Kumar Talkies (1999)

Kumar Talkies (1999)

Director: Pankaj Rishi Kumar
Country: India
Runtime:76 min

There is only one cinema in Kalpi, a small town in northern India. Not much more than a dilapidated shed in the poorest section of town, the theater, Kumar Talkies, doesn't have any hits or flops - supply and demand doesn't apply here. Every day a few people come to see the film, irrespective of what it is.

KUMAR TALKIES juxtaposes the reality of Kalpi, where poverty affects all facets of life, with the world of rebellion and romance on the silver screen. The imaginary images of the impossible being made possible have become part of the collective consciousness in Kalpi. Cinema has become a vehicle that simultaneously conveys the urban imagination to the townspeople, while existing as a medium in which people expect their personal, local experiences to be captured and displayed. Kalpi takes shape in interviews with the townspeople and footage of their interactions with the film crew. In cinema-verité the village comes to life: quarrels for the best seats, conversations after the film, political debates in the bazaar.

KUMAR TALKIES looks at how, even in Kalpi, emerging information technologies widen the horizon of knowledge, but in so doing undermine and replace existing modes, both traditional and modern. There is one satellite dish for the whole town. The operator must balance the tastes of the townspeople, giving adequate airtime to each desired type of programming.

KUMAR TALKIES also explores not only the meaning of cinema and technology in Kalpi, but also the status of film in India, especially the relationship between Bollywood and its audience. It is also about the Kumar family's relationship with cinema. It was filmmaker Pankaj Rishi Kumar's father who thirty years ago renovated an old factory he had inherited, creating Kumar Talkies.

Where Do We Go Now? (2011)

Where Do We Go Now? (2011)

Director: Nadine Labaki
Country:Lebanon | Egypt
Runtime: 110 min


On the edge of a rough road, a procession of women advancing in procession to the cemetery of the village. Takla, love them, Yvonne, and Afaf Saydeh stoically face the sweltering heat of midday, holding photographs of their loved men, lost in a futile war, long and far. Some of them wear a veil, others wear wooden crosses, but all are dressed in black, united by a shared suffering. Arrived at the gates of the cemetery, the procession is divided into two congregations: Christians and Muslims on one side the other. United by a common cause, the unthinkable friendship between these women exceeds, against all expectations, all points of religious conflict that create havoc in their society and, together, thanks to their extraordinary creativity, put in place plans hilarious trying to distract men of the village in order to defuse inter-religious tension.

Bye Bye Africa (1999)

Bye Bye Africa (1999)

Director: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Country:Chad
Runtime:86 min



In this reflexive docu-drama about the difficulties of making films in Africa, an exiled film director returns to Chad after the death of his mother. There he discovers, as a result of wars, that motion picture theaters have been abandoned in favor of makeshift video theaters often in private homes. Haroun visits a producer who suggests that he make a film using a video camera and concludes that the important thing is to continue to produce films no matter what the circumstances.

Microphone (2010)

Microphone (2010)

Director: Ahmad Abdalla
Country: Egypt
Runtime:120 min





Khaled returns from USA to his mother's funeral at his hometown: Alexandria, Egypt. He decides to make it a fresh new start even if it meant mending his first love story yet it proved a horrific failure. Khaled clashed big time with a changing more conservative Alexandria but He also stumbles upon fresh youth struggling for their under-ground music bands, art and ideas. in the middle of all the confusion, Will it ever all makes sense at the end? A question for the youth and the city to answer.

Bab el shams(2004)

Bab el shams(2004)

Director: Yousry Nasrallah
Country: France | Egypt
Runtime: 278min

Bab el Shams is considered in my opinion one of the greatest Arabic movies ever if not the best. The movie is about Israel's beginning and the struggle of the helpless Palestinians. The first half is technically marvelous, great scenes, wonderful picture and amazing acting for all the cast. It tells how it all began and how the Palestinians suffered and it shows how it was like before the war between the Arabs and the Zionists. It objectively shows how the Jews looked like when compared to the Arabs in 1948 They were educated, organized in their camps, overall more civilized than the Arabs (probably because they were immigrants from Europe and America). The movie is criticizing the Arabs more than attacking the Israelis The second half of the movie really challenges your mind and keeps you alert for every word is said has a meaning or two One of my favorite scenes was when um younis told her husband (the warrior) to listen to her for once in her life and see what she really needs; she told him that she and his kids are now working for the Israelis. It is a must see movie but please if you gonna see it, first don't watch it with preset ideas, second..do not compare it with Hollywood commercial movies

This a very beautiful and very personal account of a story of a nation. Nasrallah did a great job. The dialog, imagery, costumes, acting are superb, touching and very human. Filmography is very good, excellent director of photography.

This movie is divided into two parts, the first dealing with the Palestinians' displacement in the 1948 war and the history since then, and the second part dealing more specifically with the Lebanon war and the Palestinians' complicated situation there.

The first part is absolutely brilliant, a totally engaging epic told through the a comatose Palestinian militant. The second part has a lot more dialogue and gets a bit didactic in parts, where it seems like the characters are just explaining the politics of the Middle East for the benefit of the camera. Since the whole movie runs 4.5 hours, this half could probably have benefited from some cutting, but it's still hard to criticize the film as a whole.
 

Mothers (2010)

Mothers (2010)

Director:Milcho Manchevski
Country: Republic of Macedonia
Runtime:123min

Two nine-year-old girls report a flasher to the police even though they never saw him. Three filmmakers meet the only residents of a deserted village - an elderly brother and sister who have not spoken to each other in 16 years. Retired cleaning women are found raped and strangled in a small town.

The fiction slowly turns into a documentary.

Marking the return of Milcho Manchevski, 'Mothers' portrays all types: dedicated, neglectful, loving, absent. Through these women, Manchevski renders the faces of human tragedy and joy.

Employing an innovative structure, the three stories in 'Mothers' highlight the delicate relationships of truth and fiction, of drama and documentary. What is the nature of truth?

Directed with a keen eye for contemporary Macedonia, the film eschews neat narrative devices and pushes the viewer to confront their own definitions of filmic reality.

In a traditional structuralist manner, the structure of the film itself (two parts fiction and one part documentary) becomes part of its message.

Restoration (2011)

Restoration (2011)

Director:Yossi Madmoni
Country: Israel 
Runtime: 84 min


After his longtime business partner dies, Yakov Fidelman discovers that his antique furniture-restoration shop is in grave financial difficulty. He’s forced to deal with his estranged son, Noah, a lawyer, who, seeing no hope for the failing store, proposes building apartments above it. One day Fidelman’s new apprentice, Anton, finds a neglected piano in the workshop: an 1882 Steinway that, given a new baseboard, would be worth enough to save the store.

The elegant story lines of Yossi Madmony’s first feature yield a complex set of frayed character relations for which restoration proves an apt metaphor. Refinishing the piano’s exterior would be worthless without replacing the cracked cast-iron board holding the string tension. Marked by restrained writing, which leaves significant details open to interpretation, Restoration depicts the rich texture of modern Israeli society. Anchored by Sasson Gabay’s mesmerizing performance, Fidelman is a stoic man who uses his shop to shut out the world, clinging to the illusion that he can maintain a vanishing way of life. –

Di buen día a papá (2005)

Di buen día a papá (2005)

Director: Fernando Vargas  
Country: Argentina | Bolivia | Cuba 
Runtime:107 min

 SAY GOOD DAY TO DAD is a story divided into four parts, where the lives of the characters intertwine to tell the story of Vallegrande, a small town for 30 years hid the remains of a saint who came from heaven.
Bones - 1997 tells the story of Welcome Cusitano, the young mayor of Vallegrande, which has a plan to remove the people from their poverty by promoting tourism Che Route. His plan is threatened by the arrival of a Government Commission with a clear instruction to find Che's remains to return to their families. While the excavation sites multiply and dozens of strangers say to the press to know where he is buried Che Welcome Charale his friend Ramon Escalante and his godmother Mamina prepare a strategy to prevent meet and carry the bones of the famous guerrilla.
Promises - 1987 tells the story of Welcome Cusitano and his girlfriend Angeles Escalante, two young vallegrandinos that during the visit of a young caravan commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Che's death, see their daily lives disrupted and their promises love destroyed by the lucrative but dangerous business of "selling Che."
Letters - 1977 tells the story of Mamina Escalante, her daughter and granddaughter Eva Angeles, who own and manage the accommodation Vallegrande The Seven Knights. The quiet life of these women is one day threatened by the arrival of an anonymous letter which enjoined to comply with a "Divine Mandate" if you want to save themselves from the "Curse of Che".
Hands - 1967 tells the story of Ramon Charale, a 9-year-old working as a servant in the accommodation Seven Knights of Vallegrande. In the context of the execution of Che Guevara and the display of his body to the press, Ramon is a friend and collaborator of Jean Moreau, a young European journalist Vallegrande search the news that changed his life. Both will live an adventure that will make the least in the only witness to the place where Che Guevara is buried.

Darling, I Am Going Out For Cigarettes and I Will Be Right Back(2011)

Darling, I Am Going Out For Cigarettes and I Will Be Right Back(2011)

Directors:Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat
Country:Argentina
Runtime:80 min

 A darkly comic gem of a thriller with genius performances by leads Emilio Disi and Eusebio Poncela.
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This Argentinian gem of an indie thriller opens with a Spaniard (Eusebio Poncela) walking on the Moroccan desert with his camel. He does not have the sense to stay out of the thunderstorm and is hit by lightning. He is amazed to find himself still alive after the lightning strike and decides to continue. After all, there is no chance that lighting will strike in the same place twice.
Yet, he is struck again. Still undead, he awakes to find himself gifted with a strange power. He has the power to allow mortal humans to relive portions of their lives. They go out for cigarettes, relive a decade of their past and return from the store into the present time. No, this is not a science fiction film. It is a deeply probing study in the mortal and the immortal, and what happens when the two mix.
As the Spaniard realizes his foolishness and his Godliness at the same time, the tone is set for the remainder of his eternal existence. In addition, the tone is set for the 80 mesmerizing minutes of this film. The best-laid plans go awry.
The one-eyed man in the valley of the blind is not king. Be careful what you wish for. Moreover, do not be a fool if you can help it. When you find out that you cannot help but be a fool, make the best of it.
As it turns out, lead character Ernesto (Emilio Disi) is not so much an outright fool as he is a common man. He has no more, or less, foolishness than most. When he strikes his Faustian bargain with the Spaniard he has only the best of intentions.
The question is whether or not, as a mortal human being, he has the ability to use such an inhuman condition wisely. Veteran actor Emilio Disi brings a humble naiveté to the role of a man who seems to have been given a great gift; the gift to go back in time and live one’s life over. Older and wiser, he has the chance to correct past mistakes and to change his own misguided behavior.
As John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” This breathes life into the possibilities of being able to plan better things for the life one has already lived. We all yearn for the chance to do some things over; to do them better the second time.
After all, it has to get better; it could not possibly get worse. Seizing his opportunities, talentless real estate agent Ernesto plagiarizes Lennon’s “Imagine” before the former Beatle has a chance to write it.
He notifies the US Embassy of the September 11 attacks before they happen. He says the heart-felt things on his mother’s deathbed that he was too proud and afraid to say at the time.
Nobel and ignoble intentions mix freely with Ernesto’s conversations with the gifted Spaniard. Myths handed down through time come and go. Ernesto is the sorcerer’s apprentice.
He is Mr. Peabody and Sherman from the “Rocky and Bullwinkle Show” using the Wayback Machine to travel back in time, usually with unintended results. At the end of the story he has returned from the store with much more than a pack of cigarettes.
This is a story of fate. It is a tale that advances the concept of manifest destiny with the scales slanted towards original sin. We are born; therefore we will manage to pull the worst outcomes of even the best of situations.
In the end, we have failed and we have learned at the same time. This is life. Perhaps not exactly what John Lennon said, but restated as “Life is the reality that happens while we are in a fantasy.
Shot and narrated in an understated tone that brings out the hilarity in the obvious, this film is a remarkably creative addition to the Lincoln Center Latin film festival.
In an environment where so many movies seem bent on taking northern hemisphere residents south, this flick takes us all into a new world where nothing is what we expected. Three cheers for Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat!

Avé (2011)

Avé (2011)

 Director: Konstantin Bojanov
 Country: Bulgaria
 Runtime: 82




 Kamen (Ovanes Torosian) is hitchhiking by the side of the road when he meets Avé (Angela Nedialkova). Both are trying to get to Ruse on the north eastern Bulgarian border, so, despite Kamen's hesitation, it makes sense that they share rides. Once they are in a car together, Kamen is shocked when Avé begins to make up stories about him as if they have known each other all their lives. The further they travel together, the more extreme her lies become, yet although he makes clear his rising anger he can't seem to get rid of her.