The five Japanese elements are, in order of importance – Earth, Water, Fire, Wind and Void. People and animals are side by side on a very old game. There is a day and night. All exists simultaeneously. A journey through the Portuguese border. (André Príncipe)
Chinese director Li Hongqi narrates the rituals of everyday life for the residents of a village in South China during winter vacation. The center of gravity of this minimalistic comic film is the monotonous actions, the thoughts and the dilemmas of local
Using time-lapse imaging, the film follows the entire course of the sun through various landscapes. The sun remains in the exact centre of the screen, burning the image or disappearing. A disturbing and poetic experience leading us to reconsider our relat
Jane is 21 years old and lives with two other young adults, Melissa and Mikey. Wherever she goes, she is always accompanied by her dog Starlet. Chance leads her to become friends with Sadie, a lonely 85-year-old, who approaches her with the intention of extorting money. While Jane looks like a young innocent girl without vices in the eyes of Sadie, her life with Mikey and Melissa turns out to be another. Sean Baker, director of Prince of Broadway, screened at IndieLisboa in 2009, continues to surprise us with an intense film, served by an excellent work of image and excellent actresses. Undoubtedly, a great film to retain from the most recent U.S. independent production. (C. C.)
Ariane lives in Val-d’Or. She will soon stay in the big city. So she gets ready to leave everything behind and to say bye to her brother. But the sexual tension between them, that they always struggle with, seems to take up the whole space.
Once crowded the Olympic swimming pool of the Praia Riviera Club, in Ghana, is now inhabited by desolation. The camera looks at the dry maritime traces, the crabs skeletons, the used bricks and the garbage dragged by the wind. The silence is all over the
A stunningly beautiful lyrical journey in love and loss, in tradition and imagination, in memory and death set in central Russia. Aist and Miron, two friends, embark into a farewell road trip dedicated to Miron’s wife. Their destination? A royal fire for
15 years ago, in an interview with David Letterman, Korine said, about Gummo and his filmmaking, that what he liked to see in films was “pictures coming from all sides.” A tradition to which he remained faithful and which explodes in the foreground of Spring Breakers, a bath of skin and color as electrifying as the music by Skrillex. And that’s not the only reason why Harmony Korine is the master of unlikely combinations. In the hands of this director, all teenagers are strange beings with a strong attraction to the abyss. What is further puzzling here is that Korine has grabbed three pop stars of the juvenile television universe and turned them into mercenarys at James Franco’s will, in a brilliant cliché of the hyper-seductive drug dealer. When going for a spring break, may it be epic. (M. M.)
In Sog, a building gets an allergic reaction to its inhabitants.
What shall we do when we only have a few hours to retrieve the lost time? United by an unexpected roughness, a father and a daughter who hardly know each other try to answer this question.
The less you know about this surprising debut feature by talented british auteur Alicia Duffy, the better. An immensely intense psychological journey, gradually navigating the audience towards the point of resolution through a subtle power of its plot tha
And if the biggest dream were to become the worst nightmare? A man talks to a woman in a chatroom. They get along with one another. They make an appointment at a cafe. She shows up, but she is accompanied. She is Angela Merkel. He doesn’t know what to say. She is displeased. She has no patience. The know animatior Jochen Kuhn gives us another admirable Sunday. (M. V.)
There are moments in time, like the one Paul Clipson gives us: The city at night provides saturated palettes of color (…) All of these found objects cluster and converge within the duration of a series of overlapping shots, becoming new compositions, and resembling an alternative view of the everyday. (MV)
Can a summer be a bummer? Not for this group of college friends that met up by accident and continued hanging out aimlessly, enjoying the beginning of their summer vacation. Isaac breaks up with Maya and joins up with his older brother Ben and his ex-girl
First we are troubled by the references to the past made by the protagonist while diving into the sea. The incompatibility grows between what is seen and what is told as past, culminating in a birthday party. A touching example of how Time can be generous
In an impersonal emotional universe, characterized by anonymous experiences where everything is opaque, uncertain and elusive, Soulleimane is an illegal immigrant who is trapped in the search for a solution to his problem. Then he knows Teresa. The narrative of a slow fading of expectation experienced in the frailty of a brief encounter between two marginal characters.
As morning dawns on a norwegian suburb, a detachment of killer-slugs, led by the notorious Sergeant Slug, prepare for a heads-on attack on a small garden ‚ their objective? A juicy, delicious flower on the other end, deep within a flowerbed. A new conscript and his close friend, a medical officer, both suit and join in the massive charge into the garden. But as the slugs emerge into the exposed field, they stand head to head with a diligent, elderly lady, hell-bent on keeping her garden pristine and safe from pests. As the two sides clash, it is as the saying goes: All’s fair in hunger and war.
Castro Marim was the place where sexual “deviants” (homosexual) were sent on an inner exile working on salt production as forced labour. A young girl is caught between remaining memories, a discovery of her body and a sexual experience with another woman.