'Movies can give us almost anything; almost everything.' - Pauline Kael
Big Fun in the Big Town German-produced documentary on hip hop and NY street culture from 1986
IFilm is a good site for viewing short films. Clipland's Short Film Database archives information about short films. The Australian Film Commission and the UK Film Center have good databases of short films. Not to forget AtomFilms; BMW Films; Minute Movies; indiefilmpage.com - Short Films; and Moving Image Archive - A collection of hundreds of short films. Open Directory Archive has a number of links to short films and movie-making in general.
Interesting article on Zhang Yimou, director of the critically acclaimed House of Flying Daggers and the box-office hit Hero
IFilm is a good site for viewing short films. Clipland's Short Film Database archives information about short films. The Australian Film Commission and the UK Film Center have good databases of short films. Not to forget AtomFilms; BMW Films; Minute Movies; indiefilmpage.com - Short Films; and Moving Image Archive - A collection of hundreds of short films. Open Directory Archive has a number of links to short films and movie-making in general.
Interesting article on Zhang Yimou, director of the critically acclaimed House of Flying Daggers and the box-office hit Hero
And considering lots of historical movies & biopics these days (Alexander, Gladiator, Aviator, Ray ...), here is an interesting site for fans of historical films--epics, period pieces, or biopics.
Oscar Nominations are in.. no real surprises - pretty much follows the Golden Globe nominations. I have got to try to see THE SEA INSIDE (winner of 2005 Best Foreign Film).
Speaking of Oscars, interesting rags-to-riches story (literally!) of Salim, a ragpicker's son from the slums of Delhi, who has played the protagonist in Little Terrorist, a film nominated for the Oscars in the best short film category this year. The 15-minute short film is written, directed, edited and produced by Ashvin Kumar, England-based son of fashion designer Ritu Kumar and is based on a true story from 2003 when "a 10 year old Pakistani boy mistakenly crosses the border between India and Pakistan, finding an unusual ally in a Hindu Brahmin, Bhola. Indian soldiers descended on Bhola's village searching for the 'terrorist' who crossed over. His neice Rani, insists they can't let a Muslim into their Hindu home. With Bhola and Rani grappling with the consequences of harboring a Pakistani and their deep-set prejudice against Muslims, Jamal's only hope is the humanity shared by a people separated by artificial boundaries a long time ago." Like with Salaam Bombay (nominated for best foreign film in 1988), where the actors were picked by Mira Nair from the slums of Bombay and enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame in the 90s, Salim probably will not become an actor of great repute in the years to come.. but this media attention will hopefully open some doors and stand him in good stead in atleast moving on from rag-picking to something better in life..
Ryan, the Best Animated Short for the 2005 Academy Awards, is fully viewable in 3 different video formats through the National Film Board of Canada (along with a preview of the Best Documentary (Short Subject) of Hardwood). The 14 minute piece tackles the life of NFB animator Ryan Larkin, who himself was an Oscar nominee back in the 1960s for the classic Walking until eventually becoming a panhandler. Director Chris Landreth also participated with an interview with Ryan Larkin for another NFB feature, Alter Egos, which showed their career constrasts. Ryan was a protegé to Norman Maclaren and produced many other shorts including the whimsical Street Musique before his cocaine addiction, leading to his current life begging for money in Montréal. - (a Mefi Link)
With an Oscar winning documentary, Born into Brothels, under her belt, Zana Briski's spinoff project, Kids with Cameras, teaches children growing up in difficult circumstances the art and skills of photography to empower them to appreciate the beauty and dignity of their own expression. With projects in Calcutta, Haiti, Jerusalem and Cairo, they send great photographers to lead workshops, the children are given inexpensive 35mm cameras to capture whatever they choose and then the children's pictures are shown (and sold) around the world through exhibits, books and film. - (Mefi link). Also read about the dispute about this film.. Another interesting similar movie lending children a voice is "A Misguided Life", made by Plan India, a Delhi-based NGO, which through its project "Children Have Something to Say", (funded by Plan, Netherlands), has given children an opportunity to deliberate on various issues including education, dowry, female foeticide, traditional practices, substance abuse, trafficking, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence and sexual exploitation.
Both Ebert and Ropert thought this film should have won the award for Best Foreign Movie at the Oscars this year - Downfall or Der Untergang, a German movie directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, is supposed to be one of the most realistic portrayals of Hitler (played very adeptly by Bruno Ganz) and his paranoia and absolute crazyness in his last few years. (Note: Details of Hilter's last days in the bunker revealed by Erna Flegel, Hitler's nurse.)
Incidentally, the Best Foreign film Oscar went to The Sea Inside, a movie based on the true story of Ramon Sampedro who was paralyzed following a diving accident and fought a legal battle for the right to enlist others to help him end his life. The film, directed by Alejandro Amenabar, has recieved rave reviews and won the Golden Globe and also National Board of Review accolades for best foreign language movie. Spanish actor Javier Bardem, who plays Sampedro, has also received wide acclaim for his performance during which he is largely confined to his bed, including a best actor award at the Venice Film Festival last year.
Another interesting nomination this year was Yesterday, a film in Zulu which is written and directed by Darrell Roodt, and is South Africa's first nominee in the category. It is also the first major movie in Zulu. The film has been used to help educate some South African rural communities about AIDS and has helped generate debate in a country where it is often considered a taboo subject.
Catalina Moreno has received critical acclaim for her starring role in her film debut, Maria Full Of Grace, a movie about drug mules in Colombia (director Joshua Marston went to Colombia looking for actors), although the response to the movie itself has been mixed.
Cinema Therapy : "I recently discovered that there is actually a field of study for something that I have long felt existed - a way to access blocked emotions and memories simply through movies. More info: Books, Newsletters, and an Index of films recommended by issues. If movies can indeed "change the way we think and feel" for good, does this not lend credence to those who claim that movies contribute to negative behaviors ("inciting violence", "contaminating society's values") and even crimes? Or does the recognition of the good that films can do actually assist in the battle against those who blame films for negative influences? After all, "Courts do not award extra dollars to entertainers for the unforeseen positive byproducts of their work. Why penalize them for the less fortunate consequences of what they do?" Have you ever felt a theraputic effect from seeing a film?" - (via Mefi)
100 short films, 100 overwhelming stories - the new Yad Vashem Museum presents documentaries from the point of view of the Jewish eyewitnesses.
Delivery a short film by Till Nowak, is a dystopian, Escheresque daydream, digitally animated. - (via Mefi)
Balance, an Academy Award winning short film from 1989 by the twin brothers Wolfgang and Christophe Lauenstein is now available in Flash format.. - is this how the rat-race ends? Game theory has a name for this situation - Zero-sum - a situation in which a participant's gain (or loss) is exactly balanced by the losses (or gains) of the other participant(s). It is so named because when you add up the total gains of the participants and subtract the total losses then they will sum to zero. "Desire" would have been an equally compelling title for this movie.
A Troubled Teenager Finds Reason for Hope in this "modest neo-realist film from Kazhakstan. Both tough and tender, the movie illuminates the lives of its characters with bracing clarity and understated empathy"
Pedro Almodóvar, Jean-Luc Godard, Ingmar Bergman, Ousmane Sembene, and Mike Leigh are among the directors of 25 feature films showcased at this year's New York Film Festival
Every other year, Ouagadougou (I loved to say that word in a funny way..endless vowels.. as a kid! ;)), capital of one of the world's poorest countries, Burkina Faso, becomes the centre of African films as it hosts the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Fespaco). Twenty feature-length films from across the continent competed for top honors at this year's week-long festival. This year''s top prize went to the movie, Drum, directed by South African director Zola Maseko. Set in Johannesburg's Sophiatown district amid the jazz clubs and bars of 1950s., the movie is centered on Henry Nxumalo, an anti-apartheid campaigning journalist, played by American actor Taye Diggs. The Etalon d'Argent de Yennenga, or second prize, went to "La Chambre Noire" ("The Black Room") by Moroccan director Hassan Benjelloun. The film tells of torture and imprisonment in 1970s Morocco. The third prize in the feature film category was awarded to "Tasuma, le Feu", a tale of an elderly Burkinabe soldier who fought for France and is still waiting for his pension, by director Daniel Kollo Sanou of Burkina Faso.
Wow..this is certainly what one expects at an Arab film festival! Sahlab seems to be an interesting Lebanese director!
A 13 movie retrospective of Amitabh Bachchan films...and then...IN PERSON...Big B on Fri April 15, 2005 at 7:30pm at the Alice Tully Hall. [Amitabh Bachchan will appear in person to talk about his career; clips from a few of his best-loved performances will be included. Special ticket price: $60. Tckets for this evening only must be purchased at Alice Tully Hall Box Office: 212-875-5050 or can be purchased online through Lincoln Center.
"Whose children are these?" provides a glimpse into the post 9/11 world of three Muslim youth, an honors student who's father was put into a detention center, a popular high school athlete who confronts pending deportation, and a youngster who finds a new life's calling to combat bias crimes in New York City as a youth activist.
Another interesting movie from Korea after A Tale of Two Sisters - Oldboy (Quicktime Trailer) - though Oldboy is supposed to be intense, graphic, and not for the faint of heart!
Some really good movies from China/Hongkong have being released in the US recently...including Hero and House of Flying Daggers, and now a movie from 2002, Infernal Affairs (Quicktime Trailer) starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (Hero, In the Mood for Love) as a gangster and Andy Lau as the cop.
Grave of the Fireflies - "this animated Japanese classic tells the story of a pair of orphans following the firebombing of Kobe at the end of World War II. It is also a wonderful demonstration of the potential of anime-a serious art form that is at least as versatile as live action, and equally capable of telling true, touching human stories."
'Atmajaa' (Born from the Soul), a half-an-hour movie whose success led to the development of a widely acclaimed soap opera will be shown at a NY Film Festival. The movie was produced by an NGO in collaboration with the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and deals with the issue of girl child discrimination leading to pre-birth elimination of females - a social disgrace along with dowry deaths in India...
58th Cannes Film Festival (11-22 May, 2005) opens.. Members of the jury of the 58th Cannes Film Festival include French director Agnes Varda, the president of the jury Sarajevo-born director Emir Kusturica, Mexican actress Salma Hayek, Spanish actor Javier Bardem, Indian actress Nandita Das and French director Benoit Jacquot. The festival opens with "Lemming" by French director Dominik Moll on Wednesday, May 11 and will . Also read
A.O. Scott's Cannes Journal (from NYTimes.com).
A.O. Scott's Cannes Journal (from NYTimes.com).
Channel 4's 100 Greatest War Films as voted for by their (generally more clued-up than average) viewership has plenty for you to disagree with, but much to recommend. Filmsite.org has a history of war films (as does Berkeley) for the completists among you. There are more war films from and about Vietnam and Indochina than you can shake a bayonet at (see also the 1999 NYT article, Apocalypse Then: Vietnam Marketing War Films to learn a little about the Vietnamese government's 1960s and 70s archive of war film). The [British] national archives have archived film from pre-WWI to the Cold War.- (via Mefi) Related: IMDBs top 250 war movies, sorted by user ratings
Sini, a 27-year-old Telugu tele-serial actress has created quite a buzz with her directorial debut, a short film 24 times 7, which got rave reviews at 'Short Cuts', an event where four short films and documentaries were screened under the theme, 'Women in Cinema'. Her film deals with child abuse where a parent or sibling is the abuser. Read more - via
Genre transformed - Penguins help lead way in documentaries' surge.
An unlikely film, Into Great Silence, has been filling cinemas in Germany in recent weeks: a three-hour documentary with hardly a single spoken word, set in a monastery.
Theatre History is the Theatre Museum of London's vast online collection of ephemera, containing more than 1500 objects that record the history of the performing arts in Britain since the 1600s. There's lots of goodies, but don't miss the goldmine of fabulous photos, posters, and prints. - via Mefi
Pocket movies take France by storm
Film fans in the UK will soon be able to legally download blockbuster movies for the first time, according to film studio Universal.
Letter From Paris: City of Lights, Camera, Action by Elaine Sciolino (NY Times)
"Paris au Cinéma," a celebration of the city's 100-year love affair with the movies, takes the visitor through the history of films shot in and about Paris
France's successful and popular director, Luc Besson, is retiring from film-making. (Read an essay on Characters and Themes in his movies, Subway, The Big Blue, Nikita (La Femme Nikita in the US), and Leon. Also read this In-depth interview with him.
Bollywood is having to take a backseat as the hitherto little-known regional Bhojpuri film industry steals the show in India. Wow..who would have thunk!
Pocket movies take France by storm
Film fans in the UK will soon be able to legally download blockbuster movies for the first time, according to film studio Universal.
Letter From Paris: City of Lights, Camera, Action by Elaine Sciolino (NY Times)
"Paris au Cinéma," a celebration of the city's 100-year love affair with the movies, takes the visitor through the history of films shot in and about Paris
France's successful and popular director, Luc Besson, is retiring from film-making. (Read an essay on Characters and Themes in his movies, Subway, The Big Blue, Nikita (La Femme Nikita in the US), and Leon. Also read this In-depth interview with him.
Bollywood is having to take a backseat as the hitherto little-known regional Bhojpuri film industry steals the show in India. Wow..who would have thunk!
