FEATURES
1. Kuangye shidai / Resurrection (Bi Gan, 2025)
A puzzling journey through the history of cinema, and a love letter to the medium, written as an illuminated scroll, Bi Gan’s latest gift to cinephiles is arguably the most fascinating addition to his filmography. It is a meta-filmic phantasmagoria, not unlike Holy Motors, that kindly invites you to dream, as its author creates a vast, seemingly endless space to let your imagination run wild and free. Inspired by the Buddhist concept of rebirth, Resurrection is split in six chapters de- and re-constructing various genres, continually leaving you in a state of awe – partly by virtue of its technical virtuosity, and partly by the director’s sheer devotion to his creation – particularly during the signature long-take segment set in 1999. But, words do it no justice – it has to be experienced.
2. Au pan coupé / Wall Engravings (Guy Gilles, 1967)
“I’d like to be good, pure, happy, free, sweet, nice and easy. But I can’t. The world is hard and closed around me, us. And those who refuse to see it as it is, are liars.”
A young artist is haunted by the memories of her lost lover. Yes, the plot does fit in only a dozen of words, but what Gilles delivers is a fascinating study of a star-crossed romance ended too soon, just like the life of a boy who ‘wanted to rebuild the world’. At once formally disciplined, lyrically freewheeling, and delicately nuanced, his unpretentious story mesmerizes with its poetry of fleeting moments; the present deceitfully true in B&W, and the past brimming with vivid, candidly misleading colors.
Right from the establishing shot of Jeanne (crystal-eyed Macha Méril, also credited as a producer) wistfully looking through the window, and all the way to the melancholy-infused coda, Wall Engravings is virtually an uninterrupted series of beautifully composed fragments, forming short, unrhymed stanzas, with stylishly restrained acting preventing sentimentality from reaching the surface. And yet, Gilles’s infatuation with his own characters is profoundly felt, and over the film’s course, the viewer also falls head over heels for both of them, charmed by the tiniest of their imperfections, such as that scratch on the nose of baby-faced Patrick Jouané who portrays Jean. In close-ups, their pretty faces are captured with extra gentleness by the camera of Willy Kurant and Jean-Marc Ripert, anticipating the masterful strokes of Márta Mészáros.
3. Rizal’s Makamisa: Pantasma ng higanti / Makamisa: Phantasm of Revenge (Khavn, 2024)
Nothing short of a milestone in analog avant-garde cinema, Khavn’s bold experiment is a uniquely delirious, genre-overcoming delight! Loosely inspired by an unfinished novel from Filipino national hero José Rizal (1861-1896), Makamisa is the very epitome of subversion; its rebelliously irreverent spirit in wild sync with its visual anarchy. Shot on an expired film stock, hand-painted, scratched and edited in such a way that makes it feel like a recently unearthed artifact from the last century, it mesmerizes you with a cornucopia of deliberate imperfections, turning each and every one of them to its own advantage. Reflecting on evils of the colonial past and religion, it gleefully weaponizes twisted fantasy and absurd humor against the oppression of any kind, profoundly inspired in its fits of creative madness and feisty righteousness. The director himself jumps into the role of one of the three central characters, and going along with his playfulness are German actress Lilith Stangenberg (Wild, Bloodsuckers – A Marxist Vampire Comedy) and acclaimed Pinoy actor John Lloyd Cruz, with filmmaker Lav Diaz making a cameo as ‘a very angry Jesus Christ’.
4. L’allégement / The Unburdening (Marcel Schüpbach, 1983)
Gorgeously photographed in B&W (Hugues Ryffel), with a hauntingly swelling score (Michel Hostettler) accentuating the film’s subtly distorted reality, The Unburdening has to be one of the most stunning pieces of Swiss cinema. Hearkening back to the peak of the 60’s European arthouse, as well as to Altman’s female-centric psycho-dramas of the 70’s, it revolves around a young nurse, Rose-Hélène (Anne Caudry), driven to near madness by uncontainable passion, as if possessed by the spirit of her great grandmother, Flore. Sparse in dialogue and heavy in (borderline gothic) mood, Schüpbach’s hypnotizing exercise in elegant formalism – at once intimate and detached – evokes the likes of Bresson, Bergman, Zetterling, Antonioni and Hanoun, yet it feels like its own animal. An aesthetic triumph.
5. Kičma / Backbone (Vlatko Gilić, 1975)
“Today, the air itself is turning into a murderer. The Earth into a trash can.”
While trying to discover the source of a foul odor that spreads across New Belgrade, a young microbiologist, Pavle (Dragan Nikolić, sullenly restrained), is gradually succumbing to the infectious lethargy, likely in a direct relation to the alarmingly increasing suicide rate. And fifty years later, one can easily recognize the eerily prophetic nature of Vlatko Gilić’s allegorical, profoundly depressing tone poem that leaves a wide room for various interpretations, ecological, psychological and/or socio-political. Densely atmospheric (or rather, befittingly suffocating) and increasingly disorienting, Backbone is one of the most bleakly haunting pieces of Yugoslav cinema, its multiple close-ups – sweaty and brimful of despair – further intensifying the overwhelming sense of existential dread...
6. Os Cafajestes / The Hustlers (Ruy Guerra, 1962)
Little known outside of its home country, Ruy Guerra’s impressive feature debut is the first Brazilian film to feature full-frontal nudity – a body & soul-baring appearance by arthouse regular (and Jeane Moreau look-alike) Norma Bengell. Marking the director’s victory over censors, it employs skin exposure not to titillating effect, but rather as a critique of the viewer’s gaze, with a dizzying ‘arc shot of humiliation’ made essential to the meditation on both illusion and disillusionment. A remorseless attack on machismo-infused egotism, as well as on the petit bourgeois values, it follows a couple of petty thugs, Jandir (Jece Valadão) and Vavá (Daniel Filho), involved in a blackmailing scheme that eventually backfires, with an emasculating verdict. Standing tall somewhere between Koreyoshi Kurahara’s The Warped Ones (1960) and ‘name any piece of the 60’s Italian cinema in which everyone is young and impossibly handsome’ by way of Antonioni-esque alienation, The Hustlers introduces a challenging film language, and seduces you with Tony Rabatoni’s bravura camerawork in a sultry dialogue with a dissonantly cool score from Luiz Bonfá of Black Orpheus fame.
7. Casta Diva (Eric de Kuyper, 1982)
Challenging masculinity from the ‘male gaze’ perspective, i.e. observing men as they would observe women, Eric de Kuyper delivers an experimental essay in which every actor or rather, model is confronted with his own physicality. In a series of long static takes, accompanied by classical arias or complete silence, he seeks for beauty in the most trivial of action, from a personal hygiene ritual to tying a bow to enjoying a cigarette, often emphasizing the voyeuristic position (of the viewer) via the frame within a frame compositions. And yet, everybody – apart from the smoker in the fourth wall-breaking vignette that gives off some ‘homme fatal’ vibes – acts as if the camera’s eye is shut, all the while being unknowingly poeticized and, to a certain (subconscious) degree, eroticized in their mundanity. Through the B&W lens of Michel Houssiau, the tiniest of gestures and the the most incidental of movements are given equal significance, until fully suspended in the ‘epilogue’ of three deliberately choreographed arc shots that see the ‘characters’ extracted from their reality and ‘petrified’ in subtly stylized poses.
8. The Plague (Charlie Polinger, 2025)
In Charlie Polinger’s highly promising debut, the extremely discomforting feeling of re-experiencing pre-teen days of boyhood from the vulnerable perspective of the bullied one comes in an aesthetically refined if familiar package. Psychologically tense and at a few points unapologetically visceral, The Plague anchors itself in taut performances far beyond the actors’ age and experience, precisely calibrated direction, weirdly unsettling score (Johan Lenox), and austerely beautiful framing (Steven Brackon) that captures every nuance of the boys’ inner states reflected on their faces. Standing out is the trio of Everett Blunck, Kayo Martin and Kenny Rasmussen, so eerily attuned to their roles that the viewer believes every fear-fueled tear, psychotic smirk or antisocial gaze portending deeply scarred and/or disturbed adults. Although the ending is stuck somewhere between an ambiguous cop-out and satisfying pay-off, it comes across almost as haunting as the rest of the film, remaining ingrained in your mind days after watching it.
9. Eréndira (Ruy Guerra, 1983)
Penned by THE Gabriel García Márquez, Eréndira is one of the finest examples of magic realism on film, its whimsy and quirkiness turned into a disguise for a rather sordid story playing out like a dark folk or fairy tale. It stars an international, largely dubbed cast, with the great Greek actress Irene Papas stealing a number of scenes as the titular heroine’s evil grandmother, elegantly imposing even in torn, sand-covered garments. Her antithesis is Claudia Ohana, evoking sympathy as poor, gentle Eréndira who initially toils – Cinderella way – at the autocratic matriarch’s lavish home, only to be forced into prostitution after accidentally burning down the house. The colorful gallery of archetypal characters wouldn’t be complete without a stand-in for prince charming and into that role – his only silver-screen appearance – jumps angel-faced Oliver Wehe who would subsequently start a ballet career. A star-crossed romance (or is it?) seamlessly blends with a satire of sorts, brimming with puzzling symbolism of wind-swept interiors, living paper birds and butterflies, and golden oranges with diamonds growing at their core. Often poetic and at times feverishly nebulous dialogue enhances the dreamlike atmosphere of the Mexican desert setting which brings to one’s mind the works of Jodorowsky and his DP turned filmmaker Corkidi.
10. Apenas Coisas Boas / Only Good Things (Daniel Nolasco, 2025)
Intimacy coordinator (presuming they had one in the first place) must’ve been the busiest crew member on the set of Daniel Nolasco’s sophomore fiction feature – an erotically charged queer (melo)drama that takes a bizarre (psychologically surreal?) turn in its second half. A countryside romance between a solitary farmer, Antônio (Lucas Drummond, broodingly mysterious), and a biker stranger, Marcelo (Liev Carlos, boldly uninhibited in his debut) is transformed into a city-based meditation on loss, through what may be dubbed ‘a river portal into another reality’.
Oddly complementing each other with their highly contrasting tones, both the love story, with the shadow of a homophobic patriarch looming over it, and the loveless ‘tone poem’ imbued with a range of ambiguities, see the actors baring their all, literally and metaphorically, their nudity (and sex) subtly elevated beyond the mere provocation. The poignancy, intense sensuality and deeply personal vibes of the ‘pastoral’ chapter are subverted by the alienating coldness of the urban (fantasized?) follow-up that emphasizes the absurdity of living sans soulmate, and exposes the hollowness of a ‘capitalist bliss’, all the while denying the viewer a clear resolution. Once again, Nolasco (Dry Wind) finds a reliable DP partner in Larry Machado who frames the deliberately paced action with a keen eye for the setting and male body alike, also capturing the fiery chemistry between Drummond and Carlos.
11. Twinless (James Sweeney, 2025)
During the first twenty minutes, prior to the opening credits, Twinless plays out like a drama of loss and unlikely friendship, only to take a slightly awkward turn after a flashback exposes not quite white lies of the writer/director’s own character, Dennis. Partnered by Dylan O’Brien – giving an outstanding performance as Roman, and in a couple of scenes, Roman’s late twin brother Rocky – James Sweeney embodies a sort of an emotional weirdo in front of the camera, and demonstrates a great deal of confidence as an up-and-coming auteur. Exploring a variety of themes – grief, identity, loneliness vs. socialization, and queer perspective vs. (toxic) masculinity – he finds dedicated assistance in the cast who succeed in eliciting sympathy even when the characters are at their most flawed. (Aisling Franciosi is particularly memorable in the supporting role!) Also commendable is his taut control over visual aspects, with DP Greg Cotten proving to be a reliable right hand man, and Bong Joon Ho’s regular Jung Jae-il weaving a soft aural veil for the neatly framed imagery. Spicing up the proceedings are subtle humor and sparks of cynicism that subvert or at least mask the clichés, and elevate the film above one’s expectations.
12. Send Help (Sam Raimi, 2026)
There are emotional roller-coasters, and then, there are genre mary-go-rounds, and Sam Raimi’s latest is one of the latter kind. If Blue Lagoon had been filtered through the prism of (Survivor-related) dark humor, with pinches of psycho-thriller and horror spicing up the corporate or rather, privileged vs. hard-working satire, the end result would’ve probably been pretty close to Send Help. Although not exactly at the very top of his game, the veteran filmmaker delivers a tonally delirious, often crowd-pleasing smörgåsbord of suspense, irony and gross outs, with Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien giving unhinged performances as the sole survivors of a plane crash.
13. Третья Мещанская / Bed and Sofa (Abram Room, 1927)
A printer, Volodia, is invited to stay in a small apartment (at the address from the original title) occupied by his old Red Army comrade, Kolia, and his wife, Liuda, which turns into a pretty liberal ménage à trois story exploring a range of topics, from living conditions to bisexuality to abortion to women’s empowerment. Its homoerotic subtext loses the ‘sub’ prefix through a couple of ‘accidental’ kisses between the two men, who are both simultaneously vying for vampish Liuda – initially stuck in a loop of housekeeping. Although some narrative and pacing tweaks wouldn’t have hurt, Room’s competent, matter-of-fact look at a jealousy-free polyamory strikes some fine, ahead-of-its-time chords that earn it extra points.
14. Adamo ed Eva: la prima storia d’amore / Adam and Eve (Enzo Doria & Luigi Russo, 1983)
“It’s only an apple.”
So... A beautiful Biblical twosome run around naked, having all sorts of fun in a lush jungle, until the bite of knowledge sends them into a cave Raiders of the Lost Ark style, then out of it for some aimless wandering, until the encounter with a pterodactyl whose wings – after it’s killed and eaten – awaken Eve’s keen sense of fashion. Another short episode of strolling across the wasteland ensues, ending in a Neanderthals’ den where Adam is deemed a potential sperm donor for one of their own, with a convenient tiger intrusion thwarting an attempt of cross-breeding. What follows involves an adulterous fling with a hunky tribesman, the attack of extremely hairy cannibals, the most ridiculous bear costume in the history of cinema, and the ice age reunion of first sinners, with some archive footage of animals thrown into the mix.
Yes, is all as weird, pulpy, schlocky and exploitative as it sounds, but it is also highly entertaining, eliciting chuckles and louder laughter along the way to the sea, because that is where ‘life begins’, as usually clueless Adam claims. The film feels like a sexed up version of The Blue Lagoon by way of the Tarzan lore, yet it leaves quite a bit of space for gender-related readings, though it could only be me imagining things because – in all sincerity – I enjoyed it more than certain entries from the 1001 movies you must see before you die list. Its mythological irreverence is as fascinating as the looks of both Andrea Goldman (in her first and only screen appearance) and Mark Gregory (who made a short career in Italo-trash of the 80’s), handsomely captured – along with the impressive vistas – by Fernando Espiga, and veiled in synth melodies, with a corny pop ballad theme My First Love by Tania Solnik emphasizing the camp vibe.
15. OBEX (Albert Birney, 2025)
A reticent, soft-spoken ASCII artist, Conor (a low-key performance from the director himself), gets more than he bargained for after starting the titular game that uses ‘state-of-the-art-technology’ for inserting the player’s very own likeness into it. Once his most beloved dog Sandy disappears, his largely uneventful life in self-imposed seclusion takes an adventurous turn in a bizarre virtual world of OBEX.
Think The Dungeonmaster, only more coherent and sans misogyny, filtered through the hipster prism of analog nostalgia, and injected with a loving homage to the Devil scene from Post Tenebras Lux, and you may get the idea of what to expect from this quirky genre-bender. Obviously made on a shoestring budget, OBEX has plenty of pixelated, DIY charm to keep you floating in its decidedly 80’s bubble, even though the blend of arthouse sensibility and nods to old school gamers isn’t always seamless. Not as impressive as my previous (and very colorful) encounter with Birney in The Strawberry Mansion, the film is yet another neat demonstration of its author’s uniquely surrealist vision.
16. Mata Hari (Curtis Harrington, 1985)
Curtis Harrington’s last theatrical feature is a romanticized biopic of notorious exotic dancer Mata Hari that sees Sylvia Kristel of Emmanuelle fame – reportedly, addicted to cocaine and alcohol during the shooting – in various states of undress, yet creating and keeping the veil of mystery around the character, despite her limited range. Those hypnotizing green eyes of hers alone are enough to make one believe in the immense power of seduction that many men (and even women!) fall under in the course of 100 minutes. Entirely shot in Budapest posing as both Paris and Berlin, the film boasts elegant production and costume designs, as well as the beautiful cinematography which lends some gravitas to the nude scenes that, inter alia, involve bare-breasted sword fighting during a masquerade orgy-ball. Handled with remarkable taste, the risqué portions of Mata Hari seem to be the main draw, as Harrington – in what can be dubbed a bold move – favors love making over the political scheming and depictions of WWI destruction, blurring the boundaries between the carnal and the spiritual.
SHORTS
1. Anemone Me (Suzan-Lori Parks & Bruce Hainley, 1990)
Co-written and co-directed by Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks and critic, writer and poet Bruce Hainley, with Todd Haynes (Velvet Godlmine) serving as an assistant director, Anemone Me is a lovely little oddity, at once campy, lyrical, and surreal, not to mention idiosyncratic in its utilization of fairy tale tropes. Starring a cast of four, it takes interracial romance to a whole new level, with (non-professional) Fred Anderson as a fisherman’s son, Blind Boy Bodybuilder, and (TV actor) Peter Hermann debuting as Merboy ‘awakening something in each other’, as noted at Black Film Archive. Their gentle, idealized love is beautifully framed on 16mm which intensifies the short’s tactility, as the sound of waves crashing and an ethereal theme song create a sense of dreamlike calm.
2. La Divina (Brooke Dammkoehler, 1989)
An offbeat amalgam of a mockumentary and poetic biopic of a fictitious diva modeled after Greta Garbo, La Divina operates as both a love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood, and a (pseudo?) feminist stab at the glamorous sheen it was bathed in. Employing dramatic lighting and over-the-top histrionics to great & campy effect, it comes across as a fever dream-like throwback to the 30’s and 40’s, with first-timer Brooke Dammkoehler mimicing Billy Wilder in his Sunset Boulevard element by way of Werner Schroeter... or someone along these lines. Correspondingly, Michelle Sullivan evokes (to the lisp!) Magdalena Montezuma in the lead, appearing as if she has a whale of a time in the role of continual resistance towards typecasting – her character’s desire to play Dorian Grey brings to mind Ulrike Ottinger’s gender-bender adaptation of the novel.
3. Christmas on Earth (Janja Rakuš, 2026)
Not to be confused with Barbara Rubin’s provocative cinexperiment of the same name, the latest short from multidisciplinary artist Janja Rakuš – one of the most ardent Van Gogh admirers I know of – is a spiritually uplifting meditation on 1885 painting Potato Eeaters. A mystifying collage of essayistic imagery, abstract animation, found footage and quotes from the letters to Theo, Christmas on Earth comes across as a mind-altering and time-distorting ritual, invoking the mythic figure of Kurent into a post-impressionistic welcome to Spring. The season that is usually associated with hope, fertility and rejuvenation is also seen as a symbol of peace, both inner and universal, once again seriously threatened by the monsters in human skin. That is probably one of the reasons why the creator here takes the role of a healer, in possession of a gentle balm for the soul.
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