1980s

Synopsis:
Palmares was a 17th-century quilombo, a settlement of escaped slaves in the mountains of northeast Brazil. The story follows a group of plantation slaves, among them Abiola (Tony Tornado), who revolt in 1650 during the Dutch-Portuguese War (1601-1661) and escape to the mountains and the city of Palmares, where they join other former slaves who have already been living there peacefully and autonomously. On arrival, Abiola suggests that Palmares trade with a friendly squatter. Read More »

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This short film takes us to Horn, a town in Lower Austria where Ulrich Seidl grew up. For years it has been a tradition that high school students organize the graduation prom. This isn’t only one of the town’s most important social events, but also the culmination of Carnival. Ulrich Seidl: “The Prom was the reason I was kicked out of the Film Academy. The teachers didn’t like its structure or editing, and thought that the film would hurt the Academy’s reputation.”Read More »

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The subject is a 50-year-old dwarf who stopped growing at 1 meter 40. He is fat and plays the piano strangely but the point Seidl makes is that he is like others, and you should judge him according to the same criteria you would judge them.Read More »

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Private investigator Nick Popodopolis (John Leslie) has a problem: there’s a corpse of a beautiful woman (Juliet Anderson) on the floor of his office. As he explains his case to an alcoholic lieutenant (Cameron Mitchell), a strange story of blackmail, mystery and murder unfolds, all centered on an enigmatic movie star, Dixie Ray (Lisa De Leeuw).

Anthony Spinelli’s big budget WWII era set noir ranks as one of the last truly ambitious X rated movies ever made.Read More »

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With stars like Angie Stardust (also music credits), Judith Flex, and Joaquin La Habana, director Rosa von Praunheim has fashioned a film about the teeming flip side of life in Berlin centered on eccentric characters of almost every imaginable sexual orientation, or disorientation – most are American performers drawn to the city of “lost souls” as a place where they can give full rein to their creative natures.Read More »

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Pauline a la Plage is the third of French filmmaker Eric Rohmer’s “Comedies et Proverbes.” Pauline (Amanda Langlet) is the teen-aged cousin of the seemingly more worldly and sensible Marion (Arielle Dombasle). Both girls become entwined in amorous escapades while vacationing at the beach. It gradually develops that Marion is the one least capable of handling herself, while Pauline grows in maturity from her summertime experiences. It is nothing short of amazing how Eric Rohmer can take the most conventional and obvious of material and weave something as charming and profound as Pauline at the Beach. ~ Hal Erickson, RoviRead More »

“We shall make sure that this work will not be separated from those who built it.” (Adolf Hitler)

Legend has it that Hitler came up with the idea of the autobahn while he was in prison in the twenties, and for this reason it was also called “Adolf Hitler’s road”. But neither Hitler nor any other Nazi invented the autobahn – the industry had already worked out the plans before 1933. What the Nazis, however, did invent was the “aesthetic of the autobahn”: it was supposed to be a cultural monument – “not the shortest but the noblest connection between two points”. The autobahn was planned as an artistic work of construction and was elevated to an object of art.Read More »

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Le Roi et L’Oiseau (The King and the Mockingbird) is one of the true classics of animation in France, and although its renown and popularity haven’t made it across to this side of the channel, it has been a source of inspiration to many of the current generation of Japanese animators. Scripted by the celebrated poet, Jacques Prévert (who also scripted Quai de Brumes and Les Enfants du Paradis), designed by the master of French animation, Paul Grimault, based on a story by Hans Christian Anderson, Le Roi et L’Oiseau’s credentials are impeccable and its reputation unassailable.Read More »

Synopsis:
Facing a mid-life crisis, a woman rents an apartment next to a psychiatrist’s office to write a new book, only to become drawn to the plight of a pregnant woman seeking that doctor’s help.Read More »