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Eisenstein in Guanajuato

13/4/2016

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by Peter Valelly
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In his latest opus, veteran oddball filmmaker Peter Greenaway brings his ornate, grotesque, and visually immaculate style to bear on a particular and peculiar chapter in the life of Soviet ur-auteur Sergei Eisenstein. As its title suggests, Eiseinstein in Guanajuato follows the iconic filmmaker during an extended stay in Mexico. In the early 1930s, Eisenstein arrived in Guanajuato seeking to create an epic film chronicling Mexican history and politics, sponsored financially by left-wing muckraking American novelist Upton Sinclair. The project never quite came together, but not before Eisenstein blew through his budget shooting dozens of miles of film—all while allegedly undergoing a sexual awakening thanks to an affair with Jorge Palomino y Cañedo, a young academic who had been appointed his guide to Mexico.
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MSPIFF
Wednesday, April 13, 4:30 pm
Sunday, April 17, 7:10pm


Director: Peter Greenaway
Producers: Bruno Felix,
San Fu Maltha, Cristina Velasco, Femke Wolting
Writer: Peter Greenaway
Cinematographer: Reinier van Brummelen
Editor: Elmer Leupen
Cast: Elmer Bäck, Luis Alberti, Maya Zapata

Runtime: 105m.
Genre: Drama/History
Country: Netherlands/Mexico/Finland/Belgium

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Endorphine

10/4/2016

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by Peter Valelly
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Directed by André Turpin, who has also served as a cinematographer for queer Québécois filmmaking wunderkind Xavier Dolan, among others, Endorphine is a masterclass in style in search of a stronger foundation of substance to ground itself in.
 
Stripped down to its most straightforward thread of plot—something along the lines of: “a teenage girl grapples with the trauma of witnessing her mother’s murder”--Endorphine might not sound like a film that would turn out to be a mindbending meditation on the nature of time, the permeability of reality, and the power of the unconscious mind. But that’s exactly what the film becomes over the course of its lean 83-minute runtime. Slowly and fitfully at first, the film veers into choppy narrative digressions and strange loops. Then, around the halfway mark, the story leaps ahead into the abstract while still remaining just barely tethered to its emotional core.
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MSPIFF
Sunday, April 10, 9:15 pm
Monday, April 18, 9:30 pm


Director: André Turpin
Producers: Luc Déry,
Kim McCraw
Writer: André Turpin
Cinematographer: Josée Deshaies
Editor: Sophie Leblond
Music: François Lafontaine
Cast: Sophie Nélisse, Mylène MacKay, Lise Roy, Guy Thauvette, Monia Chokri, Stéphane Crête, Anne-Marie Cadieux, Théodore Pellerin, Fanny Migneault-Lecavalier

Runtime: 84m.
Genre: Drama/Sci-fi
Country: Canada


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Blind

14/12/2015

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by Peter Valelly
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Norwegian writer-director Eskil Vogt’s Blind follows the psychological wanderings of Ingrid, a housewife who has recently and unexpectedly lost her sight. As the movie begins, Ingrid has quietly made a personal decision to never leave her Oslo apartment, and finds herself working on a novel in a depressed, hallucinatory, intermittently drunken stupor, emotionally adrift and increasingly unhinged. 
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Trylon microcinema, December 14-15
Director: Eskil Vogt
Writer: Eskil Vogt
Producers: Sigve Endresen, Jans-Jørgen Osnes, Joachim Trier
Editor: Jens Christan Fodstad
Cinematographer: Thimios Bakatakis
Music: Henk Hofstede
Cast: Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Henrik Rafaelsen, Vera Vitali

Runtime: 96m.
Genre: Drama
Country: Norway/Netherlands
Premiere: January 19, 2014 - Sundance
US Theatrical Release: Sept. 4, 2015
US Distributor:
 Kimstim Films

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Safe

14/11/2015

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by Peter Valelly
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Todd Haynes’ 1995 film Safe—not only the writer-director’s finest work, but one of the best films of the past 30 years—is searing, prescient, and intimate. However, despite its potent emotional gravity, it’s not an entirely straight-faced film, but it’s also not quite a satire. Instead, it’s infused with subtle currents of camp and melodrama, which buttress rather than undermine its delicate and humane portrait of one woman’s inner psyche and its oblique exploration of the fear that undergirds modern social norms. 
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Walker Art Center
Saturday, November 14

Director: Todd Haynes
Writer: Todd Haynes
Producers: Christine Vachon, Lauren Zalaznick
Editor: James Lyons
Cinematographer: Alex Nepomniaschy
Music: Ed Tomney
Cast: Julianne Moore, Xander Berkeley, Dean Norris, Julie Burgess, Ronnie Farer, Jodie Markell, Susan Norman

Runtime: 119m.
Genre: Drama
Country: UK/USA
Premiere: January 1995 - Sundance
US Theatrical Release: June 30, 1995
US Distributor:
 Sony Pictures Classics

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The Searchers

21/10/2015

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by Peter Valelly
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1956’s The Searchers, the definitive work by the iconic director John Ford, is effectively the pivot point in the history of the cinematic Western, representing the summation and apex of the genre’s traditional form and therefore the launching pad for its many reinventions. It’s also a masterpiece in the surest sense of the word, suffused with epic adventure and gripping drama and equipped with a stacked roster of compelling performances—none moreso than John Wayne’s legendary star turn as Ethan Edwards.
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The Heights Theater
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Thursday, October 22
Director: John Ford
Writers: Frank S. Nugent, Alan Le May (novel)

Editor: Jack Murray
Cinematographer: Winton C. Hoch
Music: Max Steiner
Cast: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood

Runtime: 119m.
Genre: Adventure/Western
Country: USA
US Theatrical Release: March 13, 1956
US Distributor: Warner Home Video

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Tom at the Farm

17/9/2015

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by Peter Valelly
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Tom at the Farm is a psychological thriller that’s largely lacking the genre’s trademark tautness and narrative drive, opting instead for the meandering, fitful momentum and detached intimacy of a contemporary indie drama. It’s not an entirely successful combination, although the film has moments of impressive intensity, a seductive visual style, and one superb performance.
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Trylon microcinema,
September 21-22
Director: Xavier Dolan
Writers: Xavier Dolan, Michel Marc Bouchard
Editor: Xavier Dolan
Cinematographer: André Turpin
Music: Gabriel Yared
Cast: Xavier Dolan, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Lise Roy, Evelyne Brochu

Runtime: 102m.
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Country: Canada/France
Premiere: September 2, 2013 - Venice
US Theatrical Release: August 14, 2015
US Distributor: Amplify Releasing

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Jauja

7/9/2015

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by Peter Valelly
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Argentine auteur Lisandro Alonso’s masterful Jauja is a cinematic chimera, shifting shape across its two-hour length without ever interrupting its wholly unique style. Early on, the film teeters on the brink between a Western and a sort of fantastical fable, but it soon becomes something like a riddle, answers lurking ever out of view. And in its awesomely strange and potent denouement, it comes untethered from reality, veering headlong into the overlapping realms of the philosophical, the spiritual, and the aesthetically abstract.
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Trylon microcinema,
September 7-8
Director: Lisandro Alonso
Writers: Lisandro Alonso, Fabian Casas
Producers: Ilse Hughan, Andy Kleinman, Viggo Mortensen, Sylvie Pialat, Jaime Romandia, Helle Ulsteen

Editors: Gonzalo del Val, Natalia López
Cinematographer: Timo Salminen
Music: Viggo Morensen
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Ghita Nørby, Vilbjørk Malling Agger, Esteban Bigliardi

Runtime: 109m.
Genre: Drama/Western
Country: Argentina / Denmark / France / Mexico / USA / Germany / Brazil / Netherlands
Premiere: May 18, 2014 - Cannes
US Theatrical Release: March 20, 2015
US Distributor: The Cinema Guild

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Tangerine

24/7/2015

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by Peter Valelly
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Director and co-writer Sean Baker’s marvelous Tangerine is a delirious, delightful, and unhinged snapshot of queer Los Angeles, a willfully noncommercial and even at times abrasive film shot on a handheld iPhone 5s and brimming with sex, drugs, violence, and vice (and, in one scene, no small amount of vomit). Underneath, however, it’s also a bracingly emotionally bare character piece that reimagines the tradition of cult cinema and revitalizes the legacy of queer filmmaking.
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Uptown Theatre
Director: Sean Baker
Writers: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch
Producers: Sean Baker, Karrie Cox, Marcus Cox, Darren Dean, Shih-Ching Tsou
Editor: Sean Baker
Cast: Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Karren Kargulian, Mickey O'Hagan, James Ransone

Runtime: 88m.
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Country: USA
Premiere: January 23, 2015 - Sundance
US Theatrical Release: July 10, 2015
US Distributor: Magnolia Pictures

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The Tribe

17/7/2015

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by Peter Valelly
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Ukrainan Director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy’s bleak, daring opus The Tribe arrives in the United States in wide release this month courtesy of reliably adventurous distributors Drafthouse Films, carrying a long trail of controversy and hype in its wake. At least part of this lightning-rod reputation stems from the film’s central conceit: it’s performed entirely by deaf non-actors using Ukrainan sign language, with all global distributors barred from including subtitles or translation of any kind. Paired with the film’s equally distinctive cinematography, which emphasizes naturalistic long takes filmed at medium distance, this creates a truly unique sense of visual rhythm. At once kinetic and hypnotic, the film is unlike much else you’re likely to see in contemporary narrative cinema.
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Film Society of Minneapolis St Paul
Director: Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy
Writer: Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy
Producer: Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy
Editor: Valentyn Vasyanovych
Cast: Grigoriy Fesenko, Yana Novikova, Rosa Babiy, Alexander Dsiadevich, Taroslav Biletskiy, Ivan Tishko, Alexander Osadchiy, Alexander Sidelnikov, Alexander Panivan

Runtime: 132m.
Genre: Crime/Drama
Country: Ukraine/Netherlands
Premiere: May 21, 2014 – Cannes Film Festival
US Theatrical Release: July 17, 2015
US Distributor: Drafthouse Films

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Slow West

22/5/2015

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by Peter Valelly
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The debut feature from writer-director John Maclean, Slow West, is both a rollicking adventure and a tragic fable, told with a distinctive stylistic voice. The film stars Michael Fassbender and the impressive young Australian actor Kodi Smit-McPhee as two wanderers whose paths cross—and soon become deeply entangled—in the late-19th-century Wild West.
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MSP Film Society
Director: John Maclean
Producers: Iain Canning, Rachel Gardner, Conor McCaughan, Emile Sherman
Writer: John Maclean
Cinematographer: Robbie Ryan
Editors: Roland Gallois, Jon Gregory
Music: Jed Kurzel
Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Ben Medelsohn

Runtime: 84m.
Genre: Action/Thriller/Western
Countries: UK/New Zealand

US Theatrical Release: May 15, 2015
US Distributor: A24

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