2000s

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Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly is a film that is both serious and playful. The film tackles a sensitive racial political issue, namely the denial of the cultural identity of the Chinese minority in Indonesia, but is also filled with humorous and bizarre jokes and situations.
The film is made up of several sketches that can differ in their tone and approach, yet keep returning to the central issue of the glossed-over Chinese identity. The insecurity, fear and uprooting this causes among Chinese Indonesians is the real subject of the film. The subject is obviously close to the maker’s heart.Read More »

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A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage of old silent films shown at eight frames per second to enable the viewer to grasp the effect of the decay on each frame. The film is set to an original symphonic score by minimalist composer Michael Gordon, featuring detuned pianos and the instruments of the orchestra playing out of phase with each other, mirroring the decomposition of the film stock.Read More »

Amazon reviews:
There are two films here. The first, ‘Conducting Mahler,’ features long segments showing several eminent Mahler conductors — Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Riccardo Chailly, Bernard Haitink and Simon Rattle — rehearsing the likes of the Royal Concertgebouw, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, in long, lovely passages from all the Mahler symphonies (plus some of ‘Das Lied von der Erde’) interspersed with interviews (with the noted music writer, Donald Mitchell) with all five of the conductors. Not only is the music-making first class, but the insights that the conductors bring to the process, both in their conducting and in their thoughts about Mahler and his music, are exceedingly stimulating. Read More »

The movie is a documentary about the argetine poet Juan Laurentino Ortiz, known as “Juan L” or “Juanele”. It’s a story about a travel trought the Paraná river (Entre Ríos, Argentina), where the nature acting (water, birds, air, rain, trees, sun, etc). The film have parts of documentary about Juan L. Ortiz, and can hear his voice talking a reciting a poem. La orilla que se abisma is poetry made image.Read More »

SYNOPSIS
Unveiled is about a woman’s identity crisis, so it’s probably fitting that the film itself is torn between its affections to the shrill Yentl and grim Boys Don’t Cry. Fariba (Jasmin Tabatabai) arrives illegally in Germany from Iran and applies for political asylum after declaring she would be persecuted in her homeland for having had a lesbian affair with a married woman. In the film’s best scene, director Angelina Maccarone hints at the gender transference that will save Farbia: Inside a seemingly unisex bathroom (really it’s a trash heap for all undesirables), the woman offers a cigarette to a weeping man, Siamak (Navid Akhavan), in the adjacent stall, and Maccarone codes her main character’s uncertainty of the world in her decision to light the cigarette before passing it on.Read More »

Quote:
Wyborny’s film is a startling modern take on Roman victor and dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Combining traditional togas and contemporary casual clothes, the German director stages a visually puzzling balancing act between the Roman era and the present. He examines Sullas inner world and his distorted relationship to nature as well as the outer influences in his building of a nation. Juxtaposing the functions of Sullas body and mind, Wyborny has created a stunning portrait of the politician, in which he blurs the lines between advanced civilization and pornography.Read More »

After the collapse of the Yugoslavian government, a former secret agent, now a taxi driver, enters the office of a former university professor, now a firm director.Read More »

SYNOPSIS
Unveiled is about a woman’s identity crisis, so it’s probably fitting that the film itself is torn between its affections to the shrill Yentl and grim Boys Don’t Cry. Fariba (Jasmin Tabatabai) arrives illegally in Germany from Iran and applies for political asylum after declaring she would be persecuted in her homeland for having had a lesbian affair with a married woman. In the film’s best scene, director Angelina Maccarone hints at the gender transference that will save Farbia: Inside a seemingly unisex bathroom (really it’s a trash heap for all undesirables), the woman offers a cigarette to a weeping man, Siamak (Navid Akhavan), in the adjacent stall, and Maccarone codes her main character’s uncertainty of the world in her decision to light the cigarette before passing it on.Read More »

Italian documentary filmmaker Alina Marazzi tries to piece together the life of her mother who passed away in 1972 when she was 7 years old. Through a patchwork of home movies, recordings and diary entries, Alina crafts a moving tribute to the universal power of love.Read More »