Romane Bohringer

Paris –1943. Paris is going through one of the hardest winters of its history -occupied and tortured by the Germans, freezing and starving, the City of Light hardly deserves its name. But Sophie Vasseur only just witnesses that misery. She has been recruited as the accompanist of Irene Brice, an opera singer, one of the few ‘lights’ still shining in Paris. Her husband Charles, a brilliant and rich businessman who loves her passionately, efficiently supports her agents and sponsors in protecting her from the unbearable reality, and Sophie, the shadow, cuddles in the shelter.Read More »

When a bus breaks down in the desert, the passengers decide to stage “King Lear.”

Thinking Inside the Box
Rating * Has redeeming facet

The King Is Alive, directed and cowritten by Kristian Levring, is the fourth film to have the dubious honor of qualifying for certification under the rules of the Dogma 95 manifesto, whose professed aim is to get back to the basics of realism — shooting, for example, in natural locations with handheld cameras, direct sound, and natural lighting. But what’s basic or realistic and what isn’t, in terms of film history and technique? The manifesto also insists that movies be shot in color, a rather ahistorical reading of what’s basic — unless one labels all possible uses of color in film realistic and all possible uses of black and white artificial.Read More »

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The lives of tortured artists have always made for fascinating film fare. From Amadeus to Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, dramatic re-creations of the often-frenzied, always-tormented lives of “great” men and women have captivated audiences. Since genius is often synonymous with self-destruction, it should come as no surprise that director Agnieszka Holland’s presentation of the relationship between two 19th century poets is overflowing with grimness, grief, and anger. Yet, even though we never feel much sympathy for either Arthur Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio) or Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis), the material is nevertheless strangely compelling.Read More »

“Mina Tannenbaum” follows the ups and downs of a long-term friendship between two Jewish French women.
Young Mina and Ethel meet at ballet class, and instantly take to each other. Through the years, they maintain their closeness, even when their paths diverge. Mina, thin and lovely, goes through a period of intense shyness and then tries to become a successful artist; the plumper Ethel, insecure and often ashamed of her body, struggles to get her career as a journalist off the ground.
Then a misunderstanding threatens the relationship… with potentially tragic results.Read More »

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Vic + Flow Saw a Bear is a darkly mysterious tale of lesbian two ex-cons, Victoria and Florence, trying to make a new life in the backwoods of Quebec. Seeking peace and quite, the couple the slowly begin to feel under siege as Vic’s probation office keeps unexpectedly popping up and a strange woman in the neighborhood soon turns out to be an increasingly menacing shadow from Flo’s past. With it’s collection of complex and eccentric characters, unexpected plot twists and unsettling humor, director Denis Cote (Curling, Bestiaire) has created an original film that is as once traumatizing, uplifting, and utterly breathless.Read More »

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Paul and Marguerite are a five years old couple. Their love is strong, deep, tragic… visceral. Paul wants to control things. Marguerite is more free…Read More »

Over the past 25 years Australian cult director Richard Lowenstein has established himself as one of this country’s most dynamic independent filmmakers. With four feature films to his credit, Lowenstein has straddled both period and art-film genres to give cinematic expression to the stories of everyday Australians and in doing so has consistently captured the cultural zeitgeist on film…Read More »

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Adapted from director Collard’s own novel, Les Nuits fauves won the filmmaker a French César for Best Debut Director just days after he died of AIDS-related illness (the film took four Césars, including Best FIlm, in 1993).

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