1991-2000

  • Jean-Marie Téno – Clando (1996)

    1991-2000CameroonDramaJean-Marie Téno

    Proud and determined, the hunter set out, leaving behind his village ravaged by a terrible drought. All the villagers came out to wish him well, and everyone gave what he could: an egg, a handful of peanuts or a few kola nuts… As in the folktale, Sobgui, a former computer programmer who now drives a “clando” cab in Douala, flees to Europe to escape a life in Cameroon which has become unbearable. In Cologne (Germany), Sobgui joins a community of African emigrants. Most are hard-working and ambitious people. Sobgui begins a love affair with Madeleine, a German political activist who encourages Sobgui and his friends to return home and fight for change.
    – Written by JM Teno.usRead More »

  • Gillies MacKinnon – Hideous Kinky (1998)

    1991-2000DramaGillies MacKinnonUnited Kingdom

    Hideous Kinky is the story of two sisters (seven and five years old) traveling with their hippie mother from London to Morocco in the late 60’s. They encounter many adventures, new experiences, and interesting culture as tag along on their mother’s search for freedom and love. It is told through the eyes of the youngest girl, and we learn her observations on life, Mum, and determined sister, Bea.Read More »

  • Pawel Pawlikowski – Serbian Epics (1992)

    1991-2000DocumentaryPawel PawlikowskiPoliticsUnited Kingdom

    A film made about the Serbs as they fought in Yugoslavia in the early 90s to regain the land and the glory of their medieval empire.

    In this documentary, set in Bosnia during the war, Pawlikowski steers clear of the usual cliches of war reporting. He takes on a more anthropological perspective relying not on commentary but on the power of images: a mass baptism before the final battle, the bizarre antics of the remaining members of the Karadjordje dynasty and the tribal chants of Serbian peasant/soldiers at the front line. The result is more universal enquiry into the nature of the nation state and the ethnocentric view of the world.Read More »

  • David Cronenberg – M. Butterfly [+ Extras] (1993)

    1991-2000ArthouseDavid CronenbergDramaUSA

    Quote:

    René Gallimard, an accountant at the French Embassy in China circa 1967, is invited to a party at the Swedish Embassy where he sees a performance of highlights from Puccini’s opera, Madama Butterfly, performed by a Chinese ensemble led by the stunning star of the Beijing opera, Song Liling. René tells the beautiful chanteuse that he was captivated by her performance as the Japanese woman who kills herself when she is abandoned by her lover, a United States Naval officer. Song counters that it comes as no surprise that he likes it since the submissive Oriental woman is a typical Western male fantasy. Read More »

  • Shinji Aoyama – Yurîka AKA Eureka (2000)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaJapanShinji Aoyama

    Quote:
    Following a deadly bus hijacking in southwest Japan, the three survivors–Makato (Koji Yakusho), the bus driver; Kozue (Aoi Miyazaki), a young girl; and Naoki (Masaru Miyazaki), her older brother–find further tragedy in their personal lives. When the traumatized Makato eventually contacts Kozue and Naoki two years later, he moves into their home and becomes a father figure for the two children, who have stopped speaking. The trio are then joined by Akihiko (Yohichiroh Saitoh), Kozue and Naoki’s college student cousin, and together this odd surrogate family embarks on a road trip across Japan. However, a string of murders appears to be following them and threatens to permanently disrupt their quest to regain normal lives.Read More »

  • Kim Longinotto & Jano Williams – Gaea Girls (2000)

    1991-2000DocumentaryJano WilliamsKim LonginottoUnited Kingdom

    “This fascinating film follows the physically grueling and mentally exhausting training regimen of several young wanna-be GAEA GIRLS, a group of Japanese women wrestlers. The idea of them may seem like a total oxymoron in a country where women are usually regarded as docile and subservient. However, in training and in the arena, the female wrestlers depicted in this film are just as violent as any member of the World Wrestling Federation, and the blood that’s drawn is very real indeed. One recruit, Takeuchi, endures ritual humiliation not seen on screen since the boot camp sequences of FULL METAL JACKET. In DIVORCE IRANIAN STYLE, Kim Longinotto cinematically explored the previously unexplored world of the Tehran divorce courts. Working with co-director Jano Williams, Longinotto has been given access to shoot an insider’s verité account of this closely guarded universe.” – Chicago Film FestivalRead More »

  • Kim Longinotto & Jano Williams – Shinjuku Boys (1995)

    1991-2000DocumentaryJano WilliamsKim LonginottoUnited Kingdom

    A film about love and gender. This documentary is set in the New Marilyn night club in Tokyo, Japan – where the hosts are women who have chosen to live as men. They can only make their living as hosts in a nightclub with other ‘wannabes’ like them. The young women who come there often have relationships with them but the underlying fear is whether such a relationship can withstand the pressures on a girl to get married and have children. All three boys deal with this in different ways. These three hosts, the Shinjuku Boys, take us into their lives.Read More »

  • Hartmut Bitomsky – Das Kino und der Wind und die Photographie aka The Cinema and the Wind and Photography (1991)

    1991-2000DocumentaryGermanyHartmut Bitomsky

    DAS KINO UND DER WIND UND DIE PHOTOGRAPHIE
    Sieben Kapitel uber dokumentarische Filme

    The Cinema and the Wind and Photography
    Seven Chapters about Documentary Films

    “That’s how we’ll begin: the street of the first film. This street is located in a suburb of Lyon. That’s where the factory of the Lumiere brothers was. They made the first films for cinema. These were documentary films.”Read More »

  • Nagisa Ôshima – Gohatto AKA Taboo (1999)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaJapanNagisa Oshima

    Synopsis:
    Gohatto stars Beat Takeshi, Asano Tadanobu and a fifteen-year-old Matsuda Ryuhei as the beautiful son of a well-to-do merchant who joins the Shinsen Gumi militia in Kyoto for the “right to kill,” and ends up doing so both by his sword and his good looks. Gohatto explores themes of jealousy, madness and destruction within the context of bushido homoeroticism; not only does this violent love story play out within the bounds of same-sex relationships, but within a single militia.Read More »

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