Like the passage of time, Hong Sangsoo’s cinema keeps going. Hill of Freedom adds to an unequaled filmography in current cinema that seems to distill into films that are more and more perfect and sober as it grows. In a film world that seems to only pay attention to technical feats and formal exaggerations, Hong’s universe continues to...
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This erotic drama about the incestuous relationship of a mother and daughter is based on the autobiography of Italian theater actress Piera Degli Esposti, though it focuses more on her mother Eugenia (Hanna Schygulla, who won the Best Actress award at Cannes for this film.) The liberated Eugenia and her spaced-out husband (Marcello Mastroianni) &nd...
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Through wonderful archival footage, including the Hockney family’s own home movies, and interviews with family, friends, and the artist himself, Wright develops an extraordinary portrait of a man who grew up among the privations of postwar Britain to embrace, in his art and in his life, the dreams and fantasies of legendary places: London, Ne...
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Hotline inquires into the everyday work of an Israeli NGO that fights against two almost unbreakable forces: xenophobia and bureaucracy. Volunteers assist illegal African immigrants who arrive in Israel escaping repression and torture but end up trapped in an atrocious limbo, labeled as “infiltrators” and imprisoned in growing detention...
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“The beach awaits below the pavement, but what lies beyond the city?”, actor Ian McShane’s voice over asks at a magical moment of How We Used to Live. The city is London, and it is spread out here through the protein-filled archive of the British Film Institute like a huge tapestry, or a landscape, or an epic visual poem. From its...
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Mother and daughter live alone amidst contempt and poverty in a house in the suburbs. Lunch reconnects them with the same feelings of mutual hatred over and over again. Naty, the transvestite daughter, narrates what she’s feeling every second until the brutal outcome.
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Idyll presents itself as a love story. Yes, Camila is in love, “stupid in love”: that’s how the film begins, that’s its first chapter. Since she’s in love, she sees the word with an enthusiast smile, maybe too enthusiast. Sebastián, her friend and confidant, listens to and tolerates her. He even tries to remain...
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What is happening in the basements of Austria? In the wake of 2009’s infamous Fritzl case, even international media have been asking the question, but Ulrich Seidl tackled it way before –then had to put In the Basement on hold for several years to finish his epic Paradise trilogy (shown at Bafici ‘13). All for the better, since in...
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Three firemen try to stay awake while waiting for a fire that would make them leave their station. Fire/Rescue is an intimate observation –almost dreamlike– of these characters, who spend their time waiting for a chance to become heroes.
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As her brief but explosive filmography as a director keeps growing, Asia Argento seems to be setting up a sort of (false) autobiography, both personal and artistic: from the nightmares of the lead actress in Scarlet Diva (2000) to the terrible mother of The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004), including the always optimist –but suffere...
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The day begins and the light shakes the shadows hanging from Eduardo Stupía’s studio. Miguel Baratta’s camera doesn’t show a creative genius, but a craftsman who patiently models his material. When observing the layout of a collage, Intemperie seems to adhere to the thesis that there is no such thing as inspiration or aesth...
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This looks like the tiny cousin of the famous People on Sunday, where director Eugen Schüfftan was the cinematographer. This is not only his only film as a director, it is one of the first German sound films. Filmed in late summer of 1929, it’s like a moment shot of Germany, still mocking the economic breakdown. The crisis as opportunity...
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Winter starts during the summer –a Chilean summer of intense heat and intense activity for Alejo Cortés, who writes nonstop what will become his second novel. The publishing date for Caída libre (“Free Fall”) is six months away, and the literary world is expecting it with equal amounts of expectation and morbidity. I...
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While there are no precise statistics, it is estimated that four to five million Iraqis live outside Iraq today. Samir was born in Baghdad and has lived in Switzerland since he was a child, while the members of his extended family are scattered all over the world. Tracing their emigrations over more than half a century, in this riveting 3D do...
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“We are game machines,” “an actor is like a blind person walking confidently towards a cliff.” The lady of icy and cutting beauty who seems to gloat on being evil on the screen turns out to be a shy and warm person, capable of acting like a big child while also presenting herself (and her craft) with enviable depth. Toubiana...
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This documentary explores the almost mythical story of Jaco Pastorius, an electric bass pioneer, an invisible icon who was an enduring inspiration for artists like Robert Trujillo, producer of the film, but also Herbie Hancock, Joni Mitchell, Flea, Bootsy Collins and so many more. If you already know his name you are probably either also a bass pla...
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While extraction industries were once an important part of Burma’s economy, today others, mainly agriculture, have relegated the activity. Despite that, in the northern part of the country, in the state of Kachin, a group of men endures miserable living and working conditions in the hopes of finding in the mud a small piece of mineral that co...
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Eccentric pop artist Takashi Murakami, who is known for selling hentai statues at millionaire prizes, has plunged into cinema with this adorable, hallucinatory, and frenetic mix of animation and live action. Masashi, who has just lost his father in Fukushima, moves in with his mother, thus becoming the new kid in school. The event coincides with th...
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In the nearby areas of Jerez de la Frontera there are ideal climate conditions for grapes (the palomino kind) grows splendidly, even if they basically grow on rocks. From that you get Spain’s most distinctive wine, and the one with a larger presence in the world’s popular culture: sherry. Yet, obviously, this fame could not have been ac...
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A portrait: Jia Zhang-ke by Walter Salles, who genuinely admires him. That admiration doesn’t create a “fan” documentary, but one that carries the wisdom of someone who knows the work and life of the person he portrays –and wants to know more: that will to learn, or the film version of that will to learn, is crucial. Salles...
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There’s no greater tribute to a specter lover than to be converted into a venerable ghost. But this spectral account of the life of a man who was a Portuguese version of Henri Langlois –also a Renaissance man: poet, professor, theorist, director of the Portuguese Cinematheque, and actor in films by Manoel de Oliveira and João C&e...
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In one scene in Juliana, the young title character watches a soap opera and sees some absurd images that are far from the reality she knows. This moment reminds of scenes from Miss Universo en el Perú (also included in this section) where a contradiction is revealed and the audience is questioned socio-culturally. The style of Juliana was an...
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If a rock musician’s dream were to play with Jagger and Richards, then the equivalent for a dub band (a musical genre derived from reggae) would be to brush against Lee “Scratch” Perry and Mad Professor. And it turns out that in Argentina, a country with practically zero tradition in that genre, that band actually exists: it&rsquo...
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A new frontal view of the bumps in Switzerland/Europe/the First World: the everyday life of a shelter in Lausanne that only allows fifty immigrants each night, which results in a chilling selection ritual every day. Melgar distances himself from overstressing or denouncing through the exposition of the harsh reality, and instead turns it over to th...
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Tailor-made for the actors of the Théâtre National de Strasbourg, and featuring a memorable mix of French and English pop music, the film centres around ten young people whose first names begin with letters of the alphabet, from A to J. They live in Strasbourg in the Nineties and are at an age when “anything is possible.” T...
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This film that centers on the famous and controversial French writer Michel Houellebecq, who is kidnapped by a trio of losers, and on what happens during his peculiar captivity in a house far from any kind of urban center is a pleasant surprise. The fragile, odd author of The Elementary Particles, whose aspect and the way he moves make him look lik...
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In May 2003, an article in Clarín newspaper reported that Lyl Tiempo “connects three generations of pianists: she’s the daughter of the famous Antonio De Raco, a friend of Martha Argerich, and a teacher for young prodigies, including her two children.” At that time, Lyl’s granddaughter (the child of her daughter Karin...
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