A singular, sole person – monosyllabic
MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ (Reunion, 1958) is a controversial author – loved and loathed. He is compared to Marquis de Sade and Baudelaire for his provocations.
An exoticism that blinds people?
What did Benazir Bhutto really achieve as Prime Minister of Pakistan? She brought drinking water and electricity to the villages, she built schools and ended polio. But this film – a bombardment of expressions – is more a history of Pakistan.
IDFA 2010: Multiple times in documentaries
Three documentaries show that history can be understood in terms of time periods of different duration: A single event such as an airship trip in 1929, a long running campaign to distort Palestinian history, or the memories of a father connected to world events.
WIELAND SPECK: Ahead of the zeitgeist
Wieland Speck is sculpting a dauntless collection of progressive worldviews, of both fact and fiction, which unites artistic vision with commercial interest.
A Pre-war Comedy
The creators of 2004’s fake hypermarket, Czech Dream, return with a second feature documentary, moving away from their country’s consumerist tendencies and to its knack of being occupied by military forces. Along their journey, the filmmakers are confronted with various presidents, pieces of false information, wartime pop tunes and a wild boar named Jonas.
A better future
The dominant colour of this film is orange. Does it show that Western burials are designed to shelter people from much of the reality of death?
Film about male saunas
Against tremendous odds, dozens of naked men and countless beers and tears, Finnish filmmakers Joonas Berghäll and Mika Hotakainen created an ode to their country’s men and its most soulful ritual.
It was no secret
The “secret war” takes us into the inconcievable reality of a war conducted in the shadow of the Vietnam war. As the film impies, the “secret war” is an ancestor of today’s U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Two approaches to war
From San Francisco International Film Festival: Andrei Nekrasov and Olga Konskaya captured the immediate aftermath of the bombing, shooting, and looting during the intense 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia. Two other filmmakers focus on the everyday life of a single US army platoon stationed in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan – showing just how easy it was for the Taliban to defend their positions in the mountainous terrain.