1980s

Quote:
Warsaw’s Central Railway Station. ‘Someone has fallen asleep, someone’s waiting for somebody else. Maybe they’ll come, maybe they won’t. The film is about people like that, people looking for something.Read More »

Quote:
The film was based on a subject by Mario Gariazzo, a director who in the seventies, gravitated into the orbit of Daunia and to whom Fernando di Leo “lent a hand” by offering advice for his script – for his detective film, The Bloody Hands of the Law – and for the production of his western, Holy Water Joe and the tear-jerker, The Balloon Vendor, a story vaguely inspired by William Wyler’s famous film, The Desperate Hours. At the start it was Gariazzo who was to direct it but at the producers’ insistence he was finally replaced by di Leo.Read More »

Quote:
Though art is not my specialty, I do love to wander around a museum. It’s not something I do often, but I get that itch to surround myself with works that have stood the test of time. Gazing at such beautiful art stirs pangs of jealousy that I’m not able to do such things myself. But I know my limitations, and I will simply allow myself an occasional stroll through the controlled environment of my local museums. Shamefully, while I lived just outside of Washington D.C., I spent just one afternoon in its superb Smithsonian Museum of Art; and, on a recent trip to New York City, I nearly ran through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In Ohio, where I have spent most of my life, the museums in Cleveland, Dayton, and Cincinnati don’t have the works we’d all like to see. I am actually quite selective in what I like, and that tends toward realism, impressionism, and a touch of surrealism. Contemporary art, cubism, and other abstract forms irritate me and implore me to return to the rooms that showcase works created before the twentieth century.Read More »

BACKGROUND
Party is a 1984 Hindi film directed by Govind Nihalani. The film boasted an ensemble cast of leading art cinema actors of Parallel Cinema, including Vijaya Mehta, Manohar Singh, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, and Rohini Hattangadi. It based on the play Party (1976) by Mahesh Elkunchwar.

The movie was produced by National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC). Party was the official Indian entry to the 32nd International Film Festival of India, New Delhi, and also took part in the Tokyo Film Festival 1985 and Asia Pacific Film Festival 1985.Read More »

Ryszard Bugajski’s Przesluchanie (Interrogation) is a powerful movie about a certain time in Polish history, that was marked by censorship and oppression and this is where Antonina ‘Tonia’ Dziwisz is caught up in. Played by one of Poland’s most remarkable actresses, Krystyna Janda, it is her that along with the wonderful cinematography work and realistic portrayal of prison conditions makes this movie so incredible. It is through her eyes that we see the story unfold and the suffering of her and her prison inmates (with some great co-acting by the likes of Agnieszka Holland). This is along with Krzysztof Kieslowski’s and Andrzej Wajda’s finest work one of the defining moments of Polish cinema, and beyond that. Certainly one of the most powerful prison movies ever made in my book, not just within the perspective of Polish or European cinema as such. And in the wake of events like Guantanamo bay or Abu Ghraib it still is as fresh and important with the covered subject as it was when it was made, reminding us how things could go horribly wrong within a judicial and in the end prison system. Due to it’s critical stance at the time of making, it was banned by the local government for 7 years, until the Soviet bloc broke up. An extremely powerful reminder of that time.Read More »

from IMDB:
The deranged Roman emperor Gainus ‘Caligula’ (Little Boots) Caesar (12-41 A.D.) rules Rome with an iron fist and has anyone tortured and exectued for even the slightest insubordination. Mostly set during his last year of his reign, as Caligula loses support due to his brutal and crazed excess, a young Moor woman, named Miriam, becomes his lover while ploting to kill him to avenge the murder of a friend which Caligula was responsible for. But Miriam is torn between her personal vandeda against Caligula and her own personal feelings towards him despite his madness and debauched lifestyle of orgies and bloody torture murders. Written by Matthew PatayRead More »

Sometime during the 19th century in Switzerland: After a delirious night of drinking, three herdsmen who are all alone in the alps with their kettle, create a female doll from cloth and a strangely formed wooden root. When their creation comes to life in form of an evil and beautiful female demon, they have to fear for their lives…Read More »

Synopsis:
A wide-scope panoramic view of Russia in 1916. The country is in its third year of war which seems to never end, with police rule, hunger and devastation at their peak. All this plays out against a background of luxury and corruption at the court, where the agonizing power still entertains hopes of coping with “the rebels”. The courtiers have a presentiment of the collapse of the Russian autocracy. Fear, despair and blind belief in Providence make a fertile ground for the “great” starets, adventurist Rasputin, who is a friend of the royal family and has gained mastery over the Czar and his ministers. The filmmakers used newsreels of the 1917 Revolution… This controversial historic drama was released twice: in 1975 and, after a number of changes, in 1985. RUSCICO offers the film’s 1985 version.Read More »

“A husband and wife have separated and while in that semi-marital state, the wife begins an affair with a Turkish architect. In the meantime, the once revolutionary-minded husband now prefers his more comfortable lifestyle in his villa with his children and he is the one who writes letters to his wife seeking a reconciliation, but she herself is thrown into a turmoil because choosing between her estranged husband and the Turkish architect is very difficult, if not impossible. —allmovie guide”Read More »