Quote:
El perro negro takes a clichés braking view of the Spanish Civil War trough a mesmerizing found footage collage. The saga begins in 1929 with the talented amateur filmmaker, Joan Salvans, son of a wealthy Catalan industrialist, of Terrassa. The Salvans were the object of admiration as one of the most successful wool manufacturer of Catalonia, but also of hatred by the emerging anarchists and socialist trade unionists. On 24 July 1936, six days after the Civil War broke out; a militant anarchist group led by ‘Pedro el Cruel’ kills Joan Salvans, filmmaker, and his father Francesc Salvans. A cyclist, not far from their house, finds their bodies ‘La Barata’. Just about the same time when Joan’s life unfortunately ends, a new saga of the other young clandestine filmmaker, Ernesto Noriega picks up the story line to guide us through his adventures. He is arrested and almost executed, but luckily survives and secretly film the prison and on way to Madrid. The twentieth century saw an unprecedented vitality of the Spanish spirit, but also an unpredictably sharp conflict between old and new, developed North and feudal South. What drove the anarchist ‘Pedro el Cruel’ to murder Salvans? And why did the Spanish army revolt against the Republic 1936? While searching for answers we travel through Spain’s chaotic decade with the images and stories of several amateur filmmakers and their memories focusing on all sides of the front like republicans, anarchists, Communist, and the foreigner Brits, Germans, Italians, Americans, who fought on both side.

El.Perro.Negro.Stories.from.the.Spanish.Civil.War.2005.DVDRip.x264-PTP.mkv

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	1h 24mn
Size:	1.53 GiB
DXVA:	Compatible
Minimum settings:	Met
Video
Codec:	x264
Resolution:	718x576 ~> 768x576
Aspect ratio:	4:3
Frame rate:	25.000 fps
Bit rate:	2 330 kb/s
Audio
2.0ch AC-3 @ 224 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/05CA73B9782849E/El.Perro.Negro.Stories.from.the.Spanish.Civil.War.2005.DVDRip.x264-PTP.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post Péter Forgács – El Perro Negro: Stories from the Spanish Civil War (2005) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
The Maelstrom makes extraordinary artful use of considerable cache of home movies shot in the Netherlands before and during World War II and dealing with the extended Peereboom family. Information is conveyed through subtitles and instead of voice-over, the soundtrack consists of period sound, usually from radio broadcasts, and brooding, disturbing jazz score by Tibor Szemzõ.

Quote:
While one may be forgiven for thinking that every conceivable way of approaching the Holocaust on film has been attempted, Forgács’ work (aided immeasurable by the contribution of composer Tibor Szemzõ) packs an unexpected emotional punch. What wee see is a Jewish family first living unknowingly in the shadow of the Holocaust and then trying to cope with it still unaware of what it will finally mean. A shot of the film’s photographer Max Peereboom, and his family we’ve come to know, cheerfully sewing and doing general preparation for a trip to a “work camp” when their destination was in reality the nightmare of Auschwitz adds a devastating dimension to our understanding of the Final Solution that nothing else, no Hollywood movie, no documentary, has been able to provide.

THE MAELSTROM.avi

General
Container:	AVI
Runtime:	1h 0mn
Size:	840 MiB
Video
Codec:	XviD
Resolution:	720x544
Aspect ratio:	4:3
Frame rate:	25.000 fps
Bit rate:	1 800 Kbps
Audio
2.0ch MP3 @ 128 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/C994DBC6504164B/THE_MAELSTROM.avi

Language(s):Dutch
Subtitles:English

The post Péter Forgács – De Maalstroom: Een Familiekroniek AKA The Maelstrom: A Family Chronicle (1997) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
He is primarily interested in the way in which these films seem to depict only happy moments, but on closer consideration they also appear to tell a hidden history, which can be brought back to the surface by the recycling filmmaker.

In the travelogue The Danube Exodus, he documents the Jewish exodus from Slovakia just before the beginning of World War II. In two boats, a group of nine hundred Slovak, Austrian Jews tried to reach the Black Sea via the river Danube, in order to get to Palestine from there. Forgács based his film on the amateur films of Captain Nándor Andrásovits, the captain of one of the boats.

He filmed his passengers while they prayed, slept and even got married. At the end of this journey, it is clear that the boat will not return empty: a reverse exodus takes place, this time of repatriating Bessarabian Germans, fleeing to the Third Reich because of the Soviet invasion of Bessarabia.

Peter Forgacs - The Danube Exodus (1998).avi

General
Container:	AVI
Runtime:	1h 0mn
Size:	697 MiB
Video
Codec:	XviD
Resolution:	560x432
Aspect ratio:	1.296
Frame rate:	29.970 fps
Bit rate:	1 476 Kbps
Audio
2.0ch MP3 @ 128 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/62C4CA24D649A90/Peter_Forgacs_-_The_Danube_Exodus_(1998).avi

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post Péter Forgács – The Danube Exodus (1998) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis
The internationally acclaimed director and recipient of the Erasmus Award in 2007, Péter
Forgács created a documentary exploring the fate of hundred thousands of Hungarian
men and women who arrived to the United States between 1890 and 1921. To tell their
sagas Forgács weaved this grand epic from the early American cinema, found footage,
photographs and interviews. The film reveals the difficult moments of arrival, integration
and assimilation, which eventually fed the happiness of the later generations and their
fulfillment of the American dream.

https://nitro.download/view/C041D3F4B41D8C5/Hunky_Blues.avi

Language(s):English, Hungarian
Subtitles:English where needed

The post Péter Forgács – Hunky Blues (2009) first appeared on Cinema of the World.