2000s

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A documentary on Jacques Vergès, the controversial lawyer and former Free French Forces guerrilla who has defended unpopular figures such as Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy.
Communist, anticolonialist, right-wing extremist? What convictions guide the moral mind of Jacques Vergès? Barbet Schroeder takes us down history’s darkest paths in his attempt to illuminate the mystery behind this enigmatic figure.
A brilliant study in the link between moral corruption and narcissism.Read More »

Sixteen-year-old Lilja and her only friend, the young boy Volodja, live in Russia, fantasizing about a better life. One day, Lilja falls in love with Andrej, who is going to Sweden, and invites Lilja to come along and start a new life.Read More »

Gustave Courbet, The Origin of his World
Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), painter of real life, the earth, and material things, was so much a part of his era he lost himself in it. He paid for this dearly: wealthy and famous in this youth, he was later obliged to chum out paintings to avoid starvation.
“Only an hour long, Romain Goupil’s 2007 documentary on Gustave Courbet, the great French 19th-century realist painter, still expands your mind and heightens your reactions, with the lucidity and grace of all the best art (and criticism). Courbet was a terrific character, a rebel from the bourgeoisie, who accomplished in paint the revolution that he couldn’t quite manage in life. A lifelong anti-clericist and socialist, he was an important figure in the Paris Commune, a political indiscretion for which he later paid dearly, with exile and bankruptcy.Read More »

PROPOSITIONS
Selected examples of a New Cinema

The continuing demand for high standards is what sets Rouseau’s work apart. What makes this film distinctive is the way Rousseau explicitly returns to the source of his creative inspiration. So here he is at home reciting «Bérénice» to himself, whilst going about his household chores. It verges on the comical: There are repeated shots of him obstinately trying to turn off a dripping tap, or the jubilant close up of bare feet carried away in performing a dance step or two. Combining art with life in such a way, that nothing is compartmentalised, nothing lost – that is the goal. (Jean-Pierre Rehm)Read More »

Synopsis
Episodic look at the life of Cuban poet and novelist, Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990), from his childhood in Oriente province to his death in New York City. He joins Castro’s rebels. By 1964, he is in Havana. He meets the wealthy Pepe, an early lover; a love-hate relationship lasts for years. Openly gay behavior is a way to spite the government. His writing and homosexuality get him into trouble: he spends two years in prison, writing letters for other inmates and smuggling out a novel. He befriends Lázaro Gomes Garriles, with whom he lives stateless and in poverty in Manhattan after leaving Cuba in the Mariel boat-lift. When asked why he writes, he replies cheerfully, “Revenge.”Read More »

Ding Hui is a member of Purple Butterfly, a powerful resistance group in Japanese occupied Shanghai. An unexpected encounter reunites her with Itami, an ex-lover… and officer with a secret police unit tasked with dismantling Purple Butterfly.Read More »

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Two cynical workers in a hospital morgue (Boro Stjepanovic, Zan Marolt) make bets on how many bodies will turn up by a certain time. When three corpses are suddenly wheeled in after a horrific accident involving a plane, a car and a suicide jumper, joining a forth cadaver who suddenly dropped dead in a government lobby, one coroner appears to have won the bet. But death holds many surprises.Read More »

After eight years of undercover work with the triads, officer Hoi San’s case brings about the conviction of the crime boss. But now Hoi is detested by the triads and by his fellow officers–and he’s forced to run after he’s suspected of a crime.

Arresting his gangster head, Hoi San finally resumes to a policeman and receives his bravery award after 8 years undercover duties. However, walking out from the dark side and having his real life is not easy for Hoi San as he is being disliked and repelled by his new police colleague, he is being detested by his past gangster buddy. The most miserable thing is his lover for 8 years also wants to leave him…Read More »

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In Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity, twelve-year-old Mindy Ho (Valerie Tian) tries Taoist magic to fix her single mother’s (Sandra Oh) financial situation and seemingly hopeless romantic prospects. Mindy’s misdirected charms appear to cause an aging security guard to lose his job and a local butcher to win the lottery. The guard, the butcher and her mother’s stories all intersect, bound together by Mindy’s attempts at magic intervention. Set in the Chinese Canadian community, Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity is a story of hope and the importance of keeping faith in this sometimes difficult world.Read More »