A dashing thief, his gang of desperadoes and an intrepid policeman struggle to free a princess from an evil count’s clutches, and learn the hidden secret to a fabulous treasure that she holds part of a key to.Read More »
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Hayao Miyazaki – Rupan sansei: Kariosutoro no shiro AKA Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)
Japan1971-1980ActionAnimationHayao Miyazaki -
Paolo Virzì – Ovosodo AKA Hardboiled Egg (1997)
Paolo Virzì1991-2000ComedyDramaItalyCan someone be hopelessly naïve and a cynic? Can someone be chronically depressed and positive? Can a hopeful young man ignore all his advantages and concentrate on his life’s drawbacks? These sorts of contradictions define young Piero (nickname “Ovosodo” or “Hardboiled Egg”, also the slang term for the slum area he inhabits). His mother is dead; his father spends years in jail for, in effect, incredible stupidity; his older brother is severely challenged; and he knows nothing at all about his best friend. At the end, he is thrilled that all his disadvantages provide him with a dead-end job in the factory owned by his best friend’s father, despite having the real advantage of four years of top-quality education at the best private school in the region as a scholarship boy.
This is an utterly frantic yet very droll, ironic black comedy.Read More »
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Maéva Ranaïvojaona & Georg Tiller – Zaho Zay (2020)
2011-2020DocumentaryGeorg TillerMadagascarMaéva RanaïvojaonaA young woman works as a prison guard in a hopelessly overcrowded jail in central Madagascar. She passes the time daydreaming about her father, a murderer, who abandoned her as a child after killing his own brother. In her imagination, her father becomes a mythical killer, wandering the countryside and rolling enchanted dice to decide the fate of his victims. Secretly, she yearns for the day her father will turn up amongst the prisoners. When a new inmate arrives claiming to know her father, her fantasies begin to turn to nightmares.Read More »
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Hayao Miyazaki – Gake no ue no Ponyo AKA Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (2008)
Hayao Miyazaki2001-2010AnimationFantasyJapanA five-year-old boy develops a relationship with Ponyo, a young goldfish princess who longs to become a human after falling in love with him.Read More »
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Hayao Miyazaki – Hauru no ugoku shiro AKA Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
Hayao Miyazaki2001-2010AdventureAnimationJapanWhen an unconfident young woman is cursed with an old body by a spiteful witch, her only chance of breaking the spell lies with a self-indulgent yet insecure young wizard and his companions in his legged, walking castle.Read More »
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Vesela Kazakova, Mina Mileva – Cat in the Wall (2019)
2011-2020BulgariaDramaMina MilevaVesela KazakovaCat in the Wall tells the true story of how a cat, stuck in a wall, changes the lives of aspirational migrants, benefit fraudsters and gentrified Brexiteers.
As documentarians, Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova have always been fearless. The duo’s rage permeates their first foray into fiction, Cat in the Wall. An examination of society’s absurdities and unfairness through the eyes of Irina, a single Bulgarian mother whose place in London is challenged in every way, turning her into a metaphoric “cat in the wall”, just like the real one.Read More »
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Vasily Zhuravlyov – Kosmicheskiy reys: Fantasticheskaya novella AKA Cosmic Journey (1936)
1931-1940Sci-FiUSSRVasily ZhuravlyovIn 1946, the Soviet space program is undergoing turmoil. Professor Sedikh, who is planning to lead the first manned exploration to the moon, is denounced by his rival Professor Karin as being too old and too mentally unstable for the mission.
Professor Sedikh, aided by his assistant Marina and a youth named Andryusha, disregard Prof. Karin’s authority and make a successful landing on the moon. Although a few problems occur at the moon, including the discovery of a damaged oxygen tank and Professor Sedikh’s becoming trapped under a fallen boulder, the expedition is a success and the cosmonauts return to Moscow.Read More »
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I-Chen Ko – Dai jian de xiao hai AKA Kidnapped (1983)
I-Chen Ko1981-1990AsianDramaTaiwanAfter her six year old son is kidnapped, a successful fashion designer must work with a detective to clear up the terrifying mystery and get her son back.Read More »
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Dominik Graf & Johannes Sievert – Verfluchte Liebe deutscher Film (2016)
Dominik Graf2011-2020DocumentaryGermanyJohannes SievertDon’t we all feel the same longing for German films that break ranks, that are wild and sensual, that possess a true physicality? Dominik Graf’s thrillers, the articles he’s written on cinema and his new documentary all tell of this longing. What happened to this section of our film tradition, which in the 1970s and 80s brought forth a genre cinema that showed a very different Germany, one looking into the abyss?
Even before Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, there were reflections of neon signs in nocturnal streets and a dark angel who wanted to rescue a prostitute in Roland Klick’s Supermarkt (1973). Klaus Lemke and Roland Klick sit before Graf’s camera as nonchalantly as their heroes and rave about how actors who make full use of their bodies. At first, post-war Germany did not want maimed bodies sweaty with exertion, until Mario Adorf and Klaus Kinski brought back the need for the physical. Suddenly, there was space for violent, bloody and dirty stories, with the RAF’s first department store bomb reverberating through films such as Blutiger Freitag (1972). This is another way of telling German history. [Berlinale.de]Read More »