
In February 2012, I went to Ishinomaki, a town North of Tokyo that was half destroyed by the tsunami of March 11th, 2011, to meet the disaster victims who now live in temporary housing. I spent several days in the North, under the snow, listening to these people talk candidly about what they had lived through, telling their own stories without the media as an intermediary. Their testimonies were terrifying, harsh and sad, but at the same time touching, sincere and human. From the pictures and interviews that I collected, I decided to make a film, not to reflect how awful the events were, but to communicate the singular and even surreal nature of each person’s experience. My intention wasn’t so much to focus on this particular event in Japan, but rather to make these stories more universal as a way of paying tribute to all the victims of natural disasters throughout the world.
2013-02-19
6
6.8A journey into the mind of French actor and director Jean-Pierre Mocky (1929-2019), author of films both playful and profound, of an impressive richness.
6.2At his Long Island beach house, and on the occasion of the publication of his masterful nonfiction novel In Cold Blood, reporter Karen Dennison interviews celebrated writer Truman Capote, who displays his exuberant personality, makes witty jokes, shares his thoughts on writing, reflects on various aspects of the book and, in a sweet and endearing voice, reads and explains some of its highlights.
10.0An insider's look into Francis Ford Coppola's latest Live Cinema project, Distant Vision.
10.0A place with stairs, but that leads to walls. A place with lots of space, but no one fights for it. And a place with lots of owners, but so empty that no one wants to enter.
0.0The relationship between the city and a car, through a dialogue where a common reality and "making a city" are disputed and revealed.
Short film about seals, the hunt for them and how they are processed afterwards.
7.1Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.
0.0Ivan and Jožica, a married couple, move to a care home after 70 years of sharing their lives. Despite the hardships of old age, they continue to live together in the new environment. Memories are fading, love remains.
8.2Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
Beginning with Noam Chomsky's response to a college student who role-plays "Jane U.S.A."--someone who naively believes she lives in a democratic society in which she can create her own destiny--the viewer is presented with a cross-section of typically lively Chomsky encounters. Central to a functioning democracy is the necessity of free access to information, ideas and opinions. But what should be our democratic right turns out to be limited and shaped by the biases of insitutions and ideologies within the mass media. Chomsky shows how governments, corporations and other elites manufacture the consent of the public to serve their interests.
Documentarian Jon Boorstin follows architect Frank Gehry and his sister, Doreen Gehry Nelson, as they attempt a new method of teaching elementary school children in Los Angeles. With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the siblings work together on a pilot program of “design-based learning” that would restructure the typical classroom curriculum, replacing rote math or civics lessons with an imaginary city designed and built entirely by the students themselves. Restored in 2018 by the Academy Film Archive.
8.0A cartoon film about the whole heterogeneous mixture of Canada and Canadians, and the way the invisible adhesive called federalism makes it all cling together. That the dissenting voices are many is made amply evident, in English and French. But this animated message also shows that Canadians can laugh at themselves and work out their problems objectively.
7.7There are children. There are those who abuse them. And there are those who know, but never tell.
6.3Flubs and bloopers that occurred on the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1947.
7.0Base jumper Jeb Corliss sustained grave injuries on a crash in South Africa. Through rehab, Jeb relearns the sport to tackle mountains in Europe.
3.3After a traumatic encounter, a young gay Egyptian joins the LGBT rights movement. When his safety is jeopardized, he must choose whether to stay in the country he loves or seek asylum elsewhere as a refugee. "Half a Life" is a timely story of activism and hope, set in the increasingly dangerous, oppressive, and unstable social climate of Egypt today.
5.0Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
7.7Jim Carrey exhibits his talent as a painter and reflects on the value and power of art.
6.2A badger is lying motionless on a local road. A police patrol approaches the body in the dark. They soon realise that the animal is not dead; the badger is dead drunk! When the police attempt to drag the creature off the road, he wakes up and things take a strange turn.
8.5In the middle of a broadcast about Typhoon Yolanda's initial impact, reporter Jiggy Manicad was faced with the reality that he no longer had communication with his station. They were, for all intents and purposes, stranded in Tacloban. With little option, and his crew started the six hour walk to Alto, where the closest broadcast antenna was to be found. Letting the world know what was happening to was a priority, but they were driven by the need to let their families and friends know they were all still alive. Along the way, they encountered residents and victims of the massive typhoon, and with each step it became increasingly clear just how devastating this storm was. This was a storm that was going to change lives.
10.0Mahmoud Darwish was a Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. He won numerous awards for his works. Darwish used Palestine as a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile.
4.6A wordless man stages an unexplained hunger strike and the people surrounding him exploit his silence to further their own cause...
3.8A usual chain mail is forwarded to a group of people. Some pass it while others ignore. One dies and is followed by series of sudden and unexplainable deaths of others. Soon after, a revelation begins to unfold, the chain mail is cursed and so she has to find the origin and mystery behind to stop the misfortunes it may cause to anyone who fails to pass it before another life perish again. Sandra also suspects Anne is behind the tragic incidents that happened to their friends. Will she break the curse before it's too late or will she become one of the victims?
7.0The wife of a prison warden falls in love with one of his prisoners.
5.0The demonic Nicholas Diabolus is put on trial accused of interfering with people's lives.
6.4Acrobat Eddie Marsh is in the army now. His first act is to become friendly with Kathryn Jones, the colonel's pretty daughter. Their romance hits a few snags, including disapproval from her father. Eddie's also plagued by fear of having an accident during his family's trapeze act in the army variety show, which also features a gallery of MGM stars.
5.0The thrilling story of a lonely Russian immigrant trying to find the "American dream" in present day Los Angeles. To provide care for his dying sister he works as an assistant to a mysterious and dangerous man, but his desire to achieve something more takes him down a dark and risky path. When a seductive call girl enters his life his world is thrown upside down and the choices he makes may have deadly consequences.
6.1Rocklin Colorado, 1925. A hard cold winter. Young Arturo Bandini loves his father Svevo, his mother Maria and his brothers. Even though his bricklayer father wastes the little money he has in the Imperial Poolhall and his time with the rich American widow, Hildegarde. Even though his beautiful and pious mother lets his father get away with that, even if his little brother wets the bed. Arturo loves them all. He also loves to play baseball, even though he has to wait until spring. And he also loves the movies ... and Rosa. But she doesn't love him ...
7.0The psychological drama of a mining town in the Apuseni mountains, where the lure of gold acquisition and pathology lead to cruelty, murder and madness.
5.8The filmmaker goes to discover Meir the village where her great-grandparents were born, the place her grandparents left, but continued to love. When she goes, she discovers a village that people are trying to leave.
9.0Drug courier Sal has the war in him. When he meets the charismatic Sasha, his life goes off the rails and he botches an important coup. They flee together and Sal undergoes an astonishing metamorphosis.
The film is a continuous time-lapse with multiple exposures of the sunset from the same angle and position on 16mm film. The shoot was done in a span of 5 years. The title 13 is because the time-lapse has a 13-second interval per frame.
A frontier sheriff copes with a missing corpse, Briton Oscar Wilde and an assassination attempt.