Nos | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | top
(Drama / Dir: Corneliu Porumboiu / With Mircea Andreescu, Teo Corban, Ion Sapdaru / Romania 2007 / Cert 15)
December 22. Somewhere East of Bucharest, two heroes share their moments of revolutionary glory on local TV, to celebrate the revolution that ousted Romanian dictator Ceausescu 16 years ago. But phone-in viewers' claims seem to question whether the revolution ever took place. Wryly funny and highly original 12:08 East of Bucharest captures some of the contentious narratives of this epoch-defining event, as well as the bitter feeling of hopes dashed in its wake.
(Drama / Dir: Cristian Mungiu / With Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov / Romania 2007 /113 mins / Cert 15) (Available from May 2008)
Otilia and Gabita share the same room in a student dormitory. They are colleagues at the University in this small town in Romania, during the last years of communism. Otilia rents a room in a cheap hotel. In the afternoon, they are going to meet a certain Mr. Bebe. Gabita is pregnant, abortion is illegal and neither of them have passed through something like this before.
Nos | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | top
(Tim Webb / GB / 1994 / 11 mins / col)
This award-winning short animation documents the experience of autism through
a dazzling montage of words, drawings, music and sequences contributed by
people with the condition. The man who advised and trained Dustin Hoffman
for Rain Man is interviewed in this piece.
(Kon Ichikawa / Jp / 1962 / 108 minutes / col / Japanese with English subtitles / Cert PG)
The wildly melodramatic tale of a Kabuki female impersonator who uses his
theatrical skills to deceive and destroy the men who drove his parents to
suicide. "A film of phenomenal all-round accomplishment" Time Out
(Lotte Reiniger / Ge / 1926 / 66 mins / silent with English subtitles & voiceover / tinted & toned / Cert PG)
Lotte Reiniger's astonishing labour of love took three years and 300,000 camera shots to complete. Based on tales from The Arabian Nights, this still stands as one of the great classics of animation - witty, lively, delicate, inventive, stirring and romantic.
Affliction(Paul Schrader / US / 1997 / 113 mins / col / Cert 15) Nick Nolte is excellent as Wade Whitehouse, sheriff of a small and dreary New Hampshire town. Divorced with an eight-year old daughter who wants as little to do with him as possible, with a bullying father (a grizzled James Coburn) and a worsening drink problem, Wade's life has never amounted to much. But when a fatal hunting accident occurs, Wade sees this as his chance to play an important role in uncovering a murder. |
 |
(Drama / Dir: Susanne Bier / With Mads Mikkelsen, Sidse Babett Knudsen / Denmark-Sweden 2006 / 119 mins / Cert 15)
To save the orphanage he runs in India from closure, Jacob Petersen accepts
a strange proposal by Danish businessman Jorgen - to return to Denmark and
attend the wedding of Jorgen's daughter. The wedding serves as a critical
juncture between past and present, forcing Jacob into the most intense situation
of his life. Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2007 Academy
Awards.
(Luis Buñuel / Fr, Sp / 1930 / 63 mins / b&w / Cert 15)
A man's face covered with flies; a blind man being kicked; a woman suggestively sucking on the toe of a statue: L'Age d'or is scabrous, sinister and strangely poignant. Buñuel and Salvador Dali's second collaboration chronicles a couple's struggles to consummate their impulsive mutual desire in the face of an endless array of obstacles coming their way from the authorities, bourgeois society and the Church.
(Max Farberbock / Ge / 1998 / 125 mins / col / German with English subtitles / Cert 15)
An atmospheric WWII drama, the true story of a lesbian relationship between
a married mother of four children and a Jewish member of an underground
resistance organisation in Berlin in 1943/4.
This box set includes: Ariel, Match Factory Girl, The Shadows In Paradise.
This box set includes:Drifting Clouds, Hamlet Goes Business, Juha, La Vie De Boheme, Take Care Of Your Scarf, Tatjana
This box set includes: Leningrad Cowboys Go America, Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses, Total Balalaika Show
(André Téchiné / Fr / 1998 / 121 mins / col / French with English subtitles / Cert 15)
Oscar winning Juliette Binoche re-unites with esteemed director André
Téchiné in this compelling love story between two people both
scarred by tragic events in their past. "A characteristically intelligent,
sensitive performance from Juliette Binoche. It packs a powerful punch"
THE GUARDIAN
 |
Amores Perros(Alejandro Iñárritu / Mx / 2000 / 147 mins / col / Spanish with English subtitles / Cert 18) Three relationships and the fates of two dogs become inextricably entangled in the heart of an ever-changing, ever violent Mexico City; a groundbreaking and influential Latino Pulp Fiction. |
(Andrei Tarkovsky / USSR / 1966 / 182 mins / col & b/w / Russian with English subtitles / Cert 15)
Simply one of the most astonishing films ever made and a landmark of Russian
cinema, the film charts the life of the icon painter Andrei Rublev through
a turbulent period in 15th Century Russia. "Towering… one of world cinema's
most enthralling films" Geoff Brown, THE TIMES
(Other available films by Tarkovsky: Ivan's Childhood; Mirror; Nostalgia,
Sacrifice, Solaris and Stalker)
(Compilation of documentaries / Dir: Alexander Sokurov, Chris Marker, Tonino
Guerra / Italy-France-Russia 2007 / 205 mins / Cert U) This 2 disc set is
an indispensable master class, a remarkable analysis of Tarkovsky's brilliance
and a showcase for the work of three acclaimed directors paying homage to
their visionary mentor. Contains: Moscow Elegy (Alexander Sokurov),
One Day In The Life Of Andrei Arsenevitch (Chris Marker),
Tempo Di Viaggio (Time Of A Journey) (Andrei Tarkovsky &
Tonino Guerra)
(Jane Campion / NZ / 1990 / 151 mins / col / Cert 15)
Oscar-winning director (The Piano) Jane Campion's second film is an
extraordinarily moving celebration of the life of Janet Frame, New Zealand's
most distinguished author, based on her autobiographical trilogy.
(Trän Anh Hûng / Fr, Ge, Vn / 2000 / 112 mins / col / Vietnamese with English subtitles / Cert PG)
This tale of three sisters whose lives threaten to unravel following the
anniversary celebration of their mother's death is a gently knowing look
at tradition, ritual, loyalty, and gender roles in contemporary Vietnamese
society, with first-rate performances from the cast.
Nos | A
| B | C
| D | E
| F | G
| H | I
| J | K
| L | M
| N | O
| P | Q
| R | S
| T | U
| V | W
| X | Y
| Z | top
(Documentary / Dir: Nicolas Philibert / France 2006 / 113 mins / Cert 12A)
At the start of his career, Nicholas Philibert has been an assistant director on René Allio's 1975 film I, Pierre Rivière, about a true-life murder which had taken place in the area 140 years earlier. Many of the actors were local people who added authentic character to the drama. Thirty years later, Philibert returns to the village to discover how their lives have changed, exploring their own personal histories and the environment which shapes them. Whilst they offer memories of working on the film, it also turns into a personal discovery for its director.
(Drama / Dir: Keisuke Kinoshita / With Kinuyo Tanaka, Tieji Takahashi, Yuko Machizuki / Japan 1958 / 100 mins / Cert U)
Combining Tabuchi theatre and masterful cinematic techniques, this is a beautiful and meditative tale of love and humanity that explores traditional Japanese cultural values. In a remote Japanese mountain village, it is an ancient custom to shepherd those over the age of seventy to the top of Mount Narayama to await their death. One such elder must first sort out the lives of her three children before she fulfils her duty to the village.
(Dai Sijie / Fr, Ch / 2002 / 111 mins / col / Mandarin with subtitles Cert 12A)
Teenage best friends, Luo and Ma, sons of 'reactionary intellectuals' are sent to a far-flung outpost for Maoist re-education during China's Cultural Revolution in the 1970s. To keep their spirits up after their arduous work in the fields, they play Ma's violin - which they save from destruction by re-inventing Mozart lieder as songs of the revolution.
(Political Drama / Dir: Abderrahmane Sissako / Aïssa Maïga, Tiécoura Traoré / France-Mali 2006 / 112 mins / Cert PG)
Melé is a bar singer, her husband Chaka is out of work and the couple is on the verge of breaking up. Chakra is much too occupied with her own problems to be concerned with the trial court that has been set up in the communal courtyard outside her house aiming to hold the World Bank and the IMF to account for Africa's woes. The film is an oddly brilliant and rightly impassioned critique of Western involvement in Africa.
(Jean-Luc Godard / Fr / 1964 / 95 mins / b&w / French with English subtitles / Cert PG)
Gleefully putting into practice D W Griffith's maxim that 'all you need to make a film is a girl and a gun', Bande à part is Godard's playful tribute to the Hollywood pulp crime movies of the Forties, executed with typically Gallic cool.
(Horror / Dir: Frank Henenlotter / With Kevin van Hentenryck, Terri Susan Smith, Beverly Bonner / USA 1982 / 90 mins / Cert 18)
Duane seems a pleasant enough guy but he always takes a big basket around with him. Inside, his grotesquely deformed brother lives. But they were once Siamese twins, separated against their will. There's hell to pay once they find the doctor who did it.
(Clare Denis / Fr / 1998 / 90 mins / col / French with English subtitles / Cert 15)
Set in the eerily beautiful African desert and featuring an eclectic soundtrack
boasting music by Neil Young and Benjamin Britten, Beau Travail is Denis'
extraordinarily beautiful adaptation of Herman Melville's Billy Budd, exploring
the exclusively masculine world of the near-mythical French Foreign Legion.
"One of the most spellbinding films I have ever seen" THE SUNDAY
TELEGRAPH
 |
La Belle et la bête(Jean Cocteau / Fr / 1946 / 90 mins / b&w / French with English subtitles / Cert PG) Cocteau addresses his version of Mme Leprince de Beaumont's eighteenth century fairy tale to 'what remains of the child in all of us' and proceeds to take us into a realm of enchantment where nothing - not even the candelabra or the decorative carvings in the Beast's castle - is quite what it seems. |
(Jacques Rivette / Fr / 1991 / 129 mins + 100 mins / col / French with English subtitles / Cert 15)
Rivette's award winning, critically acclaimed film stars Michel Piccoli in
one of his finest performances as an artist who, ten years previously, abandoned
his masterpiece, a painting of his wife (Jane Birkin). When he encounters
the beautiful and fascinating Marianne (Emmanuelle Béart), he is inspired
to return to the unfinished canvas, using her as his new model.
(Claude Miller / Fr, Can / 2001 / 102 mins / col / French with English subtitles / Cert 15)
This adaptation of Ruth Rendell's novel tells of novelist Betty's relationship
with her cantankerous mother; the 'other stories' continue the theme of cruelty
to children in this horribly fascinating and classy drama.
(Dir: Bigas Luna / With Javier Bardem, Mathilda May, Penelope Cruz / Spain / 359 mins / Cert 18) contains The Ages Of Lulu, Jamon Jamon, Golden Balls, The Tit And The Moon
(Comedy / Dir: Tommy O'Haver / With Sean P. Hayes, Brad Rowe, Richard Ganoung / USA 1998 / 89 mins /Cert 15)
Aspiring gay photographer Billy Collier comes up with the idea of restaging iconic Hollywood screen kisses with drag queens in the female parts. He recruits handsome coffee-house waiter Gabriel and as a model for the project and becomes infatuated with him. However, Gabriel has a girlfriend and ambiguous signals make Billy wonder whether he really is straight.
(Thriller / Dir: Kim Jee-woon / With Kim Young Chul, Lee Byung Hun, Shin Mina / South Korea 2005 / 114 mins / Cert 18)
Sunwoo is no ordinary hotel manager. He is the ruthlessly efficient right
hand man of underworld boss, Kang. Tough guy Kang has only one weakness;
his young girlfriend and, suspecting she's unfaithful, Kang orders Sunwoo
to take care of the problem. This time, however, Sunwoo refuses to comply.
(Drama /Dir: Paul Verhoeven / With Carice Van Houten, Sebastian Koch / Netherlands 2007 / 140 mins / Cert 15)
September 1944 - Nazi Occupied Holland. The beautiful young Jewish chanteuse
Rachel Stein joins fellow refugees in an attempt to reach safe Allied territory.
Tragedy strikes when a Nazi patrol intercepts their escape and only Rachel
manages to flee. Embittered and desperate for revenge, she joins the Resistance
where she is assigned a new identity.
(Horror / Dir: Bob Clark / With Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder / Canada 1974 / 98 mins / Cert 18)
This terrifying tale of festive fear amongst a group of not-so-innocent students in a sorority house is where midnight movie massacres really began. If this forgotten classic doesn't make your skin crawl... it's on too tight!
(Available from 25 August 2008) (Dir: Paul Barnes / UK 1968 / 21 mins. This DVD will be accompanied by extra films, titles TBC)
For the engine men who worked on the Black Five, the end of the steam era would mean a great change in their lives. This film records their reactions to this coming change, along with their reminiscences of the heady, but often gruelling, days of steam. Frequently sad, sometimes humourous, their comments are an elegy to a time gone by, to skills no longer needed, and make a poignant background to the images of heavy iron beasts trundling their way to the end of the line. Black Five was made during the last months of steam on British Railways, capturing on film the final days of steam motive power in the North West of England, and especially in Carnforth. Its release on DVD in August 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of the last days of steam.
(Mohsen Makhmalbaf / Ir, It / 2000 / 82 mins / col / Kurdish with English subtitles / Cert PG)
Samira Makhmalbaf is at the forefront of New Iranian Cinema and, at just 20 years old, is the youngest recipient of the Cannes Film Festival's prestigious Prix de Jury. Set in the brutal mountains on the Iran/Iraq border, Makhmalbaf elicits strong performances from a non-professional cast and creates a visually powerful and insightful depiction of a people on the edge of a country and a society. "Stunning… An almost sacred talent" THE INDEPENDENT
(Krzysztof Kieslowski / Po / 1981 / 124 mins / col / Polish with English subtitles / Cert 18)
Poland, in the politically turbulent late 1970's: Witek is running to catch a train. From this banal event, Krzysztof Kieslowski, the director of 'Dekalog' and the 'Three Colours' trilogy, imagines three different possible outcomes in the young man's life: joining the Communist party, involvement in the political underground and an apolitical, happily married life as a doctor.
(Available from May 2008) (Action, Comedy, Horror / Dir: Julien Magnat / With Olivia Bonamy, Adrià Collado, Jeffrey Ribier / France-Spain 2002 / 92 mins / Cert 15)
In a film that is clearly inspired by the hit TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Resident Evil, Olivia Bonamy plays the leader of a group of demon slaying commandos, who are recruited after the Pope is kidnapped by a bunch of demons. A horror picture that's unafraid to re-write the rules as it brings you a parade of exploding nuns and killer transvestites.
(Dir: Derek Jarman / With the voices of Tilda Swinton, John Quentin / UK 1993 / 75 mins / Cert 15)
A year before director Derek Jarman succumbed fully to AIDS, he made his last film. In Blue, the colour blue is all there is to see as Jarman tries to bring the audience into his vision-impaired world. Quite without sentimentality and with a great deal of humour, Jarman offers his insights on life, love, disease, the meaning of art and the symbolism of the colour blue. Actors, including Tilda Swinton and John Quentin also read from Jarman's journals and poetry.
(Pablo Trapero / Ar, Fr, Nl, Cl / 2002 / 102 mins / col / Spanish with subtitles / Cert 15)
Thirty-five year-old Zapa is a hard-working locksmith living in rural Argentina. When his boss asks him to crack a safe for some special clients, he has no choice. To escape prison he is forced to leave for Buenos Aires, where he signs up as a police cadet. In time he becomes a member of the Bonaerense: a member of Argentina's most brutal and corrupt police force. Now he has the power to make the rules...
(Drama/ Dir: Ki-deok Kim / With Sung-hwan Jeon, Yeo-reum Han, Ji-seok Seo / Korea 2005 / 89 mins / Cert 15)
This captivating and beautifully shot film tells the story of a 60 year old man who has raised a young girl since she was just a baby on a fishing boat out at sea. As the girl approaches her seventeenth birthday, the age she has agreed to marry her companion, the arrival of a young man and her crush on him hastens the final crisis.
(Thriller / Dir: Johnnie To Kei-Fung / With Richie Jen, Kelly Chen Wai-Lam / Hong Kong 2004 / 90 mins / Cert 15)
From the director of Fulltime Killer comes one of the most explosive and unrelenting action films to ever come out of Asia. After a televised bank robbery is dangerously mismanaged by the Hong Kong police, five bank robbers escape, leaving a bloodbath behind them. Taking refuge in a labyrinthine housing complex, the criminals are quickly surrounded. In order to regain credibility, ambitious Commissioner Rebecca Fong attempts to manipulate the media to her own advantage. But the robbers are also able to draw on the power of the media...
(Horror / Dir: Brian Yuzna / With Bruce Abbott, Claude Earl Jones, Fabiana Udenio / USA 1989 / 92 mins / Cert 18)
It's been five years since the gruesome events of Re-Animator, and Doctors Herbert West and Dan Cain are on medical duty in a bloody Peruvian border war. There, West makes a startling discovery: Not only can his serum reanimate the dead, but when mixed with a rare fluid, it can bring limbs back to life - completely independent of body and brain! The doctor has discovered a way to bring not just bodies, but individual body parts back to life. Get ready. The sickest man in science is back…
(Drama / Dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa / With Tadanobu Asano, Joe Odagari, Tatsuya Fuji / Japan 2003 / 88 mins / Cert 15)
Friends Mamoru and Yuji are aimless young men stuck in dead-end jobs in a dreary factory in Tokyo. Mamoru, the more antisocial of the two, is obsessed with his pet project of acclimatising a poisonous jellyfish to fresh water. One night, he inexplicably murders his boss' family and is sentenced to death. Yuji, left to continue the jellyfish experiment, befriends Mamoru's estranged father, Shin-ichiro, and the two form a bond. But Yuji's attachment to the jellyfish is even stronger and problems arise when he accidentally releases the poisonous creature into the canals of Tokyo.
(Available from 28 April 2008) (Dir: Jayne Parker / UK 1980 - 2001 / 137mins / Cert tbc)
Jayne Parker discovered film as a medium when she was a sculpture student at Canterbury College of Art (1977-80). Objects, performance and gesture were combined by the camera to explore space, duration and the physical body. Soon the films became independent works. In RX Recipe (1980), a large eel in a bath is stuffed with vegetables and bandaged by a woman who then similarly binds her own leg, to whispered instructions on the soundtrack. I Cat (1980) was the first of a series of roughcast but sharply drawn animations featuring a woman, a cat and a fish. The films included in the collection are:
(Available from 28 April 2008) (UK 1962-1982 / colour / 250 minutes / Cert E)
Following the nationalisation of transport in 1948, the British Transport
Commission set up its own in-house film production unit. Launched on 1st
May 1949, and led for 25 years by Edgar Anstey - a founding father of the
British documentary movement - it became one of the largest industrial film
units in Britain. This, the seventh in a series of double DVD box sets, includes
such classics as The Finishing Line, Stone Carriers, Inter City
125 and Discover Britain by Train, as well as rare
gems such as Centenary Express and Old Sam the
Signalman.
Nos | A
| B | C
| D | E
| F | G
| H | I
| J | K
| L | M
| N | O
| P | Q
| R | S
| T | U
| V | W
| X | Y
| Z | top
(Krzysztof Kieslowski / Po / 1979 / 106 mins / col / Polish with English subtitles / Cert PG)
Filip, a clerk in a small Polish town, buys an 8mm camera to film the baby his wife is expecting. His bosses take an interest in it and commission him to film the company's 25th anniversary celebrations. When the result wins a prize at an amateur film festival, Filip, encouraged by his success, becomes consumed by his new found passion. But as he develops his creative skills, Filip soon discovers that his devotion to making films has unexpected consequences as tensions arise in his marriage, his managers impose censorship upon him and his films inadvertently lead to the sacking of a colleague…
(Bavo Defurne / Be / 1995-2000 / 56 mins / b&w & col / English and Dutch with English subtitles / Cert 12)
Bavo Defurne's rich and beautiful short films examine gay love and loss and mark the emergence of one of Europe's most exciting young filmmakers.
(Chantal Akerman / Fr, Be / 2000 / 112 mins / col / French with English subtitles / Cert 15)
Taking inspiration from Marcel Proust's epic masterwork A la Recherche du
Temps Perdu, The Captive tells the story of Ariane, who lives in a grandiose
Parisian apartment with her lover Simon. Convinced she leads a double life,
Simon obsessively keeps her under constant surveillance but Ariane remains
detached and elusive, ensuring Simon's obsession becomes dangerously
consuming… "A film like no other… pure cinema" Nick James,
SIGHT AND SOUND
(Comedy / Dir: Laurent Baffie / With Daniel Russo, Laurent Baffie, Pascal Sellem / France 2003 / 91 mins / Cert 18)
According to scientific research anyone who drives for 60 years will spend
23 days looking for their car keys. In this stunning satire on the state
of film making, director Laurent Baffie and Daniel Russo play themselves
as they attempt to locate their car keys. This is French comedy at its
best.
(Clive Donner / GB / 1963 / b&w / 100 minutes / Cert PG)
Starring Donald Pleasence, Alan Bates and Robert Shaw, Clive Donner's sensitive adaptation of Harold Pinter's most famous play becomes a study of shared illusion, tragic dispossession and a fraternal bond of unspoken love, combining mesmerising performances and the magic of Pinter's dialogue to create a spellbinding film.
(Otto Preminger / US / 1954 / col / 103 mins / Cert U)
This sizzling screen version of Bizet's opera Carmen, updated for an all-black
cast, stars Dorothy Dandridge, whose vibrant performance resulted in the
first Oscar nomination for a black actress. She stars in the title role as
a passionate, sexy creature who lures handsome GI Joe (Harry Belafonte) away
from his sweetheart.
(Benoît Maraige / Be, Fr, Sw / 1999 / 90 mins / b&w / French with English subtitles / Cert 15)
Dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, Roger resolves to make
history by breaking a world record - any record - and settles upon surpassing
the previous achievement for door opening: 40,000 times in 24 hours. Deciding
his son will be his champion, he leaves nothing to chance, enlisting an expert
coach to give the boy scientific training and setting up a door and frame
in the garden. Wildly original and very funny, the film wryly satirises our
achievement-obsessed society and contains a most memorable comic creation
in the maniacally driven Roger. "A real jewel of a film" Peter
Bradshaw
(Jean-Pierre Melville / Fr / 1970 / 140 mins / col / French with subtitles / Cert PG)
The godfather of the Nouvelle Vague, Jean-Pierre Melville inspired directors
from Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut to Quentin Tarantino, John Woo
and Wong Kar-Wai. Melville admired American culture as epitomised by Hollywood
movies of the 30s and 40s and certainly crime has never looked cooler in
this definitive heist movie. With superb support from Yves Montand, Gian-Maria
Volonté and French comedy legend Bourvil, it is cold-eyed Alain Delon
who excels as the quintessential Melville anti-hero.
(Other Melville titles available: Le Doulos; Léon Morin,
prêtre)
(Available from 14 April 2008) (Drama / Dir: Christophe Honoré / With Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier, Chiara Mastroianni /France 2007 / 96 mins / Cert 15)
Every love song tells the same story: "There are too many people who love you"..."I could never live without you"... "Sorry Angel"... Les Chansons D'Amour tells that story too. Ismael is in a serious relationship with Julie. They have begun a ménage à trois with Ismael's co-worker Alice, though Julie confides to her sister Jeanne that it's not quite what she wants. Ismael is unaware of Julie's hesitation, he sometimes feels marginalised and sometimes jealous of the relationship between Julie and Alice. But then tragedy strikes…
(Dir: Satyajit Ray / With Richard Attenborough, Sanjeev Kumar / India 1977 / 115 mins / Cert 15)
Set in the kingdom of Oudh during the last days of the Moghul Empire, The Chess Players follows two Indian noblemen whose obsession with the game renders them oblivious to the treacherous historic events happening around them. The film stars Richard Attenborough as the British officer who covertly manoeuvres on behalf of the East India Company to seize control of the region. One of Ray's most ambitious and expensive productions, The Chess Players is a masterful and visually-stunning historical drama.
(Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dali / Fr / 1928 / 17 mins / b&w / Cert 15)
Un Chien andalou begins with a close-up of a young girl's eye with a razor slicing slowly across it - a sensational opening which was designed to shock the spectator into a direct, uncensored response to the rest of the film. In the words of Buñuel: 'Our only rule was very simple: no idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation would be accepted.' Nonetheless, this dreamlike cine-poem on sex, death and decay has prompted countless readings of its mysteries.
(Jérôme Bonnell / Fr / 2002 / 92 mins / col / French with subtitles / Cert 15)
A tender romantic comedy-drama set in a provincial French town,
it tells the story of brother and sister Julien and Emma, grieving after
the recent loss of their mother. As the summer draws to a close, Julien aimlessly
wanders the streets until one day he encounters Olga, a beautiful young woman
who works in a bookshop. Bonnell's remarkably confident debut received widespread
critical acclaim and favourable comparisons to the work of French filmmaking
master Eric Rohmer.
(Jafar Panahi / Ir, It / 2000 / 91 mins / col / Farsi with English subtitles / Cert PG)
A harrowingly powerful film by Jafar Panahi, a Golden Lion winner at Venice, which tells of four women bullied and marginalised by a society in which men dominate. "Powerful... This is a compelling, humane and deeply serious film" THE GUARDIAN
(Drama / Dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan / With Ebru Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan / Turkey 2006 / 97 mins / Cert 15)
Climates is a deeply personal and extraordinarily realised tale of a painful break-up between a college professor (played by the director Nuri Bilge Ceylan) and his television producer wife (Ceylan's real-life spouse Ebru). As with Ceylan's earlier film Uzak, Climates is characterised by the director's trademark visual style - with superb compositions and lighting throughout - and a decidedly realist take on the intricacies of human relationships and the emotional pitfalls that punctuate them.
(Drama / Dir: Dalia Hagar & Vardit Bilu / With Neama Shendar, Smadar Sayar / Israel 2005 / 90 mins / Cert 15)
18-year olds Smadar and Mirit are assigned to patrol the streets of Jerusalem together as part of their military service. Worlds apart in personality, their initially frosty relationship changes to friendship as they deal with emotional issues, the crushes and break-ups in their love lives, and the political reality of the city they live in.
(Francis Veber / Fr / 2001 / 85 mins / col / French with English subtitles / Cert 15)
Pignon, chief accountant at a condom factory, pretends that he is gay in order to avoid redundancy. As a result, he becomes a colourful personality and gains a new confidence. This slick French comedy stars Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu.
(Ritwik Ghatak / In / 1960 / 120 mins / b&w / Bengali with English subtitles / Cert PG)
A young woman struggles to support her refugee family in 1950s Calcutta;
a bitter critique of the family-as-institution, as well as the harsh social
and economic conditions arising from the Partition.
Code Unknown(Michael Haneke / Fr / 2000 / 112 mins / col / French with English subtitles / Cert 15) Winner of the Best Director prize at Cannes in 2001 for the highly acclaimed The Piano Teacher, Michael Haneke is one of contemporary cinema's most distinctive and ambitious directors. An altercation on a Paris street involving a white youth, a black music teacher, an actress, and a Romanian beggar woman is the incident which links these characters and that of those close to them. "A Masterpiece of modern European cinema…Profoundly moving" Geoff Andrew, TIME OUT |
 |
(Raoul Ruiz / Fr / 2000 / 99 mins / col / French with English subtitles / Cert PG)
Nine year old Camille announces to his mother Ariane (Isabelle Huppert) that he wants to go home to his 'real' mother. Ariane humours him but can only look on helplessly when he throws himself into a stranger's waiting arms… "A real treat for discerning cinemagoers who want a frisson of The Sixth Sense" Alexander Walker, EVENING STANDARD
(Drama / Dir: Aleksandr Askoldov / With Nonna Mordukova, Rolan Bykov / Soviet Union 1987 / 108 mins / Cert PG)
Banned for over 20 years by the Russian authorities for its controversial
stance on anti-Semitism and women's rights, The Commissar was finally screened
at the Berlin Film Festival in 1988, where it won the Silver Bear and met
with international acclaim. Set in 1920 during the Russian Civil War, the
film follows the story of Clavdia Vavilova, a female Commissar from the Red
Army who is sent to stay with a poor Jewish family in the final stages of
her pregnancy. The initial hostility and resentment of both parties begins
to mellow as they gradually discover that they have more in common than either
realised. But following the birth of a son, Clavdia is faced with leaving
her newborn behind and returning to the grave realities of war.
(Knut Erik Jensen / No, Se, Fi / 2001 / 105 mins / Norwegian with English subtitles / Cert 15)
| A thoroughly charming docu-musical, dubbed the 'Arctic Buena Vista Social
Club' and a smash hit in its native Norway and around the world, Cool and
Crazy is a warm and affecting portrait of Berlevåg male voice choir
and its eccentric members. "Remarkably affecting… by the end I was
in tears… stunning" TIME OUT |
 |
(Available from 26 May 2008 - tbc) (Drama / Dir: Anthony Asquith / With Norah Baring, Hans Schlettow, Uno Henning / UK 1929 / 87 mins / Cert tbc)
A small-town hair salon is the backdrop for this beautifully realised tale of jealousy and revenge, shot on location on the bleak landscape of Dartmoor. Evoking the early films of Hitchcock and the masterworks of German Expressionism, Asquith's last film of the silent era balances masterly storytelling with technical flair. A Cottage on Dartmoor is an extravagant melodrama, a final passionate cry in defence of the silent aesthetic before the talkies came in and killed off the art form forever.
(Documentary / Dir: Basil Gelpke / Switzerland 2006 /83 mins / Cert PG)
A shocking wake-up call that is set to do for energy what Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth did for the environment, A Crude Awakening is a compelling, intelligent and urgent warning that the age of abundant oil is over. Featuring testimonies from the world's top experts, this startling documentary reaches an ominous yet logical conclusion - the Earth's oil supplies are peaking and a crisis of global proportions looms. Even more alarmingly, industrial societies don't have any plans how to deal with the shortage, threatening the future of our fossil fuel-addicted civilization with disaster.
Nos | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | top
(Robert Bresson / Fr / 1945 / 82 mins / b&w / French with English subtitles / Cert PG)
One of the most revered figures in French Cinema, Robert Bresson's second film, scripted by Jean Cocteau, is the renowned masterpiece of cinematic storytelling and psychological insight that established Bresson's unique, highly personal vision. Made during the last days of the Occupation and based on a story by the eighteenth century writer Denys Diderot, this intense study of erotic obsession and the redeeming power of true love combines the superficial glamour of Parisian high society with the seething passions and jealousies that cause a spurned femme fatale, Hélène, to seek her ex-lover's humiliation.
(Drama / Dir: Christophe Honoré / With Romain Duris Louis Garrel / France 2006 / 92 mins / Cert 15)
The holiday season in Paris and Paul and Joana's love is coming to an end. After their separation Paul moves back in with his father and soon he is refusing to leave his younger brother's bedroom as depression begins to creep over him. His brother Jonathan and his father try, in their own very distinct ways, to help Paul overcome his heartache.
(Dir: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun / With Ali Bacha Barkai, Youssouf Djaoro/ Chad-France-Belgium-Austria 2007 / 96 mins / Cert PG)
Chad, 2006. The government has granted amnesty to all war criminals and Atim, 16 years old, sets out with a revolver to take revenge on the man who killed his father. Atim quickly tracks down the man he must kill: Nassara, who is now married and the owner of a small bakery. Atim gets closer to Nassara when he is hired as an apprentice baker. Over the weeks they work together, a strange relationship evolves between the two.
(Available from 28 July 2008) (Dir: Terence Davies / UK 1976-1983 / total 102 mins / Cert 15)
Made over a period of some seven years, The Terence Davies Trilogy spans the period from Terence Davies's earliest work as a filmmaker through to his emergence as one of the outstanding British directors of his generation. Together, the three films chart the life and death of Robert Tucker, brought up - like Davies himself - in a Catholic working-class home in Liverpool. Robert is bullied at school and has a violent father who dies while the boy is still young. As an adult, he struggles with his homosexuality, and the feelings of guilt and shame induced by his sexuality are sharpened by his Catholicism.
 |
The Day I Became a Woman(Marzieh Meshkini / Ir / 2000 / 74 mins / col / Farsi with English subtitles / Cert PG) This compelling and poignant study of the elementary problems faced by women in Eastern societies looks at three different generations in a triptych of subtle, bittersweet and surreal episodes. "Dazzling… Extraordinary… a joyous inspirational piece of cinema" UNCUT |
(Bill Morrison / US / 2002 / 70 mins / b&w / Cert U)
Decasia is composed entirely of decaying, nitrate-based archival
footage which appears to melt, burn, drip and deteriorate before our very
eyes. But Decasia is no mere celebration of the psychedelic
beauty of decay, for Morrison has deliberately chosen images which seem to
push back against their own physical disintegration.
(Denys Arcand / Ca / 1986 / 97 mins / col / French with subtitles / Cert 18)
Made 17 years before Arcand's award winning and just released The Barbarians at the Gates, this is a witty and provocative look at the battle of the sexes. Four men gather at a country retreat to prepare a gourmet supper, while in the city their female companions are working out at a health club. Both groups discuss their sex lives, affairs and seduction techniques and when they finally meet for dinner, the knives are out, revelations are made and an uncomfortable night is in store for all.
(Krzysztof Kie?lowski / Pol / 1988 / 165 mins + 112 mins / col / Polish with English subtitles / Cert 15)
Ten hour long films, loosely based on the Ten Commandments and set in the
same Warsaw apartment block, focusing on the complexities of human relationships.
"A work of classic stature… a master director at the peak of his
powers" THE TIMES
(Available from 28 July 2008) (Musical / Dir: Jacques Demy / With Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac, Gene Kelly / France 1967 / 126 mins / Cert PG)
Jacques Demy followed the success of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with the
equally dazzling Les Demoiselles de Rochefort - his exuberant tribute to
Hollywood musicals of the 1940s. Real life sisters Deneuve and Dorléac
play the twin daughters of Yvonne (Danielle Darrieux) who dream of leaving
Rochefort to find love and fame in Paris. The plot is pure Shakespearean
farce, constantly teasing its audience as it keeps the pairs of lovers from
meeting each other - the three women, and the men who desire them, cross
paths, fail to connect, misunderstand and misconstrue each other until the
triumphant finale.
(Comedy / Dir: Ingmar Bergman / With Jarl Kulle, Bibi Andersson, Stig Järrel / Sweden 1960 / 83 mins / Cert 15)
Bergman's most abstract film treats the Don Juan motif in a playful way. When the Devil decides that a young woman has been a virgin for too long he sends Don Juan up from hell to rob her of her virginity. Despite his charms the young woman resists the temptation to give in to him, but events become further complicated when Don Juan falls for her, experiencing love for the first time.
(Available from 28 April 2008) (Dir: Robert Bresson / With Antoine Monnier, Tina Irissari, Henri de Monblanc / France 1977 / 96 mins / Cert 18)
Regarded by many as a masterpiece, Bresson's film tells the story of a young man living in Paris who desires more from life than the glib, superficial truths and material things that are on offer to him. He reaches out to his friends and psychiatrist to provide him with the great answers in life. But his spiritual deliverance remains beyond his grasp until he reaches a bizarre arrangement with a fellow drifter. Shot in his signature spare style, Bresson's penultimate work is as visionary, hypnotic and enduring as any of the films in his truly remarkable oeuvre.
(Documentary / Dir: Ondi Timoner, With The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Anton Newcombe / USA 2004 / 107 mins / Cert 15)
Courtney Taylor is lead-singer of The Dandy Warhols, whilst Anton Newcombe fronts The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Once they were good friends. Both wanted to make it big in the rock world. When one is offered a recording contract, the other is left to his self-destructive jealousies. This warts-and-all rollercoaster ride of shared dreams and embittered rivalries is as hair-raising as it is hilarious. Ondi Timoner spent seven years following the two bands and has shaped a mesmeric film that fully captures the down and dirty side of friendship as well the music industry. This remixed edition includes bonus tracks and previously deleted scenes.
(Dir: Terence Davies / With Freda Dowie, Pete Postlethwaite, Angela Walsh / UK 1988 / 84 mins / Cert 12)
Terence Davies' stunning debut feature was instantly recognised as a masterpiece on its release in 1988 and the director hailed as one of Britain's most gifted filmmakers. Drawn from his own family memories, Distant Voices, Still Lives is a strikingly intimate portrait of working class life in 1940s and 1950s Liverpool. Focusing on the real-life experiences of his mother, sisters and brother, whose lives were thwarted by their brutal, sadistic father, Davies uses the traditional family gatherings of births, marriages and death to paint a lyrical portrait of family life - of love, grief and the highs and lows of being human. Available for the first time on DVD, Distant Voices, Still Lives is presented here in a beautiful new digital restoration - a fitting showcase for the stunning debut of one of contemporary cinema's true poets.
(Elia Suleiman / Fr, Pal / 2002 / 92 mins / col / Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles / Cert 15)
A succession of odd incidents occur in present-day Nazareth. "Sophisticated
wit, filmic references, bold cinematic strokes...entertaining, good looking
… Suleiman's acerbic study of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict laces
whimsical comedy with increasing bitterness" VARIETY
(Drama / Dir: Ulrich Seidl / With Alfred Mrva, Erich Finsches, Franziska Weiss / Austria 2002 / 125 mins / Cert 18)
It's a stifling hot weekend in the suburbs of Vienna, somewhere between the
autobahn and the exit roads, the hypermarkets and the new housing estates.
During these "dog days" of summer, six interwoven stories unfold, revealing
a world of disillusionment and loneliness. Ulrich Seidl's unique film takes
an uncompromising look at the limits of existence, where life is at its most
vulnerable and intimate.
(Available from 14 April 2008) (Drama / Dir: Jacques Rivette / With Jeanne Balibar, Guillaume Depardieu, Anne Cantineau / France-Italy 2007 / 138 mins / Cert PG)
Handsome young general Armand de Montriveau has searched across the seas for the woman he fell madly in love with five years ago. He finally finds Antoinette, the Duchess of Langeais, living chastely in a Majorcan convent… It was love at first sight for Montriveau upon meeting Antoinette, a married coquette who frequents the most extravagant balls of 1820s Restoration Paris, where hypocrisy and vanity reign. Despite his sincere romantic declarations, Montriveau's passion remains unfulfilled. When the humiliated Montriveau eventually seeks his revenge, Antoinette's love awakens. But it may well be too late for the star-crossed lovers.
(Available from 28 July 2008) (Dir: Bill Douglas / With Stephen Archibald, Hughie Restorick, Jean Taylor Smith / UK / b&w)
Douglas's remarkable trilogy of powerful films of childhood and youth display an original and powerful artistic vision. The narrative arc is biographical; in Jamie, we embark on a journey into the artists' experience, growing up in a poverty-stricken mining village in the post-war era, at the mercy of brutal, loveless surroundings and the relatives and neighbours responsible for his welfare. But these films are not a depressing experience. Jamie is a survivor, bold and curious, and his story is ultimately redemptive. The cinematography is beautiful, creating visual poetry from startling, bleak monochrome images. When Bill Douglas died in 1991, British cinema lost one of its most original, and neglected artists.
(Peter Greenaway / GB / 1982 / 104 mins / col / Cert 15)
This witty, stylised, erotic country house murder mystery, set in an apparently
idyllic 17th century Wiltshire, established Peter Greenaway as a director
of international status. Extravagant costumes, a twisting plot, elegantly
barbed dialogue and a mesmerising score by Michael Nyman make the film a
treat for ear, eye and mind.
(Dir: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun / With Ali Bacha Barkai, Youssouf Djaoro/ Chad-France-Belgium-Austria 2007 / 96 mins / Cert PG)
Chad, 2006. The government has granted amnesty to all war criminals and Atim, 16 years old, sets out with a revolver to take revenge on the man who killed his father. Atim quickly tracks down the man he must kill: Nassara, who is now married and the owner of a small bakery. Atim gets closer to Nassara when he is hired as an apprentice baker. Over the weeks they work together, a strange relationship evolves between the two.
Producer of Ring, Shinya Kawai threw down the gauntlet for two young filmmakers to make a film according to a specific set of rules. There should be no more than three characters - one of which must die; it should be set in one location, and be shot on a small budget over eight days. In Aragami, a samurai, who, seriously wounded from battle, takes refuge in a remote temple. He wakes to find himself miraculously healed by a mysterious swordsman, who reveals himself to be the battlegod Aragami. 2LDK focuses on the feud between two actresses who become rivals for the same TV role. Since they're also flatmates it becomes even more personal, a fight to the death in the confines of the small apartment.
Nos | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | top
(Peter Greenaway / GB / 1969-78 / 87 mins / col + b&w / Cert PG)
Before the breakthrough of The Draughtsman's Contract (also available to hire, with A Zed and Two Noughts) Peter Greenaway had made a series of highly inventive films which established all the obsessions that run through his later work. In this highly innovative and witty collection of short films, the subject matter varies widely: the potted history of 37 people who have fallen to their deaths from windows (Windows), a sequence of 92 maps to guide a dead ornithologist on his way into the afterlife (A Walk Through H), but all the films are immensely playful and take pleasure in cataloguing the absurd.
(Peter Greenaway / GB / 1978-80 / 224 mins / col / Cert PG)
In Vertical Features Remake, a playful parody of avant-garde
theorising, academics squabble over the filmic intentions of Tulse Luper,
Greenaway's best-known fictional character. The Falls is divided
into 92 biographies of people who have all been affected by the 'VUE', the
Violent Unknown Event, a phenomenon in some way connected with birds and
flying. Michael Nyman provided the score for both films.
(Available from June 2008) (Drama / Dir: Fatih Akin / With Baki Davrak, Tuncel Kurtiz, Nursel Köse / Germany-Turkey 2007 / 122 mins / Cert 15)
Retired widower Ali sees a solution to his loneliness when he meets prostitute Yeter, and he proposes that his fellow Turkish native live with him in exchange for a low rent. At first Ali's German Professor son Nejat seems disapproving about his father's choice, but the young professor quickly grows fond of kind Yeter, especially upon discovering most of her hard-earned money is sent home to Turkey for her daughter's university studies. The accidental death of Yeter further distances father and son, both emotionally and physically. Nejat then decides to travel to Istanbul to begin an organized search for Yeter's daughter Ayten. He decides to stay in Turkey and trades places with the owner of a German bookstore who goes home to Germany. What Nejat doesn't know is that 20-something political activist Ayten is already in Germany, having fled the Turkish police.
(Michael Powell / GB / 1937 / 74 mins / b&w)
Shot over four months in the wild, windswept Shetland Islands, Michael Powell's first independent production establishes the daring techniques and experimentation that would later become his hallmark. The Edge of the World tells the moving story of a remote island and its inhabitants whose traditions and way of life are threatened by a rapidly industrialising world.
(255 mins / Cert 12)
This box set includes: Strike (Stachka) (Dir: Sergei Eisenstein / With Grigori V. Aleksandrov, I. Ivanov / Soviet Union 1925), Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potemkin) (Dir: Sergei Eisenstein / With Aleksandr Antonov, Grigori V. Aleksandrov / Soviet Union 1925), October (Dir: Sergei Eisenstein / With Vasili Nikolaievich Nikandrov, Nikolai Popov / Soviet Union 1928) The masterful auteur of the silent era and most noted film-maker of the communist regime, Soviet-born Sergei Eisenstein invented much of the visual language used by directors today. This 'Revolution Trilogy' confirmed Eisenstein's status as a pioneer of avant-garde cinema.
(Available from 28 April 2008) (Dir: Sergei M. Eisenstein / Soviet Union 1938-1955)
This second box-set includes Sergei Eisenstein's Historical dramas.
(Jean-Pierre Melville / Fr / 1950 / 102 mins / b&w / French with English subtitles / Cert 12)
In this compelling tale of incestuous obsession, a teenage brother and sister, Paul and Elisabeth, create an intense, private world in their untidy shared single room. However, when outsiders intrude into their intensely private realm, the scene is set for tragedy. A hauntingly atmospheric film of Jean Cocteau's 1929 claustrophobic hothouse novel, for which he also wrote the screenplay and provided the voice-over, Les Enfants terribles is dominated by a performance of fierce intensity by Nicole Stéphane as the scheming heroine Elisabeth. The music by Bach and Vivaldi forms the film's impassioned score.
(Cédric Kahn / Fr / 1998 / 117 mins / col / French with Engish subtitles / Cert 18)
Martin is tired of teaching philosophy and is put out that his ex-wife is
coping just fine without him. He initiates a highly-charged affair with the
much younger Cecilia, confident that, as her intellectual superior, he can
control the relationship's balance of power. But upon learning that Cecilia
is also seeing a man her own age, Martin's desire becomes an uncontrollable
obsession that threatens to consume him. "Beautifully crafted, superbly
acted, darkly funny" SIGHT AND SOUND
Eureka(Shinji Aoyama / Jp / 2000 / 210 mins / b&w & col / Japanese with English subtitles / Cert 15) Three survivors of a violent bus hijacking set off on a long journey around Japan which becomes a cathartic odyssey of spiritual self-discovery. "Superbly acted… a remarkable triumph" SIGHT AND SOUND |
 |
(Jian Gui) (Horror / Dir: Pang Brothers / With Lee Sin-Je, Lawrence Chou, Chutcha Rujinanon / Hong Kong 2002 / 95 mins / Cert 15)
Blink and the ghosts might get you. A young blind girl regains her sight after being given a cornea implant from a dead woman, and immediately starts seeing the undead all around her. But she also retains memories of the dead person, so could the apocalyptic visions of the past also be echoes of the future? The Pang Brothers set the standard for stylish spooky shivers that Jessica Alba faces in the latest remake.
Nos | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | top
Please confirm all telephone bookings in writing, stating essential details such as correct despatch and invoice addresses, and the correct format of the film. If you do not receive a booking confirmation from us, the film may not have been booked; please check all your bookings carefully, well in advance of the playdate.
To hire any of these films or for further information, please contact Andrew Youdell in the Bookings department:
Telephone: 020 7957 8938
Email: bookings.films@bfi.org.uk