2000s

According to back cover: “A 1 hour re-mix useing [sic] the original and the remake.”
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Moncef Kahloucha is a fan of ’70s genre movies, especially those with Bruce Lee, Jim Kelly and Clint Eastwood. Apart from working as a house painter in Kazmet, a poor Tunician locality, Kahloucha is a tenacious director, actor, screenwriter and prop master in his own zero-budget productions. At the limits of communal, visceral cinema captured on a VHS camera, it literally costs Kahloucha blood, sweat and tears to shoot his next film: Tarzan of the Arabs, opening at a bar TV set. With an amplified eye, Néjib Belkhadi not only records a ferocious making-of, but also manages to come out with a crystal-clear map of Kazmet’s social ills, including the Arabs who must survive in their Italian exile to the tune of the anthological “Tunisino” by Neshez. The savage primitiveness of the shooting, the struggle for a place in the ads of the neighbors-actors and Kahloucha’s displays of tinsel used in previous films are some gripping, all but likely moments of an incendiary passion for cinema.
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Beynelmilel / International: Co-directed by Muharrem Gülmez and scriptwriter Sirri Süreyya Önder, Beynelmilel / International takes movie-goers to the days in the aftermath of the coup d’etat of September 12th, 1980. Here we are in a remote town of Adýyaman watching the tragicomical story of a group of local musicians. The film depicts the extent to which ordinary people were affected by the military suppression after the coup. It is a period movie made in an ironic and humorous manner. (Istanbul Film Festival booklet – 2007)

• IST.FF 2007 – The Special Prize of the Jury was awarded to “Beynelmilel / International”.
• IST FF 2007 – Best Actress Award was given to Özgü Namal for her performance in “Beynelmilel”.Read More »

Quote:
A young girl’s life is turned upside down when her mother brings home a new boyfriend

Quote:
From the start, I knew the British director Andrea Arnold had captured something volatile and splendid in Fish Tank. A girl named Katie Jarvis plays 15-year-old Mia, who in the first shots stares out the window of a high-rise, working-class tenement in London’s East End — the window of a vacant flat where she practices her hip-hop moves to the sound of music from tiny speakers.Read More »

Synopsis from Offical Site
A musical voyage among exotic places and people of Anatolia, unique host of ancient civilizations, empires as well as mythologies and glory of 10 millennia.

The fruit of 350 hours of footage, more than 40,000 km traveled and 133 recorded live performances, Lost Songs of Anatolia may be the first example of its kind as a documentary-musical film. The cultural riches of Anatolia are sung in authentic performances recorded live on location spontaneously. With the modern arrangements made, an incomparable musical is formed.

While this journey is showing how music and culture is derived from life, geography and work, an exploration of Anatolia’s versatile cultures takes place on a basis of music, dance and rituals. The staggering environment surrounding these people and influencing their lifestyles contribute the lyric flow of the film.
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Grand Prize, USA Film Festival

“A highly emotional personal essay on Christian anti-Semitism that weaves together history, autobiography and snippets of Hollywood films depicting the life of Jesus.”
–Stephen Holden, The New York Times

King of the Jews is a film about anti-Semitism and transcendence. Utilizing Hollywood movies, 1950’s educational films, personal home movies and religious films, the filmmaker depicts his childhood fear of Jesus Christ. These childhood recollections are a point of departure for larger issues such as the roots of Christian anti-Semitism.

King of the Jews explores the challenges and fears of being an outsider, of holding beliefs different from the mainstream. The myth that “the Jews” killed Jesus has been responsible for centuries of pain and destruction. After 2000 years, the wound is still open. The film uses the resurrection of Christ as a metaphor for personal renewal. Only by acknowledging past injustices can we get closer to our shared humanity.Read More »

The movie takes place in a time when dreams are reduced to almost nothing and when it’s difficult to remain sane. Ordinary life becomes a one greater expectation.

Salih and Hakan who spend their entire days in front of the grocery shop thinking we were given the chance. Salih is like a older brother to Hakan. Hakan has just came back from the mandatory military service. His football career ended before even it had started because of an injury. He is without a job or a vocation He hopes to be to be a taxi driver. Salih is the psycopath of the neigborhood. He’s the only person who listens to Hakan and gives him advices. Although Salih has grown up in a well meaning educated family he’s involved in every kind of illegal business in the neighborhood. Everbody is scared of him. High school girl Özlem included. Hakan is crazy about her but he never had the the courage to talk to her.
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Basically a good murder mystery, ‘The Right Distance’ brings in contemporary issues like anti-foreign prejudices, marriages arranged with Eastern European women online, kids with computer smarts adults lack, and how these changes disrupt life in a little town. A beautiful young woman named Mara (Valentina Lodovini) comes to replace a schoolteacher in the Po Valley. Trouble ensues. One person in town doesn’t miss a trick: 18-year-old Giovanni (Giovanni Capovilla). He is highly motivated to become a journalist and has persuaded Bengivenga (Fabrizio Bentivoglio), an editor at a big city paper, to allow him to work as a low-profile stringer in the town. His job is to keep his eyes and ears peeled without anybody finding out that he’s a reporter. Naturally, he’s good with the Internet. He helps Mara set up her connection and in the course of dong so finds out her email password. Giovanni checks in on it from home and starts reading the accounts of day to day experiences she emails to her best girlfriend back home. Thus over time he finds out that she’s attracted to the local bus driver, Guido (Stefano Scandaletti), and that Hassan (Ahmed Hefiane), who runs the garage he himself works in, is attracted to her–and is stalking her outside her house in the dark. He also knows that Amos (Giuseppe Battiston), the tobacconist who’s making a fortune taking people fishing, went out in his boat with Mara and made some moves on her. It’s Amos who has the Romanian wife chosen from an online “catalog.” Hassan is an older (but handsome) Tunisian man. He has family members in the area but isn’t married. He has been in Italy a long time.Read More »

IMDB:
Emily Watson stars as Trixie, an eccentric woman who aspires to quit her job as a security guard and become a private detective. However, comedy intervenes and the mess begins…Read More »