2010s

Quote:
Directed by French newcomer Celine Danhier, BLANK CITY captures the idiosyncratic, explosive energy of the “No Wave Cinema” and “Cinema of Transgression” movements. Stark and provocative, the films drew name and inspiration from the French New Wave, as well as Film Noir, and the works of Andy Warhol and John Waters. Filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch, Eric Mitchell, Beth B, Charlie Ahearn, Lizzie Borden and Amos Poe showcased the city’s vibrant grit, and bore witness to the rising East Village art and rock scenes and the birth of hip hop. Short, long, color or black-and-white, their stripped-down films portrayed themes of alienation and dissonance with a raw and genuine spirit, at times with deadpan humor or blurring lines between fiction and reality. From Amos Poe’s enigmatic The FOREIGNER to James Nares’ comedic ROME 78 to Beth B & Scott B’s political BLACK BOX — the No Wave Movement was as varied as it was lively.Read More »

Following a long prison term, 30 year-old Céline must find a place in society. Hiding her past, she introduces herself with a new identity to get work for a trial period in a hotel. Céline finds herself endlessly walking a tightrope between truth and fiction. When she meets Idir, despite the threat of being unmasked, Céline falls in love and finds herself a prisoner to her own lies. But how can one live without taking risks?Read More »

Sara prepares a surprise for her wife Katarina’s birthday with the help of their daughter Johanna and their friend Fredrik. But on this early summer day, Katarina has something to tell her that will change their lives forever.
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Coincoin and the Extra Humans review: Bruno Dumont raises a stink in a small town

| Sight & Sound

Ben Nicholson 15 August 2018

There was something rotten in the soil of northern France in Bruno Dumont’s blackly comic mini-series, P’tit Quinquin (2014). A four-episode television mystery that was also released as a single feature film, it was a confounding and macabre parody of a procedural police drama filled with unexpected (for the famously serious filmmaker), and often uncomfortable, laughs. It followed a bumbling duo of gendarmes as they investigated a sequence of grisly deaths in the environs of a small town as a group of mischievous kids, led by the eponymous Quinquin, watched on.Read More »

Synopsis
Three girls in 1980s Stockholm decide to form a punk band — despite not having any instruments and being told by everyone that punk is dead.Read More »

Northern China, 1999. The grisly discovery of several corpses is made in a small town. A bloody incident during the attempt to capture the alleged murderer leaves two police officers dead and another badly injured. The surviving officer Zhang Zili is suspended from duty; he takes a job as a security guard at a factory. Five years later, another series of mysterious murders occurs. Aided by a former colleague, Zhang decides to investigate under his own initiative. He discovers that all the victims were connected to Wu Zhizhen, a young woman who works at a dry cleaners. Pretending to be a customer, Zhang begins to observe her and finds himself falling in love with the reticent Wu Zhizhen. One cold winter’s day he makes a horrific discovery. His life now in danger, he realises it is not always possible to separate guilt from innocence. Diao Yinan’s use of the characters of the ex-police officer and the femme fatale is a direct reference to classic detective films. This director’s third feature is a noirish thriller in drained colours which, whilst playfully alluding to the genre, also invites us into the lives of very ordinary people. (-berlinale.de)Read More »

         凶年之畔

Although labor activities could be very dangerous in China, some local consulting groups in the big city of Guangzhou continue to help migrant workers get their rights of work.
Icarus Films wrote:

China’s economic miracle has been built on cheap labor. And now, that labor is starting to fight back.

Filmed in the southeastern part of the country, We the Workers is a vérité documentary that closely follows people organizing workers and fighting for collective bargaining rights. They find themselves up against factory employees who don’t understand their rights and fear the consequences of organizing, police and government officials who see them as dangerous troublemakers, and foreign owners who ignore what lax regulations do exist.Read More »

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For many, the eighties are perceived as the last party decade and remembered with nos­talgia. A time of extreme wealth, conspicuous consumption and copious drug-taking, the period was largely defined by loose eth­ics and blinkered arrogance. The situation is a little different for the denizens of Axel Petersén’s Avalon, however. They’ve never left the eighties, and they still go at it all night, regardless of the consequences.Read More »

Djam, a Greek girl, is sent to Istanbul on a mission to find a motor-boat part of her uncle, a former sailor and great fan of the Greek musical style rebetiko. In the city, she meets Avril, a French woman who works as a volunteer with refugees but who has run out of money and not known in Turkey. Generous, fearless and unpredictable, Djam leaves with Avril to Mytilene – a journey of music and encounters.Read More »