Onkalo (Finnish for "hiding place") is under construction: it's a cavernous world of tunnels and corridors, a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste, meant to last 100,000 years (that's 20 times as long as the pyramids have so far). Conceptual artist Michael Madsen's film is a creepy, eerily elegant meditation on human folly, punctuated by philosophical and historical references, [Read more...]
2008, 19 min. Synopsis: This film is an elegy to the youth of the whole generation born in the 1970s ...Ten years after graduation, four collage classmates who live far apart are reunited. (Old lovers played by Guo Xio Dong and Zhao Tao; Wang Wei and Hao Lei.) They have not drifted apart with the passage of time, nor do they feel so. New arguments begin on the same topics they argued about [Read more...]
UPAF 2011 Film#3 (short program): “Solitary Life of Cranes” by Eva Weber, 2008, documentary, HD, 27min. Part city symphony part visual poem, ‘The Solitary Life of Cranes’ explores the invisible life of a city, its patterns and hidden secrets, seen through the eyes of crane drivers working high above its streets. Within the loose structure of a day, starting with the drivers [Read more...]
Topo Gigio is Dead Dir.: David Miranda (Narrative, Chile/USA, 23 min, 2011, HD4k/16 mm, 1:85, Color, Dolby 5.1) Synopsis: Two Chileans meet in Philadelphia: Daniela is the daughter of a former political prisoner; Tomás is the son of the physician that tortured Daniela’s father. Contemplating revenge, she discloses all about Tomas' father's dark past opening a Pandora's box. Director's [Read more...]
A Girl Like Me explores the standards of beauty imposed on today's black girls. The film delves beneath the surface in order to show how such standards affect self-esteem and self-image. This short documentary has touched the hearts and minds of millions worldwide and serves as a wake up call for us all. Shown in Tribeca FF, Silverdocs, Oprah Winfrey Show, etc. Director's bio: Kiri Davis [Read more...]
Mirage Dir. Srđan Keča, 2011, 42 mins , HDCAM, 16:9, Colour, Dolby Surround Synopsis: At the edge of a city growing from the desert, a man plays alone on a golf course. Another, sleepless, sends a letter from a labour camp to his wife in Kenya. A sand storm hits a construction site, and the locals hold a strange dance ceremony. Dubai, usually seen either as miracle of development or failed [Read more...]
“Ten years” 2007, 8 min, color Synopsis A train traverses spring and summer, and it also passes through the realest city, field and land in China; the faces of passengers are the most ordinary faces in China. Two women meet each other on the train every day, but they never converse. At the time of the SARS, they sit together and look at each [Read more...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8SVFTxWvyc Kuroi-Ame (Black Rain) 1989 "I'm not to live to die. War's continued living in my body." A Japanese legend director, Imamura Shohei, a two-time Cannne Palm d'or winner whom Martin Scorsese called "my master," created this black and white film based on a novel by Ibuse Masuji. The film draws aftermath of the Hiroshima atomic bomb [Read more...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPiyO3b3N6w Synopsis Teijun Ogawa, a proud and rare niso (female priest) of Japanese Shingon Buddhist Sect, dies after telling her story to Reiko and Max, a Japanese couple based in New York. She told them about her desolate life since she was given to a temple at the age of seven, and her achievement of building the Enmyoin temple (transferred from Naoshima [Read more...]
Two animated films by an animator Tomomichi Nakamura from Akaiwa city, Okayama. His works have been invited to Vancouver International FF, Calgary Int'l FF, and shown at The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. An intense interest of the world is on this emerging Okayama native animation artist. Image Forum Film Festival 2007 Vancouver International Film Festival 2007 Apocalyptic [Read more...]