Grimm (2003)

Grimm (2003)
103 min

Director: Alex van Warmerdam
Writers: Otakar Votocek (contributing writer), Alex van Warmerdam
Stars: Teresa Berganza, Johan Leysen, Halina Reijn
One winter's day Jacob and his sister Marie are left behind in the woods by their unemployed father. In his coat Jacob finds a note from his mother urging them to go to their uncle in Spain. They arrive in Spain only to find that their uncle has died. Marie meets Diego, a rich surgeon, and falls in love with him. Diego lives with his domineering sister Teresa. Marie marries Diego. Jacob keeps jealously trying to tear his sister away from Diego. His efforts are in vain and Jacob starts to provoke Diego. It soon becomes clear that Jacob's defiance won't go unpunished... Written by Anonymous(imdb)

Jan Saudek - V pekle svych vasni, raj v nedohlednu (2007)

Jan Saudek - V pekle svych vasni, raj v nedohlednu (2007)
Jan Saudek - Trapped by His Passions, No Hope for Rescue
Documentary
100min

Director: Adolf Zika
Writer: Adolf Zika (screenplay)
Stars: Jan Saudek

Country: Czech Republic
Language: Czech


Czech photographer Adolf Zika's documentary "Jan Saudek - Trapped by His Passions, No Hope for Rescue" portrays how war, woman and a single window influenced world famous photographer Jan Saudek. Camera moves through various subjects like his vision on body while capturing them, whether he is keeping any taboos or not, the pornographic atmosphere in images.
Saudek treats human body in its ultimate freedom. By using abnormal images he opens a path for spectators to enter the beauty and not trying to create ugliness even in a single megapixel. In this documentary Zika asked Saudek whether he felt any passion for a male body which tempted him to touch the body as a woman's. Saudek's answer is "Hold on, it's not a beautiful male body that attracts me. The body doesn't need to be beautiful, meaning muscular and slim. We are led by the smell and in that sense".
Its the Velvet Revolution (1991) gave him absolute fame both in his country and rest of the world. Saudek says that what revolution gave him was the gradual loss of omnipresent fear. Since he was a jew who passed his childhood days during Second World War in Prague witnessed so many diabolic scenes. His family was hunted by Nazis, also he and his twin bother Kaja Saudek suffered a lot in concentration camps and faced the ferocity of Dr Mengele's experiments. Before Revolution he was working in Prague in a cellar unnoticed by secret police. This self confinement makes him to create images that he cant see through the single window in the cellar.

Lucien Clergue Photography

Lucien Clergue (born August 14, 1934) is a French photographer. He is Chairman of the Academy of Fine Arts for 2013.(wikipedia)
He is notable by the usage of woman nude body by juxtaposing with natural elements, similar to Rimantas Dichavičius and Arno Rafael Minkkinen. We cant even severalize the body with nature in his prolific photos, pointing towards the own identity of body and changing the perspective of nudity.
He is the founder of the important festival Rencontre Internationale de la Photographie and was inducted into the prestigious Académie des Beaux Arts as the first photographer ever to be recognized as a fine artist in 2007.

Four Nudes in La Cite (1983)

Nu à la Cascade (Nude Waterfall)

Fist of Jesus (2012)

Fist of Jesus (2012)
15 min
Short

Directors: Adrián Cardona, David Muñoz
Writer: David Muñoz
Stars: Marc Velasco, Noé Blancafort, Salvador Llós

Country: Spain
Language: Spanish
Jesus is always willing to lend a hand to those in need, but there are others ... that will taste his fist.


WATCH

Hagiga Le'enayim (1975)

Hagiga Le'enayim (1975)
Saint Cohen
86 min

Country: Israel
Language: Hebrew

Director: Assi Dayan
Writers: Naftali Alter, Assi Dayan
Stars: Mosko Alkalai, Naftali Alter, Dori Ben-Ze'ev
A man comes to town that lies on the northern border and intends to commit suicide. The townspeople rescue him, but later they discover he's a well known poet, the kind whose death place can become a site of pilgrimage. Since a wave of tourism would do wonders for the bleak economic situation of the town, the residents try to encourage him to commit suicide and even arrange a local celebration for the occasion of the suicide. A girl that falls in love with him try to resist. In addition, the town is preparing for a wedding full of colorful characters. A military exercise held near the town also has an impact on the plot.

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
92 min

Director: Peter Strickland
Writer: Peter Strickland
Stars: Toby Jones, Tonia Sotiropoulou, Cosimo Fusco

Country: UK
Language: English | Italian
In the 1970s, a British sound technician is brought to Italy to work on the sound effects for a gruesome horror film. His nightmarish task slowly takes over his psyche, driving him to confront his own past. Berberian Sound Studio is many things: an anti-horror film, a stylistic tour de force, and a dream of cinema. As such, it offers a kind of pleasure that is rare in films, while recreating in a highly original way the pleasures of Italian horror cinema.(Rotten Tomatoes)

Berberian Sound Studio was previewed at London FrightFest Film Festival in August 2012 and at the 2012 Edinburgh International Film Festival, where The Daily Telegraph described it as the "stand-out movie".
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian has described the film as "seriously weird and seriously good" and said that it marks Strickland's emergence as "a key British film-maker of his generation".
Sight & Sound film magazine listed the film at #5 on its list of best films of 2012.The film tied with A Royal Affair as Mark Kermode's best film of the year.
The film won awards at the 2012 British Independent Film Awards Best Director, Best Actor and Best Achievement In Production.

Oridathu (1986)

Oridathu (1986)
112 min
Director: Govindan Aravindan
Writer: Govindan Aravindan
Stars: Nedumudi Venu, Sreenivasan, Vineeth
Country: India
Language: Malayalam
Oridathu (1986) is an Indian Malayalam satirical drama film written and directed by G. Aravindan. Nedumudi Venu, Sreenivasan, Thilakan, Vineeth, Krishnankutty Nair, Chandran Nair and Soorya form the cast. The story is about the problems faced by the people of a hamlet where electricity in unavailable, when electric supply finally reaches there. The film reaches a conclusion that life is better without electricity. The indefinability of the human mind is the theme of the film. Though the film is discussing a serious issue, the treatment of it is very simplistic. Humour and intensity characterise the film that is set in the mid-fifties. The film is different from many of Aravindan's earlier works in that it deals with a broad range of characters and lacks a clear-cut linear story. It became a major critical success and earned the best director awards for Aravindan at state and national film awards.(Wikipedia Page)

INTERVIEW- Aravindan on Oridathu

The theme of this film is the electrification of a village and the changes this introduces in the village. Is it in any way a statement on modernity or mechanisation?
What the film underlines is the necessity for basic ethical premises, whatever one is engaged in. The film strictly is not on the effects of modernity or modern technology. This is just incidental - the theme could be anything. In this instance the overseer is a man without any scruples - and that is the central point.


The film seems to be more allegorical. Many people work towards the electrification of the village apart from the overseers. So how is it that the ethical issue becomes only that of the overseer?
Everything in the village happens according to the scheming of the overseer who manipulates for his personal interests.

This film is very humorous compared to your other films.
There is an element of caricature in all the characters. A little exaggeration and lot of humour was consciously introduced to make effective the last sequence, which is the explosion. In fact the whole film moves towards the climax - the clash on the day of the festival and the breaking out of the fire.

The film begins and ends with a festival.
The film begins with a festival in the temple (this happens before work begins for the electrification) The festival does not come up to the expectation of the villagers. According to the belief in the village, if the temple festival does not do well, the Poorum festival will be a great success. The film ends with the celebration of Poorum.

This is a film where you have used the maximum number of shots.
ORIDATHU is complex in that it has many characters and many incidents and therefore does not have a single motif - the usual type of music is also absent. I worked with a cinematic form, which could engage the audience, for which I had to use more shots taken from different angles. This is also a film where I have used the sounds of the incidents to the maximum.

Why did you use a Trivandrum accent for the overseer, Sundaresan (Nedumudi Venu)? Was there not sufficient comedy in the film without this element?
I have used different dialects used in Malayalam, for example the villagers speak pure Valluvanadan Malayalam of South Malabar, the fake Doctor uses Travancore Malayalam etc.

The setting of this story is between 1952-55. Is not the portrayal of the communist in the film a little out of place and also a little unbelievable?
A bit of caricaturing is done of this character also. Yet someone like him lived in my village too. Some one who believed that everything that happened and is happening in Russia is great-like the bridges they build, their hydro-electrical projects etc - and worthy of being emulated. Many have reacted violently to this portrayal. It is really sad that when the Russians themselves are re-evaluating their politics and practices we react badly even to a joke! I have sought to portray this character positively as someone who is concerned about society.

How was this film received outside Kerala and abroad?
On the whole the response was good. The film has gone for the maximum number of film festivals and everywhere has received a positive response.

We can relate this film to the electricity problem we are facing in the country. A nuclear power plant is going to be established in Koodamkulam near Nagar Koil. Some say it is good and some consider it is bad. What do you think of it?
My opinion is that nuclear power is dangerous. However it is not only nuclear power plants, but the entire trend in science and technology which is negative. The question is how do you perceive development. What is 'development'? The problem is of how you handle the process of development. Though concepts like "small is beautiful" etc. have existed, people are more conscious about it these days. Countries like Japan are also trying to contain 'progress' and people are giving more time to leisure. The business establishments spend a lot of money for creative works like theatre, paintings etc.

ORIDATHU is discussing a serious issue, but I have a feeling the treatment of it is very simplistic....
I will not debate that.

Recently a lot of offbeat films were received well in Kerala - ORIDATHU, ANANTHARAM of Adoor Gopalakrishnan etc. What do you think of it?
This is a very local trend, which perhaps is also there in Bengal, where a number of filmmakers and film societies make films and have discussions on new cinema.(Cinema Of Malayalam)

Me and You (2012)

Me and You (2012)
Io e te (original title)
103 min
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Writers: Niccolò Ammaniti (based on the novel by), Niccolò Ammaniti (screenplay)
Stars: Tea Falco, Jacopo Olmo Antinori, Sonia Bergamasco
Country: Italy
Language: Italian
An an introverted teenager tells his parents he going on a ski trip, but instead spends his time alone in a basement.

The Fourth Man (2007)

The Fourth Man (2007)
Cetvrti covek (original title)
107 min

Director: Dejan Zecevic
Writers: Boban Jevtic, Dejan Zecevic
Stars: Nikola Kojo, Dragan Petrovic, Bogdan Diklic

Country: Serbia
Language: Serbian
A man awakens from a two-month-long coma. Total amnesia. A bullet fired point blank. He doesn't remember anything. He's told that he had a wife and a son. They've been killed. He's revealed his past identity by the Colonel, who insists they are best friends. He's a Major of the Military Security Agency. An inspector from the State Security Agency appears affirming that he has information on people responsible for the massacre of his family. The Major is discharged from the hospital. He tries to patch together a normal life but is confronted with emptiness and despair. His only chance of discovering his identity and the assassin of his family is to accept the game that the Inspector has set up for him with the Businessman, the Mafioso and the Politician. He agrees... Discovers that he was a war criminal... Realizes who took a shot at him... Finds out who killed his family... Discovers the Fourth Man! Written by Viktorija film

Like Someone in Love (2012)

Like Someone in Love (2012)
109 min

Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Writer: Abbas Kiarostami (screenplay)
Stars: Rin Takanashi, Tadashi Okuno, Ryo Kase

Country: France | Japan
Language: Japanese


Like Someone in Love  is a Japanese-language drama film written and directed by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, starring Rin Takanashi, Tadashi Okuno and Ryō Kase. It tells the story of a young Japanese woman who finances her studies through prostitution. The film is a French-Japanese production. The film competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.
The inspiration for the film came from one of Kiarostami's visits to Japan. In the late 1990s Abbas Kiarostami was driving late at night while on a visit to Tokyo and witnessed a young girl on the side of the street dressed as a bride. In the years following, while visiting Tokyo to promote other films, he realized that he was always looking for that same girl because she had left such an impression but that he would never likely notice her again in real life because she wouldn't be wearing the same dress. This experience became the basis for the film. 

Jan Saudek Photography

Jan Saudek (b. 13 May 1935 in Prague, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech art photographer and painter.


 Jan Saudek was Jewish and having been born in Prague, he lived through the horrors of deportation during World War II. On returning to Prague he was forced to work in secret, hidden in a cellar, where he developed dreams and fantasies whilst living under a rather grey and pragmatic dictatorship. In the seventies he began to "correct" his black and white prints tinting them with watercolours. In his exclusion this "underground man" created an art of dreams, beautifully sad and light: erotic in the most spirited and interesting way. The works of Saudek, are as fascinating and mysterious as Prague itself and have made him one of the greatest living authors. A pillar of twentieth century photographic history.
The surreal world of Jan Saudek is a room with plaster peeling from the walls, which filters the infinite.

The flesh of the annoyingly imperfect bodies, once exposed to his eye and brush are fashioned in to the unique and extraordinary, which only art can give to the underworld, by touches of melancholy and beauty. For her part Sara Saudek tells of infinite decadence of femininity, that is impossible to  contain or restrict with a moralizing interpretive palate.


Son of a bank director and of Jewish origin, Jan Saudek was born in Prague, his family were deported to a concentration camp in Terezin, where several of his brothers died.
After the war he began painting and designing. In 1950 he was employed by a typographer and from 1954 to 1956 he was called up for military service. In 1958 he married Marie, with whom he had two children: Samuel and David. In 1959 Marie gave him his first camera, a Flexaret 6x6.
In 1963, inspired by the works of Ed ward Steichen and the catalogue of his famous New York exhibition entitled “The Family of Man”, he decided to become a professional photographer.
In 1969 he travelled to the USA for the first time, where the curator Hugh Edwards encouraged him to continue his work as a professional photographer and the inauguration of his first personal exhibition was held at the University of Bloomington in Indiana.
He returned to Prague, where he was forced to work in a basement to avoid police checks. His first photographs were printed in black and white or sepia. Towards the middle of the 60s, following encouragement from his clients, he took the decision to tint his black and white prints with watercolours, giving them a life and style that were particularly recognisable.
His main themes are  eroticism and the female body, which Saudek fills with religious symbolism and symbols of political corruption and innocence. Often his scenes are dream-like and depict hand-tinted nude or semi-nude figures, set against a backdrop of crumbling plaster walls, which were the walls of his basement studio. Another of Saudek's recurring themes is that of the evolution from child to adult, with Saudek depicting the same subject in an identical pose, after several years to describe the passage of time.
In 1970, Saudeck separated from his wife Marie.  His international reputation continued to grow and he participated in many prestigious collaborations and the exhibitions of his works in Anvera, Brussels, Bonn, Losanna, Paris and Chicago. In 1983  the first book of his work was published, World of Jan Saudek, in English, German and French.
In 1984, after years of working in a factory, the communist government granted him a permit to work which enabled him to be free from the weekly constraints of earning a salary and thus being able to dedicate all his effort and time on artistic photography.
Saudek still lives and works in Prague. (mondobizzarrogallery)

I Would Like to Carry You in My Arms , 1983

The Love , 1973

The Knife , 1987

Those Days of the Sixties , 1965

Motherhood , 1986

The Lovers , 1987

The Holy Matrimony , 1987

Zdena , 1962

Pieta , 1990

The Flag , 1972

It Touches My Very Soul , 1985

The Family , 1966

First Kiss to a Little Brother , 1982

Paris-Manhattan (2012)

Paris-Manhattan (2012)
77 min

Director: Sophie Lellouche
Writer: Sophie Lellouche
Stars: Alice Taglioni, Patrick Bruel, Marine Delterme

Country: France
Language: French
In Paris, the pharmacist Alice has been an obsessed Woody Allen fan since she was fifteen and has seen all his movies and talks to him alone in her room. When she meets Pierre in a night-club, she finds that he loves jazz and she believes he is her prince charming. But when Pierre sees Alice's sister Hélène, they immediately fall in love with each other and marry each other. Years later, Alice is a spinster that administrates the pharmacy that belonged to her father and believes that movies can heal many diseases. However her father insistently tries to find a husband for her. When the alarm technician Victor meets Alice, she does not see any future relationship with him. But one day, Victor brings Alice to meet Woody Allen in Paris and the director gives an advice to Alice. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil(IMDB)

Blue Lovers (1914)

Blue Lovers (1914)
Artist: Marc Chagall
Place of Creation: Paris, France
Style: Cubism
Technique: oil
Material: cardboard
Dimensions: 49 x 44 cm

Only love interests me, and I am only in contact with things that revolve around love. Chagall

We Have a Pope (2011)

We Have a Pope (2011)
Habemus Papam (original title)
102 min

Director: Nanni Moretti
Writers: Nanni Moretti, Francesco Piccolo
Stars: Michel Piccoli, Nanni Moretti, Jerzy Stuhr
Country: Italy
Language: Italian
We Have a Pope is a 2011 Italian comedy-drama film directed by Nanni Moretti.Its original title is Habemus Papam, the Latin phrase used upon the announcement of a new pope. The film stars Michel Piccoli as a cardinal who, against his wishes, is elected pope. Moretti co-stars as a psychiatrist who is called in to help the pope overcome his panic. The film premiered in Italy in April 2011 and played in competition at the 64th Cannes Film Festival.(Wikipedia)

Pociag (1959)

Night Train (1959)
Pociag (original title)
99 min

Country: Poland
Language: Polish

Director: Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Writers: Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Jerzy Lutowski
Stars: Lucyna Winnicka, Leon Niemczyk, Teresa Szmigielówna
Night Train (also known as Baltic Express) is the English title for Pociąg, a 1959 film directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz.
Two strangers, Jerzy (Leon Niemczyk) and Marta (Lucyna Winnicka), accidentally end up holding tickets for the same sleeping chamber on an overnight train to the Baltic Sea coast. Also on board is Marta's spurned lover, who will not leave her alone. When the police enter the train in search of a murderer on the lam, rumors fly and everything seems to point toward one of the main characters as the culprit.
This is a more amorphous and ambiguous tale than other contemporary films of the Polish School, and Night Train seems to lack the direct references to recent history and the contemporary political situation of the Poland of the 1950s that are a hallmark of the style. However, the Hitchcockian atmosphere, the unimaginably tight shots and the overall sense of claustrophobia and dread evoke the sense of disappointment following in the wake of 1956 and the end of the 'Polish Spring'. All of Kawalerowicz’s films deal with individual fate in a society being crushed by overwhelming external forces, whether war or politics, in an attempt to examine moral choice under pressure. Night Train is no exception, only here he has created an allegory of misfits among a society of passengers, a society that is predictable, suspicious of individuality, and eager to punish. All of Poland escaping though the night to the end of the line. Ironically, the film may represent in its way the end of the Polish School as well. ((Wikipedia)

Geoffrey Chadsey Art

“Resolutely unglamorous, Chadsey's young men, no hunks, preen and pose, sometimes grotesquely transformed by superimpositions that seem to be materialized projections of their fantasies…. These drawings in water-soluble colored pencil on mylar are skillfully delineated, visually powerful, and, even these days, disturbing and provocative.”

DeWitt Chang, Huffington Post “This Month’s Top Exhibitions” (1.11)

Clapper (2003) 
Watercolor pencil on mylar

Reality (2012)

Reality (2012)
116 min

Director: Matteo Garrone
Writers: Matteo Garrone (story), Massimo Gaudioso (story)
Stars: Aniello Arena, Paola Minaccioni, Loredana Simioli

Country: Italy | France
Language: Italian | Neapolitan | English | Latin

Luciano is a Neapolitan fishmonger who supplements his modest income by pulling off little scams together with his wife Maria. A likeable, entertaining guy, Luciano never misses an opportunity to perform for his customers and countless relatives. One day his family urge him to try out for Big Brother. In chasing this dream his perception of reality begins to change. Written by lletaif

Won: 2012 Grand Prize Of Jury, Cannes

TRAILER CANNES

Europa '51 (1952)

Europa '51 (1952)
113 min

Director: Roberto Rossellini
Writers: Roberto Rossellini (story)
Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Alexander Knox, Ettore Giannini

Country: Italy
Language: Italian
Irene Girard is an ambassador's wife and used to always live in luxury. After the dramatic death of her son, she feels guilty of having neglected him and feels compelled to help people in need who cross her path. One day she offers shelter to a man who is evading justice, and she ends being arrested herself. Her husband, for the sake of social propriety, arranges for a doctor to declare her insane. Irene escapes one prison to enter another, and to reflect on what sort of society she lives in. Written by Artemis-9.(IMDB)
Ingrid Bergman won the 1953 Silver Ribbon award from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists for her performance. In addition, Roberto Rossellini won the International Award and was nominated for the Golden Lion award at the 1952 Venice Film Festival.

André Kertész Photography

André Kertész (2 July 1894 – 28 September 1985), born Kertész Andor, was a Hungarian-born photographer known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition and the photo essay. In the early years of his career, his then-unorthodox camera angles and style prevented his work from gaining wider recognition. Kertész never felt that he had gained the worldwide recognition he deserved. Today he is considered one of the seminal figures of photojournalism.(Wikipedia)

Woman on Swing, Head Back, 1943

Distortion 88, 1933 (From Distortion Series)

Paris, Champs-Élysées, 1963

Washington Square, New York, September 25th, 1969

Atop The Eiffel Tower, 1927

Eiffel Tower (Summer Storm), 1927

Paris, 1929

Fork, Paris, 1928

La tête la première (2012)

La tête la première (2012)
89 min

Country: Belgium | France
Language: French

Director: Amélie van Elmbt
Writer: Amélie van Elmbt
Stars: Alice de Lencquesaing, David Murgia, Jacques Doillon
Zoé decides to hit the road to approach a writer she admires. She believes that a road trip might give purpose to her life. On the way, she meets Adrien, a young comedian. Intrigued by her elusive personality, he decides to follow her.

Stillness in motion: The Matka Series 1 (2003)

Stillness in motion: The Matka Series 1 (2003)
Sculpture
Artist: Olga Ziemska
Locally reclaimed willow branches and wire
69" x 155"

Stillness in motion: "The Matka Series is a new body
of work that explores the concept of place. In this ongoing series I will be using locally harvested trees that grow native to an area to create a female figure in different countries all around the world. The word “matka” in Polish means mother, a person that is significant to the idea of place, origin and our first physical environment—the womb. This work will be a sculptural documentation and visual research of the significance of place through examining the distinctive visual characteristics of an areas native plant life and of its’ natural environment. Through the repetition of the human form, the subtle characteristics of each environment will emerge naturally and visually. This body of work is ultimately a celebration of the diversity of place and also a homage to the similarities that underlie all things at their core." (Olga Ziemska)

Accumulate vision... Build bridges... Breathe... exhibition
Chapel Gallery, Centre of Polish Sculpture,
Oronsko, Poland

Volcano (2011)

Volcano (2011)
Eldfjall (original title)
95 min

Country: Iceland | Denmark
Language: Icelandic


Director: Rúnar Rúnarsson
Writer: Rúnar Rúnarsson
Stars: Auður Drauma Bachmann, Þorsteinn Bachmann, Kristín Davíðsdóttir



Hannes is an old man who has grown apart from his children. Recently retired when his wife gets ill he tries to reconcile with them and to atone for his cold demeanor in the past.

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