• Joris Ivens – Power and the Land (1940)

    1931-1940ArthouseDocumentaryJoris IvensUSA

    Quote:
    Information film that was an important part of the rural electrification campaign, set up as part of the New Deal policies of president F.D. Roosevelt. Privatised electricity companies of the U.S. cities saw no profit in bringing electricity all the way to the sparsely populated countryside, so the ministry of Agriculture tried to convince farmers to set up co-operations which in turn could buy power from the government.
    Ivens selected a model farm and family, the Parkinsons, and shows the daily life on the farm before and after the installation of electricity. The films was seen by over 6 million people until 1961 and houses besides the two main components of American culture (untamed pastoral nature versus industrial progress) many autobiographical aspects. The whole film is staged with the farmer’s family acting as themselves. Today we’d call this a docudrama. The Parkinson’s farm had already been electrified several months before the shooting.Read More »

  • Joris Ivens – Nieuwe gronden aka New Earth (1933)

    Joris Ivens1931-1940DocumentaryNetherlandsSilent

    Quote:
    The Zuiderzee Works episode of We Are Building was elaborated to the much longer film Zuiderzee by Joris Ivens in 1930. In 1934 Ivens used the same material, and additional footage, to make another version: New Earth. This time the film got a political message, and the editing became more compact and stronger, sustained by the stirring Music of Hanns Eisler. After the part on the reclamation and the closing of the dyke the film continues with images of the economic crisis and the poverty among labourers. Ivens opposes this with the speculation on the market: those who helped with the reclamation of new land for agriculture are now unemployed and starving, while grain is dumped at see to keep the prices up. The closing of the dyke is still one of the strongest editing sequences in the films of Joris Ivens.Read More »

  • Kazimierz Kutz – Milczenie (1963)

    Kazimierz Kutz1961-1970DramaPoland

    Quote:
    A young boy is accused of attempting to murder a local priest. When the boy gets hurt in an accident, the townspeople are not willing to give him a hand.Read More »

  • Demofilo Fidani – Sedia elettrica AKA The Electric Chair (1969)

    1961-1970CrimeDemofilo FidaniFilm NoirItaly

    Synopsis (possible spoilers):
    At Santa Monica, during 30s, two contending gangster bands claim for dominance on the city. Willing to solve permanently this situation, Johnny Bello sets an ambush for Jack Lo Dolce’s gang, killing them brutally.
    The only survivor is Fred “il Solitario”, Jack Lo Dolce’s brother. Expecting Fred’s revenge, Johnny Bello charges one of his killers with finding and eliminating him. Fred, after avoiding successfully the killer’s search, becomes a friend of Fanny, Johnny’s girlfriend, from whom he hears details about a next coming robbery to a bank van. Lurking at the place designed to attack the van, Fred exterminates the whole Johnny’s gang, but during the shootout also Fanny dies. Captured and sentenced to die by the electric chair, Fred, while waiting for death, thinks back to his life, till that remote day when he, as a child, was forced to stand and watch his own parents’ murder: a trauma which had to lead him, along with his brother Jack, into the world of crimeRead More »

  • Henry Hathaway – Peter Ibbetson [+Commentary] (1935)

    Henry Hathaway1931-1940DramaRomanceUSA

    Synopsis
    When his mother dies, young Peter Ibbetson leaves Paris and his best friend, Mary, behind to live with a severe uncle in England. Years later, Peter (Gary Cooper) is an architect with little time for women, until he begins a project with the Duke (John Halliday) and Duchess of Towers (Ann Harding). When Peter and the duchess become great friends, she reveals that she is Mary — but the duke soon suspects his wife of infidelity and challenges Peter to a duel, threatening the pair’s second chance.Read More »

  • Don Barton & Arnold Stevens – Zaat AKA Hydra (1971)

    1971-1980Arnold StevensDon BartonHorrorSci-FiUSA

    Synopsis
    A mad scientist transforms himself into an aquatic killer.Read More »

  • María Alvarez – Las cinéphilas (2017)

    2011-2020ArgentinaDocumentaryMaría Alvarez

    Quote:
    Representing the passing of time has always been – and continues to be – a major concern for many artists. Argentinian filmmaker María Alvarez makes her contribution by exploring this theme through the lens of cinematic arts. Armed with her camera, she recorded the daily lives of film-lovers in three countries: Argentina, Uruguay and Spain. The outcome, Las Cinéphilas, is a documentary anthology that draws up a portrait of women who do not know each other but share a common passion.Read More »

  • Julian Schnabel – Before Night Falls (2000)

    Julian Schnabel1991-2000DramaRomanceUSA

    Synopsis
    Episodic look at the life of Cuban poet and novelist, Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990), from his childhood in Oriente province to his death in New York City. He joins Castro’s rebels. By 1964, he is in Havana. He meets the wealthy Pepe, an early lover; a love-hate relationship lasts for years. Openly gay behavior is a way to spite the government. His writing and homosexuality get him into trouble: he spends two years in prison, writing letters for other inmates and smuggling out a novel. He befriends Lázaro Gomes Garriles, with whom he lives stateless and in poverty in Manhattan after leaving Cuba in the Mariel boat-lift. When asked why he writes, he replies cheerfully, “Revenge.”Read More »

  • Marcel Carné – Thérèse Raquin AKA The Adultress (1953)

    Marcel Carné1951-1960CrimeDramaFrance

    After being adopted by her aunt, Thérèse Raquin was forced into marrying her sickly cousin Camille at an early age. For the past 17 years, she has been trapped in a loveless marriage, working in her aunt’s haberdashery shop in Lyon to support the husband she has grown to despise. One day, Camille gets himself drunk and has to be carried home by Laurent, an Italian lorry driver. The instant that Thérèse sees Laurent she is attracted to him. He is everything a man should be, not the mean sickly creature she is married to. Laurent is equally drawn to Thérèse and the two embark on a clandestine love affair. When he realises his wife’s infidelity, Camille decides to take her to Paris, to place her with relatives who will cure her of her wanton nature. Read More »

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