Review: EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT, A Spiritual Quest With A Political Regret
Inspired by Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes, the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Embrace of the Serpent is a spiritual quest with a political regret. We follow two stories of German explorers (one of them is Jan Bijvoet...
Review: AFERIM!, Angry And Rough, A Must-See Ride In Romania
For over a decade Romanian Cinema has produced many breathtakingly great films, and directors such as Cristi Puiu, Corneliu Porumboiu, Cristian Mungiu and Călin Peter Netzer have gained international recognition, becoming household names in world cinema. The usual term of...
Hamburg 2015 Review: SAMURAY-S, A Stunning Meta-Hypnosis From Another Planet
Raúl Perrone's Samuray-S is a film from a different planet. It is a distant planet they once called cinema. The Argentinean maverick, who directed 28 films in 40 years without any external funding, seems to work with a whole different...
Hamburg 2015 Review: THE TREASURE, Or, How To Love An Illusion
Corneliu Porumboiu, the Éric Rohmer of Romania's Nouvelle Vague, is Europe's answer to Hong Sang-soo. Where to go from such a first sentence? We will see. What about The Treasure, his latest exercise in time? We talk about the time...
Review: QUEEN OF EARTH, Another Promising Effort By A Fearless Director
Alex Ross Perry is a more than promising young director. He courageously combines intimacy, humor and a sense for cinematic language and form. Nevertheless, his latest, Queen of Earth, is a step back for the young director in terms of maturity...
Munich 2015 Review: CIVIL SERVANTS Gazes Behind The Scenes Of German Police
It is the doubt we even face when we are totally committed and the way we have to erase some of your principles to find a world we can live in. Civil Servants, the first feature-length documentary by Maria Wilke...
Munich 2015 Review: EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT Explores Spirits Of The Colombian Amazon
Inspired by Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes, the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Embrace of the Serpent is a spiritual quest with a political regret. We follow two stories of German explorers (one of them is Jan...
Filmfest Munich Review: THE VOICE OF SOKUROV, Another Boring Film On An Exciting Filmmaker
It seems to be of great importance to film festivals around the globe to include films about filmmakers in their program. This genre guarantees a certain interest among the festival visitors and is usually very, well, boring. Of course, there...
Mechanical Ghosts On The Run: Peter Tscherkassky Retrospective On Doc Alliance
For two weeks Doc Alliance,an European online streaming platform for documentaries has been presenting many digital copies of Austrian avant-garde filmmaker Peter Tscherkassky's films for free. Tscherkassky, whose latest The Exquisite Corpus premiered a few days ago in Cannes,...
Berlinale 2015 Review: IEC LONG, A Haunting Exploration Of Macau's Lost Firecracker Industry
Chinese rockets explode in front of our curious eyes, and disappear in the black clouds of a nocturnal sky. The past haunts our ruins, overlapping times consisting of moving photographs and still film images. An old man has worked in...
Berlinale 2015 Review: FISH TAIL, Political And Personal Poetry Of Poverty
Fish Tail by Joaquim Pinto and Nuno Leonel is an essayistic scream for freedom beyond globalization. Set in the village of Rabo de Peixe (translates "fish tail") on the Azores, this follow-up to Pinto's acclaimed What Now? Remind Me is...
Berlinale 2015 Review: AFERIM!, A Gorgeous And Angry Road Trip Through Romania's Past
For over a decade Romanian Cinema has produced many breathtakingly great films and directors like Cristi Puiu, Corneliu Porumboiu, Cristian Mungiu or Călin Peter Netzer have gained international recognition and are household names in world cinema. The usual term of...
Berlinale 2015 Review: AS WE WERE DREAMING Dreams About Lost Emotions But Never Really Touches
Andreas Dresen's As We Were Dreaming, an adaptation of a German bestselling novel by Clemens Meyer, tries to change our perception of what happened in East Germany in the time after the collapse of the Berlin wall. Instead of presenting...
Berlinale 2015 Review: QUEEN OF EARTH Proves How Great Faces Look On Film
Alex Ross Perry is a more than promising young director. He courageously combines intimacy, humor and a sense for cinematic language and form. Nevertheless, his latest, Queen of Earth, is a step back for the young director in terms of maturity...
ScreenAnarchy's Top 10 Movies Of 2014
And that's the end of that chapter. 2014 is running on fumes and all eyes are already looking to awards season and the behemoths of next year that threaten to decimate the box office. The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Star...
Book Review: BE SAND, NOT OIL - THE LIFE AND WORK OF AMOS VOGEL Or The Almost Lost Subversion In Cinema
When people attain a fascination with the medium of film they rarely choose a career in education. More often they become filmmakers, film critics (which is or at least should be some kind of education) and most often (like all...
Hobbitty ScreenAnarchyes: Our Favorite Film Dragons
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is now in cinemas all over half the world, an will soon arrive in the other half as well. And for those who saw the end of The Hobbit: The Desolation of...
Viennale 2014: Talking With Julian Radlmaier About A PROLETARIAN WINTER'S TALE
No one can seriously doubt that there is a black hole in German cinema. This black hole comes, among other things, from a lack of interest and awareness in film as such with all its history, languages and forms. There are...
Viennale 2014: Filmmaking On High Seas-An Interview With Pedro Costa
It was a very special occasion for me to talk to Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa. He is one of the last rock stars in directing today, a maverick in the tradition of a craft orientated directing style but like with...
Viennale 2014 Review: OUT-TAKES FROM THE LIFE OF A HAPPY MAN Transforms Memories Into Reality
Anyone familiar with the work of legendary avant garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas will instantly feel at home with his 2012 work Out-Takes From The Life Of A Happy Man that screened together with Andy Warhol's Tiger Morse (Reel 14 of...
