Fleeing a U.S. attack during the war, 2 sisters and their governess are shipwrecked on a (not so ) deserted island. Believe it or not Lina appears to have only one brief nude scene. Who’d a thunk it? As you can see there is some flesh on display so thank god for that. Another Franco jungle “masterpiece”. Enjoy!Read More »
Quote:Winner of the Best Documentary award at the Cannes Film Festival, master filmmaker Patricio Guzmán’s The Cordillera of Dreams completes his trilogy (with Nostalgia for the Light and The Pearl Button) investigating the relationship between historical memory, political trauma, and geography in his native country of Chile. It centers on the imposing landscape of the Andes that run the length of the country’s Eastern border. At once protective and isolating, magisterial and indifferent, the Cordillera serves as an enigmatic focal point around which Guzmán contemplates the enduring legacy of the 1973 military coup d’état.Read More »
Laxe himself stars as a self-described “neo-colonialist” filmmaker who goes to Tangiers ostensibly to hold a series of film workshops. It quickly becomes clear, however, that his intentions are not purely disinterested, as he begins to turn these children into pawns in the service of his own film.
Next in our Back-To-School series, and part of our close-up on Laxe, is his startling debut, in which he also stars. Shot on gorgeous monochrome 16mm, this singular “meta-docu-fiction” expands on the concept of hybrid filmmaking and keeps questioning itself—and cinema—both playfully and politically.Read More »
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An eclectic group of actors struggle to save their theater from being demolished and replaced with a shopping mall. Max, the leader of the troupe, is a workaholic director who abandoned his family to build his career and is forced to confront the daughter he deserted. Then there is Enrique, the playwright-poet who is reduced to pawning his belongings to sustain his livelihood when his state pension is severed. Finally, there is Fulo who is driven to succeed so that she can bring her daughter from Rio de Janeiro.Read More »
Based on a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, City and the Dogs is set in a brutal boys` military academy. Juan Manuel Ochoa plays a tough young cadet who rules a student clique called The Circle, which supplies the other boys with forbidden cigarettes, booze and pornography, and even provides answers to upcoming tests. When Ochoa is caught, he places blame on Eduardo Adriazen, the weakest member of the Circle. Adriazen informs on Ochoa, who subsequently kills him. During the investigation of Adriazen’s death, the academy tries to cover up the crime lest the institution be destroyed by the scandal. The principal whistle-blower, a sensitive young “outsider” (Pablo Serra), is himself discredited because it is he who has been writing the pornography that Ochoa has been selling.Read More »
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“Paula, a thirteen year old girl, starts to experience certain complications in the relationships with her family and friends. In order to be with her ill grandmother, which she barely knows, she spends the summer in Ojos Negros. There she will meet Alicia, a girl her age, who also stays in town for the summer. Together they will venture into the adult world through a stifling summer that never ends.”Read More »
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Federico, in his mid-20s, lives alone in Buenos Aires. The day his grandmother dies, he decides to part with his girlfriend. He fears hurting her. However, she is laid-back, feisty and not even close to feeling hurt. He begins obsessing over her unexpected reaction—but then he meets someone else. Condensing all the fine irony, absurdist humour, and unassuming warmth that defines Martín Rejtman work into only 19 minutes, Shakti is a delightful minimalist gem.Read More »
“Mosaico (La vida de una modelo)” is Néstor Paternostro’s first film. It follows the life of a model (Perla Caron), from her discovery by a TV producer (Federico Luppi) to the moment when she decides to stop modeling. The narration is fragmentary (“so that each spectator can build his own movie”, as said by Paternostro himself), and the movie is constructed mainly around the music by Núñez Palacios and rock singer Owe Monk.Read More »
Balagueró’s third short.
“Alicia” is the metaphor of a woman losing her innocence. It won the Sitges (Catalonian International Film Festival) award for best short.Read More »