Richard Stuart Linklater is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for making films that deal thematically with suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies Slacker (1990) and Dazed and Confused (1993); the Before trilogy of romance films: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013); the music-themed comedy School of Rock (2003); the adult animated films Waking Life (2001), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood (2022); the coming-of-age drama Boyhood (2014); and the comedy film Everybody Wants Some!! (2016).
Playing by Heart is a 1998 American comedy-drama film which tells the story of several seemingly unconnected characters. It was entered into the 49th Berlin International Film Festival. It stars Gillian Anderson, Ellen Burstyn, Sean Connery, Anthony Edwards, Angelina Jolie, Jay Mohr, Ryan Phillippe, Dennis Quaid, Gena Rowlands, Jon Stewart and Madeleine Stowe. Playing by Heart is an ensemble work that explores the path of love in its characters’ lives.
Head-On is a 2004 drama film written and directed by Fatih Akın. It stars Birol Ünel as a Turkish-born, alcoholic German widower who enters into a marriage of convenience with a young woman of Turkish descent. She is desperate to escape her restrictive and abusive male relatives.
Jingzhe is a 2004 Chinese film directed by Wang Quan'an. The film is Wang's second feature and sees him reuniting with actress Yu Nan. Jingzhe is also known by its original international title, The Story of Ermei.
The Namesake is a 2006 English-language drama film directed by Mira Nair and written by Sooni Taraporevala based on the novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. It stars Kal Penn, Tabu, Irrfan Khan and Sahira Nair. The film was produced by Indian, American and Japanese studios. The film was released in the United States on 9 March 2007, following screenings at film festivals in Toronto and New York City. The Namesake received positive reviews from American critics.
Dirty Love is a 2005 American romantic comedy film written by and starring Jenny McCarthy and directed by John Mallory Asher. At the time of filming, McCarthy and Asher were married; they divorced the month the film was released. Playing heavily off McCarthy's reputation for toilet humor, the film received negative reviews from critics and received the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture, as well as Worst Screenplay, Worst Director, and Worst Actress for McCarthy.
Still Life is a 2006 Chinese film directed by Jia Zhangke. Shot in the old village of Fengjie, a small town on the Yangtze River slowly being destroyed by the building of the Three Gorges Dam, Still Life tells the story of two people in search of their spouses. Still Life is a co-production of the Shanghai Film Studio and Xstream Pictures.
Wang Quan'an is a Sixth Generation Chinese film director. Wang was born in Yan'an, China. He graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in 1991. He had a ten-year relationship with actress and muse Yu Nan, which ended in 2009.
Feast of Love is a 2007 American drama film directed by Robert Benton, and starring an ensemble cast that includes Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Radha Mitchell, Billy Burke, Selma Blair, Alexa Davalos, Toby Hemingway, and Jane Alexander. The film, based on the 2000 novel The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter, was first released on September 28, 2007, in the United States.
Jellyfish is a 2007 Israeli film based on a story by Shira Geffen and directed by her husband, Etgar Keret. The film tells the story of three women in Tel Aviv whose intersecting lives paint a pessimistic portrait of Israeli secular life. Batya, a waitress at weddings, comes across a mute child who seemingly emerges from the sea. Keren, a bride whose wedding Batya worked at, breaks her leg climbing out of bathroom stall and ruins her dream honeymoon in the process. And Joy, a Filipina domestic, attends to her employer with whom she struggles to communicate. Poetic imagery draws connections between the lives of these women, all of whom find solace in the sea.
Lost in Beijing is a 2007 Chinese drama film directed by Li Yu and starring Tony Leung Ka-fai, Fan Bingbing, Tong Dawei, and Elaine Jin. It had its international premiere at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival on February 16, 2007. Lost in Beijing is director Li Yu's third feature film after the lesbian-themed Fish and Elephant (2002) and the drama Dam Street (2005).
In Love We Trust is a 2008 Chinese drama film directed by Wang Xiaoshuai and starring Liu Weiwei, Zhang Jiayi, Cheng Taisheng, and Yu Nan. It is alternatively named known by its literal English translation, Left Right.
Yu Nan is a Chinese actress. Born in Dalian, Yu Nan studied at the Beijing Film Academy, where she graduated in 1999.
Lunar Eclipse is a 1999 Chinese film and the directorial debut from Sixth Generation director Wang Quan'an. It is also the feature film debut of Wang's most frequent collaborator/muse Yu Nan. Unlike his next two films, which focus on rural communities, Lunar Eclipse is an urban drama following the wife of a newlywed couple who becomes mesmerized by an amateur photographer who claims to have once been in love with a woman who looked just like her. The film was produced by the Beijing Film Studio.
Up the Yangtze is a 2007 documentary film directed by Chinese-Canadian director Yung Chang. The film focuses on people affected by the building of the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze river in Hubei, China. The theme of the film is the transition towards consumer capitalism from a farming, peasant-based economy as China develops its rural areas. The film is a co-production between the National Film Board of Canada and Montreal's EyeSteelFilm with the participation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Geographic Channel, P.O.V., SODEC, and Telefilm. The film is being distributed in the USA by Zeitgeist Films. The United Kingdom distributor is Dogwoof Pictures.
Sweetgrass is a 2009 documentary film that follows modern-day shepherds as they lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana's Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture. It was directed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor, a Harvard anthropologist, and produced by his wife Ilisa Barbash. The title derives from Sweet Grass County, one of several in which the film was shot.
Celeste and Jesse Forever is a 2012 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Lee Toland Krieger, written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, and starring Jones and Andy Samberg. The film was released on August 3, 2012, in New York City and Los Angeles.
On My Way is a 2013 French comedy-drama film directed by Emmanuelle Bercot. The film premiered in competition at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival.
Concussion is a 2013 American drama film written and directed by Stacie Passon and starring Robin Weigert. Although not autobiographical, the story was partially inspired by Passon herself suffering a mild concussion, in the same manner depicted in the film, shortly before she began writing the screenplay.
An Elephant Sitting Still is a 2018 Chinese drama film written, directed and edited by Hu Bo. The first and only feature film by the novelist-turned-director Hu, who died by suicide soon after finishing his film on 12 October 2017 at the age of 29, it is based on a story with the same title from his 2017 novel Huge Crack, about four people who travel to a northern Chinese city to see the eponymous elephant. It made its world premiere in the Forum section of the 68th Berlin International Film Festival. The film has won acclaim from established directors such as Béla Tarr, Wang Bing, Ang Lee, and Gus Van Sant.
