After LOCARNO, TORONTO, candidate for the BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OSCAR. Annemarie Jacir’s “Wajib” (Duty) has been chosen as Palestine’s official candidate for the best foreign language film Oscar. The film garnered buzz at its sold out world premiere in official competition at Locarno last month, where it won three independent prizes, the FICC/IFFS Prize, the Youth[…]
FRANCE a movie by JEAN ARLAUD ” Your eyes bigger than your ears”, that’s what you’ve got to have to learn the trade, of fisherman from the salt banks of Hyères. Afilm about fishing? No, a film on the mental and material universe of fishermen . FESTIVALS Prix de la mission du Patrimoine Ethnologique (Ministère de[…]
PALESTINE/TUNISIA a movie by YVES LOISEAU If Arafat’s public image is familiar around the world, his personality remains largely unknown. At a turning point in his political career, a film crew was authorised to enter the small circle of his close collaborators. Using exclusive filmed archives belonging to the P.L.O., this is a funda mental, durably[…]
LEBANON a movie by MAHER ABI-SAMRA Maher ABI-SAMRA returns to the quarter of Ramel el Ali, in Beirut’s southern suburb, where he grew up. Settled in the 50s by a mostly Shiite community which came from the villages of southern Lebanon and the Beka Valley, this quarter grew on the rubble of the civil war. By[…]
FRANCE a movie by ANDRE VAN IN What is to be done? (Bis) is a philosophical film essay that delves into the Marxist heritage, its gradual theoretical “objectification” and the way it got bogged down in practice, in view of a History to which it claimed to hold the key. Self-criticism, but no remorse in[…]
FRANCE a movie by ANDRE VAN IN How did the end of the Soviet Union change the way of thinking, the way of behavior of militant French Communists? André Van In filmed for a few months, and for the first time, the meetings of a Communist Party cell in a Paris suburb. Set against these[…]
NAMIBIA • 41′ a movie by RINA SHERMAN Traveling to Himba country means going back to a time that no longer exists, but that nevertheless lights the way for the Africa of tomorrow. In the outlying districts of Opuwo, capital of Kaokoland, the filmmaker lives at the rythmn of the Himbas. Here the papayas are ready to[…]
LAOS • 43′ a film by DIDIER NION I always looked for it on globes, a kid’s dream that didn’t cost a cent.” The Mekong carries its murmur and it is surely like a pearl placed in the middle of a great forest. Vientiane. The word itself resonates like a rare gem, poetical, at a human scale.[…]
GREAT-BRITAIN a movie by JEAN LOïC PORTRON “Voyages” in the Highlands. Jean-Loïc Portron’s travelogue describes the highlands of Sutherland, the harshness of the soil and the Lord’s violence. In the moors, people hunt grouse; in the villages they play football; on the Isle of Mull, there’s a theater. In the Highlands, people love stories so much[…]