A woman and a man meet on an abandoned tochka along the seashore in Hokkaido, Japan.
Social & External
The people behind it
Yoko Fujita
Shun Sugata
Ryusei Ueno
Ryoga Ueno
Gottu Sattar Momo
Two aging crooks are given two weeks to repay a debt to a woman named The American. They recruit their recently deceased partner's son to help them break into a laboratory and steal the vaccine against STBO, a sexually transmitted disease that is sweeping the country. It's spread by having sex without emotional involvement, and most of its victims are teenagers who make love out of curiosity rather than commitment.
Composed of two narrative layers. The first layer includes a visit to the cinema (including a projectionist) and a reflection on their perception and experiencing the projection. The second layer is the projected work, ie film in film. This is based on the structure of the myth: at the beginning we see a tree that seems to refer to the tree (life or knowledge) in Eden. This is followed by a correlation of the images of Michelangelo Buonarroti's The Creation of Adam (1512) and other Renaissance works. The following shots from the Nazi concentration camps, ie the presentation of manifestations of human evil, are then an allegory of the fall of a man who was the result of the original sin in paradise.
Three short films by Sergei Parajanov, Hakob Hovnatanyan (1967), Kyiv Frescoes (1966) and Arabesques on the Theme of Pirosmani (1986). Scanned and restored from the original camera negatives in 4K by Fixafilm. Produced in association with National Cinema Centre of Armenia (NCCA), Dovzhenko Centre and Georgian Film. Scans for Hakob Hovnatanyan and Arabesques on the Theme of Pirosmani financed by Kino Klassika.
A young woman answers the door.
X-ray images were invented in 1895, the same year in which the Lumière brothers presented their respective invention in what today is considered to be the first cinema screening. Thus, both cinema and radiography fall within the scopic regime inaugurated by modernity. The use of X-rays on two sculptures from the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum generates images that reveal certain elements of them that would otherwise be invisible to our eyes. These images, despite being generally created for technical or scientific purposes, seem to produce a certain form of 'photogénie': they lend the radiographed objects a new appearance that lies somewhere between the material and the ethereal, endowing them with a vaporous and spectral quality. It is not by chance that physics and phantasmagoria share the term 'spectrum' in their vocabulary.
A post-modern fantasy based on Lefcadio Hearne's short story "Jikininki."
The personification of Death's love for a lonely man is challenged when he falls for a lively woman.
A teen wanders through the secret, fleeting moments of the night toward adulthood. The angst and raw emotion of the night's delicate connections linger as he crosses paths with a mysterious girl.
The interface of contrary realities is torn. Passion and fear of unbelievable strength are connecting and scattering the siblings. What remains: the search for love - the getaway into another reality?
The fan's self-sacrificing blades dance in the air, generating a refreshing breeze that wipes away the sweat of others and brings solace on a scorching day.
The main character is an intellectual from Russia, who sees it as his duty to bring an idiot from an mental institution to his house. He can pick someone out, after bribing the boss of the institution, with two bottles of vodka. He chooses Vova, at first sight a silly man, and takes him home. His wife is at first not very happy with this choice. Vova says and does nothing at all. Then he becomes an aggressive man, who terrorises the house and bashes everything to pieces. After she is raped by Vova, the wife gets sexually dependant on the Idiot. Vova isn't interested anymore, when she gets pregnant and doesn't keep the baby. The idiot goes now to the intellectual for his sexual needs. The wife can't take this anymore and forces her man to take a choice: Vova out, or she will go.
A vacationing entomologist suffers extreme physical and psychological trauma after being taken captive by the residents of a poor seaside village and made to live with a woman whose life task is shoveling sand for them.
An artist’s final painting becomes the backdrop of a tense dinner date in which a couple debate the legitimacy of wine tasting.
A painter in the throes of a creative block finds inspiration thanks to a fascinating and mysterious gallery owner, but he can't expect the shocking consequences of their encounter.
Three friends form a bond over the year, Johnathan is gay, Clare is straight and Bobby is neither, instead he loves the people he loves. As their lives go on there is tension and tears which culminate in a strong yet fragile friendship between the three.
Narrator dreams of Madrid while being caught in a repetitive loop somewhere in Paris. He questions if his interlocutor is a real human being, as their dialogue, mostly built of citations, doesn't seem to be helping with breaking the loop.
Inhabitants of a small village in Hungary deal with the effects of the fall of Communism. The town's source of revenue, a factory, has closed, and the locals, who include a doctor and three couples, await a cash payment offered in the wake of the shuttering. Irimias, a villager thought to be dead, returns and, unbeknownst to the locals, is a police informant. In a scheme, he persuades the villagers to form a commune with him.
Richard Rhys, a painter in Victorian London, is the prime suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders. In a chance encounter he meets a wealthy reformer and socialite, Victoria Thornton, married to the richest man in England. Their passionate love affair results in a pregnancy and possible scandal and ruin. It is a story of redemption and true love.
On an otherwise quiet night there is a startling knock at the door. Andrew Tucker answers the door to find an old friend whom he hasn't seen in years. The disheveled and absent friend comes to him with one request: "I need you to come with me but, I can't tell you where we're going." Andrew takes a chance but learns that every answer brings more questions. Nothing good ever comes knocking after midnight and Andrew's nightmare asks how far you would go to help a friend.
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals.
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
A daughter seeks to restore the reputation of her disgraced father, a wronged college professor. With help of a professional student, she must overcome an ambitious sorority bitch and corrupt college dean.
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex-husband's grieving rage.
A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team
Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.
Louis Menkins is five weeks away from being released after 26 years in prison. He is faced with the decision to put his own release at risk in order to protect a young man named Beecher from growing gang controversies.
The eldest son of a ruthlessly tough MMA champion must fight his way out of the abusive cycle his father has continued.
At the turn of the 19th century, Pugilism was the sport of kings and a gifted young boxer fought his way to becoming champion of England.
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Ocho is accidentally captured by a drug trafficking cartel who use Chinese women to smuggle drugs into Japan by hiding it in their vaginas. She is tortured, and manages to escape, fighting both the male yakuzas and a gang of female thieves.
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
An elderly couple journey to Tokyo to visit their grown children, only to find them preoccupied and self-involved.
Alone in her empty flat, from her window Anne observes the people passing by who nervously snatch up the personal belongings and pieces of furniture she has put out on the pavement. Her final gesture of taking a ring off her finger signals she is leaving her previous life in Holland behind. She goes to Ireland, where she chooses to lead a solitary, wandering existence, striding through the austere landscapes of Connemara. During her travels, she discovers a house that is home to a hermit, Martin.
An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.
