All Films

The Death of Nekojiru

1999 • 56 min • Japan

A documentary on the suicide of manga author Chiyomi Hashiguchi, commonly known as Nekojiru.

Juan Diego: Messenger of Guadalupe

1999 • 30 min

In 1591 Juan Diego found himself between two worlds…that of the Spanish conquerors and that of his own Aztec heritage. Because of his love for his people and his strong faith, Juan Diego turned to Jesus and His Mother, Mary for help in uniting his people. The answer to Juan Diego’s prayers has become one of the greatest events in the history of the Americas. JUAN DIEGO: MESSENGER OF GUADALUPE is the true story of how the Blessed Mother chose a hero for a key role in a beautiful miracle that would united diverse peoples and change the course of history. In the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City the miracle of the tilma of Juan Diego may still be seen, just as it was seen by the bishop in 1531.

Thomas & Friends: Cranky Bugs

1999 • 30 min

Cranky the Crane gives little engines Thomas and Percy a lot of grief in the title story. To make matters worse, big engines Gordon and James side with the ill-tempered lifter and the little guys get nervous and begin making mistakes on the job. They redeem themselves, however, when Cranky topples in a storm and Thomas and his buddy put him back upright. Other stories feature twin engines Bill and Ben having "teething troubles," Toad the brake van's forward-thinking ambition, grumpy Gordon crashing through a station wall, and storyteller Alec Baldwin adopting a falsetto as Lady Hatt, Sir Topham Hatt's wife and birthday girl. In lieu of a seventh story, a chorus of kids sings "Night Train" while the model trains steam through darkness in a series of dramatic scenarios.

Rapture

1999 • 9 min

The installation features two black-and-white projections. One depicts a group of men dressed in Western suits and the other captures a group of women veiled in chador. In the work, Neshat takes on entrenched gender stereotypes by placing the men in a structured, architectural fortress and the women in a wild, natural desert. The viewer is positioned between these dichotomies, with the videos displayed on opposite walls, and is forced to shift attention from one to the other. The installation shows how established beliefs and presumptions can flourish in social and religious systems, emphasizing that these deep-rooted dynamics profoundly impact all people, indiscriminate of gender.

The Earthsong of the Cricket

1999 • 2 min • United States of America

This is a hand-painted work whose shapes are scratched on black leader filled with varieties of color: the resultant shapes tend to suggest insect-like movements, a rub of bent-lines together suggesting the electric hind legs of the cricket, whose movements engender (thru elaborate step-printing) quick pull-backs within frames of the film, so contrived as to create visual agitron lines within the zoom-like effect whose rhythm approximates a cricket's repetitive sound. This effect is echoed ephemerally later in the film as it nears its end of muted pull-down shapes and approximations of the earth-clod-likenesses and/or autumnal leaf-likenesses which begin the film.

18 en el parque

1999 • 25 min • Chile

Diversity of Chilean flora and fauna reunite on the intercommunal park of La Reina to celebrate the 18th of September.

Leda and the Swan: Nailed

1999 • 42 min

A young woman begins to have flashbacks to when she was a young girl, and sees visions of herself in a lesbian/sado-masochistic relationship with her playmates--but she's not sure if she's remembering things as they were or as she would like them to have been.

Der Speckjäger

1999 • 50 min • Austria

"The Treasure Hunter" is a portrait of writer, publisher and book collector Hermann Gail, who in his youth gave up on life as the result of a terrible sin. He was saved through an unconditional devotion to art.

The circle

1999 • 12 min • Iran

selected by critics international Cannes film festival 1999

For the Eyes of Mariana

1999 • 60 min • France, Uruguay

We follow the efforts of Ester Gatti to find her missing granddaughter Mariana Zaffaroni. As a child, Mariana and her parents were kidnapped by a Uruguayan military team. The little girl was taken by an agent in the intelligence service who brought her up as his own daughter. Sixteen years later Ester found Mariana, but the girl chose to go on living with the people who had kidnapped her. This documentary raises questions about identity, memory and the value of truth.

For Love of Kate

1999 • 59 min • United States of America

A modern re-telling of Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew”, set in a motorcycle repair shop. It’s rough, it’s tough, it’s off the cuff... and it's set at Halloween.

Bonur Golpo

1999 • 46 min • Bangladesh

An archaeologist goes to a remote village to research, where he meets a mysterious lady named Bonu, who is considered to possess demonic power according to the villagers.

Territorio

1999 • 16 min • Argentina

Two men compete for the love of a woman with an unexpected destiny.

A Knife Among the Forks

1999 • 4 min • France

What are these two strange things above my nose I'm supposed to see with? They can't be my eyes. No! They'd never have let me see such a thing. And yet there's no denying it : I clearly see a knife in the fork compartment. A knife among the forks!

Invisible Boy

1999 • 31 min • Russia

After the departure of his parents, Charlie gets to a relative who behaves strangely: prepares potions, conjures.

Deus é Pai

1999 • 4 min • Brazil

God and Jesus on a psychologist's couch to resolve family tensions.

The Copyist

1999 • 21 min

It is the young Christian Tafdrup's (Tafdrup himself) greatest wish to become a real film director. He joins the reputable company Zentropa, where he is even lucky enough to meet the famous Lars von Trier (von Trier himself), who does not have many positive words for Tafdrup. Tafdrup tells aspiring young women that he is actually a director, and he therefore gets them to show up for auditions

Tightrope

1999 • 6 min • United States of America

The Dead Tree

1999 • 11 min • Canada

Every night, when the vampire bats fly off in search of nourishment, they avoid the dead tree where victims of the Great Sickness are left to die. Since the advent of this life-threatening disease, the bats pay strict attention to a new law: their nightly harvest of blood must be purified by fire. Beware those who break this law, like Desmine and Modus, careless... This animated film evokes the AIDS crisis. It pleads for tolerance, calls for prevention, and denounces the stigma attached to victims of this end-of-millenium scourge.

A Burden of Love

1999 • 45 min

Exploring the status of Alzheimer’s disease in the Indian Context

Faces

1999 • 4 min • Hungary

Well-known, unknown and forgotten faces from all over the ages are rolling by in some very short minutes.

Luis Batlle Berres

1999 • 45 min • Uruguay

This is the story of Luis Batlle Berres, an outstanding political figure, told against the background of life in Uruguay from 1900 to the 1960s. With archive images and music from the period, this documentary pays homage to those years and to a time gone by. There is testimony from Batlle's personal hairdresser, his master of arms, his children and travelling companions in politics, and his adversaries. We witness his meeting with General Juan Domingo Perón, and we see the Graf Zeppelin with its swastika in the sky above Montevideo.

Closed Eyes

1999 • 22 min • Japan

Shot in Venice by the sea at night, struck by a thousand lights.

Roommates

1999 • 32 min

A film by Eva Stefani