Social & External
A video essay on Edward Yang's 2000 film "Yi Yi: A One and a Two..."
A video essay made on S. Craig Zahler's 2015 film "Bone Tomahawk".
There are two Bergmans. One speaks English, the other Italian. They fall in love and set off impulsively to live together. But reality is far from easy. As the rift between their emotions deepens, what choice will they make? And what kind of ending awaits them?
Non-human animals have always been around us, shaping and being shaped by our shared worlds. Yet in the modern city, their presence is increasingly cast as a problem, and their ways of living as disruptions. By following their traces, this film essay points toward a different picture that questions the narratives we take for granted. Through more-than-human encounters filmed locally in Romania, and a critical detour from the official discourse, other ways of living begin to surface. Perhaps there’s more we can do to unmake the anthropocentric landscape. What would it take to coexist more justly with urban animals? This film strays with this question and its possible answers.
The picture belongs to the jidai gekki (historic) genre. It is a powerful story of violence and eroticism, picturing a world at once sordid and poetic, with two central themes which intermingle to compound an admirable panel of a critical period in Japanese history: the great famine in the mid 19th Century.
Yukiko Nogami is rescued during a mountain blizzard by handsome forester Shinkichi, and the two subsequently fall in love. But when Shinkichi dies in an avalanche, Yukiko leaves the mountains in despair and takes a job in a bar where she becomes deeply involved in the personal lives of several of the patrons. One day she thinks she sees Shinkichi alive, but it turns out to be a gangster named Hayakawa, a man on the run who bears an astonishing resemblance to Yukiko's lost love. Against her better judgment, she is drawn to help Hayakawa, though clearly danger follows him.
The slightly self-indulgent artist Thorvald collapses during an interview made in celebration of his 80th birthday and dies shortly after. But in spite of his death Thorvald can still follow those left behind. From a distance, and for better or worse, he sees with his own eyes the imprint he has left on his family and especially his son Vincent, who had a strained relationship with his father.
Coach Shimamura of the hapless Sparrows baseball team is pleased to obtain a hot new pitcher named Onishi. But when Onishi begins a romantic relationship with the coach's daughter Michiko, Shimamura becomes angry with the young man, lashing out at him when he disobeys instructions during a game. In turn, Michiko becomes angry with her father, who becomes increasingly depressed. When a tragedy strikes the family, Coach Shimamura begins losing control of his life, just when his family and his team need him most.
Set 3 years after the drama series. Kitano Yuichiro comes to give a lecture in the town where divorcee Sasamoto Sawa now lives quietly. The two meet again and their love story continue.
Explores the story of three children who claimed to have witnessed visitations of the Virgin Mary in Fatima, 1917. It shows the journey that they went on and how their courage and belief changed the face of Portugal.
In the late 90s, filmmakers William Hellfire and Pete Jacelone collaborated on a series of custom death fetish shorts. While primarily aiming to satiating the bizarre proclivities of their unknown clients, the pair also conspired to link the unrelated shorts together with an obtuse story thread and reoccurring characters, all with the hopes of eventually cutting the footage together as a feature length anthology film. Unfortunately the project was never completed and the footage has languished in the vaults for nearly 20 years... until now.
