Plot / Synopsis
Two friends, Hero Hwa and Chiang Ho-Chie star are two old friends who meet up in later life. Hwa is a triad gang member and Ho-Chie is an insurance salesman, Hero is looking for a career change and Ho-Chie has become disillusioned with life after discovering he has a “bubble” in his brain that could burst at any time killing him. The two decide to switch lives for a bit with the Triad going respectable and the Insurance Salesman taking on the world of the Triads.Read More »
Based upon the case of Sada Abe, who on May 17, 1936 killed and emasculated her lover. These events took place during a period of war, economic depression, public unease and growing militarism, a time of unrest and confusion when public opinion was, at best, unpredictable. Sada, condemned by the law, found herself lionized by the press and hailed as a ‘saint’ of love. Because she committed murder out of passion, the purity of her motivation elevated her from the status of criminal to that of popular heroine.Read More »
A burlesque comedy made on a large(ish) budget by the mistress of small and often serious independent films.
A temporary apartment swap between a man in New York and a girl in Paris leads to hilarious developments. Henry (William Hurt) is a rich psychiatrist in his forties with a fantastic apartment in New York City. After his relationship breaks up he feels the need to come to himself. He puts an ad in the Paris edition of The Herald Tribune, in which he offers to swap his flat. The young dancer Beatrice (a role in which Juliette Binoche proves her great comic talent) pores over the The Herald every day to improve her English and sees Henry’s ad. Read More »
At the end of the 80’s, four blocs of low cost housing in a Parisian suburb, Val-Fourre are being destroyed. Some people who lived here remember about their lives in these buildings.Read More »
The four thousand inhabitants of Courneuve go to the post office once in a while to collect their benefit or pay their bills. The young postal workers belong to the small group of people in the region with a paid job. Every day they are confronted with the poverty of the people at the other side of the counter. Dominique Cabrera alternately put his camera on either side of the counter and registered the behaviour and faces of the people who are involved in small financial transactions. Against the background of the post office buzz, he listened to the conversations that are part of the exchange of money. Une poste à la courneuve draws a colourful image of the effect an economic crisis can have on the lives of ordinary people.Read More »
A wicked political satire about African dictators, this film tells the story of the president of a fictitious African nation who spends a sleepless night playing checkers with a pot-smoking vagabond who is claimed to be the “all-around champion”. However the rules of the game entail opponents howling vulgar and foul obscenities at one another. The Champion proceeds to insult, and trounce the President. His reward – and fate – are not exactly unexpected in this hilarious send-up of living under tyranny.Read More »
In Oggun, Gloria relates the patakin or mythical story of Oggun, the tireless warrior who, enamored of his mother, decided as punishment to imprison himself in the mountains: only Ochun, goddess of love, succeeded in captivating him when she let fall a few drops of honey on the lips of the god of metal, war, progress, and civilization. This film of 52 minutes includes chants, dances, a “tambor” (Yoruba religious ceremony with the bata drums), and the experiences of Ros, who not only made his the beauty of the African chants, but had the opportunity to sing them in trips throughout the world. The noted “apwong” works incessantly to preserve the lore and transmit it to the younger generations.Read More »
Zilnik made Marble Ass in the same year as his Tito film, i.e., in the middle of the war period under the regime of ex-Stalinist Slobodan Milosevic The main figure, Merlin, is a transvestite prostitute, aging and slowly losing his/her charms, but still trying to carry on trade as usual under the most abnormal of conditions. Before the war, Merlin was the most exotic figure in Belgrade. Now everyday life is so crazy that he is the only one who seems normal. Merlin’s companion is fellow prostitute Salena, a strapping woman armed with a knife and skilled in kick-boxing. Eager to advance in her trade she wants to learn English so she can win new customers from amongst the occupying NATO troops.Read More »
The film is based on the thesis of astrophysicist Nikolai Kozyrev on the materiality of time. The film creates an aesthetic model of the interaction between the present, the past and the future.
Film draws a bleak picture of the mankind’s future, in which slender rows of depersonalized bodies march in the landings of the Tower of Babel under command of Imperial eagle.Read More »