1980s

Synopsis:
Naomi throws a party for her 23rd birthday at a luxurious salon. The host, Joji Kawai, Naomi’s 38-year-old husband, is a jewelry trader. Soon they move to London and open a jewelry store. Even though they are a close couple, there are many twists and turns before they arrive here. Joji and Naomi first became acquainted when Naomi was 16 years old and had just dropped out of high school. Joji was using the snack bar where Naomi worked and started inviting her to go to the movies and have dinner. Wanting to transform the young girl, whose birth and identity he did not know, into an ideal woman with his own hands, Joji proposed that Naomi live with him. Eventually, the two inevitably get married, and Naomi’s 18-year-old body begins to blossom as a mature woman, giving off a demonic charm and indulging in the pleasures of various men…Read More »

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Beirut, My City finds Saab and her collaborator, the playwright and director Roger Assaf, returning to the shell of her former home following Israel’s 1982 invasion, finding small glimmers of hope in the chaos of refugee camps and the rubble of decimated neighborhoods.
“I consider this to be my most important film, the one that is the closest to my heart. In 1982, my house was burning. That’s not nothing. It was a very old house. 150 years of history went up in flames and disappeared. All of that is suddenly destroyed. The family home, wiped off the map, gone from the city, having become a pile of ruins.”Read More »

Original Title in Japanese: ざ・鬼太鼓座
This documentary narrates the beginnings of the founding members of ondekoza who are a group of young musician living communally on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture. They create the taiko drumming, which has gone on to entertain audiences around the world and give spectators kodo drummer. Watch the musicians go from rigorous training and adaptation to early performances.Read More »

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Shy, lonely Eric Binford delivers film cassettes and film-related supplies in Los Angeles for a living. But he really exists only to watch movies and immense himself in fantasies about cinematic characters and stars. Frequently bullied and betrayed, Eric comforts himself by pretending to be one of the many tough heroes and villains who have captivated him from the silver screen. However, his sanity takes a turn for the worse and he launches grotesque murders all patterned after characters and incidents from his beloved movies. He becomes known as the Celluloid Killer, one of the most horrifying murderers the city has ever known.Read More »

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This extraordinary documentary is an unflinching record of the workers’ struggle during Japan’s economic rebirth in the 1980s, centered on Tokyo’s Sanya “yoseba”—a slum community dating from the 19th century where day laborers lived in terrible conditions while they sought work. Conceived of as a weapon in the workers’ struggle, Yama exposed the role of the yakuza, the Japanese elite, and corporations participating in the violent and systematic exploitation of the labor class amidst the construction boom of the time. Unresolved issues around labor rights, class discrimination, corruption, foreign workers’ rights, police violence and the stench of re-emergent fascism all rear their ugly heads in this powerful chronicle made at tremendous risk by the filmmakers. Read More »

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The graceful and moving essay film Twilight City is one of the Black Audio Film Collective’s sharpest and most sensual evocations of contemporary Afro-Caribbean life. The film blends a dreamlike personal reflectiveness with a hard-edged critical reading of London life under Margaret Thatcher. The (fictional) central figure is a young black British researcher, Octavia (Amanda Symonds), who one day receives a letter from her mother, Eugenia, who is based in Dominica. After 10 years back in her home country, the disaffected Eugenia yearns to return to London so she may once again live with her daughter. While Octavia composes her response, the old resentments, pain and anger that she has repressed begin to resurface.
— Ashley ClarkRead More »

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This movie is black satire of Japanese imperial ambitions in the 20th century. In Meiji era Japan (1868-1910), the Japanese state sought to establish itself as an empire as a way to both catch up to and remain free from the West. These activities also lay the foundation for the disasters to come mid-century. This movie satirizes those efforts from a mid-1980s perspective, giving it an obvious subtext of being a commentary on the efforts of late 20th century Japanese businessmen abroad as well. The “hero” is a businessman who, realizing that the Japanese armed forces will likely soon be advancing across Asia, decides that they will require brothels wherever they go as well and so sets up shop in Southeast Asia. A very black comedy from one of Japan’s finest film satirists (cf. “Pigs and Battleships,” “The Pornographers”) best known abroad ca. 1999 for “The Eel” and “Black Rain” (the film based on the novel about Hiroshima, not the Michael Douglas flick).Read More »

Synopsis:
Through a complex and gripping exploration of a woman’s troubled psyche, director Frieda Liappa has created a suspenseful drama and intriguing look into relationships and their meaning. Martha (Eleonora Stathopoulou) is unhappy with her life as it is at the moment, and among other issues, she has decided to give up her writing career. Along with that decision comes a need to get away from her husband and from her psychiatrist, with whom she has had more than just a doctor-patient relationship. As Martha travels through a deserted city landscape in a storm, the external world reflects something of her inner turmoil. Flashbacks are interspersed throughout the film to enhance the suspense of Martha’s inner and outer journey.Read More »

“Before Michael Mann set the big screen alight with the brilliant, epic Heat, he rehearsed the story in this made-for-TV version. Heat was a tour de force, with the scuzzy, spacey metropolis of LA as backdrop to a titanic battle between charismatic cop (Pacino) and taciturn tough guy robber (Pacino. This dynamic is hardly replicated in this earlier TV version – and if LA Takedown shows anything, it’s that a compelling story and talented director really do require stellar talent to generate the requisite screen effect. Intended as the pilot for a TV series, this tough and energetic story went straight to video in the UK, but achieved minor cult status, and is well worth watching for the differences to the remake, as well as the similarities. The central cop character Vincent Hanna (Plank) is retained, and the emphasis is on him as he pursues the bank robber. What is lacking is the density of characterisation and the myriad subplots. Still, it would be unfair to dismiss the film. Judged as a TV movie, it has merit, it’s just that the other elements are more modest.” – Channel4Read More »