The film opens idyllically when a Chinese man, Jun (Ignacio Huang), takes his girlfriend on a boat trip on a picturesque lake to propose to her. This image is quickly shattered when a cow falls from the sky, killing Jun’s girlfriend. The shattering of Jun’s happiness and the serene scene becomes a precedent for the rest of the film. It is this event which will ultimately change the life of bad tempered iron monger Roberto (Darín). Read More »
In a small town of Entre Ríos, a German family is preparing to leave their farm, for reasons that will only be revealed much later. On the last day, the two teenage brothers, Brenda and Lucas, say goodbye to their friends while their mother closes up the house. But that sent-off is far from exposing what affects the characters’ lives and drama in words and events. Going back to the setting and tone of his short film Invernario, Maximiliano Schonfeld eludes the cliché of describing local habits and tales us to a rough world that always show more than what it actually features.Read More »
Year 2017. Barcelona. A couple reunites after five years of not seeing each other and after going through some tragic incidents in their past in their lives. She had stayed in Spain while he moved to Germany. Two ways of facing the current economic crisis: she preferred the idealism of staying and struggling to change the situation, and he left everything behind, a more lucid and logical point of view. When they both feel that the past is no longer important, it suddenly comes back. Unhealed wounds will always remain open. Read More »
In 1944 falangist Spain, a girl, fascinated with fairy-tales, is sent along with her pregnant mother to live with her new stepfather, a ruthless captain of the Spanish army. During the night, she meets a fairy who takes her to an old faun in the center of the labyrinth. He tells her she’s a princess, but must prove her royalty by surviving three gruesome tasks. If she fails, she will never prove herself to be the the true princess and will never see her real father, the king, again.Read More »
After serving 18 years for killing a man in a duel,a former gunman returns to his hometown determined to live a normal life, but the sons of the man he killed are bent on revenge.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Carlos Fuentes penned Arturo Ripstein’s 1966 debut.Read More »
Atilio lives with his granddaughter Iara. His great desire is to have a grandson to transmit the Guarani culture. When he discovers that Iara’s mother, Helena, is pregnant, he decides to go to a long journey and cross borders, with the aim to convince Helena to give birth in the Guarani land… The long journey will make Atilio and Iara understand the real meaning of traditions and family bonds.Read More »
LEOPARD FOR BEST DIRECTION
LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 2018
Democracy comes back to Chile during the summer of 1990. In an isolated community, Sofía (16), Lucas (16) and Clara (10), face their first loves and fears, while preparing for New Year’s Eve. They may live far from the dangers of the city, but not from those of nature.Read More »
Review from DVDTalk
THE FILM
For his 17th film, Pedro Almodovar doesn’t exactly break new ground with “Broken Embraces,” instead fine-tuning his gifts and decadent cinematic appetites to a satisfying routine. A spiraling, sensual story of noirish obsession and paranoia, “Embraces” is a riveting sit, due in great part to the filmmaker’s incredible storytelling gifts, and the cast, who articulate a dreamy series of toxic encounters with sniper-like precision, tightening Almodovar’s noose with exceptional skill.Read More »
With Slaughterhouse 5 Kurt Vonnegut revealed that humour can be exploited in two ways: to make people roll over the floor laughing and to underscore the graveness of earnest problems. While Antonio Mercero’s Spanish dramatic comedy Planta 4ª (The 4th Floor) doesn’t tackle WWII but “only” possibly terminally ill children, its use of humour is similar. While it would be harsh to nickname the film Slaughterhouse 4 (the young patients of the cancer ward on the titular fourth floor all have at least one amputated limb), it shares with Vonnegut its exploitation of laughter in the face of the incomprehensible, or indeed the only sane way to confront the inexplicable madness of disease and death.Read More »