After his parent’s divorce, Kazuo Saito moves with his mother from Onomichi and must leave his girlfriend behind. At his new school, Kazuo is surprised to reunite with his childhood friend Kazumi. Obayashi’s self-remake of Tenkôsei.
Author: Jon W.
One Woman Waiting evokes questions of subjectivity in the mirrored performance of two women. The single take, tableau composition forms the structure for catalytic change between the characters. The sensuous desert environment accentuates the poetic and ephemeral quality of this film.
Set in a cave imagined as an air-raid shelter, images of the surrounding trees are painted over directly on the film. Vivid colors intermixed with the sound of wartime radio communications and bombing create a harmonious composition of documentary and animation.
Tomka is a boy who likes playing football with his friends. When the German army captures his town, the German soldiers establish their camp in the town stadium. Tomka with help from his friends and their parents organizes sabotage actions against the soldiers.
In Macedonia, former Yugoslavia, two Sheikhs squabble for power in a Dervish brotherhood. In this fragile, unsteady society, far from God and traditional Sufism, their petty quarrel focuses on the issue of which group will pierce themselves at the Nevruz ceremony. Through the rivalry between these two characters, who correspond to two opposing archetypes of religious leaders, the documentary offers a living glimpse of spiritual experience at a popular level which, despite the humorous situations and extraordinary images, may shock our sensitivity.
Ya Zamene Ahu is a quiet documentary about the visitors of the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth Shiite Imam, in the city of Mashhad in the North East of Iran. Nicknamed the “Guardian of Deer,” it is said that Imam Reza once protected a deer chased by a hunter.
Set in a shadowy realm of “Dark Romanticism,” on an island in a mysterious lake. The inhabitants are a beautiful vampire, a hunchbacked prince, a black magician, the Erl Queen and other creatures, as well as their victims. It is the story of the eerie rituals that take place in the eternal twilight.
Dai Sijie’s autobiographical third feature, adapted from his autobiographical first novel, is a visually assured reconstruction of memory and time. The story details the experiences of two friends, Luo and Ma, as they try to survive a Maoist reeducation camp in a remote mountain village during the Cultural Revolution. Outmaneuvering the party official who watches over them, they pursue the beautiful granddaughter of the village tailor, meeting with her secretly to read books by outlawed writers. In their most radical act, they persuade the villagers that the Mozart pieces Luo plays on his violin are songs about the revolution.