Set during the 1967 Six Day War between Israel and the United Arab Republic this story of familial and national divisions has become one of Chahine’s most popular films in festivals and retrospectives. A young policeman’s adoptive father occupies a high post in the force, while his biological father is reputed to have been a left-wing activist. Raouf begins to search for those who might have known his real father, while his half-brother, stationed on the Sinai front, prepares for battle.
rarefilmm | The Cave of Forgotten Films Posts
A ferry crosses the river. The work of the ferry is never-ending. It is a boat that transports people from one shore to another, from one country to another, without ever stopping, regardless of the changing seasons. It is a brief portrayal of Piedruja-Druja, on the border of Latvia and Belarus, at the beginning of the 1990s, when the Soviet Union began to crumble and Latvia gained its independence.
David Anderson’s waking dream is a poetic animated journey through the rich fantasy life of a child’s unconscious, combining elaborate cut-outs, intricate drawn cell animation and live action. A young boy finds himself in a mysterious express train travelling through a forbodeing and surreal landscape.
Between 1986 and 1990, Arthur Aristakisian lived among the tramps and beggars of the city: drug addicts, emotionally disturbed, physically handicapped, and blind people. LADONI is the result of these four years. The film follows the beggars in their tough daily lives. Aristakisian has a biblical view of these outcasts, which is particularly expressed by the poetic voice over, intoning philosophic-spiritual reflections of a father who is talking to his unborn (aborted) child. According to Aristakisian, this refers to the direct cause for his film: the confusion that came over him when his girlfriend had an abortion.
A low-budget tale about young lovers on the run from an uncaring adult world – they just want to get married but are thwarted at every turn – remains something of landmark in English-Canadian feature production. Sidney J. Furie’s directorial debut.
In this semi-autobiographical, semi-experimental film (described by its makers as “Huck Finn on coke – a memoir of the drug generation”) the characters bear the same names as the actors. Steve Lack is a suave, funky drug dealer, artist and guru to a street community “family” in Montreal. But the group is threatened from within and without. Brawley has turned from coke to heroin and Pierre follows suit. The group’s latest shipment of cocaine sits in a locker in Windsor station surrounded by cops, so the family can’t get at it. At the same time, a sociology student, Moyle, is doing his thesis on Lack and the family and has insinuated himself into the group.
Using the eternal triangle as the main theme, the film shows how six different countries might deal with the moment a husband returns home unexpectedly to find his wife with a lover, with the same three actors playing all the roles. The film also parodies the well known styles of the prominent directors and stars of each country at the time the film was made.
Tells the story of Ben Helwig and his important contribution to the American war effort. Ben’s story starts in the Great Depression when he, a young teen, is separated from his parents leaving him for a better life at an institution as they search for work. A freak baseball accident at the home leads to Benny losing sight permanently in one eye, followed by losing sight permanently in the other eye. As Ben is despondent over his new life situation, his mother realizes that she has to do something to make him feel productive again, she turning to one of his old favorite pastimes of building model planes, with his hands, sensitive to his new situation, taking over as his eyes in they being able to “see” things through touch.