• Fabrizio Ferraro – Les Unwanted de Europa (2018)

    2011-2020ArthouseDramaFabrizio FerraroSpain

    Synopsis
    The film retraces the events of a trail in the Pyrenees, which fleeing fascism that was infecting the heart of Europe. Catalans and internationalist militants fleeing the Franco regime before; Jews, communists and dissidents by the Nazis shortly after.Read More »

  • Ermanno Olmi – Il segreto del bosco vecchio AKA The Secret of the Old Woods (1993)

    1991-2000Ermanno OlmiFantasyItalyPhilosophyPhilosophy on Screen

    This Ecological Fairy Tale, with live actors and talking animals tells the story of a colonel (Paolo Villaggio) who is entrusted with a large estate of woodlands until his schoolboy nephew comes of age. Disregarding local tradition and the practice of his esteemed deceased brother, the military man decides to selectively cut the old growth timber. He is confronted with the protestations of the tree spirits (Giulio Brogi) and the local townsfolk, to no avail. Over their objection he releases the unpredictable wind from the cave to which it has been confined, and even wishes for the early demise of his nephew so he can own the woods outright. But he comes to value human contact more, starts to come to terms with most of the spirits, and reverses some plots to get rid of his nephew. A bit like a live action Hayan Miyazaki tale such as Princess Mononoke, but not so violent.Read More »

  • Åke Falck – Bröllopsbesvär AKA Swedish Wedding Night (1964)

    1961-1970Åke FalckDramaSweden

    Max Scharnberg/IMDb wrote:
    A wedding without love. The bridegroom is the owner of the greatest butcher enterprise in the town. He is also a womaniser who boasts about knowing what kinds of pants numerous girls wear. The bride is unusually beautiful. Her mother instructs her never to refuse her husband and never to argue against his side-affairs. The boy she really loves and who loves her would never do as a breadwinner. The bride’s family believes that he is working far away. Her father has not taken a full bath for many years, and the bride needs much diplomacy to make him do so on the wedding day. To obtain money for the feast the bride had sold an old cow to the slaughterhouse. Read More »

  • Wilhelm Thiele – The Madonna’s Secret (1946)

    1941-1950CrimeFilm NoirUSAWilhelm Thiele

    Directed by Wilhelm Thiele and written by Thiele and Bradbury Foote with black and white cinematography by film noir giant John Alton

    Quote:
    This drama is an updated version of Ulmer’s 1944 film Bluebeard. It is set in New York and follows the exploits of an eccentric Parisian painter who has come to New York to escape a controversy surrounding his work. The trouble stems when the model he has used in all his work is found floating dead in the Seine.Read More »

  • Rainer Erler – Operation Ganymed (1977)

    1971-1980DramaGermanyRainer ErlerSci-Fi

    In the year 1991 five astronauts (three Americans, one European, one Russian) return to Earth from a presumably failed space expedition to the Jupiter moon Ganymed. Nobody expects their arrival any more and their radio signals remain unheard. They are landing far off civilization, in a vast desert. On their way through the rough landscape they don’t encounter any signs of life, just abandoned buildings and a plane wreck. Suspicious among them grows. Is mankind extinct after a nuclear war? Tension increases. When one of the Americans kills the Russian (because only Russians could have started a World War), the group slowly begins to fall apart.Read More »

  • Douglas Sirk – Battle Hymn (1957) (HD)

    1951-1960Douglas SirkDramaUSAWar

    Battle Hymn was inspired by the true story of American minister Dean Hess, played here with rare sensitivity by Rock Hudson. A bomber pilot during World War II, Hess inadvertently releases a bomb which destroys a German orphanage. Tortured by guilt, Hess relocates in Korea after the war to offer his services as a missionary. Combining the best elements of Christianity and Eastern spiritualism, Hess establishes a large home for orphans. The preacher’s efforts are threatened when the Korean “police action” breaks out in 1950. Battle Hymn was one of several collaborations between Rock Hudson and director Douglas Sirk–though Sirk felt that Robert Stack would have been better suited to the role of Rev. Hess.Read More »

  • Rita Azevedo Gomes – O Som da Terra a Tremer AKA The Sound of the Shaking Earth (1990)

    1981-1990DramaPortugalRita Azevedo Gomes

    Quote:
    An author writes a story entitled “O som da terra a tremer”, and the story constantly entwines itself with his private life. Alberto is a writer out of the world because of decisions that are always postponed and sometimes imagined. Between the writer, his personal universe and the story that he’s or imagines to write is lost the notion of boundary. The story revolves around a sailor who one day finds a foreign port and loses a girl. But between the real world and the universe of fiction of Alberto is always difficult to perceive the place of each thing.Read More »

  • Peter Sempel – Nina Hagen = Punk + Glory (1999)

    1991-2000DocumentaryGermanyPeter Sempel

    Quote:
    NinaHagen was born in East Berlin in 1955, migrated to the West in the mid-70’s and became a New Wave Punk rock star in 1978, singing in a screechy growl that shaded into an operatic coloratura.Read More »

  • Andrew Horn – The Nomi Song (2004)

    2001-2010Andrew HornDocumentaryGermanyMusical

    He came from outer space to save the human race!

    Looks like an alien, sings like a diva – Klaus Nomi was one of 1980’s most profoundly bizarre appearances. He was a cult figure in the New Wave Underground scene who sang pop music like opera and brought opera to club audiences. He was a performer with a “look” so strong, that his first audiences went wild before he even opened his mouth. On the verge of international fame as a singer, he instead became one of the first prominent artists to die of AIDS. But the reaction Klaus Nomi provoked was so strong, that he is still unforgettable, even 20 years after his death.Read More »

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