Olivier is a real estate agent so broke he camps out in the apartments he is supposed to be selling. The death of his mother brings along many surprises, including a very unexpected inheritance: a run-down building on the outskirts of Paris! Faith renewed, Olivier is going to be able to pay long overdue child support, rebuild his relationship with his daughter, help his dad out and square up with his ex-wife. His hopes die out when he sees the building: it is completely run down, filthy, a burden rather than the life raft he needed. Moreover, an old woman, Liliane, is a squatter on the top floor, and he can’t flip the place with her around.Read More »
Fantasy
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Shira Geffen & Etgar Keret – L’agent immobilier (2019)
2011-2020ComedyEtgar KeretFantasyFranceShira Geffen -
Fruit Chan – Sam foo AKA Three Husbands (2018)
Fruit Chan2011-2020ChinaDramaFantasyQuote:
A wondrous prostitute plies her trade while living on a boat in Hong Kong. With a superhuman libido and three loving husbands, she doggedly devotes herself to her work. Using sex to satirize the era, this film brims with intense desire.Read More » -
Claude Autant-Lara – Sylvie et le fantôme AKA Sylvia and the Ghost (1946)
Claude Autant-Lara1941-1950FantasyFilm BlancFranceSynopsis:
Claude Autant-Lara’s literally haunting romantic tale Sylvia and the Phantom stars Odette Joyeaux as Sylvia, an imaginative young girl who lives in an old French castle. Fascinated by a portrait of the lover of her deceased grandmother, Sylvia fantasizes about having a romance with the lover’s ghost. On Sylvia’s 16th birthday, her father decides to amuse the girl by having the “ghost” make an appearance, and to that end engages the services of three men–a valet, a ham actor and a burglar–to impersonate the wraith. Though confused by the fact that the ghost seemingly has three distinct personalities, Sylvia nonetheless falls in love with the burglar, the most handsome of the trio. Disillusioned upon learning of her father’s subterfuge, Sylvia is unfortunately unresponsive when the real ghost (poignantly enacted by comedian Jacques Tati) makes a surprise appearance. Unfairly lambasted by American critics as “worthless,” Sylvia and the Phantom has since taken its place in cinema history as one of Claude Autant-Lara’s most beguiling works. The film was adapted from a play by Alfred Adam.Read More » -
Man Kei Chin – Yu pu tuan er zhi Yu nu xin jing AKA Sex and Zen II (1996)
Man Kei Chin1991-2000EroticaFantasyHong KongSai Moon-Kin (Tsui) is a rich man who lives with his concubines and his son and a daughter named Yiau (Loletta Lee), who is raised like a boy and is ignorant of the ways of love. Because her brother is mentally retarded, Yiau wants to be her father’s heir but feels that she needs to go to school for the required education. Her desire to attend school leads her to a love affair with a lustful young scholar (Ken Lok). Only after she is equipped by a protective chastity belt, does her father let Yiau go to school, guised in drag.Read More »
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Stefan Uher – Javor a Juliana AKA Maple and Juliana (1973)
Stefan Uher1971-1980DramaFantasySlovakiaBased on old slovak ballads, it tells of fiddlers who with their magic violins spread evil and destruction all over the world.
From Skritek’s film journal:
A girl is transformed into a maple tree by her impulsive and angry mother. Three poor wandering musicians come by the tree and create instruments from it. Walking around the country instead of happiness they bring death everywhere with their cursed instruments. However they cannot get rid of them, unless they bury the wooden instruments at the place of the tree. The three are anything but harmonious, each taking in their disputes various stances. In the end they are enlisted to go to war, because they hardly survive as unlucky musicians and bring the instruments back. That’s when the story takes an even more tragic turn for all.Read More » -
Yoshiyuki Kuroda – Yôkai daisensô AKA Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare AKA The Great Yokai War (1968)
1961-1970FantasyHorrorJapanYoshiyuki KurodaSpook Warfare, tells the tale of an evil Babylonian vampire inadvertently awoken by treasure hunters, and a brave samurai that teams with the yokai to defeat the bloodthirsty demon.Read More »
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Yoshiyuki Kuroda & Kimiyoshi Yasuda – Tôkaidô obake dôchû AKA Yokai Monsters: Along with Ghosts (1969)
1961-1970FantasyHorrorJapanKimiyoshi YasudaYoshiyuki KurodaThe murder of an old man on sacred grounds provokes the intervention of vengeful yôkai.Read More »
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Parviz Kimiavi – Iran saray-e man ast AKA Iran Is My Land (1999)
Parviz Kimiavi1991-2000DramaFantasyIranSohrab, a provincial young writer, is lost in the desert on the way to Tehran to get a publication license for his book on old Persian poetry, but the trip involves some bizarre events.Read More »
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Janis Rafailidou – Kala azar (2020)
2011-2020DramaFantasyGreeceJanis RafailidouSynopsis
Kala azar describes of a place that cannot sustain animal life any longer. In a big city somewhere in the south of Europe, a couple takes care of dead animals and abandoned roadkill as an act to give meaning to their life. Kala azar is a meditation on the paradox of life-circles among beings of different species. A film about existence, on the boundaries between living and dead, human and non-human.Read More »