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IN BETWEEN
Directed by Maysaloun Hamoud
YEAR 16
FILM 4
Maysaloun Hamoud's remarkable debut feature IN BETWEEN follows three strong and independent-minded Palestinian women who share an apartment in Tel Aviv. Away from the constraints of their families and tradition, they find themselves â?oin betweenâ? the free and unfettered lives they are aspiring to lead and the restrictions still imposed on them by society. Laila, a successful lawyer, craves the love of a good man and thinks she's found him in the apparently open-minded and handsome Ziad. Salma, while striving to fulfill her dream of becoming a DJ, falls for a beautiful doctor, but is forced to keep their love a secret from her family. Laila and Salma's hard partying lifestyle initially comes as a shock to the more traditional and reserved Nour. She is engaged to marry a seemingly devout Muslim, who, behind closed doors, is not the man he appears to be. Eventually, a shocking series of events will push these brave women to the limits and change their lives forever, while also sealing their bond of friendship.
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OH LUCY!
Directed by Atsuko Hirayanagi
Setsuko is a single, emotionally unfulfilled woman, seemingly stuck with a drab, meaningless life in Tokyo. At least until she's convinced by her niece, Mika to enroll in an unorthodox English class that requires her to wear a blonde wig and take on an American alter ego named "Lucy." This new identity awakens something dormant in Setsuko, and she quickly develops romantic feelings for her American instructor, John (Josh Hartnett). When John suddenly disappears from class and Setsuko learns that he and her niece were secretly dating, Setsuko enlists the help of her sister, Ayako and the pair fly halfway across the world to the outskirts of Southern California in search of the runaway couple. In a brave new world of tattoo parlors and seedy motels, family ties and past lives are tested as Setsuko struggles to preserve the dream and promise of "Lucy."
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THE GREAT SILENCE
Directed by Sergio Corbucci
On an unforgiving, snow swept frontier, a group of bloodthirsty bounty hunters, led by the vicious Loco (Klaus Kinski Nosferatu, For a Few Dollars More) prey on a band of persecuted outlaws who have taken to the hills. As the price on each head is collected one-by-one, only a mute gunslinger named Silence (Jean-Louis Trintignant The Conformist) stands between the innocent refuges and the greed and corruption that the bounty hunters represent. But, in this harsh, brutal world, the lines between right and wrong aren't always clear and good doesn't always triumph. Featuring superb photography and a haunting score from maestro Ennio Morricone, director Sergio Corbucci's bleak, brilliant and violent vision of an immoral, honorless west is widely considered to be among the very best and most influential Euro-Westerns ever made.
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A CALL GIRL
Directed by Damjan Kozole
Having grown up in small-town Slovenia, 23-year-old Alexandra embraces the excitement and anonymity of big city life when she moves to the capital. She styles herself as a call girl, planning to take advantage of everything the city has to offer. But her isolated existence - English studies and mortgage payments by day, call girl lifestyle by night - is shattered when one of her clients, a visiting politician, dies of a heart attack on her watch. Alexandra must suddenly confront fear, guilt, and desperation as she finds herself pursued by a band of local pimps, as well as the cops, hot on her trail. The old village life she had escaped from might now become her only refuge.
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A LIFE IN DIRTY MOVIES
Directed by Wiktor Ericsson
A Life in Dirty Movies is a love story about legendary sexploitation director Joe Sarno, "the Ingmar Bergman of 42nd Street," and his loyal wife and collaborator Peggy. The film follows the Sarnos for a year, as 88-year old Joe struggles to get a new film project off the ground - a female-centric softcore film that harkens back to the style of his heyday as a filmmaker in the 1960s. As audiences tag along for the eventful and often hilarious journey between wintery Manhattan and the couple's summer retreat in Sweden, the film's intimate perspective reveals a filmmaker on the verge of being rediscovered in his golden years. Intercut is a look back to the evolution of softcore films seen as racy in their day into unmistakable hardcore porn that all but put Sarno and his artform out of business. The film chronicles Sarno's significant place in film history as an erotic "auteur," whose ambitions as a filmmaker often surpassed the needs of the genre he helped define. A Life in Dirty Movies is a clever and sincere portrait of a unique couple who follow their passion in life - onscreen and off.
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AALTRA
Directed by Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern
Rural neighbors who hate each other come to blows one day on a farm and get tangled up in an agricultural tractor, leaving them both paralyzed, wheelchair-bound, and simmering with spite. But rather than feel sorry for themselves, the embittered paraplegics decide to seek revenge against the tractor's manufacturer. They take to the road, redirecting their frustrations with their plights towards the people they meet on the way to Helsinki. Captured in sharp black-and-white Cinemascope photography that complements its exquisite Tati-like sight gags, Aaltra undermines conventional attitudes toward the disabled with its dry wit and acerbic, vengeful characters. Look for some recognizable cameos, including famous Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki.
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ADAM'S APPLES
Directed by Anders Thomas Jensen
Ivan is an insanely optimistic preacher who takes in convicts to help around the remote, rural church he ministers to. His current charges are a psychotic Saudi immigrant addicted to robbing gas stations and an alcoholic tennis pro convicted of sexual assault. His newest "helper" is Adam, a vicious neo-Nazi anxiously biding his time before he can return to hell-raising. Asked to set a goal for his stay, Adam sarcastically answers that he'd like to bake a cake. Ivan cheerfully takes that statement at face value and puts him in charge of the parish's pride and joy: the only apple tree in the vicinity. Grasping the extent of Ivan's crazed, preternatural determination to look on the bright side of everything - Adam immediately decides to shake him out of his rose-colored stupor.
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ALEXANDRA'S PROJECT
Directed by Rolf de Heer
It's Steve's (Gary Sweet) birthday and he's just been promoted at the office. In a good mood, he goes home to his family expecting to celebrate. Instead, he finds an empty suburban home and videotape labeled 'Play Me.' The tape begins with his loving wife (Helen Buday) providing birthday wishes and quickly segues, to his pleasant surprise, into a striptease. But surprise turns into shock when he sees a gun pointed at her head. As the tape plays, his seemingly ordinary life unravels into a nightmare of mind games and revenge. Along with two brilliant lead performances, acclaimed auteur Rolf de Heer brings to us his visionary new twist on the psychological thriller.
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AMADOR
Directed by Fernando Leon de Aranoa
Marcela, a young immigrant with financial troubles, finds a summer job looking after Amador, a bed-ridden elderly man whose family is away. She thinks her problems are solved, but Amador dies shortly thereafter, putting Marcela in a predicament. His death leaves her jobless, something she can't afford to let happen. Faced with a difficult moral dilemma, Marcela will prove that death can't always stop life.
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ANTONIA'S LINE (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Marleen Gorris
In the aftermath of WWII, strong-willed Antonia returns to her small hometown where she has inherited her mother's farm. Antonia, joined by her free-spirited artist daughter Danielle, ingratiate themselves with the town's tight-knit and eccentric community. As the years unfold, love and tragedy come to Antonia and Danielle and the pair foster a vibrant circle of strong, liberated women. Winner - Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
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BOILING POINT (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Takeshi Kitano
Ono Masahiko is an unlucky gas station attendant who belongs to a losing junior baseball team. When the local yakuza threaten and capture his coach, he and a friend get more than they bargained for when they travel to Okinawa seeking revenge. This is the second feature film from renowned action auteur Takeshi â?oBeatâ? Kitano.
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FORGETTING THE GIRL (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Nate Taylor
Kevin, a charming photographer, meets a multitude of beautiful women through his studio, but can't seem to find one that will help him forget his traumatic past. Failure after failure, his quest soon spirals into madness.
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FRANCESCO (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Liliana Cavani
Based on Herman Hesse's Francis of Assisi, FRANCESCO depicts the life and times of St. Francis of Assisi and the rise of the Franciscan order that he founded. Following his death, Francis' devoted followers recall the saint's life and chart his transformation from the pampered son of an aristocrat into a selfless man of faith devoted wholly to a life of apostolic poverty. Directed by Italian auteur Liliana Cavani (The Night Porter), and starring Academy Award-nominees Mickey Rourke as Saint Francis of Assisi, and Helena Bonham Carter as Saint Claire, Francesco paints an intimate portrait of one of the most beloved, influential and complex figures in the history of religion and civilization.
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FULL MOON IN PARIS (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Eric Rohmer
One of Eric Rohmer's most renowned films, FULL MOON IN PARIS was originally released in 1984 to universal acclaim. Heralded as "a small masterpiece" and "the very best of Rohmer" by The New York Times, it is the story of Louise (Pascale Ogier), a young interior designer bored with her life in the sleepy suburbs with her live-in boyfriend Remi, an architect by trade and a homebody by nature. Eager to lead the life of an independent socialite in the city, Louise arranges to move back into her Paris apartment during the week. Balancing a steady boyfriend in the suburbs with a best friend, Octave (Fabrice Luchini), who makes plain his interest in her, and a bad boy musician who catches her eye at a party, eventually even the sophisticated and aloof Louise cannot untangle herself from the emotional realities of her various romantic encounters. Decades after first impressing critics and audiences alike, FULL MOON IN PARIS remains a modern, wry observation of youth and love.
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KAMIKAZE 89 (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Wolf Gremm
In his final acting role, legendary auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder (clad in an iconic leopard skin suit) stars as hardboiled detective Jansen. In a neon-drenched futuristic dystopia ruled by a multimedia conglomerate called The Combine, Jansen is sent on a labyrinthine investigation when their headquarters is threatened with mass destruction by a phantom bomber. This essential cult classic features an hypnotic electronic score by Tangerine Dream's Edward Froese as well as gleefully mind-bending production design.
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MOEBIUS (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Ki-duk Kim
The husband. The wife. Their son. The atmosphere at home is ice cold - the husband distracted by an affair with a young woman, the wife sick of her husband's debauchery, and the teenage son indifferent to them both. Overwhelmed with hatred, the wife attempts to remove from the husband the organ driving his desires; thwarted, she instead takes out the violent act on the son and then disappears into the night. At the hospital, the husband is distraught with guilt, severing his own manhood in solidarity and setting out to recover his son's happiness, sacrificed to his parents' conflict. Disfigured in such a radical way, the son slowly deviates from normal life, even falling for the husband's young mistress as the husband discovers strange and severe ways to help his son find pleasure again. With both husband and son damaged and living in grief, the wife returns as the family heads towards destruction even more horrific than before.
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ONCE WERE WARRIORS (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Lee Tamahori
Maori couple Jake and Beth Heke are deeply in love, but Jake's alcoholic-fueled rage turns into domestic violence that threatens to tear their family apart. As their home life grows increasingly dangerous, Beth must do all she can to protect their three children. Set against the backdrop of traditional tribal culture, this classic and contoversial 90's indie sleeper hit put New Zealand on the cinema map.
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PELLE THE CONQUEROR (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Bille August
Lasse, an elderly and widowed farmer, and his young son Pelle, join a boat-load of immigrants to escape from impoverished rural Sweden to Denmark's Baltic island of Bornholm. They are employed at a large farm in Denmark, where they are treated as the lowest of the low. It is ultimately their loving relationship which sustains them through a difficult year.
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THE BEST INTENTIONS (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Bille August
Swedish master Ingmar Bergman penned this loving tribute to his parent's epic romance. In 1909, poor, idealistic theology student Henrik Bergman falls in love with Anna Åkerbloom, the intelligent, educated daughter of a rich family in Uppsala. After their wedding Henrik becomes a priest in the north of Sweden. Urbane Anna can't stand living in the rural county and grows increasingly restless. She returns to Uppsala and the couple's love and commitment are put to the test.
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THE GREAT SILENCE
Directed by Sergio Corbucci
On an unforgiving, snow swept frontier, a group of bloodthirsty bounty hunters, led by the vicious Loco (Klaus Kinski Nosferatu, For a Few Dollars More) prey on a band of persecuted outlaws who have taken to the hills. As the price on each head is collected one-by-one, only a mute gunslinger named Silence (Jean-Louis Trintignant The Conformist) stands between the innocent refuges and the greed and corruption that the bounty hunters represent. But, in this harsh, brutal world, the lines between right and wrong aren't always clear and good doesn't always triumph. Featuring superb photography and a haunting score from maestro Ennio Morricone, director Sergio Corbucci's bleak, brilliant and violent vision of an immoral, honorless west is widely considered to be among the very best and most influential Euro-Westerns ever made.
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THE MARQUISE OF O... (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Eric Rohmer
Already an established filmmaker by the 1976 release of THE MARQUISE OF O, an adaptation of Heinrich von Kleist's classic short story, the film stands as Eric Rohmer's "dazzling testament to the civilizing effects of several different arts, witty, joyous and so beautiful to look at" (The New York Times). Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival that year, Rohmer's film is set in 1799 during the Russian invasion of Italy. A young widow, The Marquise (Edith Clever) lives with her parents; her father is the commander of a citadel embroiled in battle. With the fort overrun by Russians, the Marquise is abducted by a group of rowdy soldiers and nearly taken advantage of when the Russian commander Count F (Bruno Ganz) appears as if from nowhere to rescue her. Later, the Marquise realizes she is pregnant, though she cannot decipher how the circumstance came to be. The Marquise's scandalized parents banish her to their country estate, where she pens a letter to the newspaper announcing that she will marry the father, whomever he may be, should he only present himself. Rohmer masterfully adapts von Kleist's multi-layered story, creating "the aura of a neoclassical dream, a fading vision of the virtue of gentility" (The Chicago Reader).
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THE PILLOW BOOK (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Peter Greenaway
Beautiful to behold and impossible to forget, THE PILLOW BOOK is auteur Peter Greenaway's erotically-charged drama about love, death, revenge and the indelible nature of our earliest memories. Each year on her birthday, Nagiko (Vivian Wu) would became her father's canvas, as he painted the creation myth in elaborate, elegant calligraphy on her body. Years later, she continues the practice with a succession of lovers, including a bisexual translator (Ewan McGregor) who becomes a pawn in an escalating game of vengeance against her beloved father's exploitative publisher. Told in a series of chapters and featuring innovative cinematography and picture-in-picture techniques, Roger Ebert called THE PILLOW BOOK "a seductive and elegant story [that] stands outside the ordinary."
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THE QUIET EARTH (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Geoff Murphy
In this sci-fi cult classic, Zac Hobson, a mid-level scientist working on a global energy project, wakes up to a nightmare. After his project malfunctions, Zac discovers that he may be the last man on Earth. As he searches empty cities for other survivors, Zac's mental state begins to deteriorate - culminating in the film's iconic and hotly debated ending.
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THE TALL BLOND MAN WITH ONE BLACK SHOE (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Yves Robert
A frothy French farce, The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe is a classic madcap comedy about espionage, surveillance and mistaken identity. When Francois (Pierre Richard), an unsuspecting violinist, is misidentified as a superspy by national intelligence, outrageous antics ensue. As everyone (including Mireille Darc, playing a knock-out henchwoman) falls over each other in their misguided attempts to discover the tall blond man's secrets, his best friend complicates matters even further when he overhears a salacious recording of Francois with his wife. The whole merry-go-round comes crashing to a halt in one final showdown, pitting spy versus supposed spy with hilarious results. Elegantly filmed and accompanied by a memorable score, The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe is one of the most seminal comedies of the 1970s.
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THEEB (BLU RAY)
Directed by Naji Abu Nowar
Nominated for the 2016 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 1916, while war rages in the Ottoman Empire, Hussein raises his younger brother Theeb ("Wolf") in a traditional Bedouin community that is isolated by the vast, unforgiving desert. The brothers' quiet existence is suddenly interrupted when a British Army officer and his guide ask Hussein to escort them to a water well located along the old pilgrimage route to Mecca. So as not to dishonor his recently deceased father, Hussein agrees to lead them on the long and treacherous journey. The young, mischievous Theeb secretly chases after his brother, but the group soon find themselves trapped amidst threatening terrain riddled with Ottoman mercenaries, Arab revolutionaries, and outcast Bedouin raiders. Naji Abu Nowar's powerful and assured directorial debut, set in the land of Lawrence of Arabia, is a wondrous "Bedouin Western" about a boy who, in order to survive, must become a man and live up to the name his father gave him.
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UGLY, DIRTY AND BAD (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Ettore Scola
Acclaimed Italian auteur Ettore Scola pairs up with legendary actor Nino Manfredi in this irreverent Cannes-winning comedy. Giacinto (Manfredi), along with four generations of his sprawling, crooked clan, lives in a cramped, dilapidated home on the outskirts of Rome. When a work accident leaves him blind in one eye, the derelict Giacinto suddenly finds himself rolling in insurance money. Refusing to share the wealth, Giacinto's relatives concoct several harebrained plots in hopes of wrenching the riches away.
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VAMPIRE ECSTASY AND SIN YOU SINNERS Double Feature (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Joseph Sarno
Magic amulets and occult rituals link Vampire Ecstasy and Sin You Sinners, two seminal films from the master of psycho-sexual cinema, Joseph W. Sarno. Dripping with gothic atmosphere, Vampire Ecstasy (1973) is Sarno's mesmerizing foray into the horror genre. When a trio of beautiful young women journey to their ancestral home to claim an inheritance, they fall prey to a coven of witches' intent to reincarnate their deceased vampire leader. In the hypnotic noir Sin You Sinners (1963), a medallion forged in a voodoo ritual sustains an exotic dancer's youth and beauty. When her jealous daughter and employer hatch plots to steal the amulet for themselves, it sets off a chain of events ending in murder.Newly restored to High Definition from the original film elements and featuring liner notes by film scholar Tim Lucas, Sin You Sinners / Vampire Ecstasy is the first entry in a new series celebrating one of the most gifted pioneers of the sexploitation genre.
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VIOLENT COP (BLU-RAY)
Directed by Takeshi Kitano
In his explosive directorial debut Japanese renaissance man-cum-comedian-extraordinaire Takeshi â?oBeatâ? Kitano plays vicious rogue homicide Detective Azuma who takes on a sadistic crime syndicate only to discover widespread internal corruption in the police force. Facing criminal charges for his unorthodox â?oDirty Harryâ? type methods, Azuma finds himself caught in a web of betrayal and intrigue that sends him on a bloody trail of vengeance. But when his sister is kidnapped by a sadistic drug lord, Azuma's tactics escalate towards an apocalyptic climax.
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This month’s Film Club selection is 1944, Estonia’s 2016 official Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film, which Variety called a “gritty war epic” and The Hollywood Reporter said was filled with “grand-scale spectacle.”
There is something innately fascinating about the war film. While epic in scope, it can present massive conflict on an incredibly personal level – making you feel as though you actually are experiencing the events. Such is the case with 1944. Upon seeing the film, we were immediately struck by how quickly and effectively it threw us into the thick of battle. But, as the dust settled, we were even more impressed by how the film presented fully realized characters and their individual struggles against the compelling backdrop of historical events.
This month’s selection is BLUSH, a Film Club premiere that Variety called “a fresh, frank look at coming out and coming of age” and AfterEllen said “bleeds cool in a way a lot of American indies only wish they could.”
Michal Vinik’s debut feature, Blush, revels in the conventions of coming-of-age dramas. It finds joy in the classic transgressions of teenage rebellion while reimagining the cinematic tropes of the genre. Still, Blush reaches beyond the short-term aspirations of its fierce protagonists. Its subtle yet deliberate screenplay paints an intimate portrait of contemporary Israel and fearlessly engages the politics of a divided state as they manifest in familial gestures and color expressions of love. The film’s ultimate rejection of the escapist and hedonistic impulses of youth makes it an enduring tale sure to carve its distinct place in the heart of audiences young and old.
THE ARDENNES is NOW PLAYING in #NYC at Village East Cinema and critics are raving! “ROUGH BEAUTY… LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF A GRISLY STORYBOOK” (The Village Voice), “A KICK ASS LITTLE NOIR” (Unseen Films), “CHILLY AND BROODING” (Ion Cinema), “DEFTLY MIXES HARD-CORE DRAMA WITH BITING BLACK HUMOR” (IndieWire)