• Michael Obert – Song from the Forest (2014)

    2011-2020DocumentaryGermanyMichael Obert

    SYNOPSIS
    “In my memory, I retained such a dream-like impression of my stay in New York that I sometimes wondered if I had really been there.”
    Louis SarnoRead More »

  • Claude Lelouch – Le chat et la souris AKA Cat and Mouse (1975)

    1971-1980Claude LelouchComedyCrimeFrance

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    Synopsis:
    A jaded and charming police inspector is assigned along with his cheerful partner to a case involving the mysterious death and/or suicide of a wealthy entrepreneur. The chief suspect is his enchanting wife who was aware that her husband had a mistress. It is also possible that the dead man may be the victim of a radical terrorist group.Read More »

  • Willi Forst – Maskerade AKA Masquerade in Vienna (1934)

    1931-1940AustriaDramaRomanceWilli Forst

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    Review:
    “Maskerade” is the second film directed by Willi Forst. While the ‘Vienna film’ had been popular since the early 1930s not least due to Forst’s work as an actor and singer, it was “Maskerade” that brought the genre to a probably never surpassed high point.

    The plot, set in Vienna around 1900, seems to be feather-weight at first sight. When a nude drawing of a society lady, made by the artist Heideneck (Adolf Wohlbrück), gets into the newspaper by accident, a near scandal is caused. Heideneck saves his neck by randomly giving the name of an unknown girl as the drawing’s model. However, a romance soon develops between the artist and the girl (Paula Wessely), which causes the jealousy of Heideneck’s former girlfriend Anita (Olga Tschechowa)…Read More »

  • Fons Rademakers – Because of the Cats AKA The Rape (1973)

    1971-1980CrimeDramaFons RademakersNetherlands

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    From IMDB:
    A gang of six wealthy, well-dressed and well-spoken hoodlums break into a married couple’s house and rape the wife while forcing the husband to watch. Thus begins a dogged investigation by a determined detective who quickly finds that their cult-like solidarity can be a serious obstacle to breaking them.Read More »

  • Ben Rivers – Things (2014)

    2011-2020Ben RiversDocumentaryExperimentalUnited Kingdom

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    Things is a travelogue in which the filmmaker leads himself and the viewer through a tour of the four seasons, without ever once setting foot across his doorstep – focusing on unexplored things inside his own four walls. A year-long journey through domestic surroundings that at the same time is a trip into imagination and collective memory – revealed in the collected fragments of images, film, objects and sounds, a bed, books and, observed through a window pane, a squirrel in the garden.

    As the seasons change, parallels and associations are made with things previously seen; an intricate web of clues to a life, there for the viewer to unpick.

    Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and Gareth Evans.Read More »

  • Volker Schlöndorff – Baal (1970)

    1971-1980ArthouseGermanyVolker Schlöndorff

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    Plot:
    Baal explores the cult of the genius, an anti-heroic figure who chooses to be a social outcast and live on the fringe of bourgeois morality.

    Quote:
    Screening as part of the Masters & Restorations program at this year’s MIFF is Baal, writer/director Volker Schlöndorff’s television adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s play of the same name which features a rare leading performance by Schlöndorff’s contemporary in the German New Wave and master filmmaker Reiner Werner Fassbinder outside of his own films. After a single screening in 1970 it was removed from public release by Brecht’s widow, but 44 years later is making the rounds at film festivals thanks his granddaughter who has approved its release. And thankfully it was worth the wait, offering a rare treat for foreign film fans.Read More »

  • Ginette Vincendeau – Encyclopedia of European Cinema (1995)

    1991-2000BooksGinette VincendeauUnited Kingdom

    On December 28, 1895, the Lumiere brothers demonstrated their cinematograph to 33 people in Paris. Despite Louis Lumiere’s notorious declaration that “the cinema is an invention without a future, ” the occasion marks the birth of the movies. Written to coincide with the 100th anniversary of this seminal event, “Encyclopedia of European Cinema” is a celebration of the scope and variety of film in all European countries. Compiled under the auspices of the prestigious British Film Institute, this uses the expertise of over 30 international authorities on the subject.Read More »

  • Ben Russell – Greetings to the Ancestors (2015)

    2011-2020Ben RussellDocumentaryExperimentalUSA

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    Set between Swaziland and South Africa, in a region still struggling with the divisions produced by an apartheid government, Greetings to the Ancestors documents the dream lives of the territory’s inhabitants as the borders of consciousness dissolve and expand.Read More »

  • Lav Diaz – The Day Before the End (2016)

    2011-2020DramaLav DiazPhilippinesShort Film

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    Synopsis:
    In the year 2050, the Philippines braces for the coming of the fiercest storm ever to hit the country. And as the wind and waters start to rage, poets wander the streets.

    Quote:
    Lav Diaz, who just won the Berlinale Silver Bear for his 8-hour film Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis (A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery), will be in competition with the world premiere of his 16-minute short film Ang araw bago ang wakas, in which passages from Shakespeare are recited by ordinary people on the backdrop of a nocturnal city in the Philippines that’s bracing for a raging tempest.Read More »

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