Philipp Gerber is a smart, but self-satisfied car salesman. In an inattentive moment at the wheel of his car, he runs over a young boy riding a bike and drives away. As he has feelings of guilt, he tries to find out more about the accident’s victim and learns that the boy lies seriously injured in a hospital. Philipp wants to tell his mother Laura Reiser the truth, but he doesn’t. After a carefree holiday with his girlfriend Katja, he learns that the boy is dead. Meanwhile, Laura staggers between grief and the desire for revenge. One evening, she can’t bear it any more and jumps off a bridge, but Philipp saves her life…Read More »

Vera lives in the shadow of her famous father. Tired of her superficial life and relationships, she drifts through Roman high society. When she injures a child in a traffic accident in the suburbs, she forms an intense relationship with an eight-year-old boy and his father. But soon she must realize that also in this world she is only an instrument for others.Read More »

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The story of the student who sells his shadow for money and power only to find that the shadow reappears at certain moments and brings disaster upon him, should be well known from the original and the first remake. Robison however, introduces some new twists and angles to the story which should not be told here.Read More »

The Architect of Saint-Gaudens is a musical and choreographic film.
An architect sings, while he strolls about, about the buildings he constructed in a small village in the Pyrénées. He is accompanied by the inhabitants, who sing and dance in their homes, workplaces, and places of study.
A dialog takes shape between the architect and the population about his work, its paradoxes and its rules.Read More »

The small-screen penchant for overwrought breast cancer melodramas tends to drown out more psychologically acute portrayals, so it’s refreshing to find a film that addresses the issue in a restrained yet emotionally engaging way. Helmer Martin Koolhoven is known for eliciting topnotch performances from his actors, and “South” is no exception. A simply told story that mostly eschews fireworks in favor of character, pic’s exploration of a woman’s inability to reintegrate her life after a mastectomy could attract an arthouse crowd with its sympathetic handling.Read More »

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Mariann Lewinsky (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): “Kashtanka by Olga Preobrazhenskaya, print 1995, a film of winter, of night and snow, of children and animals, a film about loss, a masterpiece”, read my viewing notes from 2012. My Prague colleagues had it screened for me because they knew I was interested in colour in silent cinema, and they knew a tinted Soviet silent film to be a rare item. I had never heard the name of the director. My encounter with her work was enhanced by the shock of discovering that a major director who had reached international audiences with Baby ryazanskie and Tikhiy Don (The Quiet Don) around 1930 could disappear without a trace from official film history. In 2013, Il Cinema Ritrovato dedicated a retrospective to her.” Mariann Lewinsky (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)Read More »

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Twenty-four hours in the tentative relationship of two young San Franciscans also dealing with the conundrum of being a minority in a rapidly gentrifying city.Read More »

Plot:
The film opens with a scene of Milena (Millie) running in a panic towards a wire fence. She slips through a hole in the fence and runs on. This is followed by a road-movie style odyssey of two young men, both trying to win Milena’s heart. The story reaches a peak by the sea, where Milena makes an attempt to subtly reveal which of the two young men she loves. She does this by building a sand castle on the beach, where the three of them can be alone, safe and free. Yet the police are close on their trail and the two young men must come to terms with a shocking realization…Read More »

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As we all often learn in life, it’s the little, simple things that can have a big impact. Bénazéraf doesn’t go for complexity here, and his plot is pretty simple for the most part. Yet Sexus does leave it’s mark on the mind, and sometimes a director can communicate things without even realising it. With it’s odd framing device, throbbing score and luminous imagery, Bénazéraf lets us in on his obsessions, and if you are in the right frame of mind, you can dive right in with him into the whirlpool. I look forward to covering more of his films in these pages. Though not quite in the realm of some of the more obvious Sinema covered here, the blood pumping under the filmic flesh would appear to be the same. It’s a hip, jazzy feast for the senses, if you can track it down.Read More »