The first Canadian fiction feature directed by a woman, Sylvia Spring’s Madeleine Is… investigates themes of patriarchy, art, and emancipatory politics in the context of Vancouver’s counterculture. Madeleine, an aspiring painter from Quebec, relocates to Vancouver at the height of the hippie era and has a series of encounters with men—a macho political radical, a fantasy figure-cum-young businessman, an older homeless man—which lead to self-discovery. The city and its paradoxes and politics are vividly evoked, while the era’s emergent feminism informs the film’s perspective.
Category: Drama
Based on an autobiographical novelette by the well-known Kerala writer Basheer, this is a love story, set in a prison cell the 40s, between the imprisoned Basheer and a woman from the neighbouring prison compound. They are separated by a high wall so that they never see each other and have to devise ingenious ways of communicating. Produced for TV, the story is played out in confined spaces with a sense of claustrophobia and suppressed violence which enhances the emotional impact of the moving love story.
This was the first of a trilogy of films that director Rodríguez filmed to exalt the box office figure of Villa. Narrated in the form of independent episodes, it has seven segments of which the last one is the longest and narrates the love that a singer named Jesusita feels for the bold, but married, general. Between the episodes the loyalty of the man is shown, the sense of justice, his hypocritical heresy and the aspect of a womanizer and conqueror.
A criminal has plastic surgery done to change his identity. However, during the operation, he loses his memory; when he comes to after the surgery, he has a change of heart and decides to help people by becoming a doctor.
Mossane is a film about a beautiful 14-year-old girl from a rural Serer village, beloved by many including her own brother, and Fara, a poor university student. Although she has long been promised in marriage to the wealthy Diogaye, Mossane defies her parents’ wishes and pursues a relationship with Fara. The film shows the strength of a younger generation as they resist archaic traditions, and revels in their courage and their wish for emancipation.
Pupil Tobias is a big Beatles fan. He knows everything about his favourite group. All the pieces of trivia he has collected seem to be pieces of a puzzle which lead to the only possible conclusion: Paul McCartney has died early and was replaced with a double by the band’s management. Now Tobias has to communicate his findings.
The fantasies and dreams of two over-the-hill actresses are intertwined with their realities, as the two roommates struggle to survive their day-to-day lives in the expensive and difficult world of Paris.