Leslie, a talented ballerina, has been having an almost incestuous relationship with her mother’s lover for quite some time. Torn between sexual desire and disgust, Leslie’s relationship with the tyrannical and voluptuous Maurice soon weighs on the (actually only pro forma) relationship between Maurice and Francine. One day, Leslie’s salvation comes in the form of the restless, roughly the same-age performance artist Brian. When both young people fall in love with each other, Maurice reacts jealously and Leslie has to decide with whom she wants to stay.Read More »
Germany
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Roger Fritz – Häschen in der Grube AKA Run, Rabbit, Run (1969)
1961-1970DramaGermanyRoger Fritz -
Niki Stein – Louis van Beethoven (2020)
2011-2020DramaGermanyNiki Stein1779. Eight-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven, called “Louis”, is already known as a musical prodigy. He learns to go his own way – much to the dismay of the people around him. Some years later, he meets Mozart during times of political upheaval. The unconventional genius and French Revolution are sparking a fire in Louis’ heart; he doesn’t want to serve a master – only the arts. Facing times of family tragedies and unrequited love, he almost gives up. However, Louis makes it to Vienna to study under Haydn in 1792, and the rest is history. Who was this man, whose music has since touched countless hearts and minds? At the end of his life, the master is isolated by loss of loved ones and hearing. Surely though, he was way ahead of his times.Read More »
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Peter Geyer – Jesus Christus Erlöser AKA Jesus Christ Saviour (2008)
2001-2010CultGermanyPerformancePeter GeyerBerlin, Deutschlandhalle, November 20 th 1971. Kinski emerges into a lone spotlight on an empty stage. Shoulder length hair, plain jeans, a shirt with flower and polka dot patterns. No set, no stage effects, no costume. By reciting his own version of the New Testament’s “Jesus Christ Saviour”, he realizes a project well over 10 years in the making.
It is the time of the Hippie movement, and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “Jesus Christ Superstar” is celebrating a sensational success in Germany as well. It is also a time of nonviolent resistance.Read More »
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Ann Oren – Piaffe (2022)
2021-2030Ann OrenArthouseFantasyGermanyWhen her sibling Zara suffers a nervous breakdown, the introvert Eva is forced to take on Zara’s job as a Foley artist. She struggles to create sounds for a commercial featuring a horse, and then a horsetail starts growing out of her body. Empowered by her tail, she lures a botanist into an affair, through a game of submission. Piaffe is a visceral journey into control, gender, and artifice.Read More »
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Hans-Christian Schmid – 23 – Nichts ist so wie es scheint AKA 23: Nothing Is What It Seems (1998)
Drama1991-2000GermanyHans-Christian SchmidThrillerQuote:
The movie’s plot is based on the true story of a group of young computer hackers from Hannover, Germany. In the late 1980s the orphaned Karl Koch invests his inheritance in a flat and a home computer. At first he dials up to bulletin boards to discuss conspiracy theories inspired by his favorite novel, R.A. Wilson’s “Illuminatus”, but soon he and his friend David start breaking into government and military computers. Pepe, one of Karl’s rather criminal acquaintances senses that there is money in computer cracking – he travels to east Berlin and tries to contact the KGB.Read More » -
Maria Schrader – Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe AKA Vor der Morgenröte (2016)
Maria Schrader2011-2020DramaGermanyGerman actress Maria Schrader subsequently became well-known as the director of the prize-winning 2020 Netflix miniseries Unorthodox. But in this 2016 feature film her considerable directing talents are already on clear display as she portrays Austrian author Stefan Zweig’s years of exile after 1936, moving between Buenos Aires, New York, and Brazil in search of a new home.
Zweig, whose writings inspired the film The Grand Budapest Hotel, was one of the most prominent Jewish intellectuals in Europe between the wars. Schrader shows him struggling with life as a nomad and with his separation from the homeland whose language had always nourished him. Though in despair at the collapse of European civilisation, Zweig hesitates to publicly denounce the Nazi regime…Read More »
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Joseph W. Sarno – Vild på sex AKA Girl Meets Girl (1974)
1971-1980EroticaGermanyJoseph W. SarnoRomanceBibi comes to her aunt Toni’s boarding house where she is seduced by lesbian women. Soon, no one is safe from her insatiable hunger.Read More »
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Dito Tsintsadze – Lost Killers (2000)
Dito Tsintsadze1991-2000ComedyDramaGermanyQuote:
Noted Georgian filmmaker Dito Tsintsadze directs this darkly-humorous urban drama about the desperate lives of illegal immigrants in Mannheim, Germany. Lan (Nicole Seelig) is a Vietnamese prostitute whose rotting teeth and odd affliction, which causes her to turn comatose after an orgasm, is impeding her marketability. She soon finds herself in an unlikely romance with Haitian Carlos (Elie James Blezes), who schemes to sell his kidney for enough money to immigrate to Australia. Meanwhile, tyro hitmen Branko (Misel Maticevic) and Merab (Lasha Bakradze) dilly-dally with their assignment to kill a businessman. Merab bores his Croatian counterpart by regaling him with stories about his native Georgia — in between vomiting out of anxiety.Read More » -
Heinz Peter Schwerfel – Bruce Nauman – Make Me Think (1997)
1991-2000DocumentaryGermanyHeinz Peter SchwerfelQuote:
Starting in the 1960s in the Bay Area, artist Bruce Nauman made sculptures from nonart materials like dirt, neon, polyester resin and burlap. With a fertile, almost frenzied creativity, Nauman also pioneered video installations and body art. Now something of a recluse, living in New Mexico, Nauman continues to exert art-world influence. Last year, UC Press published a comprehensive volume about his early period, A Rose Has No Teeth. The book, however, lacked a companion DVD—too much of Nauman’s art depends on time and movement to be captured in static illustrations. Bruce Nauman: Make Me Think, a 66-minute 1997 film by Heinz Peter Schwerfel, now available from Facets, provides that missing link. Read More »