Werner Herzog is a German filmmaker, actor, opera director, and author. Regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema, his films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unusual talents in obscure fields, or individuals in conflict with nature. His style involves avoiding storyboards, emphasizing improvisation, and placing his cast and crew into real situations mirroring those in the film they are working on.
Jane Mallory Birkin was a British and French actress and singer. She attained international fame and notability for her decade-long musical and romantic partnership with Serge Gainsbourg. She also had a prolific career as an actress, mostly in French cinema.
Blood Simple is a 1984 American independent neo-noir crime film written, edited, produced, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, and M. Emmet Walsh. Its plot follows a Texas bartender who finds himself in the midst of a murder plot when his boss discovers that he is having a love affair with his wife and he hires a private investigator to kill the couple but the investigator has his own agenda. It was the directorial debut of the Coens and the first major film of cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who later became a director, as well as the feature-film debut of McDormand.
Lee Chang-dong is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, and novelist. He has directed six feature films: Green Fish (1997), Peppermint Candy (2000), Oasis (2002), Secret Sunshine (2007), Poetry (2010), and Burning (2018). Burning became the first Korean film to make it to the 91st Academy Awards' final nine-film shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film. Burning also won the Fipresci International Critics' Prize at the 71st Cannes Film Festival, Best Foreign Language Film in Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and Best Foreign Language Film in Toronto Film Critics Association.
Turtles Can Fly is a 2004 Kurdish war drama film written, produced, and directed by Bahman Ghobadi. The film stars Soran Ebrahim, Avaz Latif, Saddam Hossein Faysal, Hiresh Feysal Rahman, Abdolrahman Karim, Ajil Zibari. The plot is about three refugee children near the Iraqi-Turkish border, awaiting for the Americans to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Peter Llewelyn Davies was the middle of five sons of Arthur and Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, one of the Llewelyn Davies boys befriended and later informally adopted by J. M. Barrie. Barrie publicly identified him as the source of the name for the title character in his 1904 play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up.
Crash is a 1996 Canadian drama film written, produced and directed by David Cronenberg, based on J. G. Ballard's 1973 novel of the same name. Starring James Spader, Deborah Kara Unger, Elias Koteas, Holly Hunter and Rosanna Arquette, it follows a film producer who, after surviving a car crash, becomes involved with a group of symphorophiliacs who are aroused by car crashes and tries to rekindle his sexual relationship with his wife.
Andrew Timothy Birkin is an English screenwriter and director.
Secret of the Cave is a 2006 student film by the School of Visual Art and Design at Southern Adventist University. The film is an adaptation of the 1920 children's story of the same name by Arthur S. Maxwell. It was released on DVD in September 2007 and is distributed by First Look Studios in conjunction with Carmel Entertainment.
Silent Light is a 2007 film written and directed by Carlos Reygadas. Filmed in a Mennonite colony close to Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua State, Northern Mexico, Silent Light tells the story of a Mennonite married man who falls in love with another woman, threatening his place in the conservative community. The dialogue is in Plautdietsch, the Low German dialect of the Mennonites. The film was selected as the Mexican entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 80th Academy Awards, but it did not make the shortlist. The film was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 24th Independent Spirit Awards. It gained nine nominations, including all major categories, in the Ariel Awards, the Mexican national awards.
The White Ribbon is a 2009 German-language mystery drama film, written and directed by Michael Haneke. Released in black-and-white, the film offers a dark depiction of society and family in a northern German village just before World War I. According to Haneke, The White Ribbon "is about the roots of evil. Whether it's religious or political terrorism, it's the same thing."
Around a Small Mountain is a 2009 French drama film directed by Jacques Rivette, which was his final film before his death on 29 January 2016, and starred Jane Birkin and Sergio Castellitto. It was screened in the main competition at the 66th Venice International Film Festival.
Bullhead is a 2011 Belgian crime film written and directed by Michaël R. Roskam and starring Matthias Schoenaerts. The film is about the prohibited use of growth hormones on cattle by farmers with ties to organised crime "hormone mafia", and tells the story of Jacky Vanmarsenille, a young Limburgish farmer, who is approached by his veterinarian to make a deal with a West-Flemish beef trader. But the murder of a federal policeman, and an unexpected confrontation with a mysterious secret from Jacky's past, set in motion a chain of events with far-reaching consequences.
The Cement Garden is a 1993 British drama film written and directed by Andrew Birkin. It is based on the 1978 novel of the same name written by Ian McEwan. It was entered into the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival, where Birkin won the Silver Bear for Best Director.
Strawberry and Chocolate is a 1993 internationally co-produced film, directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, based on the short story "The Wolf, The Forest and the New Man" written by Senel Paz in 1990, who also wrote the screenplay for the film.
Searching for Sugar Man is a 2012 documentary film about a South African cultural phenomenon, written and directed by Malik Bendjelloul, which details the efforts in the late 1990s of two Cape Town fans, Stephen "Sugar" Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out whether the rumoured death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true and, if not, to discover what had become of him. Rodriguez's music, which had never achieved success in his home country of the United States, had become very popular in South Africa, although little was known about him there.
The 45th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 29 August to 9 September 1988.
On the Ice is a 2011 American drama film written and directed by Andrew Okpeaha MacLean. The film is set in Utqiagvik, Alaska, MacLean's home town, and follows two Iñupiaq teenagers who, while on a seal hunt, accidentally kill one of their friends in a fight. Afraid of the consequences, they lie about his death and must grapple with their grief and guilt while attempting to keep their secret. The film is based upon an earlier work of MacLean's, Sikumi, which he released as a short film in 2008. On the Ice had its world premiere on January 21, 2011, at the Sundance Film Festival.
Spa Night is a 2016 American drama film directed by Andrew Ahn and starring Joe Seo. It was shown in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. At Sundance, Joe Seo won the Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance.
Burning is a 2018 South Korean-Japanese psychological thriller film co-written, produced, and directed by Lee Chang-dong. The film is based on the short story "Barn Burning" from The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami, with elements inspired by William Faulkner's story of the same name. It stars Yoo Ah-in, Steven Yeun, and Jeon Jong-seo. The plot depicts a young deliveryman, Jong-su (Yoo), who runs into his childhood friend, Hae-mi (Jeon). They soon meet an enigmatic young man named Ben (Yeun), whom Jong-su becomes suspicious of, and he begins to believe Hae-mi is in danger.
