2000s

A fascinating chronicle of an unprecedented cross-cultural collaboration. In 1997 renowned conductor Zubin Mehta and celebrated Chinese film director Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern) joined forces on a production of Puccini’s opera Turandot in the Forbidden City of Beijing. The production was an undertaking on an epic scale with enormous sets, breathtaking hand-sewn Ming Dynasty costumes and hundreds of soldiers posing as extras. A fascinating chronicle of an unprecedented cross-cultural collaboration, The Turandot Project combines the pageantry of this opulent opera production with a spectacular cinematic portrait of the struggles and triumphs of Zubin Mehta and Zhang Yimou to mount their production in this most historic venue of China.Read More »

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The Russian film “The Return” is a stunning contemporary fable about a divided family in the wilderness – a simple, riveting film that almost achieves greatness.

In this hypnotic, stark movie, which won the Golden Lion (grand prize) of the last Venice Film Festival, we see a family strangely reunited: a father and his two sons traveling by car through the countryside after a 12-year separation. One of the boys, Andrei (the late Vladimir Garin), is obedient. The other younger son, Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov), is surly and rebellious.Read More »

Thirty years, three generations, and a lifetime later, award-winning filmmaker Ralph Arlyck returns to San Francisco in search of Sean, the boy who was the subject of his controversy-sparking 1969 documentary.Read More »

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Mirush leaves Kosovo hoping to find his father in Norway, who abandoned the family when Mirush was very young. Now the father runs a restaurant in Oslo, but he is also in deep debt to the Albanian Mafia. Mirush starts to work in his fathers restaurant without letting him know that he is his son. Gradually they learn to know each other, but what Mirush discovers about his father is not something he is prepared to take. He is forced to make choices that have large consequences, for both of them.Read More »

From imdb:
From Postman to the Postmodern, Charles Olson remains today an original American master. The enigmatic and hulking six-foot eight Harvard historian drifts back to the hard-luck New England fishing port of his boyhood summers. There he forges transcendent vision that links his besieged town, caught between tradition and modernity, to all places – in all times.

Viewers join Actor John Malkovich in a one hour race for meaning that stretches from antiquity to yesterday, from the local to the universal and from that which is most familiar to that which can only be imagined.Read More »

A fifteen year-old girl experiencing the first pangs of womanhood accompanies her mentally retarded brother as he begins to experience his sexual awakening in this effort from German director Sven Taddicken. Approaching his thirtieth birthday but possessing a mind developed years behind his physical growth, Josh (Roman Knizka) likes to pretend he’s a vampire while joking with sister Nicole (Marie-Luise Schramm). Meanwhile, security guard brother Mike (innerk Schonemann), quickly racking up a long list of sexual conquests, has recently added yet another notch in his belt with the seduction of his boss Nadine (Julia Jentsch). When Nic and Josh spy Mike and Nadine in the throws of passion, Nic’s sexual curiosity reaches a fever pitch and Josh impulsively focuses his newfound lust on Nadine. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie GuideRead More »

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Bertrand Beauvois, a well-known attorney, is in Monte Carlo to defend a businessman’s mother who murdered a gigolo with ties to gangsters. The businessman provides a bodyguard, Christophe, who is thorough and unsmiling. The middle-aged Beauvois is drawn to Audrey, in her 20s, free spirited, a local TV weather girl who once dated Christophe. Although Christophe warns Beauvois to stay away from Audrey, he’s hooked and spends every moment with her he’s not in court. What’s her angle: is she a plant who’ll ruin the case; is Beauvois her toy; is she digging for gold; or, is she genuine? Beauvois loves the wild sex but not her promiscuity. Has Christophe failed to protect him?Read More »

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Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, Coffee and Cigarettes is a collection of 11 vignettes relating to people having conversations about anything while drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. The film is a collection of 11 shorts, three of which were made prior in 2003 including the 1993 Somewhere in California segment that won Jarmusch the short film Palme D’or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. With an all-start cast that includes Roberto Benigni, Steven Wright, Joie Lee, Cinque Lee, Steve Buscemi, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Cate Blanchett, Steve Coogan, Alfred Molina, Issach de Bankole, Jack & Meg White of the White Stripes, RZA & GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan, and Bill Murray. Coffee and Cigarettes is fun collection of shorts and vignettes from Jim Jarmusch.Read More »

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Bænken (The Bench), dir. by Per Fly. tells the tale of Kaj, a stubborn and proud alcoholic who has squandered away most of his life in devotion to the bottle. When his estranged daughter moves, by coincidence, into the same public housing project as him, he gets a second chance. A sympathetic, witty, and moving drama about responsibility and family ties, à la Ken Loach and Mike Leigh.Read More »