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[…]
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[…]
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[…]
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[…]
HAÏTI • 57′ a film by RAOUL PECK Who said the economy serves mankind? What is this world where a third of the population, i.e., the richest countries, or to be more exact, the decision-makers and those who live well in these countries, which lowers the figure, have taken over? A world where the economy is law,[…]
SWITZERLAND a film by PIERRE-YVES MOULIN Lake Geneva is Switzerland, its banks and palaces. Jean-Jacques Rousseau has made of this body of water a shrine of romanticism. But Lake Geneva also has a shore in the shadows, its French shore, with many hidden faces. From Fifi the fisherman to border inhabitants, from Lorna the pianist to[…]
EL SALVADOR a movie by PETER CHAPPELL A photo of Monseigneur Romero, archbishop of San Salvador, taken eleven months before his assassination in 1980. What has become of these people linked in this photo to the tragic destiny of Mgr Romero? A movement from face to face, from account to account, from the past to the[…]
SPAIN • 41′ a film by PATRICIO GUZMAN Patricio Guzman takes us on an intimate and sentimental stroll to discover the secrets of the Spanish capital. The magic of shadows and sky, storefronts andsweets, delicious ‘tapas’ and hidden gems awaits us above the hubbub, in the out-of-the-way places of the city. This is a real treasure hunt![…]
CZECH REPUBLIC • 93′ a movie by CATHERINE ZINS After the”Velvet Revolution”, the heirs of a Czech family pharmaceutical dynasty are reunited. The factory and the pharmacy were nationalized first in 1945, and again in 1948 at the time of the Communist takeover. The family members try to recover their property. FESTIVALS ÉTATS GENERAUX DU FILM[…]
RAJASTHAN • 40′ a film by MICHEL MARRE I traveled the road to Rajasthan to find Gassi Khan, a friend and master of “crotala”, blades of wood, the ancestors of castanets. After Jaipur, the capital, and its brass bands, I went south into the Jaisalmer Desert to live and play music with the itinerant musicians of Khan’s community,[…]