2000s

Shinsuke Ogawa began his career in filmmaking in the early 1960’s, directing industrial films for Japanese public relations firms, but he had a desire to make films of greater consequence, and left his job to become an independent documentarian. Ogawa examined the rise of the Student Left in Japan in 1966’s Sea of Youth and 1967’s The Oppressed Students, and in 1968, as protest among the young became an international phenomenon, Ogawa and a handful of like-minded young filmmakers set up a collective house in rural Sanrizuka. A growing number of young activist filmmakers joined Ogawa in their new home, where they made documentaries focusing on the battle between the builders of Toyko International Airport and the farmers who would be displaced by the project and refused to leave. Read More »

“Memoria del saqueo” – literally, “Memory of the looting”, but it’s worth stopping here for a second because there’s an intention there that’s lost in translation. During the 2001 crisis, sensationalist media loved to show images of common looting taking place (people taking stuff out of supermarkets – if it’s a big TV, all the better). The title of the film subverts this common usage of the word “looting” in this context, to direct it to the systematic looting of the national riches by the ruling classes, as explained below.

Part of a sequence of four documentaries: Memoria del saqueo, La dignidad de los nadies, Argentina latente and La tierra sublevada.Read More »

Synopsis:
Joe, a rootless young drifter, finds work on a barge travelling between Glasgow and Edinburgh, owned by Les and his wife Ella. One afternoon they discover the corpse of a young woman floating in the water. Accident? Suicide? Murder? As the police investigate and suspect is arrested, we discover that Joe knows more than he is letting on. Gradually we learn of Joe’s past relationship with the dead woman. Meanwhile an unspoken attraction develops between Joe and Ella, heightening the claustrophobic tensions in the confined space of the barge.Read More »

Synopsis:
Fabio’s work consists in helping ex prisoners to find their way in the outside world, but his quite life changes after he meets Mr Sparti, now he has to fight his own ghosts.Read More »

Quote:
Between 1968 and 1977 bands like Neu!, Can, Amon Düül, Tangerine Dream, Faust and Kraftwerk would look beyond western rock and roll to create some of the most original and uncompromising music ever heard. They shared one common goal – a forward-looking desire to transcend Germany’s gruesome past – but that didn’t stop the music press in war-obsessed Britain from calling them Krautrock.Read More »

Synopsis:
Deep in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, where every man owns a gun and a moonshine still, abides living legend Jesco White, “the dancing outlaw”. As a boy Jesco was in and out of reform school and the insane asylum. To keep him out of trouble, his daddy D-Ray taught him the art of mountain dancing, a frenzied version of tap dancing to wild country banjo music. After his father’s death, crazy Jesco dons his father’s tap shoes and takes his show on the road.Read More »

Quote:
The film is inspired by the director’s unusual family history, which evokes childhood memories marked by specific relationships with parents.

Quote:
A true story about the filmmaker’s father, a mesmerist, exorcist, and healer who can help everyone but himself. Told from the point of view of his young son (the filmmaker as a boy), who both adores and abhors his father. Marcin Wrona uses a visually energetic collage technique to create what he calls “tragicomic kitsch,” one with a fantastical sense of Monty Python about it, like a missing Terry Gilliam project.Read More »

Synopsis:
Liu Xiaochun (Tang Yun), a 13-year-old violin prodigy, and his devoted father, Liu Cheng (Liu Peiqi), leave their provincial Chinese town for Beijing, hoping to find a violin teacher and, ultimately, success. The teenager is at first coached by the eccentric professor Jiang (Wang Zhiwen), but he is soon replaced with the renowned professor Yu (Chen Kaige). The day of the big competition is fast approaching, and Xiaochun must decide if this new, high-pressure life is right for himRead More »

Quote:
The word protected, the words embodied

Essay from the booklet:
Spoiler
This film was born out of the encounter with a man, Fara Bâ. He wanted to testify in order not to forget those who were political prisoners at the fort of Ouatala ten years before, for having opposed the racial segregation they suffered as black people. Many of his companions died there. It is the testimonies of these former prisoners, those who survived prison, which Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd is going to collect over a ten-year period, without any camera. When it became necessary to make a film out of this, upon the request of Fara Bâ, only the words mattered. The film was to be constructed on the narrative of these years of detention, a narrative co-written with the film-maker on the basis of the testimonies of the group of survivors. Fara Ba is their spokesperson. His voice is the one which tells and it overshadows that of the film-maker whose presence vanishes for the duration of a film. The starting point is this encounter and not an intention or vision of the film-maker. The necessity of tt1e film does not come from him at first. The images are claimed by the narrative, told by the man’s voice, “spokesvoice” for his companions.Read More »