Film Database Submission June 2011 (Note Changes/Specifications)
Follow Me Down
dir. Ross Cairns
2010
UK
1h 15min
The second documentary film made under Relentless Energy Lives Of The Artists series. Follow Me Down looks at three varying characters forging their own way. James Lavelle is best known for the Mo’Wax record label he founded as a 19 year old in 1992 and for his UNKLE musical project. Here he creates a stunning soundtrack to legendary backcountry snowboarders Jeremy Jones and Xavier De La Rue. Via breathtaking action from the frozen desert of Antarctica, plus in-depth, insightful interviews, the film documents the creative minds behind these high profile personalities.
—EEFF
Under the Cranes
dir. Emma-Louise Williams
2010
UK
1h 15min
Using the script of Dalston poet Michael Rosen’s documentary play Hackney Streets, Under the Cranes is a meditation on place as central to our experience of history. Shot on location in Hackney and intercut with rare archive footage, its cast of characters includes Shakespeare, Anna Sewell, Anna Barbauld, a Jamaican builder, a Bangladeshi restaurant owner and the Jewish 43 Group taking on Oswald Mosley. Streets, parks, cemeteries and markets, both past and present, create ‘layers of lives’ that raise questions about the process of ‘regeneration’; and even while David Cameron claims that “multiculturalism has failed”, this film celebrates how “the world comes to Hackney”.
—EEFF
Ways To Lives Forever
dir. Gustavo Ron
2010
UK/Spain
1h 32min
An all star cast of British acting royalty including Emilia Fox, Ben Chaplin, Greta Schacchi, Phyllida Law, and rising talent Ella Purnell (from Never Let Me Go) star in this adaptation of Sally Nicholls award-winning children’s book Ways To Live Forever.
Two teenage friends, both suffering from leukaemia, meet in hospital and draw up a list of things they want to do before they die. This includes learning about UFOs and horror movies and airships and ghosts and scientists, and answers to the questions nobody will answer such as the facts about dying, and how it feels to kiss!
—EEFF
Agnosia
dir. Eugenio Miro
2010
Spain
1h 37min
The second feature from rising star Eugenio Miro, Agnosia is one of the most evocatively realised films of the year. Joan suffers from a strange neuropsychological disorder that means her brain cannot interpret the stimuli it receives. Unable to interpret the world around her, Joan is the only person to know a strange industrial secret left behind by her late father, and becomes the victim of a sinister plan in which two different men use her sensory confusion to help extract the information they so desperately crave. Evocative of Hitchcock in its use of a central character’s mental confusion, and stylising its early twentieth century setting in bracing fashion, this is a deeply impressive, genre hopping retro-futurist mystery, both ravishing and sinister.
—EEFF
Manasse
dir. Jean Mihail
1925
Romania
1h 28min
A love story between a Romanian man and a Jewish woman, Jean Mihail’s masterpiece highlights the religious intolerance in Falticeni, a small town in
Eastern Romania, at the turn of the 20th century. Based on the play by Roman-Ronetti, originally performed at Romania’s National Theatre at the turn of the last century, Manasseis a highly dramatic take on the problems inherent in Romanian society at that time. Mihail was one of Romania’s most important early directors, and he explores and debates the most sensitive of issues with sincerity, visual panache and unflinching dramatic power.
—EEFF
Out of the Preset
dir. Andrei Ujica
1995
Germany
1h 36min
In May 1991, Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev blasts off into space from the Soviet Union, and boards the USSR’s MIR Space Station. But as Krikalev orbits the planet Earth, USSR collapses and ceases to exist. The story told in this cult documentary is all the more remarkable because it’s true. Krilaley is unable to return as scheduled, and like a bystander, he circles the earth for 10 months, but when he does come back, his world has been transformed.
Out of the Present defies categorisation, mixing informative documentary, trippy visuals, political commentary, and philosophical meditation, all with extraordinary footage shot in space on video and 35mm film. Like a documentary cross between Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Tarkovsky’s Soliaris, whichever way you approach it, this film is highly enjoyable, and deserves to be re-visited on the big screen.
—EEFF
The Stoker (Kochegar)
dir. Alexei Balabanov
2010
Russia
1h 23min
The bad boy of contemporary Russian film Balabanov returns with a typically bleak and brutally realistic story set in a crumbling industrial town in north-east Siberia. Ivan is a stoker at a boiler house. A local mafia boss burns the corpses of his ex-foes in the boiler, but its okay, he tells Ivan, they were bad people anyway. But one day a corpse whom Ivan knows well turns up. With an almost regal dignity, he takes his revenge.
—EEFF
Abhishaot (The Cursed)
dir. Pankaj Prakash
2011
India
1h 23min
When a working class woman is raped, she goes to the local police for help. Instead of receiving support, she is attacked by the Chief Inspector, but fortunately for her a female Superintendent of Police arrives the following day to discuss her plight. Based on a true story, this riveting film tells the story of two very different women and the very different reactions they receive from the Indian public.
—EEFF
Birthright (Saitai)
dir. Naoki Hashimoto
2010
Japan
1h 48min
Ayano, an energetic teenager, is abducted on her walk to school by a mysterious stranger disguised in a school uniform. Awaking in a locked basement, her kidnapper will not utter a word to her, and begins starving her to death. While this ordeal is taking place, her distraught family are discovering that their daughter’s kidnapping is the result of her mother’s mysterious past, and that Ayano’s kidnapper has spent her entire existence studying how to make her family suffer.
—EEFF
Captured
dirs. Ben Solomon & Daniel Levin
2008
US
1h 33min
A documentary about Clayton Patterson who, since 1979, has dedicated his life to documenting the final era of raw creativity and lawlessness in New York City’s Lower East Side. His photo collection includes approximately half a million prints, hundreds of thousands of digital photos, thousands of hours of video tape. As well as the various ephemera of New York City’s streets, such as heroin bags, protest banners, fliers, graffiti stickers and art, he has also documented the NYC hardcore scene of Bad Brains, Sick of it All and G.G. Allin, as well as artists and filmmakers such as Richard Kern, Nick Zedd, Joe Coleman and Annie Sprinkle, all comprising an extensive historical document of the city. A.R.E. Weapons created the film’s score.
—EEFF
Dirty Old Town
dirs. Jenner Furst & Daniel B Levin
2009
US
1h 13min
The New York Bowery becomes a nexus of shattered dreams in this independent low-budget drama out of New York’s new wave. Featuring a troop of misfits, freaks and renegades forming a tableaux vivant full of carnival pageantry of Downtown New York and its Downtown bohemian institutions and characters. The cast includes fixtures on the New York City nightlife scene such as Nicky D, Paul Sevigny, restauranter and Club Guru, Ashley Graham, and featuring music by Lorraine Leckie and Chelsea Crowell.
—EEFF
Hit Me With Music
dir. Miquel Galofre
2011
Jamaica, Spain
1h 16min
Jamaica continues to be on top of the world-wide music scene, as Reggae has evolved into a new genre, Dancehall. Anywhere, at any time, tunes created by artists from the ghetto tell the story of a society whose reality is marked by violence and poverty.
This documentary introduces us to Yellowman, an albino who was abandoned at birth, but whose passion, sense of humor and talent converted him into the Reggae artist that sold most records, second to Bob Marley. After being diagnosed with cancer in 1985 Yellowman still tours and records 25 years later, with more than 40 records released.
—EEFF
Pink Halo Halo
dir. Joselito Atlarejos
Philippines
2010
1h 20min
Natoy is just like any other child. He finds joy and excitement in the simplest of things. Especially in eating halo-halo filled with pink gelatin and red sago at the local halo-halo store owned by his godmother. Things change suddenly when, as he and his mother are watching television, a news report about the ongoing war in Mindanao in the southern Philippines shows footage of a badly wounded soldier waiting for rescue. Natoy realises that the soldier, almost bleeding to death, is his father…
As far away as this war is, the film doesn’t just show how war robs a child of his innocence, but it also shows the shadows of the wars that Filipino homes confront everyday.
—EEFF
The Teacher (1974)
dir. Howard Avedis
The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera (1996)
dir. Adam Simon
Wallander: Sidetracked (2008)
Dir: Philip Martin
NB: Forgot to credit the synopsis as pbs.org
Bang (1995)
United States
Ash Baron-Cohen
Wallander: Firewall (2008)
Dir: Niall MacCormick
Bang (1995)
United States
Ash Baron-Cohen
Wallander: One Step Behind (2008)
Dir: Philip Martin
Upside Down: The Creation Records Story
dir. Danny O’Connor
UK
2010
1h 41min
The definitive documentary of the highs and lows of Creation Records. From beginnings in Glasgow, over 25 years we follow the Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Primal Screen and Oasis etc, via drink and drugs, to being wined and dined at No. 10 by Tony Blair.
—EEFF
Closing Time (1996)
dir: Masahiro KOBAYASHI
The Old Garden (Orae-doen jeongwon,2006)
Dir. Lim Sang-soo
A Good Day to Have an Affair (Baram-pigi joheun nal,2007)
Dir.Jang Moon-il
White:The Melody of the Curse (Hwaiteu: Jeowooeui Mellodi,2011)
Dir. Kim Gok
RESUBMISSION….. AGAIN! For the synopsis to Bruno Mattei’s The True Story of the Nun of Monza. Currently the page incorrectly features the synopsis to the1969 film Lady of Monza. Here is the CORRECT SYNOPSIS:
Sister Virginia de Leyva becomes the new Mother Superior at the convent of Monza. Said convent turns out to be a veritable hotbed of sinful carnality and depravity. Debauched priest Don Arrigone and lecherous womanizer Giampaolo Osio plot to seduce sister Virginia. But will their wicked and lustful actions continue to go unnoticed? —IMDB
Waikiki Brothers (Waikiki beuladeoseu,2001)
Dir. Lim Soon-rye
For Eternal Hearts (Byeolbit soguro,2007)
Dir. Hwang Gyu-deok
Shiri (Shiri,1999)
Dir. Kang Je-gyu
Kristen Livera
Outside the Court
dir. Marc Issacs
2010
UK
1h
Documentary filmmaker Isaacs spent three months outside Highbury Magistrates Court meeting those waiting for their cases to be heard. They reveal their lives, demonstrating how the camera has the ability to delve much deeper into character and motivation than the law. The complexities of the human soul are laid bare as tense and intimate conversations illuminate stories that the magistrates hear daily. The more we get to know the characters, the harder it is to make easy judgements.
—EEFF