Best Premiere Viewings of April 2025

FEATURES

1. Myth of Man (Jamin Winans, 2025)

“Let me take you by the hand,

Away from here, to another land...”

(The Cranberries / Put Me Down)

Another land – an incredible and mystical one at that – is exactly where Jamin Winans (Ink, The Frame) takes the viewer with his third fiction feature, reviving your sense of childlike wonder, and excelling in the world building department. A passion project years in the making, Myth of Man is the director’s finest offering to date – aesthetically compelling, whimsically playful, and emotionally resonant, it washes over you like a soft wave of the purest dreams that don’t need to be analyzed to be cherished. Told or rather shown from the perspective of its deaf-mute heroine credited as Ella (Laura Rauch, gently creating one of the most adorable and humane characters to hit the screen recently), it completely eschews words in favor of images and music, coming across as a modern silent film. Exploring the timeless themes of love, loss, death, and firm belief in what you do (especially if it’s art), this delightfully quirky steampunk fantasy transcends the genre confines in its becoming of sublime audio-visual experience. More marvelous than anything Marvel and other big studios have been hyper-producing, Myth of Man blends live-action, SFX, and animation on a less-than-1-million budget, in a way that you can almost sense the pulsing of its authors’ souls.

Recommended as a companion piece to Amélie (2001), MirrorMask (2005) and/or La Antena (2007).

2. Bushidō muzan / The Tragedy of Bushido (Eitarō Morikawa, 1960)

An impressive showcase of formidable formal talents, The Tragedy of Bushido is sadly the only feature helmed by writer/director Eitarō Morikawa. Drawing parallels between the draconian ‘way of the warrior’ and the unforgiving corporate system of post-WWII Japan (or capitalism, in general), it thematizes loyalty, honor, and sacrifice through a provocative melodrama giving off some Greek tragedy vibes. A tale of a teen boy (played with stoic intensity by then 21-yo Junichiro Yamashita) forced to commit ‘seppuku’ for his late lord is expressively lensed by another debutant, cinematographer Takao Kawarazaki, its B&W gorgeousness masterfully complemented by a dreamlike, mystery-evoking score from Riichirō Manabe. Morikawa elicits remarkable performances from his entire cast, demonstrating a deep understanding of cinematic language, as well as a keen sense of suspense.

3. Io la conoscevo bene / I Knew Her Well (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1965)

“Trouble is, she likes everything. She’s always happy. She desires nothing, envies no one, is curious about nothing. You can’t surprise her. She doesn’t notice the humiliations, though they happen to her every day. It all rolls off her back like off some waterproof material. Zero ambition. No moral code. Not even a whore’s love of money. Yesterday and tomorrow don’t exist for her. Even living for today would mean too much planning, so she lives for the moment. Sunbathing, listening to records, and dancing are her sole activities. The rest of the time she’s mercurial and capricious, always needing brief new encounters with anyone at all... just never with herself.”

This elaborate, if unflattering description of the film’s protagonist – a naive country girl, Adriana – comes from the lips of a moody writer (krimi-regular Joachim Fuchsberger), one of many men she gets involved with on her way to the stars, and the only one who takes away from the irony of the title. A magnificent starring vehicle for Stefania Sandrelli supported by the likes of Mario Adorf, Jean-Claude Brialy and Franco Nero, I Knew Her Well feels much like a spiritual successor to Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, exposing (and condemning) the superficiality of showbiz, and its effects on unsuspecting victims, all the while addressing the evils of a capitalist machinery. Its fragmented structure is tailor-made for depicting of Adriana’s carefree life, each episode working like a charm that turns this young woman strangely and increasingly captivating, in spite of her flaws. She is adored by Armando Nannuzzi’s camera that captures all the subtleties of her freewheeling nature, and elevates her beyond an object that she is in the eyes of various ‘predators’, into a vulnerable human being desperately searching for a meaningful connection. A diversified soundtrack that acts like a time capsule of the 60’s popular music, beautifully complementing the stark B&W imagery, adds more nuances to her not fully graspable character.

4. Kyūba no koibito / Cuban Lover (Kazuo Kuroki, 1969)

Released between Silence Has No Wings and Evil Spirits of Japan, both highly recommended, Cuban Lover commemorates the 10th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, combining a romance and travelogue with archive footage of Castro’s and Guevara’s speeches. The film’s deliberately meandering tale chronicles the road trip of a young, aimless Japanese sailor, Akira (Masahiko Tsugawa, charmingly assertive), making advances to chiquitas (when ome exquisite use of POV shots comes into play) until he encounters Marcia (Obdulia Plasencia, superb in her only screen appearance) and falls head over hills for her. Following her around the country, he learns of its turbulent recent past, but is oft-left to his own devices, as the girl doesn’t seem too keen to abandon her post-revolutionary ideals for love. Their awkward relationship operates as a guerrilla-counterpart of the one from Resnais’s 1959 masterpiece Hiroshima, Mon Amour, leaving plenty of room for the reflection on the struggle for freedom and equality. The camerawork by the great Tatsuo Suzuki who would later frequently collaborate with Shūji Terayama, also working on feature offerings from Toshio Matsumoto (Funeral Parade of Roses, Dogura Magura), captures a specific time in history with such an inviting flair that one gets the impression of being there. Adding to the authenticity of the experience is the selection of popular songs intertwined with Teizō Matsumura’s euphonious, harp-heavy score.

5. Die Sünderin / The Sinner (Willi Forst, 1951)

Controversial or rather, scandalous for its time (and place), The Sinner is a tautly directed melodrama told in retrospective by (luminous!) Hildegard Knef who portrays a former party girl/street walker involved with an unsuccessful painter (Gustav Fröhlich, superb) diagnosed with a brain tumor. Described as ‘a masochistic romantic fantasy’ by Jeff Stafford (Cinema Soujourns), it features incestuous prostitution, a lesbian kiss, brief (and tastefully done) nudity, as well as a mercy kill, inter alia, which is why it caused such an uproar in moralistic circles, and had screenings interrupted by clergical stink bombs. Beautifully shot in velvety B&W married to an ellegiac score that amps up emotions, the film brings a feverishly poetic, if overwrought tale of idealized, death-defying love, exploring the themes of self-sacrifice, perseverance, and (ennobling) suffering, with both the director’s and the viewer’s sympathies lying with its ‘sinful’ heroine. 

6. Siraa Fil-Wadi / The Blazing Sun (Youssef Chahine, 1954)

A film that launched Omar Sharif into stardom on the native Egyptian soil, The Blazing Sun is a soaring melodrama skillfully blended with the crime genre, and outspoken in its criticism of the authorities. Social realist at heart, it portrays a ‘forbidden’ romance against the backdrop of unfortunate events caused by greed, powerblindness, and disregard of progress. Its tale of (in)justice is as timeless and universal as it gets, with Chahine’s sympathies drawn toward the working folks idealized through Sharif’s character, Ahmed, a young engineer who introduces new methods for improving the production of sugar cane to the fellow villagers. Emphasizing his hero’s virtuous nature, the director pits him against an unscrupulous land owner, Taher Pasha, and his even more malicious nephew, Riad Bay, whose archetypal villainy is rooted in reality much deeper than it may initially appear. Zaki Rostom and Farid Shawqi, respectively, effortlessly slide into the roles of sleazeballs that one loves to hate. Embodying advance and modernity is Ahmed’s sweetheart and Pasha’s own daughter, Amal (Sharif’s future wife Faten Hamama, stellar), who’s given an emotional load as heavy as that of her lover, and she admirably endures. Further elevating the feature is the excellent choice of locations, particularly in the suspenseful finale, and Ahmed Khorshed’s arresting, noir-like cinematography, its high contrasts mirroring the class struggle at display. 

7. Az ötödik pecsét / The Fifth Seal (Zoltán Fábri, 1976)

A watchmaker, a carpenter, and a book seller sit in a bar, and chat with its owner, when a stranger walks in. It may sound like the beginning of a bad joke, but the time and place – 1944, Budapest – suggest something much more sinister. One topic leads to another, and then, the watchmaker (Lajos Öze, brilliant!) tells a story of a tyrant and a slave, asking his buddies a hypothetical question which will haunt not only them, but the viewer as well, long after the film has ended. Dubbed ‘a spiky political cabaret of cruelty and fear’ by Peter Bradshaw for Guardian, The Fifth Seal occupies a morally ambiguous zone, exposing hypocrisy as innate to human nature, and providing an intoxicating concoction of religious, political and philosophical musings that put you into a state of disquietude... or heighten your awareness of already being there. It often feels as if it could work as a stage play, but there are certain camera movements, and sequences, such as the Bosch-inspired surrealistic hallucination, and not to mention the epilogue, that reassure us the cinema is where this bleak, anti-fascist narrative belongs.

8. Orfeu Negro / Black Orpheus (Marcel Camus, 1959)

Largely set in the heightened reality of Afro-Brazilian favela during the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, the bossa nova adaptation of the Orpheus myth bursts with colors, oozes with passion, and overflows with energy, making for one of the most kinetic pieces of the 50’s cinema. Borderline delirious, and deliciously campy in its naivety, it utilizes dance as the primary means of expression, hypnotizing you with its infectious rhythms, as it reaches for the primordial essence of your being. Call me crazy, but I recommend it double billed with Emil Loteanu’s musical melodrama Queen of the Gypsies.

9. Les salauds vont en enfer / The Wicked Go to Hell (Robert Hossein, 1955)

In Robert Hossein’s directorial debut which marks my third encounter with his oeuvre, a prison break drama gradually transforms into a revenge flick, with the destruction of earthly paradise marking the turning point. Ravishingly enigmatic Marina Vlady – then the author’s wife – jumps into the role of a (righteously!) fatal young woman, Eva, her name highly symbolic, as she faces the threat in the form of two escaped convicts played by Henri Vidal (Pierre) and Serge Reggiani (Lucien). Hossein’s father André – French composer of Iranian Azerbaijani origin – provides a propulsive score for what can be labeled as a dissection of men’s evil captured in attention-grabbing B&W by DoP Michel Kelber.

10. Art College 1994 (Jian Liu, 2023)

Let me begin by saying that I’m not a big fan of dialogue-heavy films, and yet the third (and arguably finest) feature from Jian Liu (Piercing I, Have a Nice Day) had me immersed in its endless, philosophically-tinged talks on art, life, love and the possibilities of the future, all permeated by tension between traditionalism and modernity / the East and the West / conformism and self-expression. Its four protagonists – a group of art students at the unnamed academy in mid-90’s / reforming China – may often bite more than they can chew with their choices, yet they all feel relatable or at least sympathetic in one way or another, evoking the early days of adulthood with de-sentimentalized nostalgia. Rendered in retro-style rotoscoped visuals of gloomy, de-saturated colors that reflect their (confused) inner states, with some of the supporting characters voiced by acclaimed filmmakers such as Bi Gan and Jia Zhang-ke, Art College 1994 ranks among the grungiest pieces of Chinese cinema, and not only because its ruminative, long-haired hero Zhang Xiaojun keeps his walkman charged with Nirvana cassettes. Simultaneously anachronistic and timeless, thought-provoking and slackerish, this film is one bitter cup of tea, quite pleasing if you sip it as deliberately as it is paced.

11. The Intruder (David Bailey, 1999)

A silky, sax-heavy jazz score (by Haim Frank Ilfman) appears to be in command of not only the dreamy or rather, drowsy atmosphere which this slightly trippy neo-noir / urban gothic / psychological drama is soaked in, but also of the smooth, leisurely pace, as well as performances that often have an ASMR effect to them. The entire cast, especially Nastassja Kinski, is well-attuned to Charlotte Gainsbourg, brilliantly low-key in the leading role of a woman, Catherine, who experiences strange phenomena after marrying and moving in with a widower, Nick (Charles Edwin Powell). Is she imagining things or is she being gaslighted? Could it be the ghost of the dead wife that haunts her, or is the past parallel to the present, as hinted at in the opening, causing frequent power outages in the building, and materializing the mysterious intruder? Finding answers in the claustrophobic environment of modern, austerely and coldly elegant apartments is made more difficult by dense, foreboding shadows of Jean Lépine’s meticulous cinematography, elevating the film even in its wacky, tonally questionable conclusion. 

12. Le foto proibite di una signora per bene / The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion (Luciano Ercoli, 1970)

A pretty stylish giallo that eschews body count in favor of blackmailing and gaslighting, Luciano Ercoli’s directorial debut revolves around Minou (Dagmar Lassander, her pulchritude matched by an above-average performance) – a struggling businessman’s wife coerced into a sadistic relationship with a mysterious man (Simón Andreu, believably threatening) in possession of compromising info on her husband. Lassander is rivaled by Nieves Navarro (credited under the moniker Susan Scott) portraying her scene-stealing bestie Dominique, both ladies often appearing as if they wandered off a photo-session promoting the fashionable costumes by Gloria Cardi. Set designs are equally alluring in their groovy color combinations, quirky decor, and moody lighting, all neatly framed by DoP Alejandro Ulloa who previously collaborated with Fulci on One on Top of the Other (1969), with Ennio Morricone composing an appropriately sultry score. There’s a fine balance between (s)exploitation, melodrama, psychological tension, and subgenre-specific irrationality  achieved here, making for a worthwhile viewing. 

13. Ash (Flying Lotus, 2025)

Musician turned filmmaker Flying Lotus (born Steven Ellison) returns with a sophomore feature that threads the familiar territory of space-set horror, initially operating like a psychological thriller, only to deliver some bonkers Hidden-Alien-Thing goods in the final third. For most of the running time, the narrative rests on the shoulders of Eiza González (solid) as an amnesiac astronaut, Riya, with Aaron Paul as her colleague Brion amplifying her paranoia, and Iko Uwais, Kate Elliott, Beulah Koale, and director himself providing support in the flashbacks. As pulpy as B-movies get, Ash – a nickname for the planet K.O.I.-442 where the small crew of ‘terraformers’ is stationed – seduces the viewer with its colorful, psychedelic, hyper-stylized visuals somewhat reminiscent of Nicolas Winding Refn and Panos Cosmatos, enhancing the primarily sensorial experience with a brooding to throbbing, and at one point, giallo-esque score. There’s also a quirky treat for the Japanophiles in the form of a so-called Medbot – a scan & surgery robot that speaks in a dulcet female voice with a thick Japanese accent.

14. In the Lost Lands (Paul W.S. Anderson, 2025)

“Down with the Overlord! Down with the Church!”

Maybe it’s my soft spot for Milla Jovovich, or a simple fact that I don’t remember ever seeing a witch and a werewolf in a duel, but I really enjoyed the latest flick from Paul W.S. Anderson. Pulpy to the bone marrow, and in a way evocative of something Albert Pyun might’ve conceived in his heyday, ‘In the Lost Lands’ is a flashy, if overly familiar B-movie mélange of a post-apocalyptic western, steampunk-by-way-of-medieval fantasy, and monster-beating action delivered in a glossy, video-gamey package. Ms Jovovich – Anderson’s wife and muse of the last sixteen years – plays a cursed sorceress, Gray Alys, whose abilities are deemed devil-sent by The Patriarch and his sect of faux-crusaders seeking to seize the power from the dying, yet still feared Overlord, and his scheming Queen. The enslaved (miners) see her as a potential leader of a revolution – another reason she is marked as the most painful thorn in the fundamentalists’ side. Tasked by the Queen to find a dangerous shapeshifter, she joins forces with a lonesome gunslinger, Boyce (Dave Bautista), as her guide, and together they set across the titular wastelands where the director deftly applies ‘the rule of cool’ on everything from the slow-motion sequences to the world building of his post-modernist fairy tale. There’s even a certain ‘campy poetry’ and esotericism (!) to be found here, captured in deliberately scorched visuals of dirty sepia tones and grayish blues befitting of the setting, with the (overused) ‘diffraction spikes’ effect creating an almost dreamlike vibe.

SHORTS

1. El-Fallâh el-fasîh / The Eloquent Peasant (Chadi Abdel Salam, 1970)

Primarily an art director, Chadi Abdel Salam (1930-1986) helmed only two films – a brilliant, atmospheric drama Al-mummia (The Mummy), and this short masterpiece, both starring Ahmed Marei. Based on a text from the Middle Kingdom period of ancient Egypt, The Eloquent Peasant – originally, a combination of a poem and morality tale – follows a simple, wrongly accused man whose kind words open even the iron door, anticipating an old Serbian proverb. His well-spoken reaching of justice is gorgeously framed in academy ratio, with historically accurate costume and set designs evoking Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s 1966 epic Pharaoh, and the minimalist, wind-swept score by Gamil Soliman synergizing with earthy tones of Mustafa Imam’s inspired cinematography. 

2. Žena, růže, skřítek, zlost / A Woman, A Rose, A Goblin And Anger (Antonín Horák, 1969)

Various toys and trinkets come to life in one of the most bizarre pieces of stop-motion animation to come from Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia back in the days). A hyper-surrealist (or rather, dadaist?) fantasy, this 10-minute short is a non-stop barrage of puzzling visual weirdness complemented by a mystery-intensifying music into something that probably puts a curse on the viewer who doesn’t appreciate it. The stuff that the most fragmented of feverish dreams are made of.

3. Muse (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2025)

Starring model and actress Małgorzata Bela as Muse, and Marcin Masecki as Pianist, the latest offering from Paweł Pawlikowski (Ida) is a dialogue-free ode to the joy of creation; an expressive, sumptuously shot B&W short in which the titular mythological character is challenged by the artist’s mood swings, evoking the spirit(s) of early, noir and post-modernist cinema through her ‘haute couture’ transformations.

Best Premiere Viewings of March 2025

FEATURES:

1. Dreaming Is Not Sleeping (Rouzbeh Rashidi, 2025)

Read the review HERE.

2. David and Lisa (Frank Perry, 1962)

“Normal is not the norm, it’s just a uniform.”

(Delain, We Are the Others)

One of the sweetest love stories to ever grace the silver screen, David and Lisa marks the feature debut for a number of cast and crew members – the director and his screenwriter wife (first-time using her own name, and not a gender-bender moniker), actors Janet Margolin (radiant as the titular heroine), and Jaime Sánchez, the cinematographer Leonard Hirschfield, composer Mark Lawrence, and editor Irving Oshman. Their fresh energies combined make for an engaging film in which a sensitive topic such as mental disorders is treated with utmost care and respect. The setting is a boarding school for psychologically disturbed youngsters, and its newest protégé is an intelligent and sophisticated teenager, David (Keir Dullea, superb), whose haughty demeanor is a facade built due to a lackluster emotional upbringing, not to mention thanatophobia reflected in his severe fear of touch, and nightmares of decapitation. Gradually melting his icy aura is Lisa – a ‘pearl of a girl’ suffering dissociative identity disorder, speaking in rhymes, and – despite the limited screen time – acting as the story’s big, candid and gentle heart. Their romance blossoms in an unhurried pace, as Perry shows and elicits from the viewer great sympathy and understanding for his broken characters, without resorting to overly saccharine tactics, and finding a strong support in Hirschfield’s meticulous framing of the protagonists’ beautiful faces.

3. La chouette aveugle / The Blind Owl (Raúl Ruiz, 1987)

“Fatima, according to a curious superstition, believed she could capture images in her right hand and sound in her left hand. According to her, it was easy enough to trap them by leaving her hand open for a few moments in front of a projector... She was convinced that these images and sounds had a very high nutritional value.”

Borrowing elements from Sadegh Hedayat’s (nonlinear) novel of the same name, as well as from Tirso de Molina’s play Damned by Despair, The Blind Owl is the most delirious of Ruiz’s films I’ve seen so far. A meditation on cinema, death, identity, duality, and obsessive love, it is a mind-boggling, eye-pleasing, linguistically wily, and wryly witty tale of... well, it’s hard to determine exactly, but let’s say, madness as the intrinsic part of human condition. Metafilmic at its core, it plunges you into a volatile, fever dream-like world of Kafkaesque absurdities, Borgesian puzzles, and shifting perspectives, with its convoluted structure bolstered by shadow-infested cinematography from Patrice Cologne. The highly expressive lighting alone is the reason enough to see it.

4. Esquizo (Ricardo Bofill, 1970)

“I have the biggest patience and electricity in the world. God is the universe. I am the owner of the world. Therefore, I am God. Revolution is in progress and men will become demi-gods. Democracy doesn’t exist.”

A pseudo-documentary filtered through the prism of speculative fiction, and dubbed A Fictitious Report on the Architecture of the Brain, the only feature offering from acclaimed Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill portrays the mind of a schizophrenic woman as a piece of performance art. Intersected by the footage of real mentally disordered patients, naked boys playing in the sand, and animal carcasses in the slaughterhouse, it can be viewed as a simulacrum of life under a fascist regime, especially when the ‘omnipotent’ voice-over is taken into consideration. Miraculously surviving the Francoist censors (or was it too clever for them?), it has stood the test of time, and now – when the liberties are increasingly endangered all around the globe – its relevance couldn’t be more pronounced. A challenging experiment that may be dismissed as ‘pretentious’ by the mainstream audience, Esquizo also exposes “the lack of understanding, the lack of sympathy, the lack even of seeing or being incapable of visualizing how some people suffer, how incomprehensible their anguish is”. (Daniel Kasman, Rotterdam 2016. Acting Out)

5. Boof-e koor / The Blind Owl (Kioumars Derambakhsh, 1975)

“Only death never tells a lie.”

Faithfully adapting a part of Sadegh Hedayat’s masterful novella of the same name, Kioumars Derambakhsh (1945-2020) manages to capture the spirit, if not all the layers and ellipses of the source material in his first (and only?) fiction featurette. A cinematic equivalent of a nightmare, The Blind Owl clocks at around 55 minutes, playing out like a time-distorting rumination on death, with themes of desire, guilt and tradition (as a factor of torment) skillfully intertwined into the bleakly surrealistic tale. In the central role of an unreliable narrator, Parviz Fanizadeh delivers a superb performance, his expressions and the slightest of movements reflecting the disturbed inner state of his world-weary character. Desolate surroundings of withered grass, barren trees, cracked earth, and man-made structures of mud and stone – all arrestingly framed – also play an important role in the portrayal of the protagonist’s anguished psyche...

6. Dvoje / And Love Has Vanihed (Aleksandar Petrović, 1961)

Boy meets girl (in front of the cinema), they fall in love, but his affection for her gradually fades. A simple, yet timeless story that could’ve been set virtually anywhere in the world gets a modernist / Nouvelle Vague-ish treatment in the first solo feature from Aleksandar Petrović (of I Even Met Happy Gipsies fame). On par with the masters of European arthouse film of the period, this romantic drama is bolstered by strong performances from Beba Lončar (radiant in the role of a music student, Jovana) and Miha Baloh (charming as an architect, Mirko). The jazzy, quaintly inviting score by Ljiljana Popović, and Ivan Marinček’s taut framing of both the leading couple and Belgrade of the early 60’s, define a fascinating portrayal of Jovana and Mirko’s relationsip, capturing all of its nuances, from saccharine to bitter, and transcending most if not all narrative clichés.

7. Irati (Paul Urkijo Alijo, 2022)

Based on Jon Muñoz Otaegi’s graphic novel The Circle of Irati (originally, El ciclo de Irati) which draws inspiration from Basque legends, the sophomore feature from Paul Urkijo Alijo (of Errementari fame) is a beautifully realized medieval fantasy revitalizing the magic of the sword & sorcery subgenre. Set against the backdrop of the clash between the paganism and Christianity, the film takes the viewer into the Pyrenees forests rendered enchanted by cinematographer Gorka Gómez Andreu, labyrinthine caves guarded by beings of mythological yore, and stone castles where the power dynamics are incessantly shifting. In a story deeply rooted in local folklore, Alijo speaks of universal and “timeless human issues”, as Júlia Olmo notes in her review for Cineuropa, touching upon “the weight of roots, the idea of loyalty and honor, the meaning of identity, the struggle for a place and the value of that struggle, the meaning of faith, the classic concept of ‘the beautiful death’ (filling one’s life with deeds to achieve eternal glory, to be remembered and loved in eternity), the fear of forgetting, the presence of death in life, the search for your origins and the price of that search”. These themes are explored through both the titular heroine, a feisty pagan girl (Edurne Azkarate, stellar in her first big screen appearance), as well as a young Christian nobleman, Eneko (Eneko Sagardoy, excellent), learning to accept the mysterious ways of nature personalized by the goddess Mari (Itziar Ituño, a strong vocal presence bolstered by an intricate costume of red, intertwined threads). Speaking of nature, one can easily notice the ecological aspect of the proceedings, particularly in the scenes of bleeding tree stumps, and stones, with the overarching perspective being more feminine than masculine...

8. Le Feu sacré (Vladimir Forgency, 1971)

Very 70’s, and very French, Le Feu sacré (lit. The Sacred Fire) is (sadly!) the only feature helmed by Vladimir Forgency. It is a solidly crafted drama revolving around a young ballerina-in-training, Sonia, who shares her first name with the star – Paris-born dancer of Russian decent, Sonia Petrovna, epitomizing grace. At the very threshold of adulthood, the heroine is torn between her somewhat wavering passion for classical ballet and infatuation with Pierre (Pierre Fuger) – a handsome hippie who manages a modern-dance troupe. In other words, she is compelled to choose between the rigorous dedication, and the uncertainty of freedom; following in the traditional footsteps of her godmother teacher Lily (Lilian Arlen), or just letting herself go with the counterculture flow. The largely non-professional actors who’re most probably professional dancers deliver authentic performances, with the major characters built upon many exercise and rehearsal scenes, as well as a small part of Iphigenia staged. Forgency directs them with immediacy and spontaneity, his right-hand man being cinematographer Willy Kurant who previously collaborated with who’s who of La Nouvelle Vague – Godard (Masculin féminin), Varda (Les créatures), and Robbe-Grillet (Trans-Europ-Express). Also praiseworthy are Yves Trochel’s production and costume designs, often reflecting dichotomies explored, and Sonia’s contradictory emotional states.

9. Docteur Chance / Doctor Chance (F.J. Ossang, 1997)

“She’s dreaming. Blood colors the leaves. A smell of gasoline. The metal drenched with rain. Just a wall to lean on. A piece of glass in the throat till the blood stops flowing. We empty ourselves of the world and it’s good.”

More a (pulp) fever dream than a film, Doctor Chance appears like a vague reflection / afterthought of a gangster noir gradually turning into a road movie on a lost highway of crypto-poetic raving. Its fragmented narrative or rather, a dissolving illusion of it, exists only as a thread which holds a patchwork of cinematic references, from silent era to the French New Wave to postmodern psychological thrillers. As always with F.J. Ossang, the strongest is a Godardian influence, subtly filtered through the prism of punk nihilism into a freewheeling, stream-of-consciousness abandon. His brooding characters are but ciphers rooted in the crime genre archetypes, and confined within the images they desperately try to escape from – “disappear in flight to show that the sky exists”. A mother figure (the late and great Almodovar’s regular Marisa Paredes) and a lover (the author’s muse Elvire) may hold the keys of the exit... 

10. O corpo ardente / The Burning Body (Walter Hugo Khouri, 1966)

“I think I got old sooner than everyone else. And it was a life that passed in a blink. I couldn’t even see it.”

Even more Antonioniesque than its predecessor, ‘Noite Vazia’, ‘The Burning Body’ is a muffled scream for (absolute) freedom, also acting as a portrait of deeply suppressed desire, set against an alienating backdrop of upper-class society of intellectuals. Occupying the central role with brooding intensity, magnetic presence and an air of mystery surrounding her is Barbara Laage whose character, Marcia, is a woman on a desperate quest for a key to the shackles that bind her to her only, camera-wielding son, dead-end marriage, and boring lover. Her longing for a life unconstrained by duties manifests as a beautiful, untamable black stallion that she becomes fascinated with during a short trip to a remote desert cottage, the flashbacks of both the respite and extramarital affairs intertwined with the scenes of an ongoing party. The film’s fragmented structure – a mirror to Marcia’s emotional detachment – is well-paired with Khouri’s unwavering formal austerity which further emphasizes the atmosphere of existential ennui, making for a challenging viewing experience.

11. El Metafísico / The Metaphysician (Pablo Chavarría Gutiérrez, 2025)

The latest feature from self-taught filmmaker Pablo Chavarría Gutiérrez (Still the Earth Moves) is a strange, or rather, decidedly weird animal, one that doesn’t take itself too seriously in its tackling of the themes such as art, love, death, friendship, existential crisis, and the way our dreams (and nahuals) navigate us through life. Described as a ‘mystical comedy’, the film portrays everyday routine of a struggling writer (played with a tongue-in-cheek nonchalance by the director himself), infusing it with absurd (and bits of self-deprecating) humor, stoner wisdom, and folk magic that – combined serendipitously – often turn the banal into the surreal. It is a rough-around-the-edges concoction that doesn’t always work, but its immediacy, easygoing attitude, independent spirit, and naivete of non-professional cast aren’t without their charms, all beautifully captured in soft grays of Carlos Hernández’s B&W cinematography, and interspersed with cinematic references. 

12. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (Kenji Kamiyama, 2024)

“Fat and prosperous are when men are at their most dangerous. It fills them with false courage, and false courage breeds discontent.”

A beautifully animated fantasy in which a clever and headstrong girl who has never wanted to rule defeats a cowardly psychopath who thought he was the almighty king, sending his army of masked goons on unarmed people... Oh my, the film’s antagonist has all the traits of a certain, not-to-be-named tyrant of a Balkan country, though he’s far more handsome than the latter.

13. Oni Goroshi / Demon City (Seiji Tanaka, 2025)

More or less a formulaic revenge flick brimming with intense and stylish action, Demon City is somewhat intriguing for the parallels one could draw between its ‘demons’ and their real-life counterparts, if the latter had an ounce of ‘wicked coolness’. Alas, what we get, particularly in Serbia these days (or rather, decades), are pathetic, dehumanized excuses for ‘officials’ who embody the absolute worst of imaginable vices. These lying sacks of the smelliest, most toxic bullcrap – no, I’m not apologizing for the lack of euphemism – are so detestable that all the ‘poetic’, blood-spraying justice Tanaka serves here comes across as a mild punishment compared to what those monsters actually deserve. Matsuya Onoe as a grinning, thick-lipped, corrupted-to-the-bone mayor Sunohara evokes a certain ‘head of the state’ in both appearance and his character’s sect of loyalists, with his elitist project of Mahoroba resort (a phallic building, of course!) bringing to mind the gentrified raping of Belgrade. Confronting and disposing of Sunohara’s henchmen is one-man army Shūhei Sakata (the impressive, largely physical performance from Tōma Ikuta) – an ex-hitman who can survive a superhuman amount of metal pole blows, sword cuts and falls from height in a manga-inspired rampage. If only he had the purity of students and citizens who have been protesting for the past four months...

SHORTS:

1. A Placeless Place (Sibi Sekar, 2024)

A placeless place, a timeless time, an egoless ego... After jumping into the void, is it ‘voidlessness’ that follows? And can it be portrayed? Through a character of ‘outsider’ (Kamali), Sibi Sekar continues his quest across the innermost depths – an unknown realm where universal truth manifests itself in poignant absences. Obscure visions – of a forestless forest, a fieldless field, and a roomless room – pose as the verses of a calm-inducing poem, one in rhymeless rhymes, filling the air with melancholy that stems from existential longing. The film ceases to be a conscious hallucination, as its author strives to transfigure it into a dreamless dream of a dreamer hopelessly enamored of the mystery’s soul.

2. Silence Has No Wings (Zaur Mukhtarov, 2024)

Not to be confused with Kazuo Kuroki’s 1966 elliptical feature of the same name, Zaur Mukhtarov’s short is a captivating cinematic delight. Completely void of dialogue, as well as of music (apart from a party scene), it draws the viewer into a meditative state, as it reflects on loss, loneliness and death through the character of an unnamed young woman (Nurana Karimova, an embodiment of fragility). She lives with a caged dove – a figment of her imagination? – that quite possibly symbolizes her self-imposed imprisonment in memories, or rather, acts as a vessel for the soul of a beloved one who passed away. Transformed into a phantom romance, the protagonist’s refusal to let go permeates the profound stillness of her daily routine, almost ritualistic in its depiction, and the very air of her apartment – the fortress of melancholy. Her ‘ennui’ becomes delicate poetry in meticulously framed shots of cinematographer Matlab Mukhtarov, with the director maintaining a deliberate pace of his editing, harmoniously matched to the wingless, yet sublime silence.

3. Shaolin Avengers (Andy Le, Brian Le & Daniel Mah, 2025)

Arguably, one of the finest, most loving homages paid to Hong Kong martial arts cinema, its astonishing fighting choreography shot with clarity, and intertwined with some delightfully cheesy humor.

Dreaming Is Not Sleeping (Rouzbeh Rashidi, 2025)

“Oh, how splendid, how indescribably liberating it would be to plunge my hands into my own being,
traversing the layers of flesh and sentiment, and wrench out this heavy heart...” 

A natural continuation of the spiritually transformative path that started with Elpis in 2023, Dreaming Is Not Sleeping is arguably the most contemplative offering of Rouzbeh Rashidi’s oeuvre so far. Essayistic in its approach, and achingly lyrical at that, the film is a philosophically informed rumination on the very fabric of our existence, shaped by memories, suffering, love, death, and creation as the act of defiance against time. But, first and foremost, it is an ennobling experience, one that is in equal measure difficult to put into words, especially during its transcendental final chapter, set in what can be best described as the astral plane.

Shot amidst the derelict sites across Germany, Poland, Denmark, and Ireland, it transmutes physical places into the hiddenmost recesses of the collective unconscious, their stillness, and secrets engraved on decrepit walls erecting the labyrinths of innumerable selves. Through the hallways of “clairvoyance, impermanence, and shared human struggles”, as well as of perception, nostalgia and meaning, all in the context of cinema or, generally speaking, art, we are assigned a spectral guide (Meister Rumslant as the invisible narrator whose thick accent is irresistibly charming) to lead us into the light... or perhaps, the comforting darkness? It may be that he is but the echo of our own inner voices, as we are immersed into the perspective of an enigmatic entity possessing Rashidi’s steady camera.

By virtue of special lenses, a ripple-like effect is organically achieved, with every single, thought-provoking frame posing as an illuminated portal towards the essence of the image, symbiotic relationship with it, and ultimately, being. The silent, almost motionless tableaux vivants, void of conventional characters and veiled in a muffled aural manifestation of distances, allow for the whispers of the abandoned objects, deep shadows and deceptive reflections to tell of the obscure histories or rather, peculiar feelings that pervaded them. They are employed as the dream-clay in an elaborate process of soul-sculpting that elevates urbex and landscape photography, eliciting questions of our (in)significance in the grand scheme of cosmic things.

Rashidi’s poetic, stream-of-consciousness writing evokes the spirit of Marguerite Duras, whereas the subtle visual distortions bring to mind the finest works of Alexander Sokurov, and yet Dreaming Is Not Sleeping – clocking around one hour – never appears derivative, inspiring us with a myriad of candid absences...

(The review is based on a private screener provided by the author, and the feature is scheduled to premiere at Berlin’s Moviemento Kino on Sunday, April 20, 2025, at 18:00.)

Best Premiere Viewings of February 2025

FEATURES:

1. Pigen med nålen / The Girl with the Needle (Magnus van Horn, 2024)

Danish actress Vic Carmen Sonne delivers a career-defining performance in the starring role of Magnus van Horn’s harrowing period piece – a viscerally beautiful post-WWI drama that pulls no punches in its grimy and raggedy portrayal of maternal phobias thornily intertwined with existential dread. Playing out like the darkest of the Grimms’ fairy tales, with wraiths and witches disguised as ‘humans’, it is best experienced by knowing as little as possible about the (true case) story, particularly its nightmarish third act. Right from the impactful opening montage of distorted faces that wouldn’t feel out of place in a horror movie, this pitch-black drama plunges you into the muddy waters of pain, relieving it only through a few glimmers of hope, one of which is (mercifully!) saved for the epilogue. Directed with no prejudice or moralizing, and framed in brutalist, high-contrast B&W that – synergized to the ominously minimalist score – elevates the stunning recreation of the period, The Girl with the Needle is an instant modern classic that will haunt you long after the end.

2. The Illiac Passion (Gregory J. Markopoulos, 1967)

Led by Prometheus, the characters of the Greek mythology dream themselves into the NYC underground art scene of the time, bound to their cursed fates in a series of stilted rituals. Ancient stories are deconstructed beyond recognition in their becoming of tools for experimenting with the possibilities of cinema, as well as for externalizing the innermost thoughts and emotions of the author himself. And he acts as a hypnotist, his voice-over narration defining the rhythm through incessant repetitions – a Dadaesque recitation that robs the words of their meanings, letting the images speak or rather, wash over the viewer. Occasionally pierced by operatic interludes, they are dreamily captured on 35mm, with dense shadows veiling the naked bodies of increasingly homoerotic vignettes. The portrayals of love, passion, anguish, exploration, disorientation, and death are imbued with sensuality and esotericism; a dash of humor provided by Andy Warhol as Poseidon riding an exercise bike. 

3. The Monkey (Osgood Perkins, 2025)

An explosive mixture of over-the-top splatter and laugh-out-loud-through-tears black humor, The Monkey is Osgood Perkins’ most entertaining flick to date. Directed with tongue firmly planted in its author’s cheek, it effortlessly earns the ‘crowd-pleaser’ label, providing you with a highly enjoyable big-screen experience. It addresses the central theme of death with a big, nightmarish grin seen on the titular (and cursed) monkey toy that causes people to meet their maker in ‘insane, headline-making ways’, to quote the director’s exact words on his parents’ demise. Deliberately cartoonish, this playful horror comedy gives off some 80’s cult-movie vibes in a technically competent package enhanced by the velvety voice of Theo James in the lead.

4. Alice in Wonderland (Jonathan Miller, 1966)

One of the trippiest made-for-TV films, Jonathan Miller’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s famous book sports the looks of an offbeat Victorian period piece, with all the fantastical characters from the novel given human faces – belonging to who’s who of British theatre and comedy scene, from Michael Redgrave and Micheal Ghough to Peter Cook and Peter Sellers. Psychedelic heights are reached through hyper-histrionics, with the exception of Alice (Anne-Marie Mallik in her only screen appearance) whose sullen and bored expressions hint at her realizing that everything is but a loony dream. The 70-minute running-time is made the most of, as the rampant absurdity is ‘exotified’ by Ravi Shankar’s sitar-heavy score, and amplified by weird camera angles of Dick Bush who would later collaborate with Ken Russell (Mahler, Tommy, The Lair of the White Worm) and William Friedkin (Sorcerer), his beautiful B&W cinematography underscoring Miller’s peculiar treatment of the source material.

5. City Streets (Rouben Mamoulian, 1931)

In her first starring role, Sylvia Sydney brings both charm and range into the role of a sassy girl, Nan Cooley, whose beer racketeer stepfather (Guy Kibee, ominously smiling) gets her into some serious, behind-the-bars trouble. Partnering Sydney in his impressive height and handsome prime is Gary Cooper playing the most Western-ized of characters, The Kid – a dexterous if slightly naive shooting gallery showman who joins the gang in order to save his sweetheart. Between these two, there is a lovely chemistry, sparkling brightest in the prison visit scene, when they struggle to touch and kiss through the wired obstacle, and raunchiest during their date at the fair and beach, thanks to the suggestive pre-code dialogues. Of course, one can’t help but root for their romance to work out, as Mamoulian leads us through the ‘amor vincit omnia’ story at a brisk pace. His direction feels quite effortless, particularly during the suspenseful sequences, whereby his stylistic choices – the ‘ceramic’ portrayal of the catty scheme, for example – are always spot-on, and often ahead of their time, making this gangster-noir a highly recommended watch. 

6. Äratus / Awakening (Jüri Sillart, 1989)

The first directorial effort from cinematographer Jüri Sillart is a harrowing yet expertly framed story of 1949 March deportation of Estonian people to Siberia by Soviet Secret Police NKVD. One of the initial scenes depicts women and children – who comprised the great majority of victims – squeezed in cattle wagons, and it alone makes the viewing experience distressing. Dense shadows appear alive, threatening to swallow the silent faces, frozen in confusion and/or fear, and later on, close-ups become important means in portraying all participants in the aforementioned event, from drunken officers to cold-eyed collaborators of the Stalinist regime. Assisted by the dedicated cast, Sillart opts for a stylized, or rather desentimentalized representation, imbuing the proceedings with borderline absurdist vibes, and ensuring precise cuts in his dissection of post-WWII evil. The timelessness of Awakening is an unfortunate trait...

7. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, 2024)

Impressively shot, its VistaVision cinematography being nothing short of magical, and reinforced by strong performances, particularly from Adrien Brody in the leading role, and Guy Pearce as the capital antagonist, the third feature-length offering from actor-turned filmmaker Brady Corbet is also his finest directorial effort. Although somewhat hampered by the author’s heightened ambition (not to mention the unforgiving running time of almost three and a half hours), The Brutalist often comes close to greatness comparable with the 20th century epic-scope dramas that certainly served as sources of inspiration. A bleak, existentialist tale of an unflattering immigrant experience – portended by the protagonist’s skewed view of the Statue of Liberty upon his arrival to America – is so elaborate that one may be tricked into believing that a brilliant architect and Holocaust survivor, László Tóth, was a historical figure. The authenticity of his struggle – anchored in Brody’s becoming one with his character – is accentuated by a comprehensive recreation of the period that – it won’t hurt to repeat – looks stunning through the lens of Lol Crawley’s camera.

8. A Bear Named Winnie (John Kent Harrison, 2004)

A lovely made-for-TV tear-jerker bolstered by a pretty solid cast. In addition to being a great actor, Michael Fassbender knows his way with animals, particularly the sweet bear cub that the story revolves around, and that inspired the character of Winnie Pooh.

9. The Gorge (Scott Derickson, 2025)

Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller spark some great chemistry from the very moment their characters start through-the-binoculars courtship. Stationed in Brutalist towers on the opposite sides of the mysterious gorge, both of them are skilled operatives on a mission of keeping whatever’s down there from reaching the surface. She’s from the East, he’s from the West, and the decades old secrets their higher-ups have been keeping are gradually revealed in a genre mashup that entertains even at its most ridiculous, largely thanks to the leading duo’s combined charisma and seriousness. (Personally, I enjoyed this flick more than, let’s say, Nosferatu, cursing whoever thought it was a good idea to release it directly to streaming services.) Sweet romancing clears the way for some shoot-em-up survival in a conspiratorial creature-feature setting that brings to mind Annihilation, Silent Hill and the Resident Evil series, with pretty cool monster designs heavily inspired by Zdzisław Beksiński’s artwork. Derickson directs with a decent sense of pacing and tonal shifts, assisted by propulsive score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, as well as by handsome lensing provided by Dan Laustsen (Nightmare Alley). It goes without saying that an additional injection of suspended disbelief won’t hurt.

10. Luka (Jessica Woodworth, 2023)

Based on Dino Buzzati’s 1940 novel The Tartar Steppe (which I haven’t read), Luka is the most Brutalist feature since Jóhann Jóhannsson’s 2020 offering Last and First Men. Filmed around the Blufi dam – an unfinished yet imposing concrete edifice in Sicily, and gorgeously photographed in ashen B&W on Super 16 by DoP Virginie Surdej, it marks Jessica Woodworth’s first solo directorial effort, her partner Peter Brosens credited as one of the producers. Stylish, if dramatically frigid, the film features an international ensemble cast of largely male actors, with the veteran Geraldine Chaplin as the only woman jumping into the role of The General. The absurdity of authoritarianism rooted in blind ‘obedience, endurance, and sacrifice’ is the name of the gloomy, post-apocalyptic game, as a unit of soldiers wait for a mythical enemy in the Kairos fortress. Following the arrival of a young sniper, Luka (Jonas Smulders), the foundations of the stern micro-society are shaken in more ways than one. In-between their everyday chores (and nocturnal releases of feral energy through ritualistic mock-fights), our hero establishes a friendly relationship with a sprightly private, Geronimo (Django Schrevens), and a brooding communications expert, Konstantin (Samvel Tadevossian), the trio operating as the story’s well-hidden emotional core. Woodworth is more concerned with establishing a bleak atmosphere that would reflect the military-minded oppressiveness, rather than providing a traditional narrative, and to a certain degree, she succeeds in seducing you with the absorbing monochromatic imagery, if that’s your poison.

11. The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep (Kang Hei Chul, 2025)

The second animated feature of The Witcher universe – a follow-up to Nightmare of the Wolf (2021) – is an adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s short story A Little Sacrifice that is a variation on H.C. Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. Beautifully animated by South Korean Studio Mir (Big Fish & Begonia), and founded in pretty solid voice-acting, the film takes some liberties with the source material, ‘Krakens’ things up, and subverts the ending that will surely polarize the viewers and critics alike. Personally, I found the twist to be refreshing, and the addition of a new antagonist befitting of the anti-establishment times we live in. Though it’s not a revelatory addition to the dark fantasy subgenre, ‘Sirens of the Deep’ is a fun little romp reminding us that the real monsters often have ‘human’ faces.

12. The Foreigner (Amos Poe, 1978)

“I’m useless to a society of useless. I feel out of place... I’m only driven by this eternal defeat. I have nothing to look ahead and nothing to regret. I only have the present.”

A solid chunk of No Wave Cinema, The Foreigner strikes me as the most unruly feature I’ve seen in a long while – think Godard meets Morrissey on heavy drugs. It plays as an improvisational riff on spy thrillers, its guerrilla immediacy, freewheeling direction, narrative ambiguities, strange frequencies, and off- to low-key to screen-munching performances glued together by the abrasive-yet-cohesive beauty of the 16mm imagery. Evocative of urban alienation, the film is pervaded by the eerily relatable feeling of existential dread, best summarized in a (partially quoted) monologue by its protagonist, Max Menace – a European secret agent who roams the streets of New York... and at one point encounters a mysterious woman with an echoing voice played by none other than Debbie Harry of Blondie fame. 

SHORTS:

1. История одной провокации (Сергей Винокуров & Андрей Черных, 1990) / The Story of One Provocation (Sergey Vinokurov & Andrey Chernykh, 1990)

During the 60’s, a young teacher’s delusion of persecution alters her reality, and plays with the viewer’s perception in a Kafkaesque, paranoia-fueled neo-noir / psychological thriller that perfectly fits in the drawer labeled ‘obscure late-Soviet gems’. A fragmented, labyrinthine narrative is brilliantly framed on 35mm, with virtually every camera angle knowingly employed to mirror the protagonist’s deeply troubled state of mind. The foreboding music accentuates the transformation of her fears into KGB phantoms who speak in her own echoing voice. The Story of One Provocation marks my first encounter with Vinokurov who makes his debut here, and the second one with Chernykh whose 1991 feature Austrian Field blew my mind last year. 

2. Cygne II (Absis, 1976)

The second part of a cine-diptych – the sole directorial credit for journalist turned filmmaker Absis – opens with a voice-over narration by Michael Lonsdale succeeding Marguerite Duras from Cygne I. Composed as a living painting, the single-shot short depicts a woman in a white dress (Colette Fellous), a smiling girl in black, probably representing Grim Reaper (the author herself), and a wounded man (Jean-Baptiste Malartre), in a sensual interplay of ‘light, voice, music and movements’. Extremely elegant, the chiaroscuro ‘tableau vivant’ reflects the closing words of Duras’ monologue from the first part: “Pleasure of creating oneself, of creating, through the force of one's own desire.” Beautiful.

3. Cigarette Burn (Amy Halpern, 1978)

4. A Dream of Dolls Dancing (Christiane Cegavske, 2017)