Drama

  • Ivet Castelo & Sandra García & Marta Lallana & Iván Alarcón – Ojos Negros AKA Black Eyes (2019)

    2011-2020DramaIván AlarcónIvet CasteloMarta LallanaSandra GarcíaSpain

    Quote:
    “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 »

  • Sofia Bohdanowicz – Veslemøy’s Song (2018)

    2011-2020CanadaDramaShort FilmSofia Bohdanowicz

    Quote:
    The film follows a young woman named Audrey Benac who delves into the archives of the New York Public Library in search of a rare recording produced in 1909 titled Veslemøy’s Song. Shot on hand-processed black and white 16mm, the film takes a docu-fiction approach to investigate the faded legacy of the once celebrated Canadian musician, Kathleen Parlow.Read More »

  • Mohsen Makhmalbaf – Bicycleran AKA The Cyclist (1989)

    1981-1990AsianDramaIranMohsen Makhmalbaf

    Summary
    The wife of Nasim, an Afghan immigrant in Iran, is gravely ill. He needs money to pay for her care, but his day labor digging wells does not pay enough. A friend connects Nasim to a two-bit promoter who sells tickets to watch Nasim ride a bicycle continuously for a week. The promoter brings in sick and aged spectators, haranguing them to find hope in Nasim’s strength. Aided by his son, who feeds him as he rides, Nasim grinds out the days and shivering nights. Local officials believe this may be a plot and Nasim may be a spy; they try to sabotage him as do those who bet he won’t finish the week. Will desperation alone get Nasim the money? Is any triumph an illusion?Read More »

  • Don Siegel – Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954)

    1951-1960CrimeDon SiegelDramaUSA

    Geoff Andrew, Time Out wrote:
    A classic of the genre, almost documentary in approach – low budget, no stars, Folsom Prison locations, inmates as extras – and boiling up an explosive violence kept under perfect control. Not looking for cosy answers (in fact, final victory shades ironically into defeat), the script’s prime concern is less to establish the need for reform than to demonstrate the fallibilities that militate against its accomplishment: Neville Brand’s riot leader and Emile Meyer’s warden are men of integrity in essential agreement as to what needs to be done, but each is attended by an evil genius – one psychopathic, the other corrupt – so that simple issues mutate into an entirely different ball game. A riveting movie.Read More »

  • Mikio Naruse – Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki AKA When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)

    1951-1960DramaJapanMikio Naruse

    Quote:
    This is the story of Mama, a.k.a. Keiko, a middle-aged geisha who must choose to either get married or buy a bar of her own. Her family hounds her for money, her customers for her attention, and she is continually in debt. The life of a geisha is examined as well as the way in which the system traps and sometimes kills those in it.Read More »

  • Robert Mulligan – Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965)

    1961-1970DramaRobert MulliganUSA

    Quote:
    Steve McQueen stars as a rockabilly hopeful, newly paroled from prison, and Lee Remick as his estranged wife in Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965), brought to us by the same triumvirate that translated To Kill a Mockingbird to the screen in 1962: writer Horton Foote, producer Alan J. Pakula, and director Robert Mulligan. A poignant slice of life shot in and around Foote’s Texas hometown.Read More »

  • Rainer Werner Fassbinder – Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)

    1971-1980ArthouseDramaGermanyRainer Werner Fassbinder

    Quote:
    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour Berlin Alexanderplatz, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age thirty-four, had already made over thirty films. Fassbinder’s immersive epic follows the hulking, childlike ex-convict Franz Biberkopf (Günter Lamprecht) as he attempts to “become an honest soul” amid the corrosive urban landscape of Weimar-era Germany. With equal parts cynicism and humanity, Fassbinder details a mammoth portrait of a common man struggling to survive in a viciously uncommon time.Read More »

  • Shuqin Huang – Hua Hun aka A Soul Haunted by Painting (1995)

    1991-2000AsianChinaDramaFifth Generation Chinese CinemaShuqin Huang

    Based on the true story of a Chinese painter, Pan Yuliang (Gong Li), whose work was celebrated in Paris yet rejected at home. At fifteen years old, she was sold into prostitution. Her life changes when she marries a high official. Through her husband, she finds expression in western painting, and furthers her studies in Paris. Although highly respected in Paris, it wasn’t until after her death that she received the acceptance at home she so desperately sought. The film is directed by Huang Shuqin, a woman director famous for highlighting the influence of tradition on gender issues.Read More »

  • Aleksandr Zarkhi – Anna Karenina [+Extras] (1967)

    Drama1961-1970Aleksandr ZarkhiClassicsUSSR

    Synopsis:
    “The title character (Tatiana Samojlova) is a dutiful wife to Karenin (Nikolai Gritsenko), a minor political functionary, and mother to a young son, when she meets a dashing young military man, Count Vronsky (Vassily Lanovoy). Something sparks between them, and soon they are madly and passionately in love. But such an illicit relationship is very much frowned upon in polite Russian society, and there are numerous consequences to their love. But by the same token they find themselves unable to live without each other, and so their relationship is subject to severe stresses as they try to live their lives in peace.”Read More »

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