Film Database Submission June 2012
N-Zone
1970, 45m
Director: Arthur Lipsett
DP: Wolf Koenig, Paul Leach, Arthur Lipsett, Henry Zemel
Producer: Tom Daly
Screenwriter: Arthur Lipsett, Henry Zemel
Editor: Arthur Lipsett
Arthur Lipsett’s N-Zone is the longest, loosest and last of the collage films he produced at Canada’s National Film Board (NFB). It marks the end-point of his trajectory from feted young genius to discarded problem child/eccentric within the NFB. Lipsett’s N-Zone begs comparison as poor cousin to Chris Marker’s Zone in Sans Soleil (1982) and Tarkovsky’s in Stalker (1979).
http://sensesofcinema.com/2003/cteq/n_zone/
The Reading Lesson
Director: Johan van der Keuken.
In a Dutch primary school, first years learn to read via traditional methods using words in combination with pictures. In a creative, ironic frame of mind, the director developed this system of teaching by gradually replacing images from conventional teaching aids with shots extracted from fervid political and social events. This ten-minute film is a highly concise expression of Van der Keuken’s worldview. “Within a very small space I attempted as far as possible to separate the sequential nature of the images and their meanings. By using short takes I was able to get as far as Salvador Allende’s speech and scenes of Pinochet assuming power in Chile. Then we return again to the beginning, but the whole memorising process is now destroyed”
The Unanswered Question 1986
Director: Johan Van Der Keuken 17 min
The Unanswered Question is based on a piece by the same name composed by Charles Ives in 1907 and a letter from a senile old lady in Raster, a literary journal.
A Woman’s Decision 1975
Krzysztof Zanussi 98min
“Of the third postwar generation of Polish directors…the most important is Krzysztof Zanussi” (David Cook, A History of Narrative Film). Zanussi’s A Woman’s Decision (Bilans Kwartalny) is a beautifully-photographed, hushed drama about a modern woman (Maja Komorowska)—a wife, a mother, an accountant, a union representative and an adulteress—who is slowly being drawn and quartered by her decisions in life. “Nobody since Bergman has seen a woman character more clearly” (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times). Winner of the OCIC Award at the Berlin Film Festival. In Polish with English subtitles.
Kuarup 1989
Directed by: Ruy Guerra 119min
This epic Brazilian film was based on the equally epic novel by Antonio Callado. Set between 1954 and 1964, the film’s focus is the saga of Jesuit priest Taumaturgo Ferreira. Fed up with civilization, Ferreira ventures deep into Amazon country to live with and work among the Xingu Indians. The most expensive Brazilian production up to its time, Kuarup was well worth every penny. Upon its international release, Kuarup was often coupled with an impressive “the making of…” documentary. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Brass Unbound 1993
Johan van der Keuken 106min
JVDK explores the links between culture and society and between different cultures via the subject of brass bands, in this personal variation on the music documentary. Making their way from Europe through the world with armies, traders, and the church, wind instruments were emblematic of conquering land and enslaving nations. But as the people regained their freedom and broke away from colonialism, brass bands were given tribal rhythms and new, strange melodiesÑlater to be recaptured by the West through jazz and world music. An intoxicating camera riff, featuring musicians from a range of nations, from Nepal and Indonesia to Ghana.
The White Castle 1973
Johan van der Keuken 78min
Part of Johan van der Keuken’s North/South series, The White Castle focuses on the impact of the West on the underclass: on the concrete realities of their daily life and on the way their existence is isolated and frustrated. Interweaving images of the Spanish tourist mecca of Formentera, a community center in Columbus, Ohio, and factories in the Netherlands, the film vividly illustrates the fragmented, alienated lives that the market economy produces and chillingly portrays what van der Keuken saw as “a conveyor belt [that] runs across the world.”
The Flat Jungle 1978
Johan van der Keuken 90min
Waddenzee, the sea off the Wetlands coast, is a unique natural and landscape phenomenon. This is a coastal zone spreading out over the territories of Holland, Germany and Denmark which disappears under water and again reappears according to the regular movement of the tide. Johan van der Keuken took his camera to this “flat jungle” to film the fauna and flora and also its inhabitants. The life of the local people was considerably transformed by economic, technological and industrial development in the region. The director frequently varies his scale: scenes of the countryside are often alternated with shots of miniature marine organisms. And it is with these that the food-chain cycle begins – creatures living in mutual existence on the borders of the sea and dry land, whose essential natural environment has been invaded for good by ecological activists, holiday-makers, heavy industry and tanks from the training grounds.
Miami Connection (1978)
Dir : Richard Park
Adrénaline 1990
Director: Anita Assal, John Hudson, Barthelemy Bompard, Philippe Dorison, Jean-Marie Maddeddu,Yann Piquer, Alain Robak
DP: Pierre Aïm, Bernard Cavalié, Philippe Dorison, Bernard Déchet, Philippe Gabel, Jean-Hugues Oppel
Producer: Eric Atlan
Screenwriter: Philippe Bompard, Philippe Dorison, Jean-Marie Maddeddu, Yann Piquer, Alain Robak, Jean-Marc Toussaint, Hugo Verlomme
Editor: Marco Cavé, Pierre Didier, Marianne Grellet, Pierre-Oscar Lévy, Jean-Marie Maddeddu, Elisabeth Moulinier, Yann Piquer
This French-made anthology weaves 13 different supernatural tales made by seven different directors. The main focus of each story, however, is an object that possesses supernatural powers.
Curioso esperimento di horror surreale a brevi episodi, spesso quasi vignette, che si presta a folgoranti intuizioni e ad altrettanto folgoranti bersagli mancati. Raccontarne le trame sarebbe futile, visto che si tratta di situazioni narrative, di gag comico-orrorifiche che cercano di sorprendere anche visivamente riducendo al minimo i dialoghi e raccontando soprattutto per immagini. Un esempio è l’episodio (di Barthélémy Bompard) in cui una donna (Bernadette Coqueret) si accorge con terrore che il soffitto della sua camera da letto sta scendendo inesorabilmente su di lei: la finestra è a un’altezza irraggiungibile e la porta non si apre. Quando il soffitto è ormai vicinissimo, la donna riesce con un oggetto contundente a forarlo e a mettere la testa fuori alla ricerca della salvezza. E qui avviene la gag a sorpresa. Un altro esempio (di Philippe Dorison) è quello di un tizio che si accorge all’improvviso che non è lui a guidare la macchina, ma è la macchina a condurlo, diretta a un fato inesorabile. L’episodio che resta sicuramente più impresso, per la sua genuina e delirante bizzarria, è quello (Jean-Marie Maddeddu, anche regista e sceneggiatore, in collaborazione con Yann Piquer) della persona che si presta a farsi ripetutamente colpire da pugni in faccia sino ad avere i connotati deformati sempre più grottescamente. Il film, vivace e spregiudicato, gioca spesso con il politicamente (s)corretto, ma trova le sue pagine migliori quando punta decisamente sulla qualità surreale e straniante di situazioni e trovate che le risolvono. Gli autori che si fanno più notare sono la coppia Yann Piquer e Jean-Marie Maddeddu per l’esuberanza delle invenzioni, Alain Robak per il crudele sarcasmo del racconto (relativo a una casa che non si può comprare, ma solo vincere a caro prezzo) e Philippe Dorison per il preciso e mordace simbolismo.—Mymovies
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098986/
Ascension (2002)
Dir: Karim Hussain
Québec, tremplin stratégique (1942)
Dir: F.R. Crawley
Alouette (1944)
Dir: Norman McLaren, René Jodoin
Topoli (1972)
Dir: Reza Mirlohi
Painted Skin – 2008 – Gordon Chan
Painted Skin 2 – 2012 – Wuershan
Life is beautiful – 2011 – Wai-keung Lau 
Mulan – 2009
Deep Valley (1947)
Terre de nos aïeux (1943)
Dir: Jane Marsh
A lively Geisha (1968)
Dir: Kosaku Yamashita
“The Grub Stake” (1923, Nell Shipman)
Broken Mussels / Kırık Midyeler (2012)
Dir: Seyfettin Tokmak
“Broken Mussels” (Turkish: Kırık Midyeler) is a 2011 Turkish drama film, directed by Seyfettin Tokmak and written and produced by Kenan Kavut, featuring Uğur Mehmetoğlu and Seydo Çelik as teenage cousins who leave their hometown of Mardin in southeast Turkey to forge a new life in Germany, and Selma Alispahic and İpek Kızılörs as Bosnian refugees in Istanbul. The film went on nationwide general release across Turkey on June 22nd, 2012. —Turkish Cinema (Türk Sineması) on Facebook
Home Village
1930
Kenji Mizoguchi
The rise and fall of a singer Yoshio Fujimura. Fujimura entertains the lower class passengers on the ship home from Europe, and is traveling with Ayako, a maid who had fallen in love with him. On their arrival in Japan, a society woman, Natsue Omura, who is meeting a famous tenor from the first class, is attracted to Fujimura. Natsue introduces Fujimura to an agent and, under his guidance, sings the song “Furusato” which becomes a hit. As he becomes famous, Fujimura ignores Ayako and lives the high life with Natsue and her society friends. – imdb
To The Wonder (2012)
Dir: Terrence Malick
Logline: A romantic drama centered on a man who reconnects with a woman from his hometown after his marriage to a European woman falls apart.
Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1595656/
Qarun’s treasure (1965)
Dir: Syamak Yasami
Maybe some other time (1988)
Dir: Bahram Beizai
CHANGE OF LIFE
(Mudar de Vida)
Portugal, 1966
Dir: Paulo Rocha
We Await (1996)
Charles Pinion
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Bishar Blues (2006)
Director: Amitabh Chakraborty