FILMARE/FILMAGE or SHOOTING (A LUCIAN PINTILIE PORTRAIT)
– Rare intimate documentary about Romanian filmmaker Lucian Pintilie – the director of (arguably) the best Romanian movie ever, “The Re-enactement” (1970) – shooting his first film after the 1989 Revolution, “The Oak” (1992), following a long period of work in exile. The soundtrack of the documentary contrapuntally uses audio fragments from his previous body of work (film and opera).Read More »
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In 1988, Nela, a young schoolteacher, tries to carry out the will of her late father, an officer of the Securitate (Ceausescu’s secret police) who wants his body to be used for medical research. She decides to leave Bucharest to teach in a small provincial town, where she meets Mitica, a doctor at the hospital who is obsessed with saving the life of a Christlike patient whom the authorities wish to let die. They both share an odd sense of humor and see themselves as kindred spirits, but their relationship produces less than welcome results. The Oak is a vivid look at Romania before Ceausescu’s downfall.Read More »
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Starring Harvey Keitel, just a year after his turn in the American masterpiece Pulp Fiction and two years after the controversial indie double whammy of Bad Lieutenant and Reservoir Dogs, Ulysses’ Gaze would win multiple awards the world over, including the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival (the film would not take the Palme d’Or, the festival’s highest honor, prompting Angelopoulos to shockingly declare, “If this is what you have to give me, I have nothing to say.”).Read More »