Between Yesterday and Tomorrow
The Berlinale rounds out its Forum program today with the announcement of a series of Special Screenings, a couple of world premieres and a batch of revivals. Combine this list with the titles announced last week and those in Forum Expanded and you're looking at the complete program.
World Premieres:
in arbeit / en construction / w toku / lavori in corso (in the works) by Minze Tummescheit/Arne Hector, Germany. The festival notes that this documentary project is "structured according to the principle of the chain interview, with the first interview partner leading the film team on to the second and so on. What all of their number have in common are the cooperative structures in which they work. Yet the most important question they debate is that of their own legitimacy: does it make sense or is it even possible to position oneself outside of industrial progress, the public arena of politics or the global market?"
Lawinen der Erinnerung by Dominik Graf, Germany. A portrait of German author, director and producer Oliver Storz.
Revivals:
Brand X by Wynn Chamberlain, USA (1968), an "underground classic long thought lost and now all the more ripe for discovery." Last April, Rachel Wolff told the story behind the film in the New York Times.
Swoon by Tom Kalin, USA, "perhaps one of the best examples of the New Queer Cinema of the 1990s," Swoon is revived "a full 20 years after its original premiere at the 1992 Forum."
Three films by Yuzo Kawashima:
- Bakumatsu taiyoden (The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate, 1957), fifth on Kinema Junpo's 1999 list of the best Japanese films of all time.
- Kino to ashita no aida (Between Yesterday and Tomorrow, 1954). From Tokyo FILMeX: "A man pours his heart and soul into building a business, but loses his motivation the instant he accomplishes his goal, then sets about starting a new company once more. He makes every effort to establish a commercial airline, and receives funding from an entrepreneur and the cooperation of young pilots, but in the meantime he becomes bogged down in romantic entanglements with his undesirable yet inseparable lover and the entrepreneur's wife... Based on Inoue Yasushi's novel, Kawashima's final film for Shochiku is a lively study of the intricately intertwining lives of men and women who are drawn to one another."
- Suzaki Paradaisu Akashingo (Suzaki Paradise: Red Light) by Kawashima Yuzo, Japan (1956). From Tokyo FILMeX: "This radiant masterwork of Japanese cinematic melodramas also represents a landmark in Kawashima's career. Based on Shibaki Yoshiko's novel, it is a richly poetic evocation of the inescapable relationship between a man and a woman who end up in red-light district Suzaki Paradise, depicted through their interaction with the people who pass through its gate. Set amid the social mores of the mid-1950s, its economical direction superbly captures the emotional subtleties of its characters, and Mihashi Tatsuya and Aratama Michiyo give splendid performances as the hopelessly destined couple."
Milestone's Dennis Doros will be on hand to discuss the restoration of two films by Shirley Clarke, The Connection (1962) and Ornette: Made in America (1985).
Three revivals in conjunction with the Panorama screening of Davy Chou's documentary on the lost cinema of Cambodia, Golden Slumbers: Tea Lim Koun's Peov Chouk Sor (1967) and Puos Keng Kang (The Snake Man, 1970) and Ly Bun Yim's Puthisen Neang Kongrey (12 Sisters, 1968).
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