August 30, 2010 |
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WINNER OF MULTIPLE INTERNATIONAL AWARDS, LAST TRAIN HOME OPENS AT IFC CENTER THIS FRIDAY Every spring, China’s cities are plunged into chaos as 130 million migrant workers journey to their home villages for the New Year’s holiday. Lixin Fan’s award-winning documentary Last Train Home follows one couple who have embarked on this annual trek for almost two decades. Like so many of China’s rural poor, Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin left behind their two infant children for grueling factory jobs thousand of miles away. This emotionally engaging and starkly beautiful film opens at the IFC Center in New York this Friday before screening around the country. Watch the trailer here and read a great article on the film in the Sunday New York Times. |
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VISION - FROM THE LIFE OF HILDEGARD VON BINGEN OPENS ON OCTOBER 13. A visionary in every sense of the word, Hildegard von Bingen, the famed 12th-century Benedictine nun was a Christian mystic, composer, philosopher, playwright, poet, naturalist, scientist, physician, herbalist and ecological activist. New German Cinema auteur Margarethe von Trotta reunites with recurrent star Barbara Sukowa to bring the story of this extraordinary woman to life. In a staggering performance, Sukowa portrays von Bingen’s fierce determination to Vision opens at Film Forum in New York on October 13 before screening around the country. Watch our brand new trailer here. |
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KIHACHIRO KAWAMOTO (1925-2010) Japanese animation master Kihachiro Kawamoto sadly passed away at the age of 85 on August 27, 2010. Known for his painstakingly detailed stop-motion puppet animation, Kawamoto began his career in the 1950s under the mentorship of celebrated Czech animator Jiri Trnka at Kratky Studios in Prague. Drawing on ancient legends and contemporary short novels, as well as Noh, Kabuki and Bunraku doll theater, Kawamoto harnessed Japan’s unique aesthetic traditions to create poetic films that speak of passion and loss in worlds populated by ghosts and demons. Luckily, much his most sublime work can be seen in the U.S. in two KimStim/Zeitgeist DVD editions: the gorgeous 2005 feature The Book of the Dead; and the shorts collection The Exquisite Short Films of Kihachiro Kawamoto (1968-1979). He will be sorely missed. |
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A TOWN CALLED PANIC IS NOW ON DVD AND NETFLIX WATCH INSTANTLY! “Fast-paced and exciting. Funny and original.” Hilarious and delightfully wacky, the stop-motion extravaganza A Town Called Panic has endless charms and raucous laughs for children and adults alike. Based on the Belgian cult TV series Panic stars three plastic toys named Cowboy, Indian and Horse who share a rambling house in a rural town that never fails to attract the craziest events. |
MORE FROM THE KIMSTIM COLLECTION As we develop our partnership with KimStim, Zeitgeist will highlight great films and filmmakers from the KimStim catalogue. This month, we feature two European masters: Georgian great Otar Iosseliani and Belgian hyperrealist Chantal Akerman. Famous for his sardonic wit and exquisite long takes, Iosseliani’s name may ring familiar to Zeitgeist fans. He was such a huge influence on French director Julie Bertuccelli that she paid him homage with her delicate Cannes winner Since Otar Left (2004). Akerman is of course an icon whose most famous work, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), is a landmark of visually rigorous, uncompromising cinema. Read a recent piece on her film La Captive by New Yorker film critic Richard Brody, or watch his DVD of the Week podcast.
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All the films mentioned in this newsletter are available for educational/institutional purchase or rental. For educational/institutional orders please email us. |
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