!f 2016 Watcheds and Wanna Watchs
Picks from Istanbul Film Festival '16.
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- DirectorAmber FaresThe Speed Sisters are the first all-women race car driving team in the Middle East. They're bold. They're fearless. And they're tearing up tracks all over Palestine.
- DirectorJames PonsoldtStarsJason SegelJesse EisenbergAnna ChlumskyThe story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace, which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, 'Infinite Jest.'
- DirectorFederico VeirojStarsÁlvaro OgallaMarta LarraldeBárbara LennieAn existential comedy about a Spanish man trying to apostatize from the Catholic Church.
- DirectorFarid EslamStarsZeid HamdanShadi ZaqtanMaii Waleed YassinYALLAH! follows today's most important and progressive underground artists from Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and Israel through years of rapid change from 2009 to 2014.
- DirectorKároly Ujj MészárosStarsMónika BalsaiSzabolcs Bede FazekasDavid SakuraiLiza's a nurse, seeking love. Her only company is a long-dead Japanese pop star, who turns her into a fox-fairy out of jealousy. Now, every men who desires Liza shall die horribly. Can she overcome the curse?
- DirectorRick AlversonStarsGregg TurkingtonJohn C. ReillyTye SheridanEn route to meet his estranged daughter and attempting to revive his dwindling career, a broken, middle-aged comedian plays a string of dead-end shows in the Mojave desert.
- DirectorBen RiversStarsÓliver LaxeAt the heart of the film's multiple narratives is an adaptation of A Distant Episode, the savage short story set in Morocco by American author Paul Bowles, first published in 1947. Moving between documentary, fiction and fable, "The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers" observes its protagonist, filmmaker Oliver Laxe, directing his own film Las Mimosas in Morocco, only to walk off set and into Rivers' narrative. Shot against the staggering beauty of the Moroccan landscape, from the rugged terrain of the Atlas Mountains to the stark and surreal emptiness of the Sahara, with its encroaching sands and abandoned film sets, Laxe is drawn into a hallucinatory and perilous adventure of cruelty and madness to form a multi-layered excavation into the illusion of cinema itself. "In a café in Morocco, about 50 years ago, Paul Bowles overheard a man, high on kif, say the title of this film. And so he wrote a story around this statement, a story that moves between different planes of reality. I read the story, and the story behind the story, and the strange phrase kept circling around my mind, creating images and dreams. This film is a manifestation of these images, along with obsessions about cinema and how far we will go to make it". Oliver Laxe.
- DirectorTakashi MiikeStarsHayato IchiharaRiko NarumiShô AoyagiIn the ruthless underground world of the yakuza, no one is more legendary than boss Kamiura. Rumored to be invincible, the truth is he is a vampire-a bloodsucking yakuza vampire boss! Among Kamiura's gang is Kageyama, his most loyal underling. However, the others in the gang view Kageyama with disdain and ridicule him for his inability to get tattooed due to sensitive skin. One day, assassins aware of boss Kamiura's secret arrive from abroad and deliver him an ultimatum: Return to the international syndicate he left years ago, or die. Kamiura refuses and, during a fierce battle with anime-otaku martial-arts expert Kyoken, is torn limb from limb. With his dying breath, Kamiura bites Kageyama, passing on his vampire powers to the unsuspecting yakuza. As he begins to awaken to his newfound abilities, Kageyama's desire to avenge the murder of boss Kamiura sets him on a course for a violent confrontation with Kaeru-kun, the foreign syndicate's mysterious and seemingly unstoppable leader!
- DirectorMarielle HellerStarsBel PowleyAlexander SkarsgårdKristen WiigA teen artist living in 1970s San Francisco enters into an affair with her mother's boyfriend.
- DirectorKarolina BielawskaStarsMariusz BonaszewskiJowita BudnikKatarzyna KlapczynskaWhat does it mean to be oneself? What is a price to be paid for achieving such a state?
- DirectorDuke JohnsonCharlie KaufmanStarsDavid ThewlisJennifer Jason LeighTom NoonanA man crippled by the mundanity of his life experiences something out of the ordinary.
- DirectorPeter MiddletonJames SpinneyStarsJohn M. HullMarilyn HullRafe BeckleyIn 1983, following a decade of steady deterioration, writer and theologian John Hull lost all traces of sight sensation. For the next three years he would keep a diary on audio cassette - over sixteen hours in total - a unique and insightful meditation on memory, consciousness and perception. The diaries were published in 1992 to wide critical acclaim. The neurologist Oliver Sacks described the work as a 'masterpiece... the most extraordinary, precise, deep and beautiful account of blindness I have ever read.' The NOTES ON BLINDNESS series is the first time John's original audio recordings have been heard in public. Encompassing dreams, memory and his imaginative life, the films take a creative approach tot he documentary form, excavating the interior world of blindness.
- DirectorChad GraciaStarsAndrei AlexandrovichFedor AlexandrovichIgor AlexandrovichA gripping, award-winning documentary about an irradiated Ukrainian artist's search for the truth about Chernobyl and his prescient and powerful warnings about Putin's plans for a coming Russian invasion.
- DirectorCrystal MoselleStarsMukunda AnguloNarayana AnguloSusanne AnguloConfined in an apartment from a New York housing project, the six Angulo brothers learned everything they know about the world through watching films and spend their time reenacting their favorite movies with intricate homemade costumes.
- DirectorOwen HarrisStarsNicholas HoultThomas ConroyJames CordenAn A&R man working at the height of the Britpop music craze goes to extremes in order to find his next hit.
- DirectorStevan RileyStarsMarlon BrandoStella AdlerBernardo BertolucciA documentary that utilizes hundreds of hours of audio that Marlon Brando recorded over the course of his life to tell the screen legend's story.
- DirectorIsiah MedinaStarsErik BergEliza BronteAlexandre GalmardAn experimental film diary about young people in Winnipeg who have difficulty making ends meet.
- DirectorHsiao-Hsien HouStarsShu QiChang ChenYun ZhouA female assassin receives a dangerous mission to kill a political leader in eighth-century China.
- DirectorBenjamin DickinsonStarsBenjamin DickinsonNora ZehetnerDan GillIn near future Brooklyn, an ad executive uses a new Augmented Reality technology to conduct an affair with his best friend's girlfriend...sort of.
- DirectorOndi TimonerStarsRussell BrandSimon AmstellAndrew AntonioFollows comedian/author/activist Russell Brand as he dives headlong into drugs, sex & fame in an attempt to find happiness, only to realize that our culture feeds us bad ideas & empty idols. Through his stand up, Brand explores his own true icons - Gandhi, Che Guevara, Malcolm X & Jesus Christ- & evolves from addict & Hollywood star to an unexpected political disruptor & newfound hero to the underserved. Will Brand hold fast against the roar of criticism to break out of the very system that built him?
- DirectorBrett MorgenStarsKurt CobainWendy O'ConnorDon CobainAn authorized documentary on the late musician Kurt Cobain, from his early days in Aberdeen, Washington to his success and downfall with the grunge band Nirvana.
- DirectorNikias ChryssosStarsPit BukowskiDaniel FripanOona von MaydellA young student seeks quiet and solitude to focus on an important work but ends up as the teacher of a peculiar boy who is home-schooled by his parents in an isolated bunker mansion. THE BUNKER is a dark, twisted, and funny tale about childhood, growing up and education.
- DirectorLuca GuadagninoStarsTilda SwintonMatthias SchoenaertsRalph FiennesA famous rock star's vacation in Italy with her boyfriend is disrupted by the unexpected visit of an old friend and his daughter.
- DirectorPatricia RozemaStarsElliot PageEvan Rachel WoodMax MinghellaAfter a massive power outage, two sisters learn to survive on their own in their isolated woodland home.