2010s

An Anthropological Television Myth is an excuse to introduce television anthropology into the culture debate, reading the history of a country and its people through the archives of hundreds of private TV stations scattered throughout Italy.

MUBI’s take wrote:
A great example of how seemingly mundane footage can be reused to create a work of social importance, this exercise in visual history-telling uses a medium representative of popular culture as a tool for the reading of social movements and citizen engagement in a Sicilian city.Read More »

Quote:
One of France’s most unpredictable writer-directors, Christophe Honoré (Dans Paris, Love Songs) offers an audacious, erotically upfront re-reading of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, enacted by a fearless cast of (largely unknown) young actors in contemporary French settings. Kicking off with a startling take on the story of Diana and Actaeon, Honoré’s film follows the wanderings of Europa (Akili), a high-school student who encounters a marauding truck driver – none other than Jupiter (Hirel), father of the gods. Streams of stories within stories bring the old transformation myths a modern-day slant – Narcissus as an arrogant teenage heart-throb, Orpheus as a charismatic housing-estate preacher – and add a multi-racial, polysexual perspective, teasing out the perversity, violence and rapture of classical legend. You may detect shades of Borowczyk, Pasolini, Rohmer and Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane, but this savage, rhapsodic, moving film is something entirely its own. A fabulous soundtrack completes the wayward beauty –BFIRead More »

Synopsis
On September 27, 1810, the French troops commanded by Marshal Massena, were defeated in the Serra do Buçaco by the Anglo-Portuguese army of general Wellington.

Despite the victory, Portuguese and British are forced to retreat from the enemy, numerically superior, in order to attract them to Torres Vedras, where Wellington had built fortified lines hardly surmountable.

Simultaneously, the Anglo-Portuguese command organizes the evacuation of the entire territory between the battlefield and the lines of Torres Vedras, a gigantic burned land operation, which prevents the French from collecting supplies.

This is the setting for the adventures of a multitude of characters from all social backgrounds – soldiers and civilians, men, women and children, young and old – to the daily routine torn by war and dragged through hills and valleys, between ruined villages, charred forests and devastated crops.Read More »

Directed by Martin Scorsese, George Harrison – Living in the Material World is a stunning double-feature-length film tribute to one of music’s greatest icons.

Scorsese uses never-before-seen footage from George Harrison’s childhood, throughout his years with The Beatles, through the ups and downs of his solo career, and through the joys and pain of his private life, to trace the arc of George’s journey from his birth in 1943 to his passing in 2001. Living in the Material World features private home videos, photos and never before heard tracks to chronicle the incredible story of the extraordinary man.Read More »

SYNOPSIS
This highly experimental twist on the ethnographic documentary visits the town of Yumen, in China’s northwest Gansu province, a once-thriving, oil-rich community in the 1980s that has been left depleted and derelict. Strikingly shot on film, Yumen tells the story of this ghost town through a series of wandering characters and inventive vignettes in which even the spirit of Bruce Springsteen is summoned to comment on a world in ruins. A collaboration between Chinese and American filmmakers, Yumen pushes the boundaries of the documentary aesthetic in depicting China’s past and present. Read More »

Quote:
This directorial debut from art director Anzai Hajime adapts a short story from popular writer and music personality Miura Jun. A guy (Maeno Kenta) spends an extra year studying for college entrance exams but ends up at a second-rate university, and becomes a musician after randomly getting involved with a misguided university rock ‘n roll club. Eventually the guy gets married, has a child, and builds an ordinary life for himself, but he hasn’t been able to break off his college romance with Kaoruko (Tsukifuna Sarara), his S&M dominatrix. When he and Kaoruko go off to one especially shitty gig, existential angst erupts and the trajectory of weirdness goes parabolic, leading to an ending you will never forget.Read More »

Namchulwoo is a poor fisherman living a simple but happy life with his wife and daughter on the north side of a river that divide s the two Korea’s. Every day he goes fishing on the river, where the check point soldiers know him well and trust him not to cross the invisible border in the water. But one day his fishing net gets caught in the boat engine, and Nam cannot stop himself from drifting to the south. Read More »

The story of a woman fighting for her son. Many years ago she abandoned him for her career. Now she is coming out of rehab determined to rectify something for which she has lacked the courage for years.
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Two teenage brothers must face their prejudices head on if they are to survive the perils of being young, British Arabs on the streets of gangland London.Read More »