Winner of the Bronze Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival, Ozualdo R. Candeias masterpiece A OPÇÃO OU AS ROSAS DA ESTRADA combines masterful handheld documentary camerawork in black and white with staged action based on firsthand experiences to delve into the profoundly quotidian reality of a group of rural women who cut sugar cane and live modestly in ramshackle neighborhoods along the highway. Dreaming of a better life and with no other option than prostitution, many of them hit the road towards the big city, where new forms of exploitation awaits them.
Tag: 1980s
A one-hour public television (PBS) biography of Dashiell Hammett, creator of the “hardboiled” modern detective novel and author of “The Maltese Falcon” and “The Thin Man.” It follows Hammett’s life from Pinkerton detective in San Francisco to his career as fiction and screen writer, companion of playwright Lillian Hellman, and leftwing political activist. The biography investigates why Hammett stopped writing at the height of his fame.
In the future money is not made of paper or coin. Instead, the currency of choice is time, and the populace must trade hours, days and weeks in exchange for goods and services. When your time is up, you die.
A poor Harvard student’s romance with a girl hits a rough spot when he realizes, on his 21st birthday, that he’s in love with her brother. Based on the 1970s off-Broadway smash.
This inventive video renders poet Jessica Hagedorn’s views of “some of the harsh and beautiful realities of city living” for women in a man’s world. Hagedorn’s poetry is musical, pungent and gutsy. The visual artistry of Doris Chase emphasizes different aspects of Hagedorn’s lyrics. Images are dissected, quartered, washed with memory wipes that support and underscore the image and poetic meaning.
An open-hearted exploration of several fears: of the dark, old age, obesity, monsters and global destruction. Director Joanna Priestley gets across a series of personal phobias in a refreshing and humorous fashion. We get a superb, contemporary animated film with salutes to historical cartoon figures scattered throughout.
There’s a big drought in Africa. Food and water are scarce. 90,000 wild baboons suddenly start attacking humans and eating them in order to survive. Some people find themselves being hunted by the starving monkeys and must do whatever they can to stay alive.
At the end of his senior year of high school, Tommy finds his education in the form of Diana. His friend Ralph learns the lesson from Ms. Jackson. Without knowing what would soon be awaiting them after meeting the older women, Tommy and Ralph form a rock band as a path to unlimited sexual opportunity. The story unfolds, through the promiscuous, funny and sometimes touching lives of the young band members. By the end of Tommy’s senior year, he’s ready to take on the world.