1980s

Synopsis:
In this documentary on the Rastafarians in Jamaica (homeland of the Rastafari par excellence — the late Bob Marley), director Alan Greenberg interviews some Jamaicans whose conversations suggest that the smoking of ganja, the worship of Haile Selassie (the former Ethiopian emperor) as a god, and the goal of Jamaican self-realization is their own kind of unified field theory. A young, poverty-stricken teenager listens to the reggae music on his radio as though it will magically lead him to a better future, and a pineapple cutter living in the “baddest” area of the island dreams of fomenting tourism in his exotic surroundings. The May, 1981 funeral of Marley himself brought Christian and Rastafarian beliefs together in tribute to the island’s hero, providing one of the most poignant vignettes in the Land of Look Behind.Read More »

This ATG film is a family drama set in 1953 in a small rural town in Tosa, Kochi. This was the first directorial effort by Takehiro Nakajima, a novelist whose work was adapted into Preparation for the Festival by Kazuo Kuroki.Read More »

Quote:
During the 1970’s Jean Luc Godard abandoned the notion of making normal commercial films for cinematic distribution in favour of his Marxist-Leninist ‘Dziga Vertov’ propaganda films. The director returned to regular filmmaking in 1980 with Sauve Qui Peut (La Vie), his first theatrical release since his furious outburst against modern bourgeois society in 1967 with Weekend. Delivering another hate-filled attack on almost every aspect of modern society, it’s like he had never been away.Read More »

The film is set in southern Georgia, which until the end of XIX century was dominated by
the Ottoman Empire. Tragic times gave rise to people of high spiritual strength, such as
Antimoz Iverieli – the philosopher-educator. Having experienced as a child cruelty and
injustice, it becomes the path of public service. Having been removed by the Turks in
Romania, a hero by all means wants to return home. Sentenced to death, Antimoz
remains in the memory of his countrymen a champion of justice.Read More »

a title with a comma in the middle for a film divided in two parts. A film in black and white with a dark side and a jovial side. The first part of the title evokes politics, as the story recalls the days of the Algerian War of Independence; the second part represents the mood that hovers over the eminently painful images. There isn’t even a hint of daylight in the freedom of the title. It only lives metaphorically in the darkness and languor of the night. — description by Violeta Kovacsics in the book “Philippe Garrel: Filmmaking Revealed”Read More »

“Sonata Soledad” is a film done to three musical times (Time, Counterpoints and Variations). In this movie, Robles Godoy radicalizes its position of author.Read More »

A poet from Haiti flees to America after being imprisoned in his native country. Recovering from the experience, he begins to examine his past. One day he encounters his former torturer, and becomes obsessed with taking his revenge.Read More »

During the fervently nationalist months leading up to World War II, a rebellious teenager is transferred to a new primary school in a small Inland Sea town. He vies with the school’s reigning bully, who takes a romantic interest in his older stepsister. When they learn she’s going to be sold to a brothel to pay off her father’s debts, they form an uneasy alliance to free her. With surprising moments of caricature and slapstick, Obayashi celebrates the anarchic world of adolescence while also satirizing adult hypocrisy and conformism.Read More »

Quote:
Set against the stifling conformity of pre-World War I English society, E.M. Forster’s Maurice is a story of coming to terms with one’s sexuality and identity in the face of disapproval and misunderstanding. Maurice Hall (James Wilby) and Clive Durham (Hugh Grant) find themselves falling in love at Cambridge. In a time when homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment, the two must keep their feelings for one another a complete secret. After a friend is arrested and disgraced for “the unspeakable vice of the Greeks,” Clive abandons his forbidden love and marries a young woman. Read More »