Arthouse

  • Safi Faye – Mossane (1997)

    Safi Faye1981-1990African CinemaArthouseDramaSenegal

    Quote:
    This Senegalese melodrama tells the story of a young girl called Mossane who lives in a village between the ocean and the savannah. There, veneration for the traditions is very common. There’s a legend saying that every other century a girl is born who is doomed because of her beauty. Mossane is only fourteen years old but is already considered to be extraordinary beautiful. Even her own brother is in love with her. According to the custom she has been promised to a rather wealthy man called Diogoye since the day of her birth. However, Mossane is in love with the poor student Fara who is forced to return to the village while the university is on strike. Torn between her own dreams and traditions, Mossane decides to escape. The film shows the resistance of the young generation and is dedicated especially to the African women, their courage and their wish for emancipation.Read More »

  • Teresa Villaverde – A Idade Maior AKA Alex (1991)

    Teresa Villaverde1991-2000ArthouseDramaPortugal

    Quote:
    Things in Portugal weren’t what they are now. The story of this film is the story of bygone days when Portugal was hidden away from the rest of the world, when men were obliged to go to countries many Portuguese people could not point out on the map.
    Men died and changed in these lands. Alex was only 10 years old, but he remembers, so its better for him to tell the story.Read More »

  • Claude Goretta – Le fou AKA The Madman (1970)

    1961-1970ArthouseClaude GorettaDramaSwitzerland

    Synopsis:
    ‘George takes care of his invalid wife and holds down a full-time job but is forced into retirement for health reasons. When an investment firm wipes out his life savings, George takes up a life of crime. He is soon driven to the brink of insanity over the unfortunate series of events that transpire.’ [Edited to correct inaccuracies.]
    – Dan PavlidesRead More »

  • Liv Ullmann – Sofie (1992)

    Drama1991-2000ArthouseDenmarkLiv Ullmann

    “Liv Ullmann’s directorial debut is a beguiling and bittersweet tale about the yearning to be free… “

    Synopsis:
    Copenhagen at the end of the nineteenth century. Sofie is a beautiful and cultured 28-year-old who lives at home with her parents Frederikke and Semmy. They only want the best for her and worry that she will end up an old maid like her three aunts with whom they share the weekly Sabbath meal…Read More »

  • Wim Wenders – Der scharlachrote Buchstabe AKA The Scarlet Letter (1973)

    1971-1980ArthouseDramaGermanyWim Wenders

    Wenders explained that the experience of directing this, his second film, was the usual one which occurs with a new director. It is much more difficult and much less successful. One of the biggest problems is that the interior shots were finished first (Normally exteriors are shot first). These were shot at a studio in Cologne. If you notice in the interior shots, the landscape outside the windows does not appear. The windows were covered with a variant of the rice paper you see in traditional Japanese homes. This was done because they did not know what the outside would look like. Care also had to be taken with not showing the environment outside the doors of interior shots. Read More »

  • Vera Chytilová – Pátrání po Ester AKA In Search of Ester (2005)

    2001-2010ArthouseCzech RepublicDocumentaryVera Chytilová

    Ester Krumbachová – an artist, screenwriter, director, one of the most important names of the Czech New Wave. She worked for the theatre, wrote, illustrated. She was in the middle of the artistic life in Prague in the sixties. The director Věra Chytilová asks those who knew Ester Krumbachová, cooperated with her, were her friends, loved her. She puts together a picture of an inspiring person. She starts a search which should end with the answer to the question: Who was Ester? Evening with the presence of the film authors.Read More »

  • Vera Chytilová – Faunovo velmi pozdní odpoledne AKA The Very Late Afternoon of a Faun (1983)

    1981-1990ArthouseComedyCzech RepublicVera Chytilová

    Quote:
    The strains of Debussy’s “Afternoon of a Faun” waft through this amusing comedy about an aging lecher’s ever-optimistic pursuit of the fair sex, for fair sex, or better. The “faun” wakes up to a new day of happy hunting because the proof of the pudding is irrelevant, it is the joy of finding the ingredients that matters. Whether out on the streets or at his job in an office, he does not relent in his hopeful approaches to mainly young women, who mainly ignore him. No one is more aware of his skirt-chasing than an older companion in the same office who has loved him from the beginning. And the big question is, will the late-blooming Don Juan come to his senses?Read More »

  • Albert Serra – La mort de Louis XIV AKA The Death of Louis XIV (2016) (HD)

    Drama2011-2020Albert SerraArthouseFrance

    Synopsis:
    August 1715. After going for a walk, Louis XIV feels a pain in his leg. The next days, the king keeps fulfilling his duties and obligations, but his sleep is troubled and he has a serious fever. He barely eats and weakens increasingly. This is the start of the slow agony of the greatest king of France, surrounded by his relatives and doctors.Read More »

  • Károly Makk – Magyar rekviem Aka Hungarian Requiem (1990)

    Károly Makk1981-1990ArthouseDramaHungary

    Quote:
    In 1956, there was an uprising of Hungarians against their Russian overlords, which the Russians briefly allowed to flower and then ruthlessly suppressed. One suspects that the country’s rulers knew about the uprising in advance and permitted it to continue so as to be able to identify who was most actively involved. In this film, it is 1958, and five very different men are waiting in their prison cells to be taken out and executed. Their dreams, fantasies and recollection relieve what might otherwise seem to be an unnecessarily repetitive situation. The internationally known French star Matthieu Carrière plays one of the condemned men. ~ Clarke Fountain, RoviRead More »

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