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April 2, 2020/Posted by: Ege

Vitalina Varela

Portugal - 2019 - 124' The most recent film from Portuguese auteur Pedro Costa is another moody, masterful portrait of Fontainhas, the now-vanished Lisbon neighbourhood that the director first began chronicling over two decades ago...
Director/Réalisateur: Pedro Costa

Costa's latest vision of Cape Verdean immigrants — a highlight from this year's Locarno Film Festival — is another lyrical vision of somber people confronting their past. -Eric Kohn / Dans l’obscurité somptueuse d’un quartier traversé d’ombres hiératiques, soudain le rouge de draps sanglants. Arrivée trop tard, Vitalina Varela n’a plus qu’à gérer les affaires de son mari défunt. Elle ne pleurera pour aucun malheureux: face aux hommes rongés ou déchus, elle s’attelle à rebâtir, plan après plan, mur après mur, contre la triste réalité d’une vie n’ayant pu se construire au Portugal sous un toit décent, le souvenir d’une solide maison commune au Cap-Vert. Antoine Thirion

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December 12, 2019/Posted by: Ege

Murmur

Canada - 2019 - 84' Donna, a woman in her sixties, feels isolated. She lives alone, estranged from her daughter. Sentenced to community service at a local animal shelter after an impaired-driving conviction, she ends...
Director/Réalisatrice: Heather Young

In her debut, writer/director Heather Young has managed to showcase the humanity of an individual who is currently reeling in her own bout of depression and substance abuse without making the entire affair feel like a grand statement that is aggressively soliciting its audience for sympathy. However, in its own subdued way, it does tug at the old proverbial heartstrings but more so like a dog relentlessly attempting to make a bed in those heartstrings. -Kevin Rakestraw

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December 12, 2019/Posted by: Ege

Belonging/Aidiyet

Turkey/Canada/France- 2019- 72' A transfixing sophomore feature from 26-year-old Turkish director Burak Çevik, Belonging opens with a story. Not just any story, but a sordid tale of senseless violence: his grandmother’s murder by his Aunt Pelin and...
Director/Réalisateur: Burak Çevik

"Like many a great film, Belonging is simultaneously simple in its complexity and complex in its simplicity, and its particular qualities are ones that offer a great deal to ponder both during and after viewing. Its personal aspects are evident–in the prologue, Çevik says that he hopes this film will allow him to stop stumbling over themes of death and killing in his own work–and yet genuine connection, between the doomed lovers, between the film and the viewer, is the overriding sensation." -Ryan Swen

May 23, 2019/Posted by: Ege

Instant Dreams

Netherlands - 2018 - 91' Instant Dreams is a feature documentary by Willem Baptist (Wild boar, I’m Never Afraid!) about the fascination and love for Polaroids. When Polaroid announced the end of instant film in...
Director/Réalisateur: Willem Baptist

“Baptist links the chemical reaction that makes the polaroids come alive very nicely to the chemical satisfaction that these photos bring to our brains.”  "Baptist associe la réaction chimique qui donne vie aux polaroïds à la satisfaction chimique que ces photos apportent à notre cerveau."  

October 19, 2017/Posted by: Mustafa Uzuner

Taming the Horse / Xun Ma / Comme un cheval fou

China/Canada - 2017 - 124' This is the story of the friendship between director Tao Gu and his childhood friend, Dong. Ten years ago, Tao promised Dong he would return with him to the Inner...
Director/Réalisateur: Tao Gu

An uncompromising portrait of a tortured soul whose ideals have been stolen. Ce film est l’histoire d’une amitié.

April 17, 2017/Posted by: Mustafa Uzuner

World Without End (No Reported Incidents)

USA/UK / 2017 / 57 mins. Cohen’s newest feature takes place in Southend-on-Sea, a town along England’s Thames estuary that lives by the tide. We see the beautiful mud, follow the birds, and look at...
Director: Jem Cohen

Coming Soon to Hot DocsClose observations around Southend-on-Sea, a small English town along the Thames estuary. The film reveals not only everyday streets, everyday birds, unflagging tides, mud, and sky, but prize-winning Indian curries, an encyclopedic universe of hats, and a nearly lost world of proto-punk music.

March 16, 2017/Posted by: Mustafa Uzuner

Austerlitz

Germany / 2016 / 94 mins. Marx said, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.” The disquieting theme of Austerlitz is that in our epoch, history – no matter how tragic – tends...
Director: Sergei Loznitsa

COMING SOON Sergei Loznitsa observes the torrents of tourists flooding though a concentration camp. Has the commemoration of the Holocaust become a spectacle?

January 3, 2015/Posted by: Ege

Innocence of Memories

UK, Ireland, Italy / 2016 / 97 mins Orhan Pamuk—Turkey’s Nobel laureate for literature—opens a museum in Istanbul. A museum that’s a fiction: its objects trace a tale of doomed love in 70s Istanbul. The...
Director: Grant Gee

COMING SOON Orhan Pamuk—Turkey’s Nobel laureate for literature—opens a museum in Istanbul. A museum that’s a fiction: its objects trace a tale of doomed love in 70s Istanbul. The film takes a tour of the objects as the starting point for a trip through images, landscapes and the chemistry of the city.