2000s

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An examination of life inside the Grande Chartreuse, the head monastery of the reclusive Carthusian Order in France.

In 1984 director Philip Gröning asked the Order of the Carthusians for permission to film them. He was told that it was too soon. Perhaps in ten or fifteen years. Sixteen years later came a call from “Grand Chartreuse” monastery. The time had come.

The preparations for the film lasted two years, shooting alone took one year, and post-production another two years. Twenty-one years elapsed between the first idea and the finished film.Read More »

Synopsis
“The filmmakers tell a story on three time planes of two men of different nationalities and fates who are connected by a love of flying. At the beginning of the film, the younger, Chilean-born Max is already 50 when he hears gunfire: soldiers have risen up against Salvador Allende’s attempt to institute democracy. The event awakens memories of another war. Back then, as a military pilot, he had taken off from London to join the fight against the German Luftwaffe. When he returned to the base he almost didn’t realize that the new instructor, a Frenchman named Antoine, is the one who taught him to fly years earlier. Read More »

Qiang is a four-year-old little rebel… a clever child with sparkly eyes and an indomitable will. As his parents frequently work away from Beijing, they decide to take Qiang to board at a well-appointed residential nursery school.

Life at the kindergarten appears rich and colourful, made up of a variety of cheerfully sunny rituals and games meant to train these children to be good members of society. But it’s not so easy for Qiang to adapt to this kind of carefully organised, minutely scrutinised collective life.A fierce individualist in miniature, he tries but fails to conform to the model his teachers enforce. Yet he still craves the reward that the other students win: the little red flowers awarded each day as tokens for good behaviour.Read More »

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TV commercials collector Jean Marie Boursicot’s (who might be known to you by his Nights of AdEaters) compilation of advertising films and commercials produced by famous film directors. Featured directors; Vol 1: David Cronenberg, Tim Burton, Luc esson, Woody Allen, Spike Lee, Giuseppe Tornatore, Wim Wenders, David Lynch, Roman Polanski, Francis Ford Coppola, Tarsem Singh, Jean Jacques Annaud, Ridley Scott, Emir Kusturica, Wong Kar Wai, Michel Gondry, Tony Scott, Jean Luc Godard, Tony Kaye, Jan Kounen; Vol 2: Hugh Hudson, Martin Scorsese, Claude Lelouch, Jean-Luc Godard, Carlos Saura, Franco Zeffirelli, Claude Chabrol, Jean Jacques Annaud, Roman Polanski, Ridley Scott, Federico Fellini, Giuseppe Tornatore, Patrice Leconte, Andrei Konchalowski, David Lynch, Helmut Newton, Nikita Mikhalkov, Jean Jacques Beineix, Jean Pierre Jeunet and William Klein.Read More »

Synopsis:
In a strange city where every person seems content beyond reason a new man arrives in town and stirs up trouble by asking too many questions.Read More »

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Ultimately stunning in its revelations, Lutz Dammbeck’s THE NET explores the incredibly complex backstory of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber. This exquisitely crafted inquiry into the rationale of this mythic figure situates him within a late 20th Century web of technology – a system that he grew to oppose. A marvelously subversive approach to the history of the Internet, this insightful documentary combines speculative travelogue and investigative journalism to trace contrasting countercultural responses to the cybernetic revolution.Read More »

A pretentious underground filmmaker struggles with his masterpiece while a scuzzy punkoid chick tries to keep her band from fading into obscurity.Read More »

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In the 1970s, a young trans woman, Patrick “Kitten” Braden, comes of age by leaving her Irish town for London, in part to look for her mother and in part because her gender identity is beyond the town’s understanding.Read More »

Ermanno Olmi’s PROFESSION OF ARMS adds significantly to the reputation of one of the most distinctive Italian filmmakers of the post-war period. Olmi established his career with a number of beautifully observed studies of ordinary people, culminating in his winning the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes for “‘L’albero degli zoccoli’ The Tree of Wooden Clogs” in 1978. His subsequent work focused on historical subjects, leading to this magnificent film, one of the best Italian productions in years.Read More »