2010s

  • Kohei Igarashi & Damien Manivel – Takara – La nuit où j’ai nagé AKA The Night I Swam (2017)

    Drama2011-2020Damien ManivelJapanKohei Igarashi

    Synopsis
    Snow covered mountains in Japan. Every night, a fisherman makes his way to the market in town. His 6 year old son is awoken by his departure and finds it impossible to fall back to sleep. In the sleeping household, the young boy draws a picture he then slips into his satchel. On his way to school, still drowsy, he strays off the path and wanders into the snow…Read More »

  • João Maia – Variações AKA Variações: Guardian Angel (2019)

    2011-2020DramaJoão MaiaMusicalPortugalQueer Cinema(s)

    António Variações was a unique man. He was born in a small village in Amares, in the north of Portugal. At an early age, unhappy with his life working at a local factory, he came to Lisbon to stay with some relatives. But he was different and he wanted more. He wanted to travel and see the world and he emigrated, starting to work as a barber. But his love for music and performance was so strong that he came back so he could sing in his own language, even if with his looks and outfits he was a victim of prejudice. And even without knowing anything about music he fought for his right to do it the way he believed it was best.Read More »

  • Ben Rivers – A Distant Episode (2015)

    2011-2020Ben RiversExperimentalShort FilmUnited Kingdom

    Shot on the otherworldly beaches of Morocco in silvery black-and-white 16mm Scope, Ben Rivers’ A Distant Episode (named for the Paul Bowles short story inventively adapted in Rivers’ feature The Sky Trembles…, also screening in Wavelengths) transforms behind-the-scenes footage into a dreamy film fragment depicting sci-fi incursions into a mythic landscape.Read More »

  • Richard Linklater – Before Midnight (2013)

    Drama2011-2020Richard LinklaterRomanceUSA

    Quote:
    American director Richard Linklater returns to the tale of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) that he began seventeen years ago in Before Sunrise (1995) with 2013’s Before Midnight. Set nine years after the events of Before Sunset (2004), this is an eloquently scripted dissection of a now middle-aged couple’s relationship. Reflective in tone, we open to Jesse reluctantly sending his son back to the States, before heading off to an idyllic Greek villa he and his wife have been staying in. The glowing couple appear happy, with Jesse writing yet another novel, Céline starting a new job in Paris and twin gold-ringleted daughters of their own.Read More »

  • François Ozon – Frantz (2016)

    2011-2020DramaFranceFrançois OzonWar

    Quote:
    Screwball comedy master Ernst Lubitsch took a rare stab at straight drama with 1932’s “Broken Lullaby,” the tense story of a soldier who attempts to make amends with the family of a man he killed in World War I. Preeminent French director François Ozon also wanders into unconventional territory with “Frantz,” his astonishingly beautiful and inquisitive remake of Lubitsch’s film, using it as a springboard for a profound look at alienation and grief.Read More »

  • Júlia Murat – Histórias que Só Existem Quando Lembradas AKA Found Memories (2011)

    2011-2020ArthouseBrazilDramaJúlia Murat

    In a cloistered village in the country, time seems to have stopped. When a photographer named Rita arrives from outside, the initially reticent townsfolk open up to her. Only the village priest continues to find Rita’s presence worrisome, especially when she begins asking about the locked cemetery.Read More »

  • Mounia Meddour – Papicha (2019)

    2011-2020AlgeriaDramaMounia Meddour

    Synopsis:
    Algiers, 1997. The country is in the hands of terrorist groups, seeking to establish an Islamic and archaic state. Women are particularly affected and oppressed by primitive diktas, who seek to take control of their bodies and control their passage through the public space. While a frenzied hunt for women unveiled is launched, Nedjma, a young student passionate about fashion, is determined to federate the girls of her campus to organize a fashion show braving all the forbidden.Read More »

  • Ben Rivers – Ghost Strata (2019)

    2011-2020Ben RiversDocumentaryExperimentalUnited Kingdom

    Ben Rivers’ films tend to look outward at the larger world. GHOST STRATA is no exception. But to a somewhat different extent, it also looks in. A film diary, it reflects his globetrotting ways, existing in the margins of his otherwise outward-bound filmmaking style. So landscape plays a huge role, and in fact the film takes its title from a geological concept. As a scientist explains in the film, “ghost strata” are theoretical layers of time. When you see the strata of sedimentary rock, you are given to understand that the space around that rock, the very space you occupy, was once filled with earth as well. Rivers composes the film as a calendar, with 12 sections, one for each month of the year of its making. Read More »

  • Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese – Mother, I Am Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You. (2019)

    2011-2020ArthouseDocumentaryLemohang Jeremiah MoseseLesotho

    Quote:
    The idea of mother as “home” continues in the MOTHER, I AM SUFFOCATING. THIS IS MY LAST FILM ABOUT YOU. Black and white, pensive and passionate in its expression of sorrow, the essay film by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese is an intimate farewell letter painstakingly written, but never sent. How can you say goodbye to your homeland? Citing European films and their cinematic goodbyes, the distracted voice shares snippets of intimate memories with pop culture references. The echoing and crackling lament of the voiced letter feels thrice removed, a sonic representation of memories recalled in exile. Read More »

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