Matilde Landeta entered the flourishing Mexican film industry in the 1930s, working her way up from script girl to direct 110 shorts and, in the late 40s, to produce and direct three features, including LA NEGRA ANGUSTIAS. In this engrossing documentary filmed in Mexico City, a vibrant Landeta, now in her 70s, recalls those years. Interviews with Mexican directors Marcela Fernandez-Violante and Maria Novaro enrich this illuminating tribute.
rarefilmm | The Cave of Forgotten Films Posts
During the Mexican Revolution, Angustias, a proud and rebellious mixed-race woman, defies gender and racial oppression in her rural village. After killing a man who tries to rape her, she flees to the mountains and joins the Zapatista rebels. Proving her courage and leadership, she rises to become a coronela, fighting for justice and equality. Torn between love and her revolutionary ideals, Angustias ultimately dedicates herself to the struggle for freedom.
When his long-lost brother resurfaces, Jacobo, desperate to prove his life has added up to something, looks to scrounge up a wife. He turns to Marta, an employee at his sock factory, with whom he has a prickly relationship.
Tengiz Abuladze’s black comic allegory – the first instance of a Soviet filmmaker directly confronting the legacy of Stalin’s purges – caused a sensation when it first aired on Georgian television. Unfolding over two timelines, the film combines absurdist parable with wrenching drama. When the corpse of the recently deceased mayor of a small town is repeatedly disinterred, its citizens must face up to the horrors of their buried past. Abuladze’s poetic film is a powerful act of cinematic testimony, combining religious symbolism with knowing references to the various ghosts of 20th-century totalitarianism.
A merchant’s house in the Stockholm archipelago. Katha, an old woman comes here every year. So does her father, who once built the house. She wants the family, her children and their children to join her at Paradistorg. This leads to conflicts.
This feature documentary invites you to partake in a discussion between four Egyptian women of different political and religious stripe. Amina, Safynaz, Shahenda and Wedad are Muslim, Christian, or non-religious, but they are first and foremost friends. They listen to one another’s views and argue openly, without ever breaking the bond that unites them. How do we get along with each other when our views collide? A timely question, and a universal one. Four Women of Egypt takes on this challenge, and their confrontation redefines tolerance.
A moving and graphic portrait of the people of wartorn Beirut in their day-to-day struggle to survive in the rubble and despair. Filmed shortly after the 1982 massacres at Sabra and Chatila, the film gives a vivid picture of the plight of these people and of any people who are too poor to escape the ravages of war.
Peter Howson is one of the world’s most collected living artists, his work hanging on the walls of galleries and museums and in the homes of rock stars and actors. In 2008 he received the biggest commission of his career – to paint the largest-ever crowd scene in the history of British art – but the commission is fraught with so much difficulty its completion is in jeopardy from day one.