A ten minute reconstruction of an otherwise lost film, I Graduated But… follows a trajectory of enlightenment towards humble acceptance as Ozu’s similarly titled, I Was Born But… as a recent college graduate named Tetsuo (Minoru Takada), unable to find employment at a position that he believes is commensurate with his education level (his only […]
As the film opens, a gregarious loafer named Watanabe (Ichiro Yuki) turns away a young man who has inquired about a sign on the window for a room for rent, explaining that he had just rented the room earlier that day. Moments later, an attractive young woman inquires about the same room and, attempting to […]
In March, 2006, after the Iranian team’s victory in a World Cup qualifier match over Japan, seven people were trampled to death and dozens of others injured after soldiers forcibly attempted to divert the large exiting crowd from a military helicopter that had landed near the main gate and blocked it. Only six of the […]
A traditional Georgian folktale recounts the story of a powerful medieval overlord who sought to fortify the most vulnerable territory within his vast and far-reaching empire, the remote kingdom of Surami, through the envisioned construction of the formidable Suram Fortress. However, the completion of the ambitiously conceived, large-scale fortification project soon proves to be elusive […]
The Color of Pomegranates conveys the life of Sayat Nova, an Armenian troubadour, through lyrical, poetic, and beautifully constructed imagery. But how does one begin to describe the viewing experience of such an iconoclastic film? After all, Sergei Paradjanov is fundamentally an artist, experimenting with film as a moving canvas. In contrast to the minimalist, […]
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors has often been described as a Carpathian Romeo and Juliet – that is, if Romeo had the tenacity to live after his beloved’s death. Sergei Paradjanov prefaces the tragic tale set in the Carpathian mountains as the land “forgotten by God and men”, and from the austerity of the environment, it […]