The Artist (2011)

The Artist (2011)

 Director: Michel Hazanavicius
 Country: France | Belgium
 Runtime: 1 hour 36 minutes


 The Artist is an infinitely charming, and incredibly clever homage to the Golden Age of silent film: as authentic and believable as if it were made circa 1927, right from the opening credits which are so subtly unquestionable that you’re immediately gripped by the glamour and romance of the era, before we’ve even met a character. When we do, it’s Jean Dujardin’s George Valentin, an intoxicatingly charming mega-star of the silent period, who has the whole Hollywood world on their knees before him – the film subsequently charts his peek, before the advent of the talkies arrives, and he finds himself cast out overnight in favor of the new breed of speaking stars. Along the way he meets Berenice Bejo’s Peppy Miller, a wannabe who miraculously finds her way to stardom when she bumps into George during a photo shoot, and takes her fate in her own hands to ensure she makes a career of the brief fame that follows.

Travelling With Pets (2007)

Travelling With Pets (2007)

 Director: Vera Storozheva
 Country: Russia
 Runtime: 1 hour, 36 minutes








 Hatalie was 16, living in a foster home, when she was bought by a rough and unstable man. They lived at a remote station, and their loveless marriage lasted 19 years, until he died. Now free, Natalie is discovering her first love when she meets Sergei.

Guilty Of Romance (2011)

Guilty Of Romance (2011)

 Director: Shion Sono
 Country: Japan
 Runtime:144 min






 On a rainy day, a woman's dead boy is found in an apartment. Female detective Kazuko (Miki Mizuno) is in charge of the case. Although Kazuko has a happy life with her family, she can't disconnect her relationship with her lover. While trying to unravel the mysterious murder case, Kazuko finds out the secret of university assistant professor Mitsuko (Makoto Togashi) and Izumi (Megumi Kagurazaka) who is a devoted housewife. Her husband is a popular novelist.

Happy, Happy (2010)

Happy, Happy (2010)

 Director: Anne Sewitsky
 Country: Norway
 Runtime: 1 hour, 28 minutes




 Family is the most important thing in the world to Kaja. She is an eternal optimist in spite of living with a man who would rather go hunting with the boys, and who refuses to have sex with her because she isn't particularly attractive anymore. Whatever. That's life. But when the perfect couple moves in next door, Kaja struggles to keep her emotions in check. Not only do these successful, beautiful, exciting people sing in a choir; they have also adopted a child - from Ethiopia. These new neighbors open a new world to Kaja, with consequences for everyone involved. And when Christmas comes around, it becomes evident that nothing will ever be like before - even if Kaja tries her very best.

Anarchy in Zirmunai (2010)

Anarchy in Zirmunai (2010)

Director: Saulius Drunga
Country: Lithuania
Runtime: 1 hour 28 minutes





 A young provincial girl, Vile, moves to the city with great expectations about a higher education. She rents an apartment in which she notices a hand-made sticker with anarchy symbols on it, and she meets her landlord, Sandra, a boyish looking girl always wearing a t-shirt with anarchy symbols. The two girls get along so well that since her very first day in the city vile finds a perfect guide in the strong and optimistic Sandra. Under Sandras anarchist philosophy and way of life, vile gets rid of her provincial shyness and fears until she incidentally meets a member of the citys punk community who will change her mind and make her realize that Sandras anarchy has nothing to do with alternative underground culture or politics.

Las Acacias (2011)

Las Acacias (2011)

Director: Pablo Giorgelli
Country: Argentina
Runtime:82min


 Rubén is a lonely truck driver who has been covering for years the motorway from Asunción del Paraguay to Buenos Aires, carrying wood. However, today's journey will be different. This morning, in a motorway stop near Asunción, Jacinta shows up an hour later to begin a journey by track which is going to take her to Buenos Aires. Wath's more, Rubén finds out at that very moment that little Anahí, who's 8 months old, will travel with them- It is not the best beginning. As kilometres go by, th relationship between Rubén and Jacinta will grow. they will slowly meet and sip into each other's soul. None of them talks much about their lives. None asks much either. It's a few word journey but it is not a silent one.

Adventurers (2008)

Adventurers (2008)

Director: Béla Paczolay
Country: Hungary
Runtime: 1 hour 49 minutes

Kalandorok is about 3 men, a Transylvanian ex-teacher grandpa, his loser musician son and his even more loser grandson. The grandpa asks for help as her wife has gone mad, so his son & grandson leave for Transylvania with all their unspoken difficulties and lies. Through the road movie you can catch a glimpse of Transylvania (which is beautiful), its people and see good actors in good roles in a well-constructed story.



If you ask an erudite film admirer about Hungarian cinema,a definite reply would surely concern its over the top,sad,grim films made during the harsh times of communism.This is not something which Hungarian people enjoyed as in the past even their comedy films had a trace of communism in them.Now the situation is different for Hungarian cinema as current times have changed enormously and Hungarian nation has chosen to embrace capitalism and free market economy.All these changes have had a very significant impact on Hungarian cinema and various positive results are being made evident in new films which are coming out of Hungary.It is in this sense that we can all hail Paczolay Bela's film "Kalandorok" as a true comedy film from East European nation of Hungary.This film is very much relevant to all of us in the current period of economic turmoil where each penny is spent wisely by people all over the world.Kalandorok shows the economic mess in which some ordinary Hungarians have put themselves.The film is a grim reminder of how this economic upheaval impacts their family ties. Kalandorok can also be defined in an alternative manner as a sensible road movie with comic undertones.It features some particularly nice musical tracks such as About A Girl Kurt Cobain and a Hungarian version of the famous French song "Le Vent Nous Portera" by Noir Désir.Kalandorok is a comic film different from traditional psychological films for which Hungary has always been famous.This must be kept in mind if somebody decides to rent or watch this film.

Love, Money, Love (2000)

Love, Money, Love (2000)

 Director: Philip Gröning
 Country: Germany
 Runtime: 2 hours, 7 minutes


 L'amour, l'argent, l'amour: a discourse, you should think, on the economy of love. Which it is and is not. It narrates and relates economy and love, but very soon moves outside any established economical orders. The story seems, at first sight, deeply rooted in cliché. We have a whore with the name, of all names, Marie and we have David. a young man with a right arm in plaster and no job. She asks him if he wants to sleep with her, but he has no money. From which results love, in a way. She takes him home, we see them awake naked, together, but he didn't sleep with her. I will leave, he says, but he does not say where. Will you come, he asks, and she wouldn't know why. But they go, they leave Berlin, in her car, they go somewhere, they drift along, you see streets and trees, faces and landscapes, cityscapes and lights in superimposition and it's in these superimpositions (with the additional layer of music by The Velvet Underground and Calexico and other kinds of beautiful melancholy) that you realize that cliché is only to what you can, if you wish, reduce what you see. But then you have to ignore that you see so much more than cliché, or less. ~ Ekkehard Knörer

Gummo (1997)

Gummo (1997)

Director: Harmony Korine
Country: USA
Runtime: 89 min



 Constructing this film through random scenes, director Harmony Korine abruptly jettisoned any sort of narrative plot, so here we go: Solomon and Tummler are two bored teenage boys who live in Xenia, Ohio. A few years ago, a tornado swept through it, destroying more than half the town and killing the same amount, including Solomon's father. The film, from there, chronicles the anti-social adventures these two boys have. These include sniffing glue, killing cats, having sex, riding dirtbikes, listening to black metal, and meeting a cavalcade of quirky, bizarre, and scary people. These include a man who pimps his mentally ill wife to our anti-heroes, three sisters who play with their cat and practice becoming strippers, a black midget fending off the sexual advances of a troubled man (played by the director Harmony Korine), a 12-year-old gay transvestite who is also a cat killer, Solomon's mother who seems to be the only glimpse of sanity, two foul-mouthed six-year olds, and most importantly, a nymphlike skateboarder who walks around town wearing pink rabbit ears.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)

 Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
 Country: Turkey | Bosnia and Herzegovina
 Runtime: 150 minutes



 A group of men including a police officer, a doctor, a district attorney, drivers, civil servants, grave diggers, gendarmerie forces and two homicide offender brothers drive through on rural Anatolian steppes in a single night at a town named Keskin in search of a body buried under an unknown location.The killer leads the police officer from one fountain to another because at the time of the crime he was intoxicated thus he can not recall specifically where he and his mentally challenged brother buried the body. Anatolian steppes' similarity and indistinguishable physical appearance does not help the killer nor the policeman in their quest because every fountain they arrive is pretty much same with the prior one.

The film received the Cannes Film Festival's second most prestigious award, the Grand Prix, in a shared win with the film The Kid with a Bike by the Dardenne brothers and has been selected as Turkey's official submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.