Founded in 1999 by students at the University of Frankfurt, Germany, the Nippon Connection film festival has become the biggest platform for current Japanese cinema outside of Japan. The festival prides itself on the proportion of premieres: in 2012, of 142 shorts and features screened, 42 were world premieres and 14 international premieres. Most of [...]
The French New Wave was not the only new wave of the 1960s: during a temporary loosening of the Communist regime’s hold on culture, Czechoslovakia had its own new wave that produced films just as beautiful, witty, exciting, innovative and thought-provoking as the French. The 1960s saw two Czechoslovak winners of the foreign language Oscar: [...]
Göteborg is the home of Scandinavia’s most important international film festival, offering one of the world’s most generous prizes: a Dragon Award of 1 million Swedish kronor (nearly 158 000 USD) for Best Nordic Film. But comparatively speaking, the festival’s short film award is even more remarkable: this year, a selection of Swedish films [...]
In 1988, Chile held a referendum to decide whether dictator Augusto Pinochet should stay in power. For one month, both sides could express their views in daily 15-minute TV slots. Pablo Larraín’s new feature, No, stars Gael García Bernal as adman René Saavedra, who is asked to lead the ‘No’ campaign. When he first meets [...]
Was the surrealist ambition to revolutionise consciousness a natural fit with revolutionary politics? The relationship between art and politics has historically been problematic: witness the sterile, unsubtle style of Soviet Socialist Realism. Surrealism’s degree of individualism is arguably more extreme than that of other literary and artistic movements, however, as it focused on exploring the [...]
This year marked the 50th anniversary of David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. To mark the occasion, a digitally restored edition was released, and I had the a chance to see it on the Empire Leicester Square’s biggest screen: an auditorium vast enough to complement the scale of the film’s setting, but normally reserved for mediocre [...]
As we reach the end of an inspiring year for cinema, here are ten titles that stood out for me in 2012, and an explanation of why I chose each of them. Although I saw many of these at film festivals, so they may not make it to your local art house cinema, in the [...]
“Village at the End of the World,” a documentary set in Greenland, presents some interesting similarities with “Eat Sleep Die,” the last film I reviewed. Both revolve around unemployment, and the threat it poses to community. Admittedly, the village of Niaqornat in the north of Greenland makes the southern Swedish village of “Eat Sleep Die” [...]
“Eat Sleep Die” (“Äta sova dö,” dir. Gabriela Pichler), treats a topic of central concern in this time of financial crisis: unemployment. Set in a village in Sweden, the film revolves around 20-year-old Raša, a sturdy, virile but tender-hearted only child who lives with her father. At the local salad processing plant, Raša has [...]
“Wadjda” (Haifaa Al Mansour, 2012) and “Tall as the Baobab Tree” (“Grand comme le Baobab,” Jeremy Teicher, 2012) are set in far distant countries: the first in Saudi Arabia, the second in Senegal. But both films treat a surprisingly similar theme: girls who won’t let tradition stand in the way of their desires. “Wadjda” centers [...]
Why did we watch ‘Amour?’Short and SwedeNo: Too Good at Recreating the 80sLawrence of Arabia: Deserving of its Place in the SunTop 10 of 2012
Sound of My Voice (2012)
The Master (2012)‘Village at the End of the World’: Help Wanted?‘Eat Sleep Die’: Asking for a little moreFrom Senegal to Saudi Arabia: Girls working for change
