Film Comment's Best Unreleased Films of 2012
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- DirectorJoachim LafosseStarsÉmilie DequenneClaire BodsonNiels ArestrupHappy couple, will marry and have children under the roof of the benevolent Doctor. Little by little, relationships become complex, suffocating the couple and the family, who are unaware of the tragic end towards which they are heading
- DirectorFang SongStarsDi-jing SongFang SongYu-zhu YeThe director plays herself in conversation with her aging parents. Her mother is especially concerned about the isolation that can come from living in a big city.
- DirectorAlan BerlinerStarsEli BerlinerStuart BlazerSusan BrownAcclaimed filmmaker Alan Berliner chronicles the deeply personal story of his mother's first cousin--well-known poet/translator/professor Edwin Honig--on his journey into the depths of Alzheimer's disease. Shot over the course of five years, the film presents an unflinching portrait of Edwin's work and life while documenting his slow mental deterioration through visits and interviews with Edwin and his friends, former students, and others, along with archival footage and more.
- DirectorLiang YingStarsNai AnKate WenMing SunTaken from a real life miscarriage of justice in China , this adaptation focuses on a mother ,detained in a mental facility, as her son is sentenced to death for taking vengeance on police officials.
- DirectorJun LanaStarsEddie GarciaPrincessRez CortezGruff and cynical Rene is no stranger to loneliness, living an emotionally detached life with his dog, Bkawaw. Yet a connection with a middle-aged taxi driver begins to soften his outlook on life.
- DirectorManoel de OliveiraStarsMichael LonsdaleClaudia CardinaleJeanne MoreauSet in the late 19th century, about a honored but poor patriarch who sacrifices himself to protect his fugitive son.
- DirectorNicolas ReyStarsPeter HoffmannNine reels (shown in no particular order) of allegories and political musings by political prisoners in the mythical fascist state of Molussia. Based on Günther Anders, The Molussian Catacomb (1931).
- DirectorHeinz EmigholzThe brothers Perret built many structures across France and Algeria. Their architecture has stood the test of time to be explored by the modern filmmaker.
- DirectorWang BingThree young sisters live and work in extreme poverty in the harsh environment of Yunnan, a province on the Sino Burmese border area of China.
- DirectorMarco BellocchioStarsToni ServilloIsabelle HuppertAlba RohrwacherA mosaic of several intertwined stories questioning the meaning of life, love and hope, set during the last six days in the life of Eluana Englaro, a young woman who spent 17 years in a vegetative state.
- DirectorJohn GianvitoJon JostMinda MartinStarsAndre GregoryFive accomplished, politically progressive film-makers come together to raise the collective consciousness about the U.S. war in Afghanistan, officially the longest war in U.S. history. Inspired by the 1967 collaborative undertaking, 'Loin du Vietnam', 'Far from Afghanistan' explores, through a mosaic of approaches, issues of shared responsibility, history and memory - all in a concerted effort to help accelerate political resistance to the war.
- DirectorNoémie LvovskyStarsNoémie LvovskySamir GuesmiJudith ChemlaCamille was only sixteen and still in high school when she fell in love with Eric, another student. They later married and a child and were happy for a while. But now twenty-five years have passed and Eric leaves her for a younger woman. Bitter and desperate Camille drinks so much liquor at a New Year Eve's party that she falls into an ethylic coma and she finds herself... propelled into her own past! Camille is sixteen again when she wakes up this morning, her parents are not dead anymore and she must go to school, where she will meet her schoolmates and, of course, Eric. Is she going to fall for him again and... be miserable twenty-five years later? Or will she avoid him with the result never having her beloved daughter? Who ever said that time traveling was fun?
- DirectorHaifaa Al-MansourStarsWaad MohammedReem AbdullahAbdullrahman Al GohaniAn enterprising Saudi girl signs on for her school's Koran recitation competition as a way to raise the remaining funds she needs in order to buy the green bicycle that has captured her interest.
- DirectorNicolás PeredaStarsGabino RodríguezTeresa SánchezJosé Rodríguez LópezDrifting from fiction to documentary, Greatest Hits tells the story of Emilio, a man in his fifties who shows up at the family home after fifteen years of absence. His wife and his twenty-eight year old son receive him with bitterness and confusion. After a couple of days they decide to kick him out, only to find out that he has left on his own accord. The son ends up tracking down Emilio and spends a couple of days hanging out with him in his apartment.
- DirectorJames Benning47 roads across the United States.
- DirectorRadu JudeStarsSerban PavluSofia NicolaescuGabriel SpahiuMarius is a divorced man in his late thirties. His five year-old daughter Sofia lives with her mother, which causes Marius a deep frustration. On the day Marius arrives to take his daughter on their annual holiday, he is told that she is ill but he doesn't believe it and insists to take her with him. The situation soon gets out of control with all the family taking part in a web of humor, violence, childish songs, police interventions and love statements.
- DirectorTreva WurmfeldStarsSam ShepardJohnny DarkO-Lan JonesShepard & Dark is the remarkable story of a friendship in letters.
- DirectorMargarethe von TrottaStarsBarbara SukowaAxel MilbergJanet McTeerA look at the life of philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt, who reported for 'The New Yorker' on the trial of the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.
- DirectorYesim UstaogluStarsNeslihan AtagülBaris HacihanÖzcan DenizAraf is the story of Zehra and Olgun whose lives are caught in a vacuum. The world in which they live and work is a place of throwaway culture and constant change. They too are waiting for a chance to change and escape from their empty, monotonous lives.
- DirectorDominga SotomayorStarsSanti AhumadaFrancisco Pérez-BannenPaola GianniniA family takes a short vacation, while the daughter of the family gradually discovers that her parents could be separating.
- DirectorMohammad RasoulofStarsLeila ZareFereshteh Sadre OrafaiyShahab HosseiniStory of a young lawyer in Tehran in search of a visa to leave the country, which is what Mohammad Rasoulof did during the winter of 2010/11.
- DirectorMichel FrancoStarsTessa IaHernán MendozaGonzalo Vega Jr.Alejandra and her dad Roberto have just moved to town. She is new at school, he has a new job. Starting over is sometimes complicated when you have left so much behind.
- DirectorJoachim RønningEspen SandbergStarsPål Sverre HagenAnders BaasmoGustaf SkarsgårdLegendary explorer Thor Heyerdahl's epic 4,300-mile crossing of the Pacific on a balsawood raft in 1947, in an effort to prove that it was possible for South Americans to settle in Polynesia in pre-Columbian times.
- DirectorThom AndersenStarsEduardo Souto MouraReconversion portrays seventeen buildings and projects by Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto Moura, accompanied by his own writings. An investigation upon his architecture and his critical approach.
- DirectorFrank V. RossStarsRobert AirdoAnthony J. BakerAllison LattaTiger Tail in Blue is about a young married couple, Christopher and Melody, that work opposite schedules to remain financially afloat as Chris bangs out his first novel while working nights as a waiter. Never seeing each other is taking it's toll. As the two rarely get a chance to engage one another, Chris finds the attention he craves in Brandy, a saucy co-worker.
- DirectorAmy SeimetzStarsKate Lyn SheilKentucker AudleyAJ BowenA couple takes a tense and mysterious road trip through the desolate yet hauntingly beautiful landscape of central Florida.
- DirectorGina TelaroliThis impressionistic feature by a former Ohioan chronicles a February train ride from Penn Station to Cleveland as the winter light surrenders to darkness.
- DirectorEdwinStarsLadya CherylNicholas SaputraAdjie Nur AhmadLittle Lana was 3 years old when she was abandoned alone in the zoo. Raised by a giraffe trainer, the zoo is the only world she knows. Until one day, a charming magician arrives and Lana finds her love, for she is ready to leave the zoo.
- DirectorPablo StollStarsHumberto De VargasSara BessioAnaclara Ferreyra PalfyAna, an enterprising teenager, is living through a decisive moment in her life. Her divorced parents seem at a turning point as well. 3 is a comedy about three people doomed to the same absurd fate: being a family.
- DirectorSébastien LifshitzStarsYannPierreBernard RomieuSeveral elderly homosexual men and women speak frankly about their pioneering lives, their fearless decision to live openly in France at a time when society rejected them.
- DirectorMichael WinterbottomStarsShirley HendersonJohn SimmShaun KirkThis film charts the relationship between a man imprisoned for drug smuggling and his wife and is being shot over the course of five years, a few weeks at a time.
- DirectorAngelina NikonovaStarsOlga DykhovichnayaRoman MerinovSergey GolyudovMarina, an upper-class social worker with a doting husband and an enviable downtown apartment, is suddenly transformed into a bizarre twilight version of herself after having been raped by three policemen.
- DirectorSimone Rapisarda CasanovaTesting the boundaries between anthropology, documentary and reverie, the film is a mesmerizing cinematic poem that portrays with rigorous restraint the final sigh of one of Cuba's last fishing villages. Besides the introductory sequence, the film was entirely shot in the remote hamlet of Juan Antonio, only weeks before it disappeared at the hands of a hurricane. Located where Columbus first set anchor in his 1492 discovery of the New World, the village hosted a singular fishing community, where traits and habits of the Taìno indigenous population had survived and mixed with those of the Spanish colonizers. The film primarily focuses on the daily routines of two families, Silva Ocampo and Silva Vidal, while they prepare for Children's Day and the next day's fishing expedition. Their ingeniousness and resilience, as well as their playful and irreverent attitude toward the filmmaker, provide a continuous source of reflection and amusement. The filmmaker's initial prominence slowly fades through the course of the film, leaving space to the tension between the village and its ultimate fate. Through a candid observation of the villagers and of the peculiar relationship that develops between them and the filmmaker, the film renders a sensitive portrait of a unique culture into a meditation on documentary filmmaking and on humanity on the edge of time.
- DirectorStephen DwoskinStarsStephen DwoskinExploring the texture, the beauty and the singularity of aging faces and silhouettes, Age Is meditates through tiny details, a gesture, a pause, a look, on the subjective experience and cultural concepts of ageing.
- DirectorCyril MennegunStarsCorinne MasieroJérôme KircherAnne BenoîtA woman wages an uphill struggle to put her life back together in this neo-realist drama from France. Louise is a divorcee in her early fifties who is having a hard time making ends meet on her own, she works as a cleaning woman and lives in her car but raising enough money for an apartment always seems to be just out of her reach.
- DirectorAntonio Méndez EsparzaStarsPedro De los SantosTeresa Ramírez AguirreLorena Guadalupe Pantaleón Vázquez"AQUÍ": Pedro returns home to a small mountain village in Guerrero, Mexico after years of working in the US. He finds his daughters older, and more distant than he imagined. His wife still has the same smile. Having saved some earnings from two trips to the US, he hopes to now finally make a better life with his family, and even to pursue his dreams on the side by starting a band: Copa Kings. He cherishes the everyday moments with his family. "ALLÁ": The villagers think this year's crop will be bountiful. There is also good work in a growing city an hour away. But the locals are wise to a life of insecurity, and their thoughts are often of family members or opportunities far away, north of the border. While working in the fields, Pedro meets and begins to mentor a teenager who dreams of the US. That place somehow always feels very present, practically knocking at the door. "Aquí y Allá" is a story about hope, and the memories and loss of what we leave behind.
- DirectorTakeshi KitanoStarsToshiyuki NishidaTomokazu MiuraTakeshi KitanoAs the police launch a full-scale crackdown on organized crime, it ignites a national yakuza struggle between the Sanno of the East and Hanabishi of the West.
- DirectorMilagros MumenthalerStarsMaría CanaleMartina JuncadellaAilín SalasPortrait of everyday life of Marina, Sofia and Violeta, three sisters living in Buenos Aires his grandmother's house, the woman who raised her, after she has died.
- DirectorJonah BekhorZach MathStarsSigurður HjartarsonPáll ArasonTom MitchellThirty miles from the Arctic Circle, in the northern Icelandic town of Husavik, stands the Icelandic Phallological Museum - the world's only Penis museum. Over 40 years, the founder and curator has collected every specimen from every mammal except for one elusive penis needed to complete his collection: The Human Specimen. The film follows the curator's incredible, sublimely comic, often shocking quest to complete his eccentric collection, and the two intrepid men who have raised their hands to be the first human donor.
- DirectorMarc-Henri WajnbergStarsGabi BolengeBebson ElembaJoël EziegueA film crew follow a group of children that live rough on Kinshasa's streets. The children are thought of as shegues, or witches, by many adults including their families. The kids' desire is to make money and music.
- DirectorPierre SchoellerStarsOlivier GourmetMichel BlancZabou BreitmanTransport Minister Bertrand Saint-Jean is awoken in the middle of the night by his head of staff. A bus has gone off the road into a gully. He has no choice but to go to the scene of the accident. Thus begins the odyssey of a politician in a world that is increasingly more complex and hostile. Speed, power struggles, chaos, economic crisis... Everything follows in quick succession and clashes. Emergencies follow on each other's heels. What sacrifices are men prepared to make? Just how long will they hold up in a state that devours those that work for it?
- DirectorShivendra Singh DungarpurStarsU.R. AnanthamurthyG. AnanthappaBeena AntonyThis is the story of Mr P.K.Nair, a man who talks,eats,dreams and sleeps cinema. Lovingly known as Henri Langlois of India, Nair Sahab (P.K.Nair) is the man behind archiving of many films in India.
- DirectorSébastien BetbederStarsPio MarmaïAgathe BonitzerFabrice AddeA romantic connection blossoms between two young Parisians during a succession of dreamlike nocturnal visits to a singular, beguiling park. Anna meets Theodore at a party, and together they impulsively climb the fence and enter the a nearby city park, an unusual and striking hillside public garden in northeastern Paris. The two part at dawn, but find themselves drawn back the following night, and, falling in love under the park's spell, embark on nightly explorations of its topographic mysteries, gradually discovering that, despite feeling entirely alone in the world, they may not be the only ones drawn to this magical place.
- DirectorAnurag KashyapStarsManoj BajpayeeNawazuddin SiddiquiTigmanshu DhuliaA clash between Sultan and Shahid Khan leads to the expulsion of Khan from Wasseypur, and ignites a deadly blood feud spanning three generations.
- DirectorJavier RebolloStarsJosé SacristánRoxana BlancoValeria AlonsoEl Muerto is the story of a Spanish man in Argentina who one day becomes aware on the upper floor of a hospital in Buenos Aires of his approaching death. He decides to escape, to flee towards the north and across Argentina. This last cross has no specific destination. Only matters movement and sensation of extreme freedom, but above all, the feeling to leave behind only the last moment of life. Hit-man of his condition, he is intimate with death. That's why he serenely moves forward her. His long wondering, being similar by many aspects to a modern novel of cavalry. In this paradoxical movement of avoiding death while rushing towards her, he meets a women, she will be his rider. This movie is the story of a hit-man who does not murder. A story of guns that don't do fire, dogs and roads.
- DirectorNicolas ProvostStarsIssaka SawadogoStefania RoccaSerge RiaboukineThe struggles of illegal African immigrant Amadou in search for a better life in Brussels.
- DirectorLaurent CantetStarsRaven AdamsonKatie CoseniMadeleine BissonSet in the 1950s, a group of young girls in upstate New York form their own gang.
- DirectorDjinn CarrénardStarsEmilia Derou-BernalSékouba DoucouréSalomé BlechmansA female teacher begins an ambiguous relationship with a student, an agnostic teenager is « called » by God, a photographer offers herself to a stranger : do we choose to love, do we choose to be loved ?