This densely-packed film is based on a book by Tom Hart about the struggles of a young Yorkshire boy trying to come to grips with squabbling parents, a doctor who wants to institutionalize him because of his epilepsy, and a mother who refuses to accept that he is different in any way.
Tag: 1980s
In Layaly Badr’s documentary short, Road to Palestine, seven-year-old Layla – who has been badly injured in an air raid – lives in a refugee camp outside Palestine. Layla and her friends describe how they imagine Palestine, despite never having seen it.
In Violin Fase, Eric Pauwels twirls the camera around the body of dancer and choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. Through this process, Pauwels creates a new relationship between camera and dancer, but also between body and dance, dance and cinema. Consisting of a geometrical and minimalist choreographic structure filmed in four uninterrupted takes, the artist’s camera captures a woman dedicated to exploring the boundaries of physical exhaustion.
Four filmmakers secretly entered El Salvador to follow a guerrilla movement going in combat against military forces run by the government during El Salvador’s civil war. This socialist insurgent movement is formed by peasants, women and children, poor people who are fighting for better life conditions and against the tyrannic repression of the government.
This off-beat psychological drama by Sohrab Shahid Saless dissects German post-war society with a cutting edge. Herbert is a solid, middle-class engineer who one day quits his job and ensconces himself at home (preferably in the bathroom), refusing to say very much to anyone. His wife is all the more upset at his behavior because on Sunday mornings he goes out into the street and yells at the top of his lungs for everyone to “get up.” Eventually, the hard-working wife who is also earning their support convinces Herbert to go to a clinic for treatment, but will it change him?
Smith, the deaf and dumb son of a rural black preacher, refuses to accept the menial labour on offer in the small farming community where he’s grown up. He tries to earn a living in the city, but this ends in assault, and his return home sparks off a cycle of vengeful violence. What Roodt’s film lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in dirty authenticity. A hard-hitting independent venture (the director went on to make Sarafina!), completed and released against the odds in apartheid South Africa.
A security company conjures up fake computer-generated “ghosts” so they can buy abandoned property at below-market value at auctions. However, a mysterious couple appear out of seemingly nowhere to thwart the company’s plans.
During the filming of Ragtime, the 81-year old Cagney talks about his career. Cagney tells us about becoming a dancer and meeting his wife, his route from Broadway to Hollywood, the emergence of his tough-guy persona, and his post-war creations of insane characters. Donald O’Connor, Pat O’Brien, Milos Forman and others also try to distill what it is Cagney brings to the screen. Clips from several of his films illustrate their points.