2010s

The lives of a man, a cat, and a goldfish intersect in unexpected ways.
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Quote:Pauline et François contains little in the way of emotive revelations or garment rending histrionics. Its dramatic climax, if one can call it that, is a relatively minor moment of moral weakness that’s quickly discovered and rectified. The film is neither artfully minimal nor flashily intense. But it is a haunting and compelling construction, built only with the most rudimentary of filmmaking tools. And Fely’s honest labor rewards his viewers with a memorable perspective of one family’s drift down the meandering river of time.
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Synopsis
In the sleepy Spanish town of Granada, a mild-mannered tailor and secret cannibal unexpectedly finds himself falling in love with his latest prospective victim, in director Manuel Martín Cuenca’s disturbing yet intoxicating tale of bizarre romance. Carlos (Antonio de la Torre) works as a tailor in Granada, one of Spain’s sleepy southern cities where time seems to have stopped — and where things that lurk in the shadows can remain unnoticed. Carlos lives alone and rarely interacts with anyone beyond his clients. No one would imagine that this shy and respectable tradesman is actually a murderer and a cannibal, remorselessly targeting Eastern European women who have no papers and filling his freezer with their flesh. Then the truly unexpected occurs: Nina (Olimpia Melinte), the Romanian twin sister of one of his victims, appears at his front door, and love slowly creeps in.Read More »

SYNOPSIS

Basri is a lonely man who seems to be floating in his own life. He watches over the railroads, walking the endless tracks through the abundant landscape of Anatolia. His only son, Seyfi, has been taken into custody 18 years ago and no one has heard from him ever since. After the death of his wife, Basri has slowly isolated himself from society. But there is still hope in his life, as he keeps on writing petitions twice a month to look after his son..Read More »

Review:
Italian writer-director Salvatore Mereu’s drama of Sardinian childhood adapts a short story by local author Sergio Atzeni.

There are films that gently invite the viewer into their world, and there are others which yank us in throat first. Salvatore Mereu’s Bellas Mariposas, a twelve-year-old’s precocious journal of one long summer day in her run-down Sardinian neighborhood, is a fine example of the latter. Writer-director Mereu, ably following up 2008’s well-received Sonetaula with another snapshot of life on his native island, accumulates detail and atmosphere to a claustrophobic degree, audaciously deploying direct-to-camera address to make the viewer more confidant than spectator.

Immersively evocative and grittily atmospheric, this is distinctive auteur fare whose hard-knock verisimilitude recalls more violent recent predecessors like Matteo Garrone’s widely-admired Gomorrah (2008) and Matteo Botrugno & Daniele Coluccini’s lesser-known Et In Terra Pax (2010). Somewhat overlooked when premiering in a Venice sidebar, Mereu’s “free” adaptation of an unfinished tale by influential Sardinian author Sergio Atzeni unfortunately faces an uphill battle to find room even at mainland Italian arthouses. Edgy festivals and those with a particular interest in young people’s issues should nevertheless definitely give it a try.Read More »

Set in the year 1590, the story follows Hendrick Goltzius (Ramsey Nasr) and his crew of writers, workers and performers as they arrive in Colmar at the palace of a rich and powerful margrave (Abraham), who the engraver hopes will finance a printing press he can use to publish illustrated versions of the Old Testament and the works of Ovid. In order to seal the deal, Goltzius needs to titillate the nobleman and his court with live renditions of what he refers to as the ?Six Sexual Taboos,? beginning with Adam and Eve?s original sin and covering such transgressions as incest (via the Genesis passages on Lot and his daughters), prostitution (through the tale of Samson and Delilah) and necrophilia (in the story of St. John the Baptiste and Salome).Read More »

Quote:
In a role reversal that is challenging for any young adult, Ali has become a caretaker to her mother’s delicate mental health. While her mother’s mood alternates between boyfriend-induced happiness to solitary depression, Ali is left to rebelliously carve her own place in the world. Scarred by the past, she chainsmokes, refuses to learn to drive, and is terrified of falling in love. Ali spends her days working in a supermarket and the rest of her time off on misadventures with her friend. But when she meets Julio, her tough veneer starts to crack and she may have to amend her strict rules of non-engagement. Nadia de Santiago gives a star-making performance as Ali, a multi-layered young woman who has been forced to grow up too quick yet is holding on desperately to her youth. The world that writer-director Paco R. Baños has designed for her is delightfully quirky, giving her a true sense of charisma that affords her buoyancy to float above her challenging situation. Baños’ debut feature is an assured debut that breathes life into the coming-of-age genre, stylistically painting in lush primary colors but finding the more complicated colors mixing beneath the surface. Read More »

Synopsis: Paul Goodman, whose best-selling ‘Growing Up Absurd’ made him the philosopher of the New Left in the 1960s, was also a brilliant poet, out queer (and family man) in the 1940s, radical pacifist and visionary. His ideas and stubborn integrity helped many find a moral compass in the ’60’s — and can do so again today.Read More »

Plot / Synopsis
Supertanker captain Marco Silvestri is called back urgently to Paris. His sister Sandra is desperate – her husband has committed suicide, the family business has gone under, her daughter is spiralling downwards. Sandra holds powerful businessman Edouard Laporte responsible. Marco moves into the building where Laporte has installed his mistress and her son. But he hasn’t planned for Sandra’s secrets, which muddy the waters…Read More »