Through a vigorous sequence shot we see a group of men. They don’t speak, but behave as if they were performing a ritual. It is a mournful elegy in a construction area. So we are not surprised when Kavanagh, who we know for the masterful At the Formal (IndieLisboa ’12), pushes from the absurd to reality. (M. V.)
Looking for a flat to rent, Benoît is temporarily staying at a hotel. Having noticed that apartments are rather allocated to couples than to singles, he asks Jeanne, his next room neighbour, to act as his girlfriend. He falls under the charm of this young lady, keen on gambling on horses, and lets himself be led into a dangerous amorous bet.
Although he hasn’t got a clue about film, François writes reviews for a small local weekly in the Vallée de Joux. Rosa is a well-known critic working. A kinky relationship develops between the two of them, leading François to discover the inner workings of desire: desire of a woman, of a critic, and ultimately of his own.
Vivian, Lisa, Tanja. Three women, three models, three friends. Always trying to make a career for themselves, be loved, find the right man, achieve the ideal body, they go from casting to casting; talk for hours on the phone with girlfriends, men, mothers, agencies and photographers, wait mostly in vain for jobs, and careen feverishly from one disco night to the next. Vivian, Lisa, Tanja. Three models, three friends, three rivals.
One must look into the tired eyes of those who hope one day to be able to communicate. Mother and daughter don’t know how. Maybe the dog can help, but maybe he can’t either. André Santos and Marco Leão are new voices in the national panorama and seek to assert their cinematography through narrative, not forgetting a formal side and a very accurate aesthetic. (M. V.)
Everything created by nature tends to be unique. Everything created by Man tends to be the same and infinite in its reproducibility. In a steel foundry, from the incandescent molten metal to the cooling of produced parts, we witness the human capacity to transform matter for a mimetic structuring of the elements of the world.
In the late summer of 1980, Alda and her sister Maria, at the age of 16 and 17, arrive in Lisbon to escape the civil war in Angola. Left to themselves, they must learn to survive in a foreign city. Alda and Maria, from scratch will build a new life and become women. When problems nearly become unbearable dreadful news fall upon them. Paradoxically, it’s those terrifying news that gives them the strength to decide their own fates. (Pocas Pascoal)
A documentary that features memories from several former resident students from the Holy Cross Campus. These are memories that build an identity to this place, even when in reality the campus faces its destruction. These memories will never be destroyed.
In the maze of the streets of Lisbon, Lisboa Orchestra gathers the crossed destinies of individuals who express themselves by the sound. Those paths of lives, which usually don’t come across, encounter in the film through the prism of music. Between tradition and modernity, Lisboets take us for 24 hours in the depths of the city, at a corner of a street, in unexpected districts, in mythic places, up to the roofs where resounds the rumbling of the city. By the music, the film reaches out the flow of sound that is broadcasted and spread into the streets of the city of the seven hills. The film makes play the Church of São Vicente’s bell in concert with the Baroque chords of an organ player, the noise of the rails of the famous yellow tramways, the ¬´kuduro¬ª rhythm by the Orelha Negra band’s drummer, the snaps of dominos in a café in Mouraria, a fado singer in a block party at Alfama and moreover the voice of an Angolan origin young rapper in the northern suburb of Amadora. Together they compose a fusional, hypnoticand improbable music and build up a new kind of orchestra.
Alps is the name of a company that its employees are taking the place of recently deceased in the way that their relatives cope easily with the sudden loss. In the film’s primary logic, the characters turning into dead people is absurd. The absurdity and irrationality within human existence is the main concern of the auteur, Yorgos Lanthimos (director of Dogtooth) expressed in a brilliant manner. Bringing in mind on the theatre of the absurd, the characters keep rehearsing their parts building a metaphor based on humor and surprise. Characters argue using false logic to convince themselves and others as if little by little they are turning into Rhinokeros. However there is one member of the company desperate to maintain her individuality thus humanity. The athlete of rhythmic gymnastics as a current Beranger refuses to become Rhinoceros just because she wants to dance pop, signifing the existence of life. (Nina Veligradi)
Kambu is sad because no one ever gives him anything, but then, suddenly, he is supposed to deliver a first-aid box to a baby Whale Cloud. And since all good deeds receive compensation in kind, won’t Kambu finally get something, too?
Ruben, Marcos and Yohan, three friends of the same rap band, confide their expectation for life and their fears to the camera. Their portraits remind the difficult travel from childhood to the adult world, through a quotidian fight for life.
Reality and fiction are confused, the same situations repeat themselves. The methodology of this young Mexican filmmaker reveals itself to the viewer. What matters to Pereda is the transgression of the conventions of classical narrative cinema. Fiction is an excuse to get closer to the thoughts of his actors (not actors/models) and achieve a certain emotional rawness. The story is simple: Gabino Rodriguez tries to memorize, repeat tirelessly in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the bedroom, the titles on a romantic Mexican songbook disc which he intends to sell. We also see the return(s) of parents after several years of absence. The film works in an amazing way the processes of representation and repetition of reality and how we relate to it. The Goldberg Variations accompany this major work of contemporary cinema that we should always come back to. (A. I. S.)
Based on real people and events. Chung Chun-Tao was born in Taishan, China. She was adopted in infancy. Her foster father died during the Japanese Occupation and her foster mother sent her away to work. Since her teenage years, Chung Chun-Tao has worked as an amah ‚ a servant ‚ for the Leung family. Known as Ah Tao, she has witnessed every aspect of the family’s life. Some members of the Leung family have passed away and some have emigrated. Now, after 60 years of service, she is looking after Roger, who works in the film industry and is the only family member left in Hong Kong. One day Roger comes home from work to find that Ah Tao has suffered a stroke. He rushes her to hospital, where she announces that she wants to quit her job and move into an old people’s home.
The Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt achieved worldwide renown in 1979, when his work for four pianos Canto Ostinato was first performed. Ramon Gieling has already made films about his work. Now he seeks to unravel the mystery of the universal power of music, producing a multifaceted response to the question of just what it is about this piece that touches people so deeply.
In the squalor of a room, Maria awaits. The outside world is a dazzling spot that opens and closes, only to prove to her that there are places you cannot leave. A witness-film, harsh, sometimes unbearable, about those whom, unable to find their place in the world, sustain the weight of the pyramid. (P. C.)
Maden is the antithesis of this summer among family, with a lot of noise around the table. From the top of her 17 years, she begins to need less and less of her father and brothers and now has her little secrets. One of these, a passionate correspondence with a much older man who is in jail, withdraws her from the games and plays, from family life. Shalimar Preuss’ camera is as natural as the environment, merges with it, and takes Maden’s position even further, as she remains almost untouchable in her adolecent solitude. Alone against the world, no one will make her return as long as she doesn’t want to. (M. M.)
Vincent and Rebecca are 18 years old and live a carefree life. But two months later Vincent’s body is found in the Rhone, and Rebecca disappears. The investigation of the case is taken up by the 48-year-old policeman. He stands before a fundamental decision that could completely change his view on life.