1970s

From Hong Kong International Film Festival:
Bernal’s impressive debut feature confirmed him as a prominent filmmaker who was not only capable of orchestrating a striking narrative, but also one that revealed the hypocrisy permeating the carnivalesque affairs of filmmaking. The story follows Ching, a stripper, who performs to the lustful stares of her patrons. Discovered by an idealistic film director, she rises to stardom and takes her lover Pinggoy, a taxi driver, into show business. Scrambling to the top, they reap fame and forture only to find tragedies awaiting. Bernal has made startlingly accurate observations of the dichotomies facing Philippine cinema and society, winning Best Film of the Decade in the country’s prestigious Gawad Urian Awards.Read More »

Two Vietnam deserters go their separate ways, become criminals and are eventually reunited.Read More »

A sequel to ‘LAST BUS’, this semi-dramatised documentary looks at what the subsequent history might have been of the boys in the gang that attacked the conductor in Last Bus, what might have caused the boys to behave in the way they did, and what the nature of their punishment will be.Read More »

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An extraordinary debut from one of Hollywood’s most bankable UK ex-pats, Tony Scott’s Loving Memory (1970) follows an isolated brother and sister who live with their memories and a grisly secret. Critically acclaimed on its release Loving Memory was beautifully photographed by celebrated cinematographer Chris Menges – who captures perfectly the misty mystery of the Yorkshire moors – and feature a stunning, sinister performance from Rosamund Greenwood (Village of the Damned, The Witches) as a haunted innocent.Read More »

Synopsis
Haute-Savoie, 1951. Hellé is a young deaf-mute living among the mountains. She’s ignored by everyone except, now and then, the local woodsmen, who use her for their pleasure. She has no education, no knowledge of right or wrong. One summer, a young man comes to spend the holidays in her village…Read More »

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Fred Halsted plays himself in his notorious autobiographical portrait of Los Angeles. Two men have a fleetingly idyllic meeting outside of town while Halsted shows a young pick-up the ropes within city limits.Read More »

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Gates of Heaven is a documentary film by Errol Morris about the pet cemetery business. It was made when Morris was unknown and did much to launch his career.Read More »

China 9, Liberty 37 falls halfway between the Hollywood backlot-western school and the Italian “spaghetti” western genre, borrowing the best elements from both. Fabio Testi plays a gunfighter who is saved at the last moment from a hangman’s noose. His liberators are a cartel of railroad men who want Testi to kill farmer (and former hired gun) Warren Oates, who has refused all entreaties to sell his land. As part of the scheme, Testi befriends Oates; on his own volition, he sleeps with Oates’ wife Jenny Agutter. When the railroad barons insist that Testi go through with his mission, he refuses, and helps the farmer fight off the train moguls’ hired thugs. Also known as Gunfire, China 9 Liberty 37 features a cameo by director Monte Hellman’s role model, Sam Peckinpah, who plays a bombastic Ned Buntline-style novelist. And the significance of the title? It’s the location of Warren Oates’ spread: Nine miles from the town of China, 37 miles from the town of Liberty.Read More »

François Karwitch is a young lawyer from a wealthy but stifling Jewish family. His life is meticulously ordered, he does his routine work day after day and is about to marry Fanny, the fiancée forced on him by his parents. One day, from the window of his Brussels practice, he witnesses a scene which will turn his life upside down: the brutal internment of a man in a nearby psychiatric hospital. Shocked by the treatment given to this person he decides to learn more about him. His name is Carlos; he is a revolted blue collar; and if he has been taken to this place, it is because he killed the head of an arms factory.Read More »