Politics

  • Raoul Peck – Haitian Corner (1987)

    1981-1990DramaPoliticsRaoul PeckUSA

    A poet from Haiti flees to America after being imprisoned in his native country. Recovering from the experience, he begins to examine his past. One day he encounters his former torturer, and becomes obsessed with taking his revenge.Read More »

  • Luis Puenzo – La historia oficial AKA The Official Story (1985)

    1981-1990ArgentinaDramaLuis PuenzoPolitics

    During the final months of Argentinian Military Dictatorship in 1983, a high school teacher sets out to find out who the mother of her adopted daughter is.

    Based on actual events during Argentina’s military dictatorship of the 1970s, this powerful film–superbly acted and directed–raises important questions about the individual’s obligations to society. As such it is a fitting vehicle for a medical humanities discussion. In addition, there are specific issues about adoption that could also be discussed–questions about origins, disclosure, rights of the birth mother and relatives, rights of the adoptive family, and above all, how all concerned may feel about these issues.Read More »

  • Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda – Le damier AKA The Draughtsmen Clash (1996)

    1991-2000African CinemaBalufu Bakupa-KanyindaComedyCongo - Kinshasa (Zaire)Politics

    A wicked political satire about African dictators, this film tells the story of the president of a fictitious African nation who spends a sleepless night playing checkers with a pot-smoking vagabond who is claimed to be the “all-around champion”. However the rules of the game entail opponents howling vulgar and foul obscenities at one another. The Champion proceeds to insult, and trounce the President. His reward – and fate – are not exactly unexpected in this hilarious send-up of living under tyranny.Read More »

  • William Greaves – Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968)

    1961-1970DocumentaryPoliticsUSAWilliam Greaves

    Quote:
    Filmmaker William Greaves auditioned acting students for a fictional drama, while simultaneously shooting the behind-the-scenes drama taking place.

    Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote:
    Seeing this singular 1968 American experimental feature by William Greaves a second time (on video; the first time was in 1980, in its original 35-millimeter format) has led me to value it more, though arguably the fact that it loses relatively little impact on video constitutes one of its limitations. Greaves, a pioneering black actor whose career stretches back to postwar films made for black audiences as well as the underrated Hollywood feature Lost Boundaries, went on to direct over 200 documentaries, host and executive produce NET’s Black Journal, and teach acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. Read More »

  • Stéphane Brizé – En guerre AKA At War (2018) (HD)

    2011-2020DramaFrancePoliticsStéphane Brizé

    Quote:
    After promising 1100 employees that they would protect their jobs, the managers of a factory decide to suddenly close up shop. Laurent takes the lead in a fight against this decision.Read More »

  • Anand Patwardhan – Jang Aur Aman AKA War & Peace (2002)

    2001-2010Anand PatwardhanDocumentaryHiroshima at 75IndiaPolitics

    A marvellous documentary, one of the best Indian films of the last decade and the director’s greatest work. Banned by the national censor.

    Documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan’s controversial War and Peace (2001) could well have been titled War and Peace: Or How I Learned to Forget Gandhi and Worship the Bomb, for the major theme that runs through the film is the disjunction that exists between the past and the present and a nation’s collective (and selective) cultural amnesia with respect to their own past. Shot in four countries – India, Pakistan, Japan and the USA – and over a period of four years following the 5 nuclear tests done by India in 1998, Patwardhan’s film was slammed by Pakistan for being anti-Pakistani and by India for being anti-Indian, while the film’s barrel was pointed elsewhere.Read More »

  • Simone Bitton – Rachel [+Extra] (2009)

    2001-2010DocumentaryPalestinePoliticsSimone Bitton

    To show solidarity with Palestinians, Amercian peace activist Rachel Corrie engaged in civil disobedience in a combat zone in the Gaza Strip; the circumstances that led to her death by bulldozer (or its debris) are still debated.Read More »

  • Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda – Thomas Sankara: l’espoir assassiné AKA Thomas Sankara (1991)

    1991-2000African CinemaBalufu Bakupa-KanyindaCongo - Kinshasa (Zaire)DocumentaryPolitics

    Captain Thomas Sankara was the leader of the Burkinabe Revolution. This film is a biographical profile of the revolutionary, the improvements he generated in his country and the new socio-political dimension he instituted in Burkina Faso.Read More »

  • Masao Adachi & Haruhiko Arai – Funshutsu kigan – 15-sai no baishunfu AKA Gushing Prayer: A 15-Year-Old Prostitute (1971)

    1971-1980ArthouseHaruhiko AraiJapanMasao AdachiPolitics

    Synopsis:
    A young prostitute tries to understand why she suffers from melancholy and benumbed feelings. Against a background of sexual liberation and political subversion, this latest libertine work by radical film director M. Adachi is one of the very few existing feminist erotic films. Masao Adachi’s personality and films deserve careful consideration. Relatively unknown as yet to Western audiences, he happens to be one of the most radical film-makers around in recent years. Gushing Prayer, shows the influence of Koji Wakamatsu, another enfant terrible of Japanese cinema whom Adachi assisted on many films. Gushing Prayer does not hesitate to show the resentments and dissatisfactions of someone who ought to be nothing more than an object of fantasies. Highly pertinent, with a bold avant-garde style, he sets the record straight as far as the sexual desires of supposedly liberated Japanese women are concerned. One of the rare feminist films of the 70’s, it audaciously evokes sexual liberation and political subversion.Read More »

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