Arthouse

  • Dan Pita – Femeia visurilor AKA Dream Woman (2005)

    2001-2010ArthouseDan PitaDramaRomania

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    This full feature movie presents the story of a renowned director, Thomas (Dan Condurache), at the peak of his career, obsessed by the hallucinations of the desired woman, but also of his creative problems. Although his movies are awarded, and he is loved by the public, by actors and friends, Thomas is tormented by the desire to direct the movie of his life.Read More »

  • Abbas Kiarostami – Tadjrebeh AKA Experience (1973)

    1971-1980Abbas KiarostamiArthouseDramaIran


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    تجربه

    A fourteen-year-old boy is employed as general assistant in a photographer’s studio, where he is also allowed to sleep. From afar, he is in love with a girl who lives in a wealthy district. One morning, he comes to offer his services at the girl’s parents’ house. There seems to be a ray of hope. But that evening the answer is negative, and final… A sort of adolescent double of the young boy in Zang-e Tafrih , the young Mamad of Tadjrebeh has a different obsession: rather than his football, he is attached here to the face of a girl, the painful result of love at first sight. Rootless and homeless, Mamad is a body borne on the flux of the town, his nameless and aimless anguish soothed by a ride round the courtyard on his elder brother’s moped or the half-bare waist of a woman followed in the crowd… Counters, doors and windows punctuate this film of absence, as well as images: the photographs which the apprentice files and stamps, mirrors of elsewhere, of another possible world.Read More »

  • Chantal Akerman – “Monologues” Le déménagement (1993)

    1991-2000ArthouseChantal AkermanFranceTV

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    In 1993, Chantal Akerman directed Sami Frey (actor who made the Jeanne Dielman’s making off in 74) in this episode of tv mini series Monologues (others episodes were made by Claire Denis, Romain Goupil, Jacques Renard and Claire Simon). He plays a man who just moved to a new building, and thinks about his situation. Why he leaved the older flat. He remembers about a summer a few years ago, the windows wide open. The air streams, the girls laughing next door… Read More »

  • Jean-Luc Godard – Éloge de l’amour (2001)

    2001-2010ArthouseDramaFranceJean-Luc Godard

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    In part one there is talk of a project on the subject of love, with the example of three couples, one young, one mature and the other elderly. At this point the author comes into contact with a young woman he had already met three years earlier. Just as the project is about to become reality, all problems of an artistic or financial nature having been resolved, the author learns that the young woman has died. Part two concerns the events of three years earlier. While interviewing an historian, the future author meets for the first time the young woman, who is training as a lawyer. She has been asked by her own grandparents, formerly of the French resistance, to examine a contract offered to them by Americans who want to make a film about their activities during the Nazi occupation of France.Read More »

  • Abbas Kiarostami – Lebassi Baraye Arossi AKA Wedding Suit (1976)

    1971-1980Abbas KiarostamiArthouseDramaIran

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    لباسی برای عروسی

    A woman orders a suit from a tailor for her young son to wear to her sister’s wedding. The tailor’s apprentice, together with two other teenage boys who work in the same building, devise a plan to try on the suit at night to see what it feels like. Things get a little complicated but in the morning, at the last possible minute, they manage to return the suit to its proper place.Read More »

  • Various – Stimulantia (1967)

    1961-1970ArthouseShort FilmSwedenVarious

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    8 episodes, ranging from experimental to documentary to conventional narrative cinema, made by the most prominent Swedish film directors of the time to answer the question of what stimulates them most.

    Quote:
    It’s basically a project by Svensk filmindustri where different directors answer the question: “What are your stimuli?” (or something along those lines). E.g. Bergman says that nothing is more stimulating to him than his son’s face, while Jörn Donner more jokingly replies that it’s mainly money, “of course,” but also the idea of making a porno that’s different from the norms of the genre. Hans Alfredsson and Tage Danielsson (a.k.a. Hasse och Tage) seem to state that what really stimulates them is the opportunity to show off that they’ve read Balzac, while making fun of the entire idea; Molander is way more serious about the whole idea (“man tackar ju inte gärna nej till ett gott erbjudande”) while also promising that this will be his last film – a promise he seems to have kept, except for a few writing credits for tv.Read More »

  • Sergei Parajanov & Dodo Abashidze – Ambavi Suramis tsikhitsa AKA The Legend of the Suram Fortress (1985)

    1981-1990ArthouseFantasySergei ParajanovSergei Parajanov and Dodo AbashidzeUSSR

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    Directors Sergei Paradzhanov and Dodo Abashidze resurrected an old Soviet Georgian folktale as the basis for their film The Legend of Suram Fortress. The fortress in question is forever under construction, and forever collapsing before the last brick can be laid. The advice of a fortuneteller is sought out; the young fellow sent out to seek this advice happens to be the son of a man who years earlier had jilted the fortuneteller. Out of pique, she tells him that he must be walled up in the fortress’ wall, else the structure will continue to tumble. So many ancient legends are based upon self-sacrifice that one would think that Legend of Suram Fortress would have nothing new to offer–and one would be quite unfair to this well-crafted film to think along those lines. Never as brilliant as the critics made it out to be, Suram Fortress is still an immensely satisfying work from a gifted filmmaking team. ~ Hal Erickson, RoviRead More »

  • Daniel Pommereulle – Vite (1969)

    1961-1970ArthouseDaniel PommereulleExperimentalFranceThe Films of May '68

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    In 1969, the painter-sculptor Daniel Pommereulle made his third film, this one financed by Sylvina Boissonnas. Although only a short, Vite was one of the most costly of all the Zanzibar productions. It features, for instance, shots of the moon taken by a state-of-the-art telescope, the Questar, that Pommereulle first saw while visiting Marlon Brando in southern California in 1968. In Rohmer’s La Collectionneuse, Pommereulle and his friend Adrien philosophize on how best to achieve le vide (emptiness) during their summer holidays. Three years later, Pommereulle would transform the word “vide” to “vite” (quickly), signifying his profound disenchantment with the aftermath of the revolution of May ’68. —Harvard Film ArchiveRead More »

  • Serge Bard – Détruisez-vous AKA Destroy Yourselves (1969)

    1961-1970ArthouseExperimentalFranceSerge BardThe Films of May '68

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    Synopsis:
    The first Zanzibar film, Détruisez-vous takes its title from an oft-repeated ’68 slogan (“Aidez-nous, détruisez-vous”) and its lead from Godard’s La Chinoise, Warhol’s Factory, and the French Revolution. A drop-out from Nanterre University, Serge Bard returned to the school to shoot his film in April ’68, just a month before the student protests erupted. Incidentally, Anne Wiazemsky, who stars in La Chinoise, was also a student at Nanterre at that time. Bard’s muse, the English fashion model Caroline de Bendern, plays a confused member of an agit-prop cell led by Alain Jouffroy, cast as a professor proselytizing revolution to a near empty classroom. Juliet Berto, who also appears in La Chinoise, is another member of the cadre but offers no sisterly love to de Bendern, who grows increasingly uncertain and fragile in light of all the militancy. Read More »

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