I was enchanted by this animated short film with a haunting, folkloric feel. A young girl struggles to find her footing in the natural world, to apprehend its rhythms and to live in harmony with it. The passage of fruitful and barren seasons embodies hope and grief. Eventually, she seeks the protection and wisdom of a Birdwoman.
This is a timely and important work, whose narrative is based upon the 1976 Majunga massacre. A sensitively crafted, intense and disturbing film, it shows how quickly an apparently trivial neighbourhood quarrel can escalate, resulting in a cataclysm. Simmering interracial tensions and labour unrest prove a combustible combination.
This tantalizingly brief, playful and sensual portrait of a relationship is delightfully ambiguous and almost hallucinatory, flirting with the themes of subjective perception and of the passage of time. A young man who may be asleep on a train and dreaming, or who may be experiencing déja vu, says, “We sit on the train, watching the scenery, eating watermelon … What’s going wrong?” His teasing exchanges with his partner reflect
In this affecting, meditative and timely drama, Ukrainian family members vacationing in Tenerife have their travel plans and their entire lives upended by Russia’s sudden invasion of their homeland. Blindsided, they experience a bewildering spectrum of emotions as their languorous holiday is converted into an intolerable state of limbo. Carnival festivities swirl around them; Russian tourists drink wine and enjoy the swimming pool while the family frantically seeks news —
Reinas is a thoroughly enjoyable, bittersweet family drama set against the backdrop of 1990s Peru’s political instability.
Carlos, “El Loco,” is the charismatic, long-estranged father of two daughters whose mother plans an imminent move with them to the United States. He strives to engage the skeptical teenager and her credulous younger sister with tall tales of his career as a crocodile wrangler and a police secret agent, while indulging them
The playful presentation of the opening credits signals the complex interweaving of art and life in this profoundly insightful film. At times, it is difficult to tease apart artifice and reality. The newlyweds portrayed in the first scene prove to be actors in a movie being shot in a reclusive artist’s home. She has reluctantly agreed to this intrusion into her private space because she needs the money generated by
Director Bodgan Muresanu’s tense chronicle of several interwoven lives depicts the havoc, anguish and tragedy wrought upon individuals under Ceausescu’s oppressive regime in the days surrounding the Timisoara massacre of 1989. A middle-aged widow and her adult son, an actress and a theatre director, a labourer and his family, a national radio director and his college-age activist son become fearful of their neighbours, of state surveillance and harsh reprisal. The
A finely observed portrait of late-in-life loneliness, longing and hope, this work is characterized by excellent photography and naturalistic pacing. Its poignant, humorous, and poetic tone is extremely appealing.
Seventy-year-old widow Mahin lives alone in Tehran. For the past thirty years, she has seemed resigned to her circumstances. Suddenly roused from her complacency, she asserts her compassionate spirit and newfound boldness both in a political incident into which she inserts
Director Leo Berkeley’s short work is a marvel of multum in parvo. This deceptively simple portrayal of a middle-aged man with a debilitating disease is an extraordinarily compressed meditation on life that considers the minutiae and gravity of all existence. As the film’s subject ponders conflicting means of understanding the universe, he also grapples with his immediate environment and with his neighbours’ actions. In the space of 9 minutes and
Sumptuous, mesmerizing photography immerses viewers in the seascape and wildlife surrounding fourteen-year-old fraternal twins Iris and Ariel, their older sister, and their often-inattentive mother. The twins’ languorous – though not entirely untroubled − existence on a remote island serves to sharpen their curiosity about the outside world; despite their mother’s warnings, they accept a boat ride to the mainland from a stranger. The shopping mall’s glass elevator and the city’s