Welcome to São Paulo
All the feature is given prestige to by the narration in Caetano Veloso's voice, that also signs one of the segments of the project. São Paulo is the largest city of the Southern Hemisphere, with an incessant dynamics of cultural mixtures, with immigrants of all the world and migrants of all parts of Brazil. The gathering of these peculiarities are seen through the 13 film directors's sensibilities and their segments.
Mika Kaurismäki
Maria de Medeiros
Caetano Veloso
Wolfgang Becker
Phillip Noyce
Jim McBride
Amos Gitai
Tsai Ming-liang
Yoshishige Yoshida
Hanna Elias
Leon Cakoff
Renata de Almeida
Casts & Crew
Caetano Veloso
Also Directed by Mika Kaurismäki
A movie by Mika Kaurismaki.
Documentary about Miriam Makeba
A sly riff on the Prodigal Son story, Mika Kaurismaki's latest — about a joyless workaholic concert pianist who ends up on a wild ride with his long-lost rapscallion father — is a funny and cogent analysis of machismo, abandonment issues and the value of reconnecting with one's roots. (TIFF)
Collaborative film made in Denmark.
Antti "Zombie" Autiomaa does two things well: play the bass guitar and drink. After several months' sleeping on the streets of Istanbul, he returns to Helsinki where he's called into the army but discharged on mental health grounds after adding turpentine to the officers' soup. Zombie lives bleary-eyed in an apartment off his parents' house where his lonely, unemployed father suffers from heart disease. His girl-friend Marjo has taken up with a hairdresser but comes back to Zombie. His friend Harri hires him as a roadie for his band "Harry and the Mulefukkers" then gives him a chance as a bass player. He has his girl and he has a gig, but can Zombie put the bottle down?
Prison guard falls in love with inmate. She wants him to let her escape.
Young Alex Sammako has seen his brothers defy the law in a series of deeds that first land them in jail, and then, after they escape and return to their rural home, land them back in the lap of their locally notorious family. Alex wants nothing to do with them. He is in love with Mirja, whose family is not that different from the Sammakos, but who shares Alex's viewpoints and feelings. Not helping matters is a police department convinced that all Sammakos are bad, and the family itself, pressuring Alex to follow in their murky footsteps.
A documentary film about a tour of three Finnish rock bands around Saimaa lake system in a steam boat in 1981. The bands (Juice Leskinen Slam, Eppu Normaali and Hassisen Kone) are shown playing songs in their gigs and, in between, the members give intimate interviews or just act plain silly and have a good time.
Anna Kelanen is an ex-model, who just has been released from prison. She thinks back on her life, when she was a rather successful model, and on the things that went wrong.
Grump travels to Germany to look for a similar replacement car after his sons sold his old model 1972 Ford Escort.
Also Directed by Maria de Medeiros
An anthology film following different stories around the theme of invisibility in the modern world.
Documentary about the love-hate relationship between filmmakers and film critics with interviews made at Cannes Film Festival.
The lives of three generations of women who suffered political persecution during the military dictatorship in Brazil.
Story of the 1974 coup that overthrew the right-wing Portuguese dictatorship--which continued the fascist policies of long-time dictator Antonio Salazar--and of two young army captains who were involved in it.
Vera, who fought in the armed left-wing movements against the Brazilian military dictatorship, has lived in multiple South American countries. Her daughter Tânica has been married to another woman for fifteen years, and they're about to have their first child.
Also Directed by Caetano Veloso
A fragmented style, patchwork of interviews with Caetano Veloso's friends, mixed with conversations, thoughts, scenes of dance and literature excerpts.
Also Directed by Wolfgang Becker
An affectionate and refreshing East/West-Germany comedy about a boy whose mother was in a coma while the Berlin wall fell and when she wakes up he must try to keep her from learning what happened (as she was an avid communist supporter) to avoid shocking her which could lead to another heart attack.
When Micha's mother leaves his irascible father, he tries to prevent their divorce by any means he can think of, but his attempts to hold the family together lead to a catastrophe...
Thirteen German directors present short films exploring the state of their country.
The impassive gaze of a taciturn adolescent loner named Andi, sole witness to the drowning of a young girl in an overgrown, abandoned local canal.
Young journalist Sebastian Zöllner is writing an article on artist Manuel Kaminski. Zöllner hopes that Kaminski dies soon, so that he can cash in on his article.
After he loses his job, his father, and his girlfriend, Jan's life is a shambles. Then suddenly he meets freakish street musician Vera, and a bittersweet romance unfolds...
Also Directed by Phillip Noyce
In 1931, three Aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff, and set off on a trek across the Outback.
A legendary fashion designer - his life, his job and his family.
The true story of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, and particularly the life of Patrick Chamusso, a timid foreman at Secunda CTL, the largest synthetic fuel plant in the world. Patrick is wrongly accused, imprisoned and tortured for an attempt to bomb the plant, with the injustice transforming the apolitical worker into a radicalised insurgent, who then carries out his own successful sabotage mission.
An Australian couple take a sailing trip in the Pacific to forget about a terrible accident. While on the open sea, in dead calm, they come across a ship with one survivor who is not at all what he seems.
The love story between an Australian woman and a Balinese dancer.
"The infamous Finks bikie gang caught off-guard as they shoot their latest 8mm movie epic: the story of a bikie and hillbilly showdown. " - Filmmakers Co-operatives Catalogue of Independent Film 1975/6
"An exploration of a specific area of space and time. The space: 360 degrees of action at a traffic intersection, and the time: the period of waiting before the lights change - the illusion that time is running slower than normally." - Cantrill's Film Notes 1971.
A 1979 documentary on Java and Bali, written and directed by Phillip Noyce. The end credits say this film was produced for QANTAS Airways, which suggests it was used as some sort of promotional piece for travel to these particular locations.
Two brothers from two very different lifestyles, one is a hippy the other a bikie, are examined in this short film. They share a common attitude though: to question or rebel against conventional living.
In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.
Also Directed by Jim McBride
US merchant sailor Alex Walker (Kevin Anderson) is stranded in Mexico, penniless and wanted by the police. He meets and joins up with an unlikely couple - ageing but likeable shit Phillip Mills (John Lithgow) and young sexy, frustated wife Missy (Rosanna Arquette). The three develop a curiously inter-dependent relationship. Meanwhile, Police Captain Diaz and Detective Ortega are closing in and the plot circle is closed at Tapachula rail station amidst a stack of mistakes and wrong decisions.
While restoring a fifteenth-century painting Julia reveals a hidden Latin phrase. A series of murders begin to rock her small world of art experts, patrons and restorers, and she finds that the mystery of the painting is interwoven with the mystery of the deaths around her.
Jesse has to get out of Las Vegas quickly, and steals a car to drive to L.A. On the way he shoots a police man. When he makes it to L.A. he stays with Monica, a girl he has only known for a few days. As the film progresses, the police get closer to him, and the crimes escalate.
Teenagers Glen and Randa are members of a tribe that lives in a rural area, several decades after nuclear war has devastated the planet. They know nothing of the outside world, except that Glen has read about and seen pictures of a great city in some old comic books. He and Randa set out to find this city.
A young filmmaker decides to make a movie about his day-to-day activities in an attempt to understand himself and get his life back in order. A precursor to reality television and vlogs.
Fallen Angels is an American neo-noir anthology television series that ran from 1993 to 1995 on the Showtime pay cable station and was produced by Propaganda Films. No first-run episodes were shown in 1994. The series was executive produced by Sydney Pollack and produced by Steve Golin and others. The theme song was written by Elmer Bernstein and the original music was written by Peter Bernstein. Period torch songs by performers like Patti Page and Billie Holiday were used periodically. In Europe, the show is known as Perfect Crimes and shown in France on Canal +, and in England.
Director Jim McBride's "liberated" English girlfriend talks candidly about her life and her reasons for marrying another man.
Just when he's beginning to take his perfect life and marriage for granted, John (Timothy Hutton) discovers that he's the result of a failed government experiment to spawn a race of perfect assassins. But the closer he gets to finding out what went wrong, the weirder the truth becomes. Suzy Amis, John Glover, Benjamin Israeli, Reese Purser, Yvonne Zima, Christy Summerhays and Max Wright co-star in this taut made-for-television thriller.
Harry Arno is a Miami Beach bookie who finds himself in trouble with his mob bosses for reasons he can't quite figure out. When an assailant attempts to kill him, he decides that it's time to retire, so he relocates to Greece.
Carpathian Americans are just like any other expatriate organization, they enjoy family get together, and share business opportunities. There is just one minor difference, the Carpathian Americans seem to have a predilection for drinking human blood.
Also Directed by Amos Gitai
A young couple marry in France in the 1940s and the film follows the arc of their marriage over the next decade. As France recovers from the trauma of the war, the wife finds herself increasingly caught up in acquiring material possessions while the husband prefers a more traditional lifestyle.
Life in a Tel Aviv apartment complex, an urban mosaic whose seedy characters, try as they might, can't get out of one another's faces. Gabi, a bobbed haired sexpot, and her lover Hezi—who's older, balding and married—rent a room to have an affair, while Ezra, a pot bellied divorcee, supervises an illegal construction site next door. All this racket drives Schwartz, a Holocaust survivor, to a mental breakdown. Other characters include illegal Chinese immigrants, a teenage boy who's afraid to serve in the army, and a corrupt police detective.
The first of four installments in the groundbreaking Heartbeat of the World anthology film series. Comprised of several short films by some of the world's most exciting directors, Words with Gods follows the theme of religion - specifically as it relates to an individual's relationship with his/her god or gods...or the lack thereof. In Words with Gods, each director recounts a narrative centered around human fragility, as well as environmental and cultural crises involving specific religions with which each has a personal relationship; including early Aboriginal Spirituality, Umbanda, Buddhism, the Abrahamic faiths, Hinduism, and Atheism. An animated sequence by Mexican animator Maribel Martinez is woven through each of the film segments, with each segment narratively connected as a feature-length film.
1992. In Wuppertal, in Germany, two skinheads killed a man who claimed to be Jewish. Amos Gitai questions the witnesses, the residents, and the protagonists of the trial.
Itzhak Rabin's murder ended all efforts of peace, and with him the whole left wing of Israel died. The movie shows the last of his days as prime minister, and what led to his murder.
Documentary about a house and its politically divided ownership over time.
Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.
With the feel of experimental film, Gitai mixes storytelling, readers' theater, cityscapes (usually seen from moving trains), and desolate landscapes to mediate on the act of creation. What if a golem were fashioned out of dirt, much like Adam, and came to life? The film imagines it, in the desert and in Moscow. Interspersed are stories of a 14th-century Tuscan artist's creation of a tower that plays music when the wind blows, of a film director, and of Jeremiah and Sirat. In what ways is making a movie like creating a golem?
1974 Gitai super8 short film
Also Directed by Tsai Ming-liang
A continuation of Tsai Ming-Liang's Walker series, featuring Lee Kang-Sheng as a barefoot monk who walks very slowly.
This is the festival trailer for Viennale - Vienna International Film Festival 2015. The trailer will be shown in over 100 cinemas in Austria and Germany and during the festival in several cinemas in Vienna.
A superb package of shorts by four leading East Asian directors: Ann Hui on a male-to-female sex change, Kim Tae-yong on an emotional imposture, Gu Changwei on pregnancy in China and Tsai Ming-Liang on time and the city of Hong Kong.
On a dark, rainy night, a historic and regal Taipei cinema sees its final film: 1967 martial arts feature "Dragon Inn". As the film plays, the lives of the theater's various employees and patrons intersect, and two ghostly actors arrive to mourn the passing of an era.
A father and his two children wander the margins of modern day Taipei, from the woods and rivers of the outskirts to the rain streaked streets of the city. By day the father scrapes out a meager income as a human billboard for luxury apartments, while his young son and daughter roam the supermarkets and malls surviving off free food samples. Each night the family takes shelter in an abandoned building. The father is strangely affected by a hypnotic mural adorning the wall of this makeshift home. On the day of the father's birthday the family is joined by a woman - might she be the key to unlocking the buried emotions that linger from the past?
Mr and Mrs Chang live in Taipei's Hsi-Men-Ding (the city's entertainment/red light/nightlife district) with their teenaged kids. The parents work as cleaners in a "love hotel" and send the kids out to work as ticket scalpers, block-buying seats for hit movies like A City of Sadness and reselling them at a profit. Tragedy strikes when the daughter Mei-Hsueh flirts with the idea of prostituting herself and changes her mind at the last moment, leaving her first client with injuries that put him on the critical list. The focus throughout is on the son Ah Tong, who has a latent talent as a writer that is never going to flower.
Segment of the feature Welcome to São Paulo (2004), produced by São Paulo International Film Festival.
Where are you, Tsai Ming-Liang ?
A short film shot on Tamshui River in Taipei featuring two dogs referencing The River of Tsai Ming-liang and dedicated to Simon Field, a film critic who Tsai has known for many years since they met at Rotterdam.
Also Directed by Yoshishige Yoshida
An opportunistic department store clerk gets involved with three women and attempts to manipulate them so he can move up the social ladder.
A freestyle biopic of Ikki Kita, the ultranationalist intellectual whose ideas inspired the failed military coup in 1936.
An old woman has died and her widower with dementia confesses to killing her. After this, the story goes back in time to show the events leading up to her death.
Experienced shipyard worker Shimazaki gets an offer of free lodging from his employer in the company seaside rest house if he agrees to see to its running. After moving in, Shimazaki finds out that this will also mean taking care of a flock of youngsters, and he soon becomes their none-too-successful warden. At work the boys are disciplined, as soon as they return to their dormitory however they turn into an unmanageable mob.
Yoshida’s first big-budget production and colour film is a haunting tale of unrequited love and postwar disillusion. The story of the fatal attraction between a spineless intellectual and a strong woman is conventional, but its enactment is radically new.
A spontaneous romance blooms between Kawamura, a professor touring Europe, and Naoko, a married woman living in Paris, scarred by the Nagasaki atomic bombings. The two protagonists travel around Europe trying to find themselves.
Yoshida grew close to Ozu Yasujiro during his time at Shochiku, where he was able to observe the legendary master at work. Although Yoshida and his generation outspokenly rejected the values of Ozu, Kurosawa and the older humanist filmmakers, over the years Yoshida found himself increasingly drawn back to Ozu’s films, fascinated by their unique rigor, formal language and delicate balance between comedy and tragedy. For Japanese television, Yoshida adapted his own text into a four part documentary, which he also condensed into the one hour version.
40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes. The results run the gamut from Zhang Yimou's convention-thwarting joke to David Lynch's bizarre miniature epic.
A Documentary on the Japanese baseball player Sadaharu Oh
A married woman lets her lover take naked pictures of her. The photos end up in possession of a man who starts blackmailing the couple.
Also Directed by Hanna Elias
Upon his release from an Israeli prison, Mazen begins to fall in love with Raeda, his friend since childhood who is already engaged to Taher, Mazen's younger brother.