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Running time | 79 minutes |
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| Language | English |
Helen is a 2008 drama film by Desperate Optimists, (Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy), and was the first feature film made through their production company Desperate Optimists Productions. [1] It is often spoken of as an expansion or companion piece to their short film Joy.
Helen stars Annie Townsend as a teenage girl who, when asked by the police to play the stand-in for a reconstruction, realizes it gives her a chance to confront her own troubled past.
Helen played in over 50 film festivals and was distributed across the UK in 2009 by New Wave.
Helen was acclaimed by critics such as Jonathan Romney in The Independent [2] and Philip French in The Observer who wrote: 'With echoes of Antonioni and Bresson, the story of a young woman's disappearance is one of the most remarkable British debuts of recent years. [3] Despite some misgivings on this first feature, Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian lauded the filmmakers as 'real talents with a distinctive, if evolving, film-making language of their own.' [4]
Critic and writer Sophie Mayer highlighted a mythic quality to the film, something which has also been mentioned in relation to Desperate Optimist's more recent Rose Plays Julie . She writes: 'Given the film's title and protagonist, it seems unlikely that Desperate Optimists weren't thinking, at least a little, about the most famous Helen in history. Rather than the story of Troy, or the Helen who tempts Faust, they rediscover - in a thrilling comment on cinema's star system and the viewer's desire to both desire and believe - the eidolon , a woman always performing her fragmented self.' [5]
Michelangelo Antonioni was an Italian director and filmmaker. He is best known for his "trilogy on modernity and its discontents"—L'Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), and L'Eclisse (1962)—as well as the English-language film Blowup (1966). His films have been described as "enigmatic and intricate mood pieces" that feature elusive plots, striking visual composition, and a preoccupation with modern landscapes. His work substantially influenced subsequent art cinema. Antonioni received numerous awards and nominations throughout his career, being the only director to have won the Palme d'Or, the Golden Lion, the Golden Bear and the Golden Leopard.
Calendar Girls is a 2003 British comedy film directed by Nigel Cole. Produced by Touchstone Pictures, it features a screenplay by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi, based on a true story of a group of middle-aged Yorkshire women who produced a nude calendar to raise money for Leukaemia Research under the auspices of the Women's Institutes in April 1999 after the husband of one of their members dies from cancer. The film stars an ensemble cast headed by Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, with Linda Bassett, Annette Crosbie, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Geraldine James, Harriet Thorpe and Philip Glenister playing key supporting roles.
L'Avventura is a 1960 Italian drama film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Developed from a story by Antonioni with co-writers Elio Bartolini and Tonino Guerra, the film is about the disappearance of a young woman during a boating trip in the Mediterranean, and the subsequent search for her by her lover and her best friend. It was filmed on location in Rome, the Aeolian Islands, and Sicily in 1959 under difficult financial and physical conditions. The film is noted for its unusual pacing, which emphasizes visual composition, mood, and character over traditional narrative development.
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Mouchette is a 1967 French film directed by Robert Bresson, starring Nadine Nortier and Jean-Claude Guilbert. It is based on the novel of the same name by Georges Bernanos. Bresson explained his choice of the novel saying, "I found neither psychology or analysis in it. The substance of the book seemed usable. It could be sieved." It was entered into the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, winning the OCIC Award.
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Beyond the Clouds is a 1995 Italian-French-German romance film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, with contributions by Wim Wenders, and starring John Malkovich, Sophie Marceau, Vincent Perez, Irène Jacob, Fanny Ardant, Jeanne Moreau, Peter Weller, Marcello Mastrioanni, and Jean Reno. The film consists of four stories of romantic love and illusion told from the perspective of a wandering film director. In the first story, two beautiful young lovers are unable to consummate their passion because the young man desires impossible perfection. In the second story, the director makes love to a young woman who reveals that she murdered her father. In the third story, a man makes an effort to appease both his wife and his mistress. In the fourth story, a young man is infatuated with a girl who is about to enter a convent. This was the final feature-length film by Antonioni before his death in 2007.
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Minimalist cinema is related to the art and philosophy of minimalism.
Christine Molloy, is a UK-based artist known for her works of theatre, interactive art, and film.
Desperate Optimists is the creative partnership of Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, which began in 1992. In an interview in 2008, Lawlor explained how they took inspiration from the title of Nicolas Mosley's book Hopeful Monsters.
Rose Plays Julie is a 2019 Irish drama film written and directed by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, known collectively as Desperate Optimists.
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