2000s

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I began El Valley Centro in November of 1998; I was driving through the Great Central Valley looking for places to film. I wasn’t going to start shooting for at least six months; I wanted to just look and listen – to get to know the Valley well before I would make images. But almost immediately I came across an oil well fire with flames high into the sky. I returned home for my Bolex and Nagra. Determined that landscape is a function of time, I let a full roll of 16mm film (100 feet) run through the camera. At that moment I knew I would make a portrait of The Great Central Valley using 35 two and a half minute shots.Read More »

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Venice Film Festival winner RAJA is the March selection in The Film Movement Series. Raja is a nineteen year old orphan literally and figuratively scarred by life. Fred is an emotionally bankrupt westernet living amid his plush gardens and palm trees. Set against the backdrop of contemporary Marrakech, RAJA is a cross-cultural drama about a wealthy middle-aged Frenchman’s complex relationship with a local youth. Fred’s attempt at seduction, and their mutual attempt at manipulation, are fractured by their gross disparity of income and cultural sophistication. The New York Times wrote “What distinguishes Raja from every other movie to contemplate the treacherous intersection of passion, avarice and power is its unsettling emotional honesty. Read More »

Nathaniel Dorsky’s films are precise articulations of cinematic qualities: the surprise of an edit, the composition of framing, and the flash of the image. Dubbed the “filmmaker’s filmmaker”, Dorsky’s work captures the fleeting moments of everyday life in its poetic chaos in such films as Pneuma (1976-82), Triste (1974-96), Alaya (1976-87), and Variations (1992-98). Using a spring-wound Bolex and 16mm reversal stock film, Dorsky’s films operate in the realm of the purely visual.Read More »

For this Swiss-German documentary, filmmaker/Sinologist Ulrike Koch sneaked cameras into Tibet in order to film four men and 160 yak in a 2,000-year-old ritual — the annual spring pilgrimage to gather raw salt at remote lakes, a three-month Himalayan trek. Camping along the way, they engage in prayers, talk, and songs. Following nomadic traditions, the saltmen make the return trip with salt in backpacks made from yak pelts. In addition to Tibetan chanting, the film’s music includes a post-production blend of Hamburg musicians and native Tibetans. After a digital video transfer to film, the 108-minute documentary was shown at several 1997 film festivals, including (Sundance, Vienna, Taormina, and Pusan). ~ Bhob StewartRead More »

In Buenos Aires, a few days before traveling to Spain with his beloved wife Liliana Rovira to visit their son Pedro, the leftist Literature professor Fernando Robles is compulsory retired in the University. The ongoing economic crisis does not allow Fernando to get a new job. Liliana decides to sell her family’s apartment and the couple move to a small farm near Villa Dolores to reduce their expenses. Fernando comes up with the idea to grow lavender and sell the oil to the perfume industry.Read More »

Plot from IMDB: An experienced police detective has to investigate the murder of an unknown woman dressed in a scarlet dress. All the clues he finds relate to him, which troubles him a lot. A ghost dressed in a scarlet dress soon starts appearing to him while more murders are discovered: all victims were drowned in salt water.Read More »

A war rages on, its end unknown, covering the world in despair. At a military field hospital, a group of soldiers bring in one of their own, wounded by a large, vicious, bite-like wound, along with a large box. The soldiers are visibly shaken. Suddenly, an enigmatic man appears. As he starts to tell them the legend of the Lance of Longinus, their night of unimaginable terror begins.Read More »

At the Tropic of Cancer in the desert of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, various families survive by hunting animals which they sell on the freeway.Read More »

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In his latest film, Julián Hernández portrays love as an epic act of martyrdom in which redemption and fulfilment can only be found in the afterlife. This new work tells the story of two men, Kieri and Ryo, and their unquestioning love for each other. The absoluteness of this love gives meaning to their lives. But their mutual devotion is not to last – Ryo is abducted and, as a result, Kieri must now embark upon a mysterious journey. Unbeknown to him, it is “Corazón del cielo”, or heaven’s heart herself that leads and protects the lovers on their quest and spurs on Kieri’s longing.Read More »