2020s

Taking leave from their jobs at a gold mine, three workers journey to their home village on foot through the spectacular yet unforgiving wilderness of the mythical island of Hugaw. As time passes and their conversations intensify, buried histories emerge and a sense of psychosis invades the scene. As ever, Lav Diaz’s exquisitely subdued black-and-white images and patient rhythm lend a Brechtian register to the drama; almost always filmed from the same fixed distance, each scene is an immaculate tableau vivant. Behind the film’s folkloric façade, Diaz once again taps into the collective memory of defiant struggles against the tyranny of both contemporary Filipino society and colonial brutality, centred on the timeless image of men walking – one of the key traits of Pan. (Hyun Jin Cho, BFI)Read More »

IMDB:
An ex-soldier, living homeless in London, is offered a place to stay at a decaying house inhabited by a young woman and her dying mother. As he starts to fall for her, he cannot ignore his suspicion that something sinister is going on.Read More »

Working in defiance of a lifelong ban on filmmaking, dissident director Mohammad Rasoulof delivers a piercing drama about a subject he knows well: the costs of living under a repressive, brutal government. Winner of the Golden Bear, the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival, There Is No Evil is a film of four chapters; each tells a different story related to the death penalty in contemporary Iran.Read More »

Set in 1990s Manila, Paolo, a sheltered and obedient son is stifled by his overprotective mother— and his friend Mimaw, a tomboy who finds herself after having her heart broken for the first time.

A series of earthquakes leading up to Mt. Pinatubo’s historic volcanic eruption has been causing blackouts across the country, preventing kids from playing video games. After roaming the streets and getting beaten up, Paolo and his friends—Kachi and Gilligan—decide on traditional circumcision as the ultimate answer to their problems, but Paolo gets sidetracked when he falls in love with Shiara.Read More »

Aharon has devoted his life to raising his son Uri. They live together in a gentle routine, away from the real world. But Uri is autistic, and now as a young adult it might be time for him to live in a specialized home. While on their way to the institution, Aharon decides to run away with his son and hits the road, knowing that Uri is not ready for this separation. Or is it, in fact, his father who is not ready?Read More »

This insightful drama about loneliness and insecurity in the digital age chronicles three days in the candy-colored life of social media celebrity Sylwia Zajac. The beloved fitness instructor preaches positivity and acceptance to her 600,000 followers as she documents her every move, thought, and feeling. To the dismay of her sponsors, she holds back nothing from her fans—from her desire for a boyfriend to her family squabbles—and a video of her breaking down in tears goes viral. Will the sudden appearance of a stalker prompt Sylwia to reconsider her choices? Stage actress Magdalena Kolésnik delivers a mesmerizing turn as the self-obsessed internet star, exposing what it means to live a life online.Read More »

IMDb wrote:
A landowner, a politician, a countess, a General and his wife gather in a spacious manor house and discuss death, war, progress and morality. As time passes by, the discussion becomes more serious and heated.Read More »

“In 1962, as a young artist, I came to live and work in Paris. That period until 1969, when I left the city, was not only one of the most formative for me, it was also an era of intellectual, political, and social upheaval in modern history. The film Paris Calligrammes combines my personal memories of the 1960s with a portrait of the city and a social cartography of the age. Like Guillaume Appolinaire’s poetry collection ‘Calligrammes: Poems of Peace and War’, I have given it the form of a filmic “picture-poem” (calligram) in which the words and images, complemented by language, sound, and music, form a mosaic that emerges from the vivacity of those exciting years while speaking to the fragility of all cultural and political achievements.” ––Ulrike OttingerRead More »

Amir Dutta’s latest film, Wittgenstein Plays Chess With Marcel Duchamp, Or How Not To Do Philosophy, is a 17-minute animation that adapts an essay of the same name by Steven B. Gerrard. The essay examines how Wittgenstein and Duchamp, both keen chess players, used the game to question language and perception. The film has a winking style of animation—by the director’s wife, Ayswarya S. Dutta—that involves the juxtaposition of cutout figures, objects and backgrounds. It’s a sprightly investigation into the nature of surface appearances and how we perceive meaning, packed with allusions to art, linguistics, philosophy and chess.Read More »