Alika Aldanova—the heroine of the cult film Assa, who twenty-two years ago killed her lover Andrei Krymov—is released from prison where she has given birth to a daughter. Her new life holds in store some complex twists of fate: a well-known director invites Alika to act in the film Anna Karenina.
Quote:
This Assa is about freedom that has been bought with money; it is a story that happens to all of us.
— Sergey SolovyovRead More »
“This, the Thai candidate for the Foreign Academy Award, has more mood changes than the life story of Elizabeth Taylor. It is almost as if each chapter of the protagonist’s life is played out in a different genre – musical, comedy, crime, prison, romance and melodrama. It can take a bit of time to adjust to these swiftly changing moods, but the ultimate picture that emerges is one of how life so rarely follows the dreams of your youth and how sad and painful it can become. In a very loose and much less heroic manner, the film is a poor man’s tale of Ulysses. A young man leaves his pregnant wife for the army and then has a series of misadventures before finally finding his way back to her. All the way it seems as if the Gods are laughing at this fellow and playing games with him. Phaen is a simple country boy who has a talent for singing and he is in a small band that plays fairs and events.Read More »
On 22 June 1941, Germany and Romania attack Soviet Russia. Several days later, Curzio Malaparte, the Italian writer who would one day pen the novel « Kaputt », a war correspondent for « Corriere de la Sera », arrives in Iasi, in the north of Moldova, on his way to the front, which is nearby. He is incapacitated by a severe allergy and his only chance of recovery is to find a Jewish doctor, an allergologist who had studied in Florence, called Josef Gruber. All his attempts to find him are unsuccessful. While looking for him, Curzio discovers that in Iasi, several days prior to his arrival, a violent anti-Semitic pogrom took place and that a large number of the Jewish citizens of Iasi were deported by train and that Dr Gruber may be among them. In order to find him, Curzio, aided by Guido Sartori, the Italian consul in Iasi, tries to obtain an official warrant to bring Josef Gruber back. Read More »
In her debut feature, which has drawn comparisons to late French masters Rohmer and Rouch, Letourneur insightfully and humorously portrays the seemingly quite happy daily life of a small group of bohemian girls living together on the left bank in what they call their “Ranch.” A tight-knit circle of 20-somethings, Lola, Pam, Manon, Chloé and Jude—all played by non professionals, and all friends in real life—are smart, somewhat naïve, and often temperamental, spending their days drinking, smoking, laughing, dancing, gossiping, and discussing their love lives, until each realizes they must break from the group to pursue their own lives.Read More »
Uncle Deshan (played by Sun Yunkun) lives in a national-level poverty-stricken county on the plateau, and he himself is a well-known poor household. On this day, deputy county magistrate Liu (played by Zhao Shenglin) came suddenly and left him some money before leaving, which caused a sensation in the whole village. The village head (played by Jiang Zhikun) found Deshan and told him that deputy county magistrate Liu had sent two imported sheep to him to raise them properly. As a result, Deshan’s family fed the two babies like their ancestors. After many days, the sheep were not fattened, and even a little of the family’s savings were used. Reporters from the county came to interview, and after seeing it in the newspapers, the leaders at all levels were very satisfied. The township head (played by Chen Dajiang) also conveyed the opinions of the county leaders, asking him to find a way to let the sheep have cubs. A day of special singing. Unexpectedly, when the ewe gave birth, the lamb died, which made the mayor very anxious…Read More »
Director Volker Koepp travels the Lithuanian shore on the border to the Russian enclave. Germans and Lithuanians have always lived here.Read More »
Fanny lives with her brother and his girlfriend in their long time dead parents’ house. Fanny needs some medication so that her behaviour doesn’t bring too much tension to herself and to closed ones.Read More »
A film in several episodes with Bijan Daneshmand and Mania Akbari, exposing some of the issues of men and women within the confines of tradition and family life in Iran. Each episode displays a different form of male/female interaction. The placing of the actors in a moving vehicle or against a moving back drop signifies the movement of life despite all the obstacles in its way. The film deals with the roots of dependencies, limitations, power struggles and conflict that are the familiar stuff of life of couples in the Middle East.Read More »
To save his house from rising flood waters, an old man uses bricks to build it higher, then he relives events from his past while searching for his dropped pipe.Read More »