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 »

Despite today’s cynical and fast world turnaround of images and headlines where traditional photojournalism has become swamped by a torrent of lifestyle reporting and celebrity paparazzi photography, there are some who still care. Classic photojournalism is still alive, though struggling, amongst a new generation of photographers. Philip Blenkinsop is one of them. He documents conflict, war, life and death in all its forms throughout Asia.Read More »

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Abbas Kiarostami has recently been exhibiting his black-and-white landscape photographs at venues around the world, and Roads of Kiarostami is both a companion piece to these exhibits and an extension of them. Static shots of his photos alternate with footage of Kiarostami’s car winding through mountain roads, as the Iranian filmmaker muses in voice-over on the significance of the journey and on the path of his work and Persian literature as a whole.Read More »

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A hundred and fourteen famous Iranian theater and cinema actresses and a French star: mute spectators at a theatrical representation of Khosrow and Shirin, a Persian poem from the twelfth century, put on stage by Kiarostami. The development of the text — long a favorite in Persia and the Middle East — remains invisible to the viewer of the film, the whole story is told by the faces of the women watching the show.Read More »

Abbas Kiarostami is the most acclaimed Iranian film director whose films have won prizes all around the world. In this film he gives a rare and frank interview about his work, and journeys out of Tehran to meet Babak Ahmadpoor the now grown up star of his famous trilogy, which started with WHERE IS THE FRIENDS HOUSE. On the journey Kiarostami picks up the camera himself , producing images of pure poetry.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.Read More »