatkoComedyFrance

    Paul Château-Têtard, 48, falls in love with a young woman working as a counter clerk in the subway. After he marries her, his mother launches a private detective on her tracks to prove she’s cheating on her son.Read More »

  • Yvonne Rainer – Film About a Woman Who… (1974)

    1971-1980DramaExperimentalUSAYvonne Rainer

    Quote:
    Yvonne Rainer’s landmark film is a meditation on ambivalence that plays with cliché and the conventions of soap opera while telling the story of a woman whose sexual dissatisfaction masks an enormous anger. (Zeitgeist FIlms)Read More »

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