2000s

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ECSTASY IN BERLIN, 1926
2004 in b&w and tinted
A film by Maria Beatty
Duration: 45 minutes
Starring: Sonya Sovereign and Paula Rosengarthen
Music by Nick Holmes

THIS DECADENT AND LUMINOUS FILM IS A NEW ACHIEVEMENT IN THE REALM OF EROTICA!

A golden Weimar beauty slips a needle into her creamy thigh, and while in her euphoria slips into erotic fantasy. It begins with a white-gloved hand at her throat, emphasizing her vulnerability and surrender, followed by a lingering, deliciously thorough kiss from a stunning and powerful woman. She drifts through a variety of exotic experiences, all made possible by her dazzling submission and her partner’s absolute command. Her perfect flesh is alternately spanked and caressed, her lips kissed and then forced to worship a fine leather boot. She dreams of being strictly corseted, whipped, and bound, and led to a glowing, graphic climax.

Both delicately sensual and sexually intense, it conveys all the dangerous rewards of passion indulged. To enjoy “Ecstasy in Berlin 1926” is to experience the delirious, consuming, and glorious fever of obsession itself.Read More »

A 2009 internationally co-produced romantic drama film co-written and directed by Niki Caro. It is loosely based on the novel The Vintner’s Luck by Elizabeth Knox. The film had its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on 12 September 2009.

The film stars Jérémie Renier, Vera Farmiga, Gaspard Ulliel, and Keisha Castle-Hughes. The film marked the second time Caro worked with Castle-Hughes, a New Zealand actress and Academy Award nominee.Read More »

From All Movie Guide:

Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan explores his Armenian heritage, and how the country’s tragic history has touched several generations of the nation’s expatriates, in this ambitious drama. Edward Saroyan (Charles Aznavour), a veteran filmmaker of Armenian descent, is in Toronto shooting a film about the Siege of Van, in which invading Ottoman armies forced the evacuation of Armenian communities in 1915, leading to the genocide of over a million Armenian people at the hands of Turkish troops. Twenty-one-year-old Raffi (David Alpay) has been sent to Turkey to shoot background footage for the film; Raffi’s mother Ani (Arsinee Khanjian), an author and historian, is also involved in the project as a consultant. Lately Raffi and Ani have been at odds; Raffi has been dating Celia (Marie-Josee Croze), Ani’s stepdaughter, who is convinced that Ani is somehow responsible for the death of her father. Ani’s first husband, who was Raffi’s father, is also dead, after taking part in an assassination attempt on a Turkish political leader. As Raffi attempts to re-enter Canada with cans of exposed film, he’s detained by David (Christopher Plummer), a suspicious customs official who has his own tenuous link to Saroyan’s film — David is struggling to come to terms with the gay lifestyle of his son Philip (Brent Carver), whose lover Ali (Elias Koteas) is playing the villain in the picture. Ararat also features Eric Bogosian and Bruce Greenwood.Read More »

Marta, a 30-year-old doctor, loses control over her life. She pushes away her loving husband. One day she meets by chance Artur, a young criminal, who falls deeply in love with her. Accidental sex, unwanted pregnacy. Marta wants to get rid of it but Arthur, with his mothers help, wants to save it. Alicja, Marta’s sister, tries to help Marta in this harsh life situation, even thought her own life is in mess. The secrets, masks, and hidden obsessions are about to blow openRead More »

Let Each One Go Where He May
Ben Russell
2009
2hr. 13min.

Chicago-based filmmaker Ben Russell has gone international with Trypps – a series of short, mesmerizing films loosely interpreting the notion of “trip,” from literal, geographic journeys to ecstatic music-induced highs, variations of trance and spasmodic filmic episodes. Along with Tjüba Tën/The Wet Season (co-directed by Brigid McCaffrey), his medium-length experimental documentary shot in Suriname, and his live projector performances, Russell’s body of work displays an ever-increasing interest in cinematic anthropologies.

Let Each One Go Where He May is Russell’s stunning feature debut, a film that both partakes in and dismantles traditional ethnography, opts for mystery and natural beauty over annotation and artifice, and employs unconventional storytelling as a means toward historical remembrance. A rigorous, exquisite work with a structure at once defined and winding, the film traces the extensive journey of two unidentified brothers who venture from the outskirts of Paramaribo, Suriname, on land and through rapids, past a Maroon village on the Upper Suriname River, in a rehearsal of the voyage undertaken by their ancestors, who escaped from slavery at the hands of the Dutch 300 years earlier. The path is still travelled to this day and its changing topography bespeaks a diverse history of forced migration.Read More »

LINK

Directed by

• Tora Mårtens
• Elin Magnusson
• Sara Kaaman
• Ester Martin Bergsmark
• Nelli, Andreas
• Åsa Sandzén
• Malin Erkkonen
• Pella Kågerman
• Wolfe Madam
• Ingrid Ryberg
• Universal Pussy
• Joanna Rytel
• Marit Östberg
• Jennifer Rainsford

Internet wrote:

There’s to much to say about each individual movie, but the level of quality is high and most of them has very strong concepts. My favorite is also the first one, “Skin”, directed by Elin Magnusson. It’s a beautifully shot sex scene between a man and a woman all dressed in a skin-colored body stocking. Slowly they cut parts of their body skin open, and in the end there’s nothing left of this shell. Only humans. It’s sexy, erotic is probably the best in this collection of high quality shorts. “Body Contact” was almost scary to see, because it seems so real at first. It’s about a girl who want’s to make a porn movie and films the whole experience together with her friend. They find a man from the southern parts of Sweden and manipulates him to be in the movie. It’s both funny, and even a bit unpleasent. “On Your Back Woman” is a cute wrestling-themed short with three lesbian couple. I think cute is a good word (maybe the director will disapprove there?), but it’s also strong movie with strong love.
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Quote:
If you are moved by the death of a parakeet at the beginning of The Elementary Particles (Elementarteilchen), you are in for a bumpy ride, as all of humanity as we know it will be wiped out by the film’s end in a brief written epilogue. Of course, those who have read the novel (Les particules élémentaires in its original French, Atomised in its UK version) saw this coming, but for those who are unfamiliar with Michel Houellebecq’s cult hit that explosively mixes sex, death and science to annihilate mankind – and blames the flower power generation for it in the process – this might come as something of a shock.Read More »

It takes place some time after the 2004 Tsunami in a now nearly deserted tourist town. An outsider (an engineer) comes to town and becomes involved with local life. The unfinished mourning process and grieving permeate the film’s atmosphere, diegetic pace is slow and lyrical. The town’s beachfront is being redeveloped, but the residents’ inner life seems stunted. Seemingly unable to contain mourning and guilt, the film steadily moves toward a notion of sacrifice and violence (see René Girard). The plot’s outcome is depicted with much moral restraint and emotional distance and the lack of closure left uncommented.

–stefflbwRead More »

Continuum
This film narrates simple enjoyable stories from everyday life that explore the continuum of life and death, of love and paranoia, of trade and value, of need and invention, of hunger and enlightenment. The five moments of its childlike innocence branch out into a more intricate gamut of an urbanscape, culminating into a space where the stories no longer exist as singular threads in their own vacuum but come across and play with each other to form a larger fabric of life.Read More »