A requiem for a Russian peasant woman, Maria Semionovna Voinova. The film is in two chapters. The first chapter consists of an impression of Maria Semionovna, scenes of the colours of summer time: hay–making, bathing in a river, work in the flax fields and a holiday in the Crimea. The second chapter, set nine years later, is in black and white and deals with how Maria Semionovna’s life ended. The mood is one of a sad and elegiac narration.
rarefilmm | The Cave of Forgotten Films Posts
Yaaba unfolds in the spectacular landscapes of rural Burkina Faso in a mythical time when peasant life was still unspoiled by colonialism. It is the story of a friendship between Bila, Nopoko and an old woman shunned as a witch by the rest of the community. Unafraid of her, twelve-year old Bila calls her “Yaaba” (grandmother) and learns the value of intolerance and his own worth as a human being. Ouédraogo, who shot the film in his own village, said that it was “based on tales of my childhood and on that kind of bedtime storytelling we hear just before falling asleep.”
About the members of a New York City gym obsessed about their life situations, eventually leading up to the gay and straight characters writhing together in an orgy. An updated version of the original off-Broadway play.
During a sweltering Sydney summer, architect Stephen West faces determined community opposition to his greatest opus, a $200 million inner-city development called the Eden Project. The developer, Peter Houseman, hires goons to forcibly remove squatters and protesters from a line of old terraces that are to be demolished. Local newspaper publisher Mary Ford enlists union help to ban work on the project. Fiery activist Kate Dean rallies the divided residents, some of whom want to sell out. At a swanky Christmas party, she poses as a waitress in order to tip food over Houseman. When Ford disappears, architect West and activist Dean become uneasy allies in an attempt to find out what happened.
Gengobe Satsuma, an exiled samurai cast out as an Asano clan retainer is given a second chance to join his brothers in arms to become the 48th Ronin against the Shogunate. His faithful servant gathers the 100 ryo required for his acceptance. Gengobe is also in love with a greedy geisha named Koman. About to be sold to another man, Gengobe learns that for him to keep her, her debt is exactly 100 ryo.
Tetsuro Tamba portrays Kotaro Takamura, one of Japan’s most celebrated artists. A poet and sculptor, Takamura is married to Chieko, who has artistic aspirations of her own. She gradually comes to realize that her husband has all the talent in the family; as she sinks deeper into depression, Takamura tries to comfort her by writing several poems in her honor. She descends into insanity, while Takamura manifests his despair into some of his greatest artistic achievements.
Dramatic short animation based on the song of the same name (“For You Armenia”/”Kez Hayastan”) composed by George Garvarents and performed by Charles Aznavour. The song is dedicated to the memory of the devastating earthquake that struck the Armenian region of the Soviet Union in 1988.