1980s

Background/Synopsis wrote:
Long interview with Monte Hellman at home. Maybe one of the best documentaries about a filmmaker ever shot.
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Quote:
After spending three years doing field installation work in West Africa, Fred returns home to his old neighbourhood, an industrial region on the outskirts of a major city. He is filled with confidence and optimism for a new start. He has brought home with him a pile of money that he made in Africa. But he never wrote to his wife Rita. He only wired her a money transfer every month. In the meantime, Rita has a new life that she now shares with a GI. Fred rents a room in the “Royal”, a sleazy hotel. There, he meets Alma, who takes care of the rooms and the guests and who is being kept by her sugar daddy – the aging hotel director. A passionate encounter with his old girlfriend Vera, who had high hopes for the two of them at some earlier time, dissipates into a brief carnal episode. For the old work buddies in the steel mill, Fred’s return is just an excuse to get drunk one night. Only Alma, the girl from the “Royal”, shows interest in Fred. For her, he personifies a bit of yearning, faraway places and the chance to get herself out of her little rat-hole. Together they set out on a journey, wandering aimlessly through Germany. . .
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Here’s the debut feature film by director Uwe Schrader, who’s still a well-kept secret of german cinema. I first read about him in the most recent issue of Cargo. His realistic “Milieu” films recall the works of Klaus Lemke, Roland Klick or the austro-canadian filmmaker John Cook. Kanakerbraut is only one hour long, and it is about the dull life of Paul (Peter Franke) and his encounters with similar characters in Berlin Kreuzberg.Read More »

synopsis
The French Love Without Pity strikes different people different ways. To some, it’s the last word in profundity; to others, it’s a subtitled yawnfest. We suggest that you judge for yourself this story of low-down louse Hippolyte Girardot, who regards the women in his life as little more that doormats upon which to wipe his feet. It’s “just deserts” time when Girardot falls head over heels for Mireille Perrier, who proceeds to treat him like dirt.Read More »

“A thoroughly devastating documentary on 82 year old Maori woman’s struggle for survival.”
Los Angeles Times

This is the story of Puhi, an aged Maori woman and Niki, her fully grown but wholly dependent son. The world they occupy is not a world of large events but the rituals of everyday life, traditions and interdependence. “In Spring One Plants Alone” documents the minutiae of their very enclosed existence. Filmed over a period of one and a half years, it emerges as a rare, haunting and powerful portrayal of their life together. This is the story of their rituals and of their survival. The small and disconnected instances that we encounter form a lone vision of the rifts and the bond between an old woman and her disturbed son.Read More »

– “What would you do if you had only ten days to live”?
– “Just get very stoned.”

DANDY (1988 )- a Voltaire-inspired anti-fairytale by Peter Sempel – Featuring Blixa Bargeld, Nick Cave, Kazuo Ohno & Nina Hagen.Read More »

In this animated version of Edgar Allan Poe’s story, a traveller arrives at the Usher mansion to find that the sibling inhabitants are living under a mysterious family curse: The brother’s senses have become painfully acute, while his sister has become nearly catatonic. As the visitor’s stay at the mansion continues, the effects of the curse reach their terrifying climax, and he must choose between his concern for his hosts’ safety, and his own.Read More »

Quote:
Tabataba tells the story of a small Malagasy village during the independence uprising which took place in 1947 in the south of the country. For several months, part of the Malagasy population revolted against the French colonial army in a bloody struggle. The repression in villages that followed was terrible, leading to fires, arrests and torture. Women, children and the elderly were the indirect victims of the conflict and suffered particularly from famine and illness. One leader of the MDRM Malagasy Party, which campaigns for the independence of the country, arrives in a village. Solo (François Botozandry), the main character, is still too young to fight but he sees his brother and most of the men in his clan join up. His grandmother, Bakanga (Soavelo), knows what will happen, but Solo still hopes his elder brother will return a hero. After months of rumours, he sees instead the French army arrive to crush the rebellion.Read More »

Subway Riders is an epic NoWave/NY noir-melodrama,
in which a nocturnal saxophonist morphs into a bewitching
serial killer. With transcendant performances by John Lurie,
Cookie Mueller, Glenn O’ Brien, Robbie Coltrane, Bill Rice,
Charli Kaleina, Emilio Cubera and Susan Tyrrell, it captures
the colorful junkie landscape of downtown Manhattan in the
late 70’s with fearless bravado.

– Amos Poe-
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