IMDB:
Laos: the most bombed country, per capita, on the planet. Australian bomb disposal specialist Laith Stevens has to train a new young “big bomb” team to deal with bombs left from the US “Secret War”, but meanwhile, the local children are out hunting for bomb scrap metal. This timely story is terrifying and yet filled with eccentric characters and moments of humour, vividly depicting the consequences of war and the incredible bravery of those trying to clear up the mess.
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From Time Out London
Slow, portentous, absolutely bloody miserable, the fiercely independent Fred Kelemen’s earlier work was the veritable essence of arthouse gloom, so much so that it often prompted unintentional giggles. After a six-year break, his latest marks a positive shift, packaging his deep-rooted existential angst within a much more involving narrative framework. Shot in lengthy takes in digital black-and-white, matching a sonic backdrop of industrial noise against grimy Riga locations, the presentation is still somewhat self-consciously doom-laden, but this time there’s an effective storyline to draw the viewer into Kelemen’s world.
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Quote:
Drawing Restraint 9, a film by Matthew Barney with a soundtrack composed by Björk, represents the first creative collaboration of two of the most protean, dynamic forces in music and fine art.
It is an apt pairing. Refusing to choose between pop pleasure and restless experimentation, Björk’s musical vision weds technology and emotion, countering gut-level expression with an insistence upon formal modernity and innovation.Read More »
Pseudo-autobiographical movie by director and producer Augusto M. Torres with an exploration of his own narrative obsessions as director and his work as producer of many Spanish independent or experimental films. In the film he is supposed to be dead and many of his friends and colleagues in real life (mostly film directors, screenwriters and actresses) appear as themselves and talk with a (fictitious) daughter of the director who is investigating his father’s past. The daughter is played by excellent and beautiful actress Karme Màlaga (also in “La vida abysmal” / “Life on the edge”) and her investigation begins when she finds her father’s old films. Self-reference, metalanguage and reflections on the nature of cinematographic narrative (and on the drawbacks of human relationships) make this film unconventional and interesting. The main characters are the daughter, her boyfriend Fabrizio (Carlo d’Ursi, actor and producer in “Unione Europea”) and the beautiful young woman she meets during her research (Ariadna Cabrol, actress in “Perfume: the Story of a Murderer”, “Joves”/”Youth”, “Estocolm” and the Catalan hit TV series “Porca Misèria”).
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A humorous story of what happens when the U.S. Government sends comedian Albert Brooks to India and Pakistan to find out what makes the over 300 million Muslims in the region laugh. Brooks, accompanied by two state department handlers and his trusted assistant, goes on a journey that takes him from a concert stage in New Delhi, to the Taj Mahal, to a secret location in the mountains of Pakistan. It’s a comedic, insightful look at the some of the issues we are dealing with in a post-9/11 world. Read More »
How do we learn to live with others and their wishes? Director Nicolas Philibert poses this question in a village schoolhouse in Auvergne, where Georges Lopez teaches 13 children, ages ranging from about four to 12. Against a landscape of mountains and farmland, from driving snow to rain to sun, the children gather in Lopez’s warm and colorful classroom, to read, write dictation, cook, and sort things out. At home, the older ones do homework with parents after their chores. At year’s end, they look ahead to the next, visiting the middle school and meeting the little ones coming in the fall. As they learn sums and adjectives, with Lopez’s help, they also learn to live side by side -IMDbRead More »
In her first stint behind the lens, French actress Zabou Breitman takes serious material and spins a touching, funny, wonderfully played love story in “Beautiful Memories,” set in a home for amnesiacs. An ensemble cast, topped by Isabelle Carre and Bernard Campan as the two afflicted partners, keeps the fragile material fresh and engaging, though the movie’s discreet charms will make this a difficult sell offshore. However, more festival exposure is undoubtedly indicated. (Derek Elley, Variety)Read More »
Renowned actress-turned-director Liv Ullmann helms this bleak, nuanced film about marriage and betrayal penned by legendary filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. The story is straightforward — Marianne Vogler (Lena Endre) is a beautiful actress who is married to Markus (Thomas Hanzon), whose job as an orchestra conductor requires numerous concerts abroad, and who dotes on their young daughter Isabelle (Michelle Gylemo). Yet when Marianne has an affair with family friend David (Kirster Henriksson), a film director with a volcanic temper and little regard to those around him, the fallout destroys the marriage and brings grief and suffering to all involved, particularly Isabelle. Ullman and Bergman frame this plot with a tale about an elderly director named Bergman (Erland Josephson, who played opposite Ullman in Bergman’s landmark Scenes from a Marriage) who is trying to write a script about infidelity. In his austerely decorated house on a remote island, Bergman invites an actress, who may or may not be a figment of his imagination, to breathe life into the character of Marianne. Read More »