1960s

Criterion” wrote:
Olmi’s 1967 short about a young boy’s first loveRead More »

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Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s gutsy Memorias del Subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment) is a difficult work of political activism. This stirring blend of narrative fiction, still photography and rare documentary footage catalogs the many intricacies and contradictions of a bourgeois Cuban intellectual’s loyalty to Castro’s revolution. Though Alea himself was devoted to the cause, his films forever scrutinized the self-devouring nature of Castro’s Cuba. (Alea died in 1996 shortly after the one-two success of the Oscar-nominated Strawberry and Chocolate and Guantanamera.) If Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba championed the need for revolution in the country, Memories contemplates the failure of the new government to recognize and negotiate the lingering bourgeois threat left in the wake of Fulgencio Batista’s fall.Read More »

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Funeral Feast, the film with the unforgettable masterfully-edited seven-minute shoot-out in the Tivoli park, takes place in the spring of 1941, when the war engulfs the lives of the Ljubljana youth as well. The affairs of the heart result in a liaison with an enemy officer, while the rebellion leads to organized resistance.

Like in the majority of Slovenian films, in Funeral Feast the actors from the other former Yugoslav republics were overdubbed by Slovenian actors: Boris Juh lent his voice to Rade Šerbedžija, Mojca Ribič to Snežana Nikšić, and Štefka Drolc to Milena Dravić.Read More »

The beautiful young daughter of a crazed count fears that she will fall victim to the family curse – to be sacrificed to fulfill an ancient family legend.Read More »

When a star comedian dies, rather than letting anyone know, his comedy writers decide to find and teach an unknown to fill his shoes for a big show the comedian had been scheduled for. But the man they choose – bellboy, Stanley Belt – can’t do anything right, and time’s running out.Read More »

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Starting in 1964 with Seven Up, renowned director Michael Apted has explored this Jesuit maxim. The original concept was to interview 14 children from diverse backgrounds from all over England, asking them about their lives and their dreams for the future. Every seven years, Apted has been back to talk to the same subjects, examining the progression of their lives. From cab driver Tony to East End schoolmates Jackie, Lynn, and Susan and the heart-breaking Neil, we see, as they enter their 40’s, how close these subjects are to realizing their ambitions. An extraordinary look at the structure of life in the 20th century, The Up Series is, according to Roger Ebert, “an inspired, almost noble use of the film medium. Apted penetrates to the central mystery of life.”Read More »

It is a hot and muggy summer’s day in Näsviken, a small community at the edge of logger country Sweden. Barely surviving, the run-down hostel has been turned into housing for alcoholics in the county. In the midst of this, a young woman spends her days.Read More »

Rekha and her uncle Shyamlal are the only survivors in their family which has a long and painful history of death under bizarre and suspicious circumstances while living in their ancestral property. Rekha and Shyamlal leave their ancestral property in fear and settle down in the city where Rekha meets a jovial and rowdy bunch of youngsters belonging to the Youth Club. Members of the Youth Club decide to unravel the mystery of Rekha’s ancestral property and hope to find out if those deaths are freak accidents or an ancient curse.Read More »

A student abandons his way of life and wanders, suitcase in hand, seeking a place in life, literally and metaphorically. Two attitudes clash in this character – resignation and a readiness to adjust to life according to the generally accepted pattern (“little stabilization”), and the remnants of youthful rebellion, refusal to accept a boring life centred around making money. (Awards: 1966 – Bergamo, International Art Film Festival – Grand Prix; 1968 – Valladolid, IFF – Jury Special Prize).Read More »