1990s

  • Hirokazu Koreeda – Wandâfuru raifu aka After Life (1998)

    1991-2000ArthouseAsianHirokazu KoreedaJapan

    Every Monday morning, a team of advisors welcome in a facility a group of people that has just died with the mission of helping each one of them to select their best memory that will last for the eternity in the first three days. On Thursday, filmmakers begin to recreate the selected memory, and in the end of the week they screen it in a movie theater and he or she moves to Heaven.Read More »

  • Masahiro Kobayashi – Closing Time (1996)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaJapanMasahiro KobayashiQueer Cinema(s)

    Quote:
    Kobayashi’s directorial debut tells the story of a writer who leads a life of blissful self-annihilation, drinking away his sorrow. As the protagonist wanders the streets of Tokyo at night grieving his wife and child, he encounters all kinds of lost souls. An attractive homeless woman who shares his lust for cinema, sleeps with him and disappears without a word. A young man who is gay and dying of AIDS. These encounters are sad, painful or tender but they all have one thing in common – they are searching for love, just like him.Read More »

  • Lisandro Alonso & Catriel Vildosola – Dos en la vereda AKA Two Guys on the Sidewalk (1995)

    1991-2000ArgentinaArthouseCatriel VildosolaLisandro AlonsoShort Film

    Quote:
    Début by Lisandro Alonso is about the length of one take from his features. Together with Catriel Vildosola, the most important sound man of the New Argentine Cinema, Lisandro Alonso made this short film at the age of 20 while studying at the film academy. He also worked as a sound man and later as an assistant to other Argentine productions before making his debut with Freedom (2001), which won a FIPRESCI Award in Rotterdam. Vildosola was also responsible for the sound of Liverpool, the most recent feature by Alonso.Read More »

  • Michael Glawogger – Die Ameisenstraße AKA Ant Street (1995)

    1991-2000AustriaComedyMichael Glawogger

    Quote:
    In the middle of Vienna stands an old tenement building, and time has left its mark both on the house and its inhabitants. Here, time passes at a strange pace. Floor by floor, the visitor can discover small self-contained worlds: grousers, collectors, the forgotten, people with obsessions, concealed and exposed passions. Behind securely locked doors, each prepares his own heady brew. Then, however, death makes its entrance for the first time, sweeping through the stairwell. The owner of the house, a resident himself, dies. His nephew, an entrepreneur, inherits the building and acts immediately. He moves out, takes up lodgings, hands out notice to quit, renovates and devastates. One goal hovers before his eyes; to get rid of the tenants and make money out of the property. Gradually, the closed doors begin to open, and with each outrage committed by the new owner, the residents are drawn closer together. What comes to light thereby is an anthill full of life, and once it opens up, a flood of comical individuals streams out of it, all fighting for their own living space. A minor official, plagued by persecution mania, fears a dreadful end to the matter. Though the signs he sees of this are all wrong, nevertheless, in a furious finale, the outside world descends upon the house and his inhabitants.Read More »

  • Michel Deville – La divine poursuite aka The Gods Must Be Daring (1997)

    1991-2000ComedyFranceMichel Deville

    Plot Synopsis:
    Two very violent men have conspired to steal a valuable solid gold image of an African deity from the museum in Mali where it is being kept. They had it smuggled out with a number of well-made but very cheap replicas. The plan was to give each of the replicas to the members of a new squash club as a diversion, and profit from the original (worth $1 million) themselves. There is a slip-up, however, and the real statue goes to one of the players. The deliveryman now has to track down all the statues, and in this antic caper comedy, that’s easier said than done. – AllmovieRead More »

  • Kalpana Lajmi – Rudaali AKA The Mourner (1993)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaIndiaKalpana Lajmi

    Quote:
    Rudaali is a 1993 Hindi film directed by Indian director Kalpana Lajmi, based on the short story written by famous Bengali litterateur Mahasweta Devi. The film was selected as the Indian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 66th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.

    The film is set in a small village in Rajasthan, India. It tells the story of a woman named Shanichari, who was abandoned by her mother shortly after her father’s death. Bad fortune follows her throughout her life.Read More »

  • Gregg Araki – Totally F***ed Up (1993)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaGregg ArakiQueer Cinema(s)USA

    Quote:
    Six queer teenagers struggle to get along with each other and with life in the face of varying obstacles.

    Fernando F. Croce wrote:
    Gregg Araki once described Totally F***ed Up, his follow-up to the 1992 New Queer Cinema staple The Living End, as a “rag-tag story of fag-and-dyke teen underground…a kind of cross between avant-garde experimental cinema and a queer John Hughes flick.” The statement attests not only to Araki’s committed radicalism, but also to his sense of how the politics of pop culture play to alienated youth. He probably loved a rave from a San Francisco paper hailing the film as “a ‘90s version of The Breakfast Club.”Read More »

  • Manuela Viegas – Glória (1999)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaManuela ViegasPortugal

    Quote:
    Gloria is set against the backdrop of a rural landscape slowly disappearing in modern Portugal. The small border town of Vila de Santiago, once a booming trade center for illegal trafficking, is about to become a ghost town, as a new motorway is to bypass the city.Read More »

  • Gimpo – Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid (1995)

    1991-2000CultGimpoUnited KingdomVideo Art

    Quote:
    On 23 August 1994, the K Foundation (Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) burnt one million pounds sterling in cash on the Scottish island of Jura. This money represented the bulk of the K Foundation’s funds, earned by Drummond and Cauty as The KLF, one of the United Kingdom’s most successful pop groups of the early 1990s. The duo have never fully explained their motivations for the burning.

    The incineration was recorded on a Hi-8 video camera by K Foundation collaborator Gimpo. In August 1995, the film “Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid” was toured around the British Isles, with Drummond and Cauty engaging each audience in debate about the burning and its meaning. In November 1995, the duo pledged to dissolve the K Foundation and to refrain from public discussion of the burning for a period of 23 years.Read More »

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