Film Reviews

X: Past is Present is a 2015 Indian collaborative feature film directed by a team of eleven filmmakers including Abhinav Shiv Tiwari, Anu Menon, Nalan Kumarasamy, Hemant Gaba, Pratim D. Gupta, Q, Raja Sen, Rajshree Ojha, Sandeep Mohan, Sudhish Kamath and Suparn Verma. It will feature actor-director Rajat Kapoor and Anshuman Jha in the lead. X is not an anthology, but one whole story with the eleven directors making sections of it.

A middle-aged man dies in the street, leaving his widow and three children destitute. The devastated family is confronted not only with his loss but with a terrible challenge - how to survive. For they are cannibals. They have always existed on a diet of human flesh consumed in bloody ritual ceremonies... and the victims have always been provided by the father. Now that he is gone, who will hunt? Who will lead them? How will they sate their horrific hunger? The task falls to the eldest son, Alfredo, a teenage misfit who seems far from ready to accept the challenge... But without human meat the family will die.

The lives of two lovelorn spouses from separate marriages, a registered sex offender, and a disgraced ex-police officer intersect as they struggle to resist their vulnerabilities and temptations.

A workaholic father becomes sole parent to his 2 young sons, and finds it hard to relate to them, consumed as he is with his own grief.

Dreaded serial killer Peter Kurten voluntarily turns himself over to the authorities. A young lawyer, eager to prove Kurten's mental derangement, agrees to defend a man who terrorized Germany between 1929 and 1931. In studying the case and meeting with the intelligent, cold-blooded manipulator, the young idealist's values become warped.

Canada, the summer of 1898. A group of German settlers travel towards the far north in covered wagons with packhorses and their few possessions in tow. The seven travellers set off from Ashcroft, the final railway station. Along with their leader, flamboyant businessman Wilhelm Laser, they are hoping to find their fortune in the recently discovered goldfields of Dawson, but they have no idea of the stresses and dangers which lie ahead on their 2,500 kilometre journey. Before long uncertainty, cold weather and exhaustion begin to take their toll and conflicts escalate. The journey leads these men and women deeper and deeper into a menacing wilderness. (Berlinale.de)

Abe is a man who is in his thirties and who lives with his parents. He works regretfully for his father while pursuing his hobby of collecting toys. Aware that his family doesn't think highly of him, he tries to spark a relationship with Miranda, who recently moved back home after a failed literary/academic career. Miranda agrees to marry Abe out of desperation, but things go awry.

A woman finds a man in a box in front of her home and takes him in. She jokingly says she wants to keep him as her pet since the man reminds her childhood dog. The man agrees. Later the woman discovers that the man is a dance prodigy. Complications arise when her old flame from college appears.

The true story of Christopher Gardner, who invests heavily in a device known as a 'Bone Density Scanner', only to find himself struggle to sell the product as it's just marginally better than the current technology, and much more expensive. His wife leaves him, he loses his house, bank account and credit cards and, now forced to live out in the streets with his young son, he's desperate to find a steady job. He takes on a job as a stockbroker but, before he can receive pay, he needs to go through 6 months of training, and must sell his devices.

Jacqueline is a young mother living in 1960s Paris with her disabled son Laurent. Abandoned by her husband, Jacqueline sacrifices everything to care for her son and vows to give Laurent a “normal” life full of happiness. Antoine, is a successful DJ in present day Montreal who seems to have it all: a thriving career, two beautiful daughters, partner Rose, with whom he is passionately in love. However, nothing is perfect and Antoine’s ex-wife Carole remains devastated by their recent separation.

The production of phones has a dark, bloody side. The main part of minerals used to produce phones is coming from the mines in the Eastern DR Congo. The Western World is buying these so-called conflict minerals and thereby finances a civil war that, according to human rights organisations, has been the bloodiest conflict since World War II: During the last 15 years the conflict has cost the lives of more than 5 million people and 300,000 women have been raped. The war will continue as long as armed groups can finance their warfare by selling minerals. The Documentary Blood in the Mobile shows the connection between our phones and the civil war in the Congo. Director Frank Poulsen travels to DR Congo to see the illegal mine industry with his own eyes. He gets access to Congo s largest tin-mine, which is being controlled by different armed groups, and where children work for days in narrow mine tunnels to dig out the minerals that end up in our phones.

A young singer/songwriter, despite being married, becomes involved with her new guitarist, who she soon discovers has a dark past and may be a danger to her and those close to her.

"Percy Smith (1880-1944) was world famous as a photographer of plant life. Probably the first British example of time-lapse photography as applied to the growth of plants." Montly Film Bulletin, November 1955

Set over the course of a weekend tournament for chess software programmers thirty-some years ago, COMPUTER CHESS transports viewers to a nostalgic moment when the contest between technology and the human spirit seemed a little more up for grabs. We get to know the eccentric geniuses possessed with the vision to teach a metal box to defeat man, literally, at his own game, laying the groundwork for artificial intelligence as we know it and will come to know it in the future.

Phar Lap, the big bold chestnut reigned as the king of the turf in the depression that gripped Australia of the 1930s. From his humble beginnings the New Zealand bred horse raced on to become the hero of a nation.