2000s

Quote:
A textured panorama of modern day Africa’s dynamic and volatile cross-cultural landscape, Claire Denis’s White Material is an abstract and elemental, if oddly sterile rumination on colonial legacy and socioeconomic stagnation. Unfolding in episodic flashbacks as second-generation coffee plantation owner, Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert) scrambles to make her way back home after a forced evacuation of European settlers in light of an escalating civil war, the film structurally interweaves the parallel lives of the Vial family, a band of roving child soldiers scouring the countryside for “white material” trophies from fleeing settlers, and a charismatic military officer turned rebel leader known as the Boxer (Isaach De Bankolé) who has gone into hiding to recover from injuries sustained during a recent skirmish.Read More »

Plot
A romantic comedy centered on the daily lives of five Lebanese women living in Beirut. Layal (Nadine Labaki) works in a beauty salon in Beirut along with 3 other women. Each one has a problem: Layal has a relationship with a married man, Nisrine (Yasmine Al Masri) who is no more a virgin, will soon be married, Rima (Joanna Moukarzel) is lesbian and Jamal (Gisèle Aouad) is worried about getting old. Rose (Sihame Haddad), a tailor with a shop next to the salon, is an old lady who devoted her life to take care of her older sister, have found her first love.Read More »

KAIDAN-Ghost Story (2007) is a breath of fresh air in the genre of J-horror; the film is a homage to classic romantic ghost stories. The film is directed by Hideo Nakata, the same director responsible for Ringu and Dark Water. Forget cursed objects, haunted technology and long-haired ghosts, the film like Kobayashi’s 1960`s classic “Kwaidan” is a welcome change for those viewers very familiar with modern J-horror such as Ju-On;Ringu and KairoRead More »

Synopsis:
A journey from the harbor town of Jaffa to the Jaffa orange, a fruit through which the Israeli filmmaker examines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Review:
Despite certain limitations, Jaffa, the Orange’s Clockwork, a feature-length documentary by Israeli-born filmmaker Eyal Sivan, has a good deal to recommend it, particularly in light of events now unfolding in the Middle East and North Africa.Read More »

A mysterious woman travels the world with a rocking chair, interacting with the people she meets.

Petra Going is a migrant cyborg, an agent of the Global Nomad Project: an international “Experience Data Agency” which sends hundreds of “receivers” like her to wander the globe and record a succession of random encounters. Periodically, they return to agency headquarters where they deposit their accumulated memories into an archive. This archive is available to users who then vicariously and virtually inhabit the ready-made landscapes of touristic consciousness. The motto of the GNP: “Nostalgia For Rent.”Read More »

Quote:
A stealing happens on a train and it is shown from the perspective of each passenger.Read More »

Summary:
Mongryong marries the beautiful Chunhyang without telling his father, the Governor of Namwon. When his father is transferred to Seoul, Mongryong has to leave Chunhyang and finish his exams. Chunhyang, being the daughter of a courtesan, is also legally a courtesan. She is beaten and imprisoned when she refuses to obey the new Governor Byun, as she wishes to be faithful to her husband. After three years, Mongryong passes his exam and becomes an emissary to the King. He returns to Namwon, disguised as a beggar, just before Chunhyang is to be flogged to death at the governor’s birthday celebration.Read More »

Vladimir Leon on a quest for a forgotten man in the annals of history. Guessing the film-maker’s Russian connection, the Indian historian Hari Vasudevan showed Leon the iconic photograph shot during the second Communist International (Comintern) Congress in 1920. Amidst the tall Bolshevik leaders of the time such as Grigory Zinoveiv, Vladimir Lenin and Maxim Gorky, there was an Indian face in the picture. It was that of Manabendra Nath Roy, or M.N. Roy, one of the founders of the Communist Party of India in 1920. “Here was a man about whom the world hardly knew anything,” says Leon, who found in Roy’s life the perfect plot for a film. “Roy was a part of incredible moments in history. Imagine a person from a rural family in colonial India being witness to three of the most revolutionary periods of the 20th century.”Read More »

A young woman sits down in a chair. Only her mouth is visible as she begins to speak at a rapid clip, describing events that she insists did not really happen to her.Read More »