1960s

A money order from a relative in Paris throws the life of a Senegalese family man out of order. He deals with corruption, greed, problematic family members, the locals and the changing from his traditional way of living to a more modern one.

From Time Out:

A political film criticising the type of bureaucracy that has arisen in post-colonial Senegal. A money order is sent to an unemployed, illiterate relative by a hard-working lad seeking his fortune in Paris. But all attempts to cash the money order are frustrated: the man’s illiteracy and ignorance of finance allow him to be exploited by those with education. The power is in the hands of the clerks and intellectuals, who use their knowledge for private advantage. Although the film can be criticised for the relative gentleness of its attack, Sembene succeeds in pointing up the divisiveness created by the colonial heritage. The French-colonised elite are now busy oppressing and colonising their own people. Shot in Wolof, the local language, the film asserts Senegalese culture against the rapacious way of the West. Not surprisingly it proved popular with the ‘people’, but was ignored by the bourgeois when originally released.Read More »

Whack! What was that you ask, well that was the impact of the Elsa and Kit Colfach’s only feature length film ever – Susanne. A grim tale of youth gone wild that will move you in more than one way. A shocking piece of social realism that finally gets a deluxe treatment it deserves thanks to the guys at KlubSuper8 – back after a way too long hiatus, and it’s a welcome release, because this is one hell of a special trip.Read More »

Athens, right before the beginning of WW2. Niki, an employee of the General Army HQ, is
accused of giving classified documents to an Italian agent. She is blackmailed with threats about her brother’s life who is studying in Italy. She makes no effort to defend herself and doesn’t care if she gets convicted to death sentence, but she accepts the cooperation of General Dareios, to keep giving army documents to the Italians only these documents are falsified to deceive the enemy. A Greek captain, named Theodorou, gets involved in the case. He is in love with Niki. He gets arrested and accused for stealing the documents and is sent to martial court, where he is sentenced to death penalty….Read More »

Quote:
Czechoslovak cinema was reinforced in 1963 by the emergence of Jaromil Jireš. He made his directing debut with a simple narrative based on a book by Ludvík Aškenazy (who also wrote the screenplay). Similarly to contemporaries at Prague’s FAMU film academy, this talented young filmmaker was influenced by the documentary approach to making feature films. The protagonists in Křik (The Cry), husband and wife Slávek and Ivana, experience a rather important day in their lives during which they are separated from each other. Ivana lies in the delivery room giving birth to their first child, while Slávek is repairing televisions at work. The spouses dwell on themselves and the life they have up until now experienced with each other. Jireš and cameraman Jaroslav Kučera use a hidden camera perspective, something that was quite unusual at the time. The director also uses non-actors to add authenticity to the narrative. Slávek is, however, played by the experienced Josef Abrhám.Read More »

Imdb:
An early realist classic from Turkey
15 December 2004 | by Tilly Gokbudak (Roanoke, Va.)
This is one of several Turkish films I have chosen to examine for a college thesis on Turkish cinema. I found a copy of it by chance from a CD store in the Aksaray part of Istanbul, the last time I was in Turkey. This is quite a film. The Revenge of the Snakes is a definitive precursor to the films of Yilmaz Guney, Zeki Okten, Ali Ozgenturk, and Serif Goren. It is a simple tale of a young couple and their little boy trying to live a suitable life in a small Anatolian village. This is a multi-layered film in which the antagonists include the mother in law, the new neighbors- with whom there is a serious land dispute, the town chiefs, and government officials who are oblivious to the needs and concerns of the average person. The snake is a symbol for the incoming troubles that will haunt the couple. The lead actor Fikret Hakan and the whole cast is brilliant. If you like Turkish films, this is one to see. It is perhaps as relevant to Turkish cinema as Rosellini’s “Open City” is to Italian cinema.Read More »

Cat Food
Canada / 13:30 min. / 1967
sound / color

“In Catfood Wieland shows a cat devouring fish after fish for some ten minutes. There seems to be no repetition of shots, but the imagery is so consistent throughout–shot of the fish, the cat eating, his paw clawing, another fish, the cat eating, etc.–that it is just possible the shots are recurrent. There is no question that Wieland has a unique talent.”- P Adams Sitney, Film CultureRead More »

Portrait of a small south German village and its residents in the early sixties.
Rural culture is undergoing a transformation caused by the intrusion of the industrial world. Gestures at work and words of its inhabitants.Read More »

Quote:
Eight years into her marriage, Miyako Mizuki (Mariko Okada) looks happy on the outside, but in fact she is not satisfied with her husband, Yuzo (Shinsuke Ashida), who cares about nothing but his career. Miyako has been having an affair with a young interior designer named Kitano (Tamotsu Hayakawa), who in turn has a fiancée named Machie (Keiko Natsu). One night in a hotel, Miyako lets Kitano takes some nude photos of her. On her way back, she is followed by a stranger (Shigeru Tsuyuguchi), and loses her handbag with the film negatives inside while trying to escape. Later at home, Miyako receives a call from the stranger. He uses the negatives to threaten her to follow his instructions and take a train to the north. The stranger is named Ginpei. He was a teacher in a girls’ school, but was expelled because of a scandal with one of his students. As Miyako meets up with Ginpei, she develops a strange attraction towards him.
Read More »

Bright Lights Film Journal wrote:
The late Peter Adair (1943-1996) is best known in the queer community as one of the auteurs of Word Is Out, the first documentary about gay people that found a home in the mainstream. An outsider himself as a gay man, Adair was apparently drawn to other outsiders. His first, and in some ways best, film explored a distinctive American subculture. Holy Ghost People is a 53-minute documentary about snake-handling, strychnine-swilling members of the “Holiness” church. Rightly hailed by Margaret Mead as one of the best ethnographic films ever made, and a staple of classes on anthropology and documentary film, this study of a little-known sect who put their lives on the line for their religion still packs a wallop three decades after its release.Read More »