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ENTRIES IN PART 2:



JOSE CABRERA BETANCORT 

Programmer

Features
O fim do mundo (Basil da Cunha, 2019)
Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma, 2019)
Öndög (Wang Quan’an, 2019)
Lara (Jan Ole Gerster, 2019)
Zombie Child (Bertrand Bonello, 2019)
Heimat ist ein Raum aus Zeit (Heimat is a Space in Time, Thomas Heise, 2019)
Take Me Somewhere Nice (Ena Sendijarevic, 2019)
Transnistra (Anna Eborn, 2019)
De nuevo otra vez (Again Once Again, Romina Paula, 2019)
Gisaengchung (Parasite, Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

Shorts
Một Khu Đất Tốt (Blessed Land, Pham Ngoc Lan, 2019)
Freedom of Movement (Nina Fischer, Maroan el Sani, 2018)
Ruby (Mariana Galvao, 2019)
Swatted (Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis, 2018)
Past Perfect (Jorge Jacome, 2019)
Nimic (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2019)
Cães que ladram aos pássaros…(Leonor Teles, 2019)
Nachts sind alle Katzen grau (Lasse Linder, 2019)
Kolektyviniai sodai (Vytautas Katkus, 2019)
Frisson d’amour (Shiver of Love, Maxence Stamatiadis, 2019)
Sun Dog (Dorian Jespers, 2019)

Thomas Caldwell 

Writer, broadcaster, film critic, public speaker and film programmer based in Melbourne, Australia.

Top ten films
My favourite films that were released in Melbourne, Australia, in 2019:

  1. Amazing Grace (Alan Elliott, Sydney Pollack, 2018)
  2. Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach, 2019)
  3. Portrait de la jeune fille en feu, (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma, 2019)
  4. Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)
  5. Marriage Story (Noah Baumback, 2019)
  6. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
  7. The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent, 2019)
  8. Destroyer (Karyn Kusama, 2018)
  9. Animals (Sophie Hyde, 2019)
  10. Booksmart (Olivia Wilde, 2019)

Honourable mentions
Twenty more films I loved this year, listed alphabetically
Ága (Milko Lazarov, 2018)
Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller, 2019)
Atlantique (Atlantics, Mati Diop, 2019)
Beoning (Burning, Lee Chang-dong, 2018)
Blinded by the Light (Gurinder Chadha, 2019)
Brittany Runs a Marathon (Paul Downs Colaizzo, 2019)
Buoyancy (Rodd Rathjen, 2019)
Dolor y Gloria (Pain & Glory, Pedro Almodóvar, 2019)
Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, 2018)
Evelyn (Orlando von Einsiedel, 2018)
Gisaengchung (Parasite, Bong Joon-ho ,2019)
J’ai perdu mon corps, (I Lost My Body, Jérémy Clapin, 2019)
Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)
Leaving Neverland (Dan Reed, 2019)
Mid90s (Jonah Hill, 2018)
Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019)
Minding the Gap (Bing Liu, 2018)
The Australian Dream (Daniel Gordon, 2019)
The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)
The Report (Scott Z Burns, 2019)

Favourite films not given a full release locally
Many of the films I saw this year that left a big impression on me are films that only screened to Melbourne audiences at various festivals, so I’d like to also mention the following:
Aquarela (Victor Kossakovsky, 2018)
Bait (Mark Jenkin, 2019)
Give Me Liberty (Kirill Mikhanovsky, 2019)
Goldie (Sam de Jong, 2019)
Les hirondelles de Kaboul (The Swallows of Kabul, Zabou Breitman and
Eléa Gobbé-Mévellec, 2019)
Morgana (Josie Hess and Isabel Peppard, 2019)
Nuestras madres (Our Mothers, Cesar Diaz, 2019)
Ray & Liz (Richard Billingham, 2018)
Systemsprenger (System Crasher, Nora Fingscheidt, 2019)
Varda par Agnès (Varda by Agnès, Agnès Vard, 2019)

The Australian Dream (Daniel Gordon, 2019)

MICHAEL CAMPI 

Captivated by moving pictures, still images and sounds from an early age and involved with non-commercial exhibition of films for decades.

Moving on from the disappointments, sometimes by major filmmakers moving out of their usual zones, I’ve been impressed by several dozen new films. Because of the variations in international releases, this contribution should be viewed alongside my list for 2018.
In the past year, a few of the most memorable films can be grouped in resonant ways.

Contrasting approaches to Italian gangland narratives.
Il traditore (The Traitor, Marco Belloccio, 2019)
The Irishman (The Irishman, Martin Scorsese, 2019)

Two films by a Belgian director after the five years since his impressive debut Violet.
Hellhole (Hellhole, Bas Devos, 2019)
Ghost Tropic (Ghost Tropic, Bas Devos, 2019)

Two films that probe the agonising topic of the abductions of babies from hospital delivery rooms  in Peru and Serbia.
Canción sin nombre (Song Without a Name, Melina León, 2019)
Savovi (Stitches, Miroslav Terzic, 2019)

And another claustrophobic Serbian drama that may have echoes of films by Clouzot and Friedkin but is very much a singular vision: Teret (The Load, Ognjen Glavonic, 2018)

Some of the best films developed stories from the filmmakers’ own personal experiences
Dolor y gloria (Pain and Glory, Pedro Almodóvar, 2019). The director’s career has been uneven but this latest work is deeply touching and breathtaking with its intense backward gaze at his life and passions.
Zaijian Nanping Wanzhong (A Dog Barking at the Moon, Xiang Zi, 2019). A visually handsome first feature portraying a woman director who, returning from overseas studies, is thrown into the complications of her parents’ luxurious household where her outed gay father and Buddhist cult-obsessed mother fail to coexist peacefully. Truly one from the heart.
Wet Season (Anthony Chen, 2019). Chen’s intensely felt melodrama is influenced by the experience of the director and his wife attempting to start a family.

Other impressive Chinese films
Chun Jiang Shui Nuan (Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, Gu Xiaogang, 2019), a dazzling debut that’s reminiscent of masters like Hou Hsiao-hsien in its depiction of extended family struggles. There are painterly references in the titles of Xiang Zi’s and Gu Xiaogang’s films, to works by Miró and a Yuan dynasty painting.
Qiqiu (Balloon, Pema Tseden, 2019). The director is on a breathtaking ascent with Tharlo (2015), Jinpa (2018) and now this sophisticated, intricately layered examination of a rural community in Tibet.
Di Jiu Tian Chang (So Long, My Son, Wang Xiaoshuai, 2019).  This film, together with Balloon, examine the family planning imperatives in Chinese regions in more recent times.
Atlantique (Atlantics, Mati Diop, 2019). It’s a sign of the distribution times that Diop’s superlative visuals and soundtrack will be seen mostly at home on small screens.
It Must Be Heaven ( Elia Suleiman, 2019).  Worth the long wait for this typically droll but serious examination of some of the world’s problems.
Shir Milchama (Battle Hymn, Yair Agmon, 2019). An eleven minute VR work throws the viewer into one of the regular defence forces night-time arrest missions in Palestinian villages in the West Bank.
Kucumbu Tubuh Indahku (Memories of My Body, Garin Nugroho, 2018). Nugroho’s inspiration is the life of dancer Rianto from an early age to adulthood, exploring his sexuality through sometimes traumatic times.
Ozen (The River, Emir Baigazin, 2018). The end of Baigazin’s impressive trilogy in full widescreen imagery of great beauty accompanied by a rich and enveloping soundtrack.

Four impressive documentaries
Last Night I Saw you Smiling (Neang Kavich, 2019), a feature length quiet observation of the nearly 500 families forced to leave the White Building about to be demolished in Phnom Penh. The filmmaker himself had lived there all his life with his family.
Varda par Agnès (Varda by Agnès, 2019). It’s rare to experience one of the great filmmakers providing her own testament to her creative life instead of seeing a third party deciding what should be remembered and what may be left in the shadows.
Campo (Tiago Espanha, 2018). Set in Europe’s largest military base in Portugal, the film explores the contrasting aspects of the location where troops undertake fictional missions, stargazers explores the skies while others undertake beekeeping.
book-paper-scissors (Hirose Nanako, 2019). A former assistant to Kore-eda, the filmmaker’s first documentary feature is a touching investigation of the life and work of Kikuchi Nobuyoshi, a book designer of over 15,000 volumes.

Six major new films from consistently creative directors.
If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2018)
Grâce à Dieu (By the Grace of God, François Ozon, 2018)
Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma, 2019)
Transit (Transit, Christian Petzold, 2018)
Frankie (Ira Sachs, 2019)
Vitalina Varela (Vitalana Varela, Pedro Costa, 2019)

Four South Korean films defy a diminution of inspiration in cinema there.
Gisaengchung (Parasite, Bong Joon-ho, 2019). Praised generously and a commercial success (it’s still playing many sessions a day in one Melbourne cinema after six months in release), a black and white version will be unveiled in Rotterdam early in 2020. The film’s virtuosity is unchallengeable although some of us still feel his second and third films may be more resonant in the long term.
Ho Heup (Clean Up, Kwon Man-ki, 2018). KAFA has produced some excellent graduation projects before. This continues the trend, with a finely developed screenplay which never flags.
Pa-go (Height of the Wave, Park Jung-bum, 2019) From a former assistant to Lee Chang-dong, this third feature examines the corruption in the community on a remote island  where a new policewoman is in charge while carrying her own heavy burden.
Beolsae (House of Hummingbird, Kim Bo-ra, 2018).  Impressive debut feature. Set in 1994 amid renewals and upheavals in South Korea seen through the eyes of a 14 year old girl.
Người vợ ba (The Third Wife, Ash Mayfair, 2018). Ravishing first feature. The Vietnamese-born filmmaker  depicts her great-grandmother’s arranged marriage in her early teens to a much older landowner.
We keenly await a black and white reworking of the film with the dialogue replaced by occasional subtitles and a newly conceived soundtrack.

Michelle Carey 

programmer, senses of cinema festival reports editor, co-founder of parenting at film festivals

In a Year of 13 Films
Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello, 2019)
Dylda (Beanpole, Kantemir Balagov, 2019)
Ich war zuhause, aber… (I Was at Home, But…., Angela Schanelec, 2019)
Liberté (Albert Serra, 2019)
Atlantique (Atlantics, Mati Diop, 2019)
Fourteen (Dan Sallitt, 2019)
Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello, 2019)
The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019)
Ad Astra (James Gray, 2019)
So Pretty (Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli, 2019)
Vitalena Varela (Pedro Costa, 2019)
Her Smell (Alex Ross Perry, 2018)
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

La Flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

Nicolas Carrasco 

staff writer at Desistfilm

In no particular order
Da xiang xi di er zuo (An Elephant Sitting Still, Hu Bo, 2018)
Gisaengchung (Parasite, Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
La Flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)
A Portuguesa (The Portuguese Woman, Rita Azevedo Gomes, 2018)
Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, 2019)
Dragged Across Concrete (S. Craig Zahler, 2018)
Dylda (Beanpole, Kantemir Balagov, 2019)
Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello, 2019)
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman, 2019)
Unas preguntas (One or Two Questions, Kristina Konrad, 2018)
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)
Mes provinciales (A Paris Education, Jean-Paul Civeyrac, 2018)
The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019)
Napszállta (Sunset, László Nemes, 2018)
Pirotecnia (Federico Atehortúa, 2019)
Monos (Alejandro Landes, 2019)
Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello, 2019)
Atlantique (Atlantics, Mati Diop, 2019)
Shakti (Martin Rejtman, 2019)
Il traditore (The Traitor, Marco Bellocchio, 2019)
Phantom Ride (Stephen Broomer, 2019)
Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell, 2018)
Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019)
A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)
Summer of 84 (Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell, 2018)
Gulyabani (Gürcan Keltek, 2018)
The Night Comes for Us (Timo Tjahjanto, 2018)
Dolor y gloria (Pain and Glory, Pedro Almodóvar, 2019)
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (Chad Stahelski, 2019)
Bocamina (Miguel Hilari, 2019)
Parsi (Teddy Williams, Mariano Blatt, 2019)
Sete anos em maio (Seven Years in May, Affonso Uchoa, 2019)
A Month of Single Frames (Lynne Sachs, 2019)
Las buenas intenciones (The Good Intentions, Ana García Blaya, 2019)
Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho, Juliano Dornelles, 2019)
Historia de mi nombre (Karin Cuyul, 2019)
Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019)
La virgen de agosto (The August Virgin, Jonás Trueba, 2019)
mid90s (Jonah Hill, 2018)
Las facultades (Eloísa Solaas, 2019)

Michael J. Casey 

FILM CRITIC AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER FOR BOULDER WEEKLY AND KGNU.

A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick, 2019)
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot, 2019)
The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019)
Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019)
A Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019)
Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)
Gisaengchung (Parasite, Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma, 2019)
Varda By Agnès (Agnès Varda, 2019)

Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019)

Jeremy Chamberlin 

College Student, United States

This list consists of films that were new, since the previous poll’s deadline, in the places where I live, excluding new restorations of films, old versions of which I could access with my academic connections. Given the increasingly sorry state of the film distribution system – this is the first year I was unable to see films that came out on home video in a theatre – there are scores of films that I know I want to see, but have not been able to. Thus, this list is roughly grouped by absolute, not relative, quality, with selective comments, considering the word limit. There is also that I choose to miss screenings of films that end up being excellent. Last year, I didn’t see Leave No Trace (Debra Granik 2018) in theatres because I didn’t like her first film, but it should have made my Top 10.

Contenders for Best Film of the Year
Little Women (Greta Gerwig 2019). This is a beautiful film that loves its characters with a singular, youthful passion, a love whose beauty brought me to tears. Its anachronic structure – carried along with its careful formal construction, music, a dream cast, clothing… creates a nigh-ceaseless stream of feminine and tomboyish sisterhood, passion, and fire. It is also a film of intelligent nuance: “…but I’m so lonely!”  but its love is what distinguishes it as a film for the ages.
The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent 2018). Its storytelling allows it to capture nuances and tensions of real life – of power, of how people act and act upon others and why – that escape linear analytic writing, except on abstract levels. Its harshly beautiful filmmaking possesses a mastery of tone that makes the brutality of its subject palpable, even when nothing explicitly violent is occurring. This film understands how films never truly convey subjective experience, and so it focuses on more objective signifiers of subjectivity, such as the expressivity of people’s faces and the visceral sounds of assaulted flesh and expressed pain.
Dà Xiàng Xídì Érzuò (An Elephant Sitting Still Hu Bo 2018). Films always express the subjective perspectives of their directors, but this film is singular in having made me feel as if I had entered a different way of viewing its corner of the world, which I was given almost four hours of immersive filmmaking to settle into. Its depressed view of an animalistic world is that of a masterpiece, but one I must approach at a slight remove, lest it swallow me.

First Tier
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese 2019)
ilā Samā‘ (For Sama Waad Al-Kateab & Edward Watts 2019). With Al-Kateab telling her story with her footage, it gets about as close as film can get to conveying the subjective experience of living in a war zone. While it is retrospective, it plays like a slice-of-life film, with the structure seeking to acknowledge as much of that life as possible. Footage of casualties being brought into the hospital and people lamenting the dead gets followed by people trying to be as happy as possible when they can. “Normal” should not have any normative weight, but is whatever is typical.
La camarista (The Chambermaid Lila Avilés 2018)
High Life (Claire Denis 2018)
Beoning (Burning Lee Chang-dong 2018)
Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller 2019). It’s grandeur quieted the little Gil Scott-Heron in my head.
Amazing Grace (Alan Elliott, Sydney Pollack, 2018). The album Amazing Grace is powerful gospel, but this film’s capturing of its performances gives it visceral power; the music is not just sound, but the product of bodily passion. Franklin’s performances of “Amazing Grace” and “Never Grow Old” are pinnacles of the cinema, rivaled in intensity only by a solar eclipse – the experience of which being the closest this atheist has gotten to god.
If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins 2018)
Guaxuma (Nara Normande 2018)

Second Tier
Jiang hu er nü (Ash is Purest White Jia Zhangke 2018)
Monos (Alejandro Landes 2019)
Diqiu zuihou de yewan (Long Day’s Journey Into Night Bi Gan 2018). With this film, Bi Gan comes into his own as a director, shedding most of the subpar poetic dialogue that is common in his first two films in exchange for genuinely poetic images. The film up to the last shot is a profoundly rapturous experience, if not a profound one, shot with a keen understanding of how digital cameras can capture color. Its last shot, with its ostentatious technical complexity and flickering 3D, is an interesting minor failure that helps illuminate what came before; 2D cinema can be more immersive than any 3D if it is made with an eye for beauty and a Tarkovskian sense of sculpting time.
Pájaros de verano (Birds of Passage Ciro Guerra & Cristina Gallego 2018)
Si ling hun (Dead Souls Wang Bing 2018)
The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos 2018)
Transit (Christian Petzold 2018)
Egg (Martina Scarpelli 2018)
Seide (Elnura Osmonalieva 2015)
Knives Out (Rian Johnston 2019)
Ava (Sadaf Foroughi 2017)
24 Frames (Abbas Kiarostami 2018)

Third Tier
Sister (Siqi Song 2018)
Aquarela (Viktor Kosakovskiy 2018)
And the Whole Sky Fit in the Dead Cow’s Eye (Francisca Alegría 2016)
Death of the Sound Man (Sorayos Prapapan 2017)
American Factory (Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert 2019)
The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers 2019)
Retour
(Huang Pang-Chuan 2017)
Ray & Liz (Richard Billingham 2018)
Hale County This Morning, This Evening (RaMell Ross 2018)
One Child Nation (Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang 2019)
Ad Astra (James Gray 2019)

Fourth Tier
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (Timothy Greenfield-Sanders 2019)
Jing li de ren (Man in the Well Hu Bo 2017)
La cordillère des songes (The Cordillera of Dreams Patricio Guzmán 2019)
El Guardián de la Memoria (The Guardian of Memory Marcela Arteaga 2019)
Us (Jordan Peele 2019)
Ying (Shadow Zhang Yimou 2018). This is a singularly beauteous film, its inky production design and elegant choreography of movements embodying an interesting take on femininity and masculinity. (Not one that I wholly embrace, but something that is interesting to consider.) Unfortunately, its script is utterly workmanlike.

Ying (Shadow, Zhang Yimou 2018)

Daryl Chin 

Writer and artist in Brooklyn, NY, USA.
  1. Dolor y Gloria (Pain & Glory, Pedro Almodóvar, 2019)
  2. Pájaros de verano (Birds of Passage Ciro Guerra & Cristina Gallego 2018)
  3. Portrait de la jeune fille en feu(Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma, 2019)
  4. 63 Up (Michael Apted, 2019)
  5. Da xiang xi di er zuo (An Elephant Sitting Still, Hu Bo, 2018)
  6. Transit (Christian Petzold, 2018)
  7. Ahlat Agaci (The Wild Pear Tree, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2018)
  8. Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019)
  9. Honeyland (Tamara Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov, 2019)
  10. Atlantique (Atlantics Mati Diop, 2019)
  11. La Flor (Mariano Llinas, 2018)
  12. Light from Light (Paul Harrill, 2019)
  13. A Vida Invisível(The Invisible Life of EurídiceGusmão, Karim Aïnouz, 2019)
  14. Se Rokh (3 Faces Jafar Panahi & Behnaz Jafari, 2018)
  15. Grâce à Dieu (By the Grace of God Francois Ozon, 2018)
  16. J’ai perdu mon corps, (I Lost My Body, Jérémy Clapin, 2019)
  17.  Diqiu zuihou de yewan (Long Day’s Journey Into Night Bi Gan 2018).
  18. La Camarista (The Chambermaid Lila Avilés 2018)
  19. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019)
  20. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019)
  21. Clemency (Chinonye Chukwu, 2019)
  22. Burning Cane (Philip Youmans, 2019)
  23. The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)
  24. Doubles vies (Non-Fiction, Olivier Assayas, 2018)
  25. Honey Boy (Alma Har’el, 2019)
  26. Sauvage (Camille Vidal-Naquet, 2018)
  27. The Third Wife (Ash Mayfield, 2018)
  28. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot, 2019)
  29. Queen and Slim (Malina Matsoukas, 2019)
  30. Diane (Kent Jones, 2019)

All films on my list received a theatrical release in New York City in 2019.

Graiwoot Chulphongsathorn 

Film scholar. Lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand

In alphabetical order
Bacurau(Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles, 2019)
Dolor y gloria(Pain and Glory, Pedro Almodovar, 2019)
The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018)
Freedom of Movement (Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani, 2018)
The Glamorous Boys of Tang (Su Huiyu, 2019)
High Life (Claire Denis, 2018)
The Mountain (Rick Alverson, 2018)
Nhà cây (The Tree House, Truong Minh Quy, 2019)
Nha han (Chantana Tiprachart, 2019)
Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)
Gisaengchung (Parasite, Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
Pupille (In Safe Hands, Jeanne Herry, 2018)

Old films
Chang Mun Chun Mai Care (M.L. Pundhevanop Dhewakul, 1986)
The End of the Track (Mou Tun-fei, 1970)
Vagabond (Agnès Varda, 1985)

Favourite programming
History of Japanese Experimental Film: Between the Frames (programme 1). Curated by Koyo Yamashita and screened at the Thai Film Archive.

Roberta Ciabarra 

Curator, Film – Australian Centre for the Moving Image

Drawn from first releases and film festivals about (Melbourne) town:

A Vida Invisíve (The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão, Karim Aïnouz, 2019)
Gisaengchung (Parasite, Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
Midnight Family (Luke Lorentzen, 2019)
Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher, 2019)
Sword of Trust (Lynn Shelton, 2019)
Dolor y gloria (Pain and Glory, Pedro Almodovar, 2019)
The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)
La Camarista (The Chambermaid, Lila Avilés, 2018)
Doubles vies (Non-Fiction, Olivier Assayas, 2018)
Les frères Sisters (The Sisters Brothers, Jacques Audiard, 2018)
Fin de siglo (End of the Century, Lucio Castro, 2019)
Las niñas bien (The Good Girls, Alejandra Márquez Abella, 2018)
Magari (If Only, Ginevra Elkann, 2019)
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
Napszállta (Sunset, László Nemes, 2018)

La Camarista (The Chambermaid, Lila Avilés, 2018)

Jesús Cortés 

Spanish film writer

NEW AND RECENT (since 2014)
Madamoiselle de Joncquières (Lady J, Emmanuel Mouret, 2018), Ad Astra (James Gray, 2019), Le chant du loup (The wolf’s call, Antonin Baudry, 2019), Amanda (Mikhaël Hers, 2018), Tantas almas (Valley of souls, Nicolás Rincón Gille, 2019), If Beale Street could talk (Barry Jenkins, 2018), Gloria mundi (Robert Guédiguian, 2019), Jiang hu er nv (Ash is purest white, Jia Zhang-ke, 2018), El crack cero (José Luis Garci, 2019), Village rockstars (Rima Das, 2017), Paul Sanchez est revenu! (Patricia Mazuy, 2018).

and also:
La tenerezza (Tenderness, Gianni Amelio, 2017), Light of my life (Casey Affleck, 2019), Dolor y gloria (Pain and glory, Pedro Almodóvar, 2019), The mule (Clint Eastwood, 2018), La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2008/18), The man who killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot (Robert D. Krzykowski, 2018), Un peuple et son Roi (One Nation, one King, Pierre Schoeller, 2018), Já visto Jamais visto (Andrea Tonacci, 2014), Photograph (Ritesh Batra, 2019), Madre (Rodrigo Sorogoyen, 2017), Fishbone (Adán Aliaga, 2018), Monrovia, Indiana (Frederick Wiseman, 2018).

NOT SO NEW. Seen for the first time in 2019
’49-’17 (Ruth Ann Baldwin, 1917), Laughing Anne (Herbert Wilcox, 1953), Ba shan ye yu (Evening rain, Yigong Wu & Yonggang Wu, 1980), Nunal sa tubig (Speck in the water, Ishmael Bernal, 1976), Skazanie o zemle sibirskoj (Tales of the Siberian land, Ivan Pyryev, 1947), Johnny come lately (William K. Howard, 1943), As it is in life (David W. Griffith, 1910), Kyanq (Life, Artavazd Pelechian, 1993), I girovaghi (The wanderers, Hugo Fregonese, 1956), Ikaw ay akin (You are mine, Ishmael Bernal, 1978),  Die unbekannte (The unknown, Frank Wisbar, 1936), Versailles (Pierre Schoeller, 2008), La canta delle marane (Cecilia Mangini, 1961), Bolshaya semya (A big family, Iosif Kheífits, 1954), Demi-tarif (Half price, Isild Le Besco, 2003), Matinée (Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, 1976), El Conde de MonteCristo (The Count of Monte Cristo, Chano Urueta, Roberto Gavaldón, 1942), Unseen forces (Sidney A. Franklin, 1920), Lovin’ the ladies (Melville W. Brown, 1930), Der ruf (The last illusion, Josef von Báky, 1949), Les dernières fiançailles (The last betrothal, Jean Pierre Lefebvre, 1973), Norrtullsligan (The Nurtull gang, Per Lindberg, 1923), S.V.D. Soyuz velikogo (The club of the Big Deed, Grigori Kozintsev & Leonid Trauberg, 1927).

and also:
La lotta dell’uomo per la sua sopravivvenza (Fight for survival, Roberto Rossellini, 1970),  Bakit dilaw ang gitna ng bahag-hari? (Why is the middle of the rainbow yellow?, Kidlat Tahimik, 1994), Mirazhi (Pyotr Chardynin, 1915), The flame (John H. Auer, 1947),  Iris och löjtnantshjärta (Iris and the lieutenant, Alf Sjöberg, 1946), Noidan kirot (Teuvo Puro, 1927), Whirlpool (Roy William Neill, 1934), Johnny stool pigeon (William Castle, 1949), Daun di atas bantal (Leaf on a pillow, Garin Nugroho, 1998), The cradle of courage (William S. Hart & Lambert Hillyer, 1920), An ye (Dark night, Fred Tan, 1986), Echizen take-ningyo (Bamboo doll of Echizen, Yoshimura Kozaburô, 1963), Zwischen gestern und morgen (Between yesterday and tomorrow, Harald Braun, 1947), Fa sing (Last affair, Tony Au, 1983), Messages (Guy Sherwin, 1991/94), Itsuwareru seiso (Clothes of deception, Yoshimura Kozaburô, 1950), Stellar (Stan Brakhage, 1993), L’exercise de l’État (The Minister, Pierre Schoeller, 2011), The Dante Quartet (Stan Brakhage, 1987), De kinderen van Birnbaum (Mélinde Kassens, 2013), Archipels nitrate (Claudio Pazienza, 2009), The Doctor takes a Wife (Alexander Hall, 1940), Les amours de minuit (The lovers of midnight, Augusto Genina, Marc Allegret, 1931), Behind office doors (Melville W. Brown, 1931), Ehe im schatten (Marriage in the shadows, Kurt Maetzig, 1947), Ernst Tählmann: sohn seiner klasse (Kurt Maetzig, 1954), Tarang (Wages and profits, Kumar Shahani, 1984), The enemy (Fred Niblo, uncompleted, 1927), Up the Ladder (Edward Sloman, 1925), Ekti nodir naam (The name of a river, Anup Singh, 2002), Nan Jing de ji du (The Christ of Nan Jing, Tony Au, 1995), The house across the bay (Archie Mayo, 1940), Heartworn highways (James Szalapski, 1976), Cheng nan jiu shi (My memories of old Beijing, Yigong Wu & Yonggang Wu, 1983), Euzkadi été 82 (Otar Iosseliani, 1982), Yek atash (A fire, Ebrahim Golestan, 1961), Cristo (Teo Hernández, 1977), Primrose Hill (Mikhaël Hers, 2007), Inspirace (Karel Zeman, 1949), Celles qui s’en font (Germaine Dulac, 1928), I tre corsari (Three corsairs, Mario Soldati, 1951), Circuit Carole (Emmanuelle Cuau, 1995), Onna wa nido umareru (Women are born twice, Kawahima Yuzô, 1961), Per amore di Jenny (Nino Oxilia, 1915), Pietà per chi cade (Mario Costa, 1953), Der goldene abgrund (Rapa-Nui) (Mario Bonnard, 1927), Get your man (Dorothy Arzner, uncompleted, 1927).

BEST RE-EVALUATIONS
Moonfleet (Fritz Lang, 1955), The Tall Men (Raoul Walsh, 1955), The Ghost and Mrs Muir (Joseph Leo Mankiewicz, 1947), Hereafter (Clint Eastwood, 2010), A Modern Hero (G. W. Pabst, 1934),  Giorno per giorno, disperatamente (Day by Day, Desperately, Alfredo Giannetti, 1961), Hello, Sister (Erich von Stroheim & Alfred L. Werker, Alan Crosland, Raoul Walsh, 1932), Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake (John Cromwell, 1942), Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata, Ingmar Bergman, 1978), Onna bakari no yoru (Girls of Dark, Tanaka Kinuyo, 1961), Ruten no ôhi (The Wandering Princess, Tanaka Kinuyo, 1960), The Last of the Fast Guns (George Sherman, 1958), La noche de enfrente (Night Across the Street, Raúl Ruiz, 2012), Duck Amuck (Chuck M. Jones, 1953), Foxfire (Joseph Pevney, 1955), Grauzone (Zones, Fredi M. Murer, 1979), Howl no ugoku shiro (Howl’s Moving Castle, Miyazaki Hayao, 2004), That’s Life (Blake Edwards, 1986), Bildnis einer unbekannten (Portrait of an Unknown Woman, Helmut Käutner, 1954), Tirez la langue, Mademoiselle (Miss and the doctors, Axelle Ropert, 2013),  El cumpleaños del perro (Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, 1976), Menq (We, Artavazd Pelechian, 1969), Swiss Family Robinson (Ken Annakin, 1960), Robinson soll nicht sterben (The Girl and the Legend, Josef von Báky, 1957), The Carpetbaggers (Edward Dmytryk, 1964).

Mark Cosgrove 

Watershed Cinema Curator/Founder and Co-curator Cinema Rediscovered.

My list is from films released in the UK in 2019.

1. Ray & Liz (Richard Billingham, 2018)
The British realist tradition is given a welcome creative jolt with influences as various as Bresson and Beckett in photographer Richard Billingham’s autobiographical debut feature film. His film picks up the creative baton passed down from the Bill Douglas’ Trilogy and early Terence Davies.
2. Di Jiu Tian Chang (So Long, My Son, Wang Xiaoshuai, 2019).
Similar in ways to Scorsese’s The Irishman, So Long, My Son effortlessly weaves through decades to reveal an intimate and emotionally powerful portrait of a couple’s grief  against shifts in Chinese society.
3. Une saison en France (A Season in France Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, 2017)
African migrant experience is given quiet forceful depth and insight from Chadian born, Paris based filmmaker Haroun.
4. Leto (Kirill Serebrennikov, 2018)
A reminder of the transgressive, revolutionary power of music which we in the West now take for granted. Made with great creative resistance.
5. The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent, 2018)
The violence in The Nightingale is well and truly earned – creatively and thematically – and felt in Kent’s astonishingly constructed and performed exploration of the violence of colonialism.
6. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
Scorsese looks in the mirror sees death and, like Rembrandt before him, makes astonishing reflective art.
7. Bait (Mark Jenkin, 2019)
The British film story of the year: No one expected this small, 16mm shot, academy ratio b/w film to perform anything other than marginally but Bait’s idiosyncratic, artisanal creativity connected with audiences and became the welcome box-office surprise of the year. I anticipated a one week holdover (possibly!) and it played for 8 weeks straight in my cinema.
8. La Camarista (The Chambermaid Lila Avilés 2018)
A contemporary study of Mexico’s underclass with interesting parallel’s in subject mater to Buñuel however Aviles shoots in ’scope with a shallow depth-of-field giving the film an intimacy and strongly subjective point-of-view. An accomplished debut feature.
9. Dolor y Gloria (Pain & Glory, Pedro Almodóvar, 2019)
Like Scorsese, Almodovar looks into the mirror but here sees not only his aged ailing reflection but also his mother  – at her radiant younger and her older fraill self – and seizes the creative opportunity to make his most intimate and personal film.
10. Styx (Wolfgang Fischer, 2018)
An important yet overlooked – certainly in the UK – European film which deftly combines thriller tropes to engage in the very real issue of migration across the Mediterranean. Comfortable European life meets uncomfortable moral and political realities.

Re-issue of the Year
Un Femme Douce (A Gentle Woman Robert Bresson, 1969)
Now in its fourth year our festival Cinema Rediscovered – inspired by the fantastic Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna –  showcases new restorations and tours some of them to cinemas across the UK. Un Femme Douce, championed by film critic and Cinema Rediscovered co-curator Tara Judah, was a revelation of late period Bresson.

[IMAGE 6 ray and liz]
[Ray & Liz (Richard Billingham, 2018)]

COREY CRIBB 

PHD STUDENT IN SCREEN AND CULTURAL STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

In comparison to last year, I can’t say that it has been a particularly accomplished year for new releases to my mind. I probably didn’t make it to the cinema as much as I would have liked to, but I was also disappointed by some number of films I had been anticipating. Nonetheless, here are my ten selections:

Diqiu zuihou de yewan (Long Day’s Journey Into Night Bi Gan 2018)
Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, 2019)
La Flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)
Lazzaro felice (Happy as Lazzaro, Alice Rohrwacher, 2018)
Flow (Nicolas Molina, 2018)
O que arde (Fire Will Come, Oliver Laxe, 2019)
Gangbyeon Hotel (Hotel By the River Hong Sang-soo 2018)
Napszállta (Sunset, László Nemes, 2018)
High Life (Claire Denis 2018)
If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2018)

Pedro Crispim 

PhD student in Film and Television

Top 10
1. Gisaengchung (Parasite, Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
Kim Ki-young’s Hanyeo (The Housemaid, 2010) and Joseph Losey’s The Servant (1963) were two of the three films Bong mentioned as recommended viewings before his film. And Kim’s portrait of the disintegration of nuclear family and Losey’s handle of Pinteresque, ritualistic overtones of power struggles find use echoing chambers in Bong’s Gisaengchung. A funny family drama and sad, societal comedy seasoned with bitterly tonic puns and violent angers, Gisaengchung manages to merge the apparently unmergeable, and it is constantly doing it. Bong’s film feels like a broken mirror reflecting our own society with its increasingly indecipherable tone, in which survivalism (or parasitism in its several forms) seems the most appropriate logic.
2. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
In some aspects, The Irishman succeeds where Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019) fails. Scorsese’s longest narrative feature is a flipside coin featuring his best effort to date at returning to Goodfellas (1990), but this time, despite its start in epic gangster fashion, The Irishman reveals itself as a desolate, stertorous expectance-journey into redemption. And that, more than cinema, urban violence, corruption, politics or power, perfectly summarises and rings truer as Scorsese’s core as a filmmaker.
3. Systemsprenger (System Crasher, Nora Fingscheidt, 2019)
Probably the most bleak and frightening film of this list. Systemsprenger presents the story of Benni, a disturbed 9-year old child and her systematic draw-backs in the German child welfare system. Featuring a relentless, unnerving pulse, Systemsprenger is terrorising, daunting diagnostic of future. Despite a hint at schizophrenia, at its core, it’s a film about a new generation (personified by Benni) affected by a problem which is extremely hard to pinpoint clearly, and even harder to solve or even to just tone it down, as Benni gushes her way through a relentless barrage of pain. And that displays a crystalline X-ray for future.
4. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019)
A tremendously generous film, managing a handful with different genres with smoothness and care. Baumbach tackles hard, under-the-skin themes with cool, but tender, observation, as if he (and the audience) were the characters’ best friends whom they can unburden all their troubles. The top interest comes with the characters, however flawed, good or mean-intentioned, hilarious or downright weird they might be (special highlights for both couples, the one divorcing and the one taking care of the divorce). They are all trying to find a place on this huge machinery called divorce, and Baumbach allows us to go in their flow through its rather faulty mesh.
5. Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)
Joker is an adequately punchy and unsubtle modern day parable on our own systemic malaise. Evoking a whole pallet of influences from Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936), Scorsese’s urban hells, or other sinister clown associations, its main drive is Todd Phillips’ carefully sober directing, and a deliciously overacted, powerhouse performance from Joaquin Phoenix, calling on a lineage of Peter Lorre or Conrad Veidt and, through that, the dark undercurrents found in the cinema of Fritz Lang and Paul Leni. And for all its insidious, insightful views, Joker is a film that deserves to exist, and exactly when it came out.
6 – Dolor y Gloria (Pain & Glory, Pedro Almodóvar, 2019)
Almodóvar’s own take on 8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963), Dolor y Gloria encompasses his whole career boiled down to those two words. Using a great Antonio Banderas as his alter-ego, constantly distraught by physical and emotional pain, and the hurtful channelling of his afflictions into his art. On the vein of other great Almodóvar works, like Hable con Ella (Talk to Her, 2002), Dolor y Gloria is elegant, analytical, a bit elegiac, self-referential and (just like the best Fellini) confessional.
7. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)
Probably the most self-indulgent Tarantino yet, “Once Upon a Time…” is a sprawling L.A. epic fresco taking the tropes from the B-movie glitters and Tarantino’s fetishistic use of cars, violence, sexuality and quotation-heavy dialogues, the film falls short of becoming a great one due to its apparent Tarantino with carte blanche vibe. And about its polarising take on the Tate-LaBianca murders, I fell into the side that didn’t take it as great. And despite my feelings of Tarantino mangling (or rewriting, using cinematic devices) history to restore any sense of justice or entertainment, “Once Upon a Time…” is still high-fuel ride into self-enjoying cinema.
8. Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019)
The second feature film by Ari Aster is a clear sign that nightmare is the key concept in his whole filmography, ever since his short film nightmares to the family drama descending into a nightmare in Hereditary (2018). Here, Aster goes on full folk horror mode, together with free roaming camera, visual distortions, but once again to make a point on how a pattern of destructive behaviours can only be dealt with its climaxing worst-case scenarios.
9. Us (Jordan Peele, 2019)
Jordan Peele’s follow up to Get Out (2017) acts as his spiritual ‘part two’. Searing and highly inventive, Us once again dissects what haunts the American collective psyche and plays out with a series of masks, reflections and refractions, reverse plays on identity, desire and will. Pretty meaty subjects all at once (and yet not wrapped as smoothly as Get Out) but nevertheless presented in a tense horror thriller packaging.
10. Der Goldene Handschuh (The Golden Glove, Fatih Akin)
Derided by its grotesque violence and apparently tasteless outlook, Fatih Akin’s most recent work is better viewed as a very sour comedy. It works as an unpleasant meditation on indifference, filled with musical punctuations and counterpoints, trying to ooze a bit of beauty in a relentless nauseating world. The grotesquery of its violence, sometimes bordering on the cartoonish side, is a gut punch when we realise that indifference is what enabled Honka to prospect as a serial killer.

Der Goldene Handschuh (The Golden Glove, Fatih Akin)

JORDAN CRONK 

FOUNDER: ACROPOLIS CINEMA; CONTRIBUTOR: CINEMA SCOPE, FILM COMMENT, SIGHT & SOUND

2008 (Blake Williams, 2019)
Above the Rain (Ken Jacobs, 2019)
Atlantique (Atlantics, Mati Diop, 2019)
Austrian Pavilion (Philipp Fleischmann, 2019)
Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, 2019)
De nuevo otra vez (Again Once Again, Romina Paula, 2019)
El Diablo entre las Piernas (Devil Between the Legs, Arturo Ripstein, 2019)
I Diari di Angela – Noi Due Cineasti (Angelas Diaries: Two Filmmakers, Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, 2018)
Domains (Kusano Natsuka, 2019)
the eyes empty and the pupils burning with rage and desire (Luis Macías, 2018)
Fin de siglo (End of the Century, Lucio Castro, 2019)
Fourteen (Dan Sallitt, 2019)
Das freiwillige Jahr (A Voluntary Year, Ulrich Köhler and Henner Winckler, 2019)
The Giverny Document (Ja’Tovia Gary, 2019)
Gyeo-wul-ba-me (Winters Night, Jang Woojin, 2018)
Heimat ist ein Raum aus Zeit (Heimat Is a Space in Time, Thomas Heise, 2019)
A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick, 2019)
Hombres de piel dura (Men of Hard Skin, José Celestino Campusano, 2019)
Ich war zuhause, aber (I Was at Home, But, Angela Shanelec, 2019)
L’Île aux oiseaux (Bird Island, Maya Kosa and Sergio da Costa, 2019)
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
Jeanne (Joan of Arc, Bruno Dumont, 2019)
Kansas Atlas (Peggy Ahwesh, 2019)
Liberté (Albert Serra, 2019)
Longa noite (Endless Night, Eloy Enciso, 2019)
Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello, 2019)
MS Slavic 7 (Sofia Bohdanowicz and Deragh Campbell, 2019)
Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle (Just Dont Think Ill Scream, Frank Beauvais, 2019)
Nhà cây (The Tree House, Trương Minh Quý 2019)
No Data Plan / Distancing (Miko Revereza, 2019)
O que arde (Fire Will Come, Oliver Laxe, 2019)
Oroslan (Matjaž Ivanišin, 2019)
The Plagiarists (Peter Parlow, 2019)
A Portuguesa (The Portuguese Woman, Rita Azevedo Gomes, 2018)
Red Film (Sara Cwynar, 2019)
Sete anos em Maio (Seven Years in May, Affonso Uchôa, 2019)
The Sky Socialist: Environs and Out-Takes (Ken Jacobs, 1964-1966/2019)
State Funeral (Sergei Loznitsa, 2019)
Subject to Review (Theo Anthony, 2019)
Synonymes (Synonyms, Nadav Lapid, 2019)
Tabi no Owari Sekai no Hajimari (To the Ends of the Earth, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2019)
Those That, at a Distance, Resemble Another (Jessica Sarah Rinland, 2019)
Tommaso (Abel Ferrara, 2019)
(tourism studies) (Joshua Gen Solondz, 2019)
Transcript (Erica Sheu, 2019)
two moons (James Benning, 2019)
Tyrant Star (Diane Severin Nguyen, 2019)
Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie, 2019)
Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, 2019)
Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello, 2019)

FERGUS DALY 

CO-DIRECTOR OF ABBAS KIAROSTAMI: THE ART OF LIVING, WRITER FOR FERGUSDALY.COM

In 2019, for the first time in years, recent films that made me love the cinema were outnumbered by those that made me never want to watch another film. The latter included The Lighthouse, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Dead Don’t Die.  ‘One for them, one for me’ Scorsese used to say about his arrangement with the big studios. Now, Jarmusch, the cracked auteur, seems to be doing one for his interesting, literate self, one for the self with the dodgy sense of humour.

Best Recent Films Seen in 2019

3/4 (Ilian Metev, 2017)
Ahlat Agaci (The Wild Pear Tree, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2018)
The Cat and the Moon (Alex Wolff, 2019)
Chained for Life (Aaron Schimberg, 2018)
Classical Period (Ted Fendt, 2018)
Die Geträumten (The Dreamed Ones, Ruth Beckermann, 2016)
Don’t Come Back from the Moon aka Lords of Anarchy (Bruce Thierry Cheung, 2017)
La Douleur (Memoir of War, Emmanuel Finkiel, (2017)
Dovlatov (Aleksey German Jr., 2018)
Dreaming under Capitalism (Sophie Bruneau, 2017)
Egg (Marianna Palka, 2018)
Güvercin (The Pigeon, Banu Sivaci, 2018)
Hal (Amy Scott, 2018)
I cormorani (The Cormorants, Fabio Bobbio, 2016)
Jonaki (Aditya Vikram Sengupta, 2018)
The Maestro (Adam Cushman, 2018)
Oiktos (Pity, Babis Makridis, 2018)
The Phenom aka Rage (Noah Buschel, 2016)
Song of Sway Lake (Ari Gold, 2017)
What They Had (Elizabeth Chomko, 2018)
Wildlife (Paul Dano, 2018)
Withdrawn (Adrian Murray, 2017)

Best TV

Fosse/Vernon (FX)

Adam Daniel 

Sessional Lecturer at Western Sydney University, Writer/Director
  1. Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019)
  2. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019)
  3. Gisaengchung (Parasite, Bong Joon Ho, 2019)
  4. Uncut Gems (Benny and Josh Safdie, 2019)
  5. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)
  6. Ad Astra (James Gray, 2019)
  7. Us (Jordan Peele, 2019)
  8. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019)
  9. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019)
  10. Long Shot (Jonathan Levine, 2019)

Adrian Danks 

Associate Professor of Cinema Studies and Media in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University. Author of A Companion to Robert Altman, co-author of American-Australian Cinema: Transnational Connections and a previous editor of Senses of Cinema.

For Agnès, Thomas, Bill and Anna

Top 10 best new films screening somewhere in Melbourne (in preferential order):

  1. De chaque instant (Nicolas Philibert, 2018)
  2. Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma, 2019)
  3. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)
  4. Dylda (Beanpole, Kantemir Balagov, 2019)
  5. The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018)
  6. Dolor y gloria (Pain and Glory, Pedro Almodóvar, 2019)
  7. Diego Maradona (Asif Kapadia, 2019)
  8. The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard, 2018)
  9. Napszállta (Sunset, László Nemes, 2018)
  10. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

Bubbling under

L’empire de la perfection (John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, Julien Faraut, 2018)
Lazzaro felice (Happy as Lazzaro, Alice Rohrwacher, 2018)
The Highwaymen (John Lee Hancock, 2019)
Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley, 2019)
Booksmart (Olivia Wilde, 2019)
The Australian Dream (Daniel Gordon, 2019)
A Vida Invisível (The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão, Karim Aïnouz, 2019)
If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2018)
Gisaengchung (Parasite, Bong Joon Ho, 2019)
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
They Shall Not Grow Old (Peter Jackson, 2018)

& 4 TV series

Chasing the Moon (Robert Stone, 2019)
Chernobyl (Craig Mazin, 2019)
The Crown (Peter Morgan, 2016-present) – season 3
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amy Sherman-Palladino, 2017-present) – seasons 2 and 3

10 retrospective rediscoveries and new restorations

Finis terrae (Jean Epstein, 1929) – at Il Cinema Ritrovato
The astonishing final scenes of Prix de beauté (Augusto Genina, 1930) – at the Melbourne Cinémathèque; there could be no more apt conclusion to a revelatory Louise Brooks season
Ze soboty na nedeli (From Saturday to Sunday, Gustav Machatý, 1931) – at the Melbourne Cinémathèque (admission: I’m co-curator)
Toni (Jean Renoir, 1935) – at Il Cinema Ritrovato
Komedie om geld (The Trouble with Money, Max Ophuls, 1935) – at the Melbourne Cinémathèque
The Way of a Gaucho (Jacques Tourneur, 1953) – at Il Cinema Ritrovato
Il tempo si è fermato (Time Stood Still, Ermanno Olmi, 1959) – at the Melbourne Cinémathèque
Botan-doro (The Bride from Hades, Satsuo Yamamoto, 1968) – at the Japanese Film Festival (The Astor Theatre)
The Koker Trilogy (Abbas Kiarostami, 1987-1994) – Blu-ray release from the Criterion Collection; and Ghazieh-e Shekl-e Aval, Ghazieh-e Shekl-e Dou Wom (First Case, Second Case, Kiarostami, 1979) – at Il Cinema Ritrovato
The Clock (Christian Marclay, 2010) – at ACMI

2019 was marked by the passing of monumental, formative and personally significant figures such as Thomas Elsaesser, Agnès Varda, D. A. Pennebaker, Peter Wollen, Bill Collins, Pierre Lhomme and Anna Karina. Although each had a significant impact on me, their passing potently registering a changing of the guard, it was Varda’s death that I felt most strongly. In July, I visited the Cimetière du Montparnase where she and many other film luminaries (Demy, Pialat, Ivens, Langlois, etc.) are buried. It was extremely touching to see the care and foresight that many people, in the months before us, had brought to their pilgrimage – my own personal favourites were the potatoes scattered on her grave carved with tiny inscriptions. Varda’s joyfully decorated tomb recognised the extraordinary personality, abundant life and human detail of her cinema, as well her mercurial connections to many other people buried around her.

The grave of Agnès Varda, Cimetière du Montparnase

Although my favourite films of the year cover a wide array of nationalities, sensibilities and even types of cinema, 2019 was marked by several key works that were about the “end of things”. Martin Scorsese initially fronted up with a playful, infuriating and, at times, mesmerising refashioning of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder tour complete with galvanising live footage, some interesting archival snippets, notable absences and often wrong-headed attempts to approximate the shape-shifting dynamics of the unfairly unloved Renaldo and Clara (Dylan, 1978). Like No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (Scorsese, 2005), it also straightened the kinks out of an earlier, more experimental Dylan work.

But this was merely an entrée. In November, The Irishman arrived with an even more clearly and sourly revisionist tone. Although various commentators have compared it with Scorsese’s earlier works – and fair enough – it’s actually aiming at something closer to The Godfather: Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974). I once opened a course on Scorsese by saying that his would have been a perfect career if it had ended with Casino (1995) and his documentary on American cinema: A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (Scorsese and Michael Henry Wilson, 1995). But despite the many, often disappointing or dissipated films that inevitably followed, this one did actually feel like a movie from beyond the grave. This is obviously fuelled by the expressionist performance of De Niro – dull-eyed and physically laboured in its early passages – but equally felt in the perfunctory killings, the relentlessness of the dialogue scenes, and the overwhelming feeling of a visit to old haunts for probably the last time. Rather than a continuation of the breathlessly kinetic Goodfellas (1990) or the fiery cataclysm of Casino (1995), it had the feeling of an overly familiar, grungy but lethargic remix. This does not sound like much of a recommendation, but although I initially found it very difficult to get into the groove of the film and its lumbering performances, it did gradually and insidiously work its way under my skin.

More surprisingly, the soundtrack of the second half of my year was dominated by José Feliciano’s acoustically bright but gloriously melancholy cover of “California Dreamin’”. Feliciano is an artist I never thought I would gain an affection for, but such is the power of Quentin Tarantino’s uncanny ability to fuse song and image that it’s now on high rotation on my Spotify account (another sign that streaming is winning the day in my household). Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is both an obvious companion piece to The Irishman and an absolute departure. A conservative fantasy of what might have occurred if New Hollywood didn’t quite happen – and Tarantino has often been ambivalent about this obvious touchstone when you think about it – its middle section provided the most purely pleasurable time I had at the cinema this year. A movie of threes, this section exploring the pleasures and dangers of one afternoon in early 1969 played upon Tarantino’s greatest strengths in giving texture and time to a particular moment, (mediated) place and set of characters. Although much of this was fanciful – the carefully imagined and curated career of DiCaprio’s character; the triumphant screening of the execrable The Wrecking Crew (Phil Karlson, 1968) casually attended by Robbie’s Tate; Pitt’s character’s discomforting visit to the Manson ranch – it did manage to give weight and even emotional heft to what followed (not something I’ve often felt in a Tarantino film before). It also features a leisurely, defiantly comfortable and career-high performance from Brad Pitt. Although I’m still bothered by some of the film’s choices, its approach to history and its politics, I’ll never hear José Feliciano in quite the same way again.

After that, and as always, the year will be remembered for a series of retrospective screenings and rediscoveries such as beautiful restorations of Jean Epstein’s Finis terrae and Jean Renoir’s Toni. Both movies bring me back to earth, their intense and grounded environmental portraits sitting in stark contrast to the bold, autumnal and murky netherworlds of Tarantino and Scorsese.

BRIAN DARR 

SAN FRANCISCO CINEPHILE

Ten films with U.S. commercial releases in 2019
Netemo sametemo (Asako I & II, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2018)
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
Aniara (Pella Kagerman & Hugo Lilja, 2018)
High Life (Claire Denis, 2018)
Uncut Gems (Benny Safdie & Josh Safdie, 2019)
Midnight Traveler (Hassan Fazili, 2019)
Transit (Christian Petzold, 2018)
Jiang hou ear nu (Ash is Purest White, Jia Zhang-Ke, 2018)
The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019)
Once Upon a Time …in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

Five USA commercially-undistributed features
30/30 Vision: Three Decades of Strand Releasing (Tom Kalin, Connor Jessup, Elisabeth Subrin, Brady Corbet, Rithy Panh, João Pedro Rodrigues, Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato, Karim Aïnouz, A.B. Shawky, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Andrew Ahn, Alain Gomis, Christophe Honoré, Daniel Ribeiro, Rose Troche, Bradley Rust Gray, So Yong Kim, Ira Sachs, James Schamus, Cindy Sherman, Jenni Olson, Alain Guiraudie, Bruce LaBruce, Roddy Bogawa, Amy Davis & Jon Moritsugu, Tommy O’Haver, John Waters, Gregg Araki, Lynn Hershman-Leeson, Jon Jost, Lulu Wang & Anna Franquesa-Solano, Fatih Akin, Catherine Breillat & Isaac Julien, 2019)
Lapü (César Alejandro Jaimes & Juan Pablo Polanco, 2019)
Gyeo-will-ba-me (Winter’s Night, Jang Woo-jin, 2018)
A Growing Thing (Sarah Gross, 2019)
Ten Years Thailand (Aditya Assarat, Wisit Sasanatieng, Chulayarnnon Siriphol & Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2018)

Twenty single-channel film and video works of less than feature length
Accidence (Guy Maddin, Galen Johnson & Evan Johnson, 2018)
Amazonia (Roger Beebe, 2019)
Billy (Zachary Epcar, 2019)
Comfort Stations (Anja Dornieden & Juan David González, 2018)
Enforcement Hours (Paloma Martinez, 2018)
Everything You Wanted to Know About Sudden Birth* (*but were afraid to ask) (Scott Calonico, 2018)
Giverny I (Négresse Impériale) (Ja’Tovia Gary, 2017)
How Old Are You? How Old Were You? (Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu, 2017)
I Am Pagan Baby (Jana Dubus, 2017)
I’m OK (Elizabeth Hobbs, 2018)
Inventario Churubusco (Churubusco Inventory, Elena Pardo, 2018)
Life After Love (Zachary Epcar, 2018)
Lines of Force (Dan Browne, 2018)
Lost World (Kalyanee Mam, 2018)
Love Seat (Lyndsay Bloom, 2017)
Parish (Brian Favorite, 2018)
Reverse Shadow (Janie Geiser, 2019)
Some of the Sensations (Péter Lichter & Bori Máté, 2017)
Song X (Pathompon Mont Tesperateep, 2017)
Uzi’s Party (Lyra Hill, 2017)

Lost World (Kalyanee Mam, 2018)

Five installation works
Wrong Photography (Thomas Mailender, 2018) looped 35mm slide projection, SFMOMA
Glimpses of the USA (Charles Eames & Ray Eames, 1959) multi-screen video installation (remastered from original film version); Oakland Museum of California
The Chronicles of San Francisco (JR, 2019) video installation with interactive audio; SFMOMA
Bob’s Crystal Cave (Bob Carr, 2004/2010) sculpture with video projection; Sky Village Swap Meet, Yucca Valley, CA
Jacob’s Dream: A Luminous Path (Benjamin Bergery & Jim Campbell, 2016) moving image installation; Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA

Five expanded cinema performances
Change (Lily Jue Sheng, 2017) dual-16mm projection; Light Field Festival, San Francisco, CA
Pulsos subterráneos (Underground Pulses, Elena Pardo, 2019) dual-16mm projector performance with live sound by Voicehandler, Shapeshifters Cinema, Oakland, CA
Scatter (Ellie Vanderlip & Karen Ver Trinidad, 2019) triple-16mm projector performance, Other Cinema, San Francisco, CA
Flipping Over Early Cinema (Rob Byrne & Thierry Lecointe, 2019) multimedia lecture with music by Stephen Horne, San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Lost Landscapers of San Francisco 14 (Rick Prelinger, 2019) silent video with live filmmaker and audience narration; Castro Theatre, San Francisco, CA

DUSTIN DASIG 

FILM CRITIC AND COMMUNICATIONS, MEDIA, JOURNALISM, AND FILM STUDIES PROFESSOR; SECURITY TRAINING DIRECTOR, PHILIPPINES

It is unsurprising that the overarching theme of my ten best films of the year reflects the current global socio-political and socio-cultural context: being lost and trapped in a chaotic society marred by self-serving interests and futile, phony political leaders.  If cinema can (at least) provide temporary diversion, necessary enlightenment or an optimistic glance into the world’s future, then going to the movies is of utmost urgency.

Top Ten Films Of 2019

  1. 1. Atlantique (Atlantics, Mati Diop, 2019)
  2. Diqiu zuihou de yewan(Long Day’s Journey into Night, Gan Bi, 2018)
  3. Gisaengchung (Parasite, Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
  4. J’ai perdu mon corps (I Lost My Body, Jérémy Clapin, 2019)
  5. Jiang hu er nü(Ash is Purest White, Jia Zhangke, 2018)
  6. Transit (Christian Petzold, 2018)
  7. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019)
  8. The Irishman(Martin Scorsese, 2019)
  9. Medena zemja (Honeyland, Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov, 2019)
  10. The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)

Highlights Of The 2019 Film Viewing Year

  1. The Seventh QCinema (Quezon City, Manila, Philippines) International Film Festival’s astounding lineup of many Cannes, Berlin, and Venice Film Festival winners and contenders (i.e. Synonymes (Synonyms, Nadav Lapid, 2019); Dylda (Beanpole, Kantamir Balegov, 2019); Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles, 2019); Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, 2019), etc.) (Kudos to the consistently strong and effective management team for ensuring the annual success of this film event.)
  2. Netflix’s impact on Hollywood and world cinema film production, distribution, and exhibition cannot be ignored as they continue to transcend and create new frontiers in filmmaking and film viewing today; and
  3. The consistent laudable efforts of Hollywood and world cinema to instill gender and racial diversity in film production, directing, casting, and other related crafts (cinematography, music, production design, etc.).

Honourable Mentions
Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Celine Sciamma, 2019)
Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)
Dylda (Beanpole, Kantemir Balagov, 2019)
La gomera (The Whistlers, Corneliu Poromboiu, 2019)
Tenki no Ko (Weathering With You, Makoto Shinkai, 2019)
Ak-in-jeon (The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil, Lee Won-tae, 2019)
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Marielle Heller, 2018)
Synonymes (Synonyms, Nadav Lapid, 2019)
Girl (Lukas Dhont, 2018)
Mirai-no-Mirai (Mirai, Mamoru Hosoda, 2018)
Knives Out (Rian Johnson, 2019)

ROBERT DASSANOWSKY 

CULTURAL HISTORIAN, INDIE PRODUCER, PROFESSOR OF FILM STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, COLORADO SPRINGS, THE GCAS RESEARCH INSTITUTE DUBLIN

Top Ten of 2019 (in no particular order)
Little Joe (Jessica Hausner, 2019)
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
Boże Ciało (Corpus Christi, Jan Komasa, 2019)
Joy
(Sudabeh Mortezai, 2019)
Us (Jordan Peele, 2019)
Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria, 2019)
Dolor y Gloria (Pain and Glory, Pedro Almodovar, 2019)
Varda par Agnès (Varda by Agnès, Agnes Varda, 2019)
A Hidden Life (Terrence Malik, 2019)
Tõde ja Õigus (Truth and Justice, Tanel Toom, 2019)

Very Honourable Mentions
The Goldfinch (John Crowley, 2019)
Once Upon a Time ……in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)
JoJo Rabbit (Taika Waititi, 2019)
1917 (Sam Mendes, 2019)
The Two Popes (Fernando Meirelles, 2019)
Welcome to Sodom (Florian Weigensamer and Christian Krönes, 2019)
Knives Out (Rian Johnson, 2019)
Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)
Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019)
Akik maradtak (Those Who Remained, Barnabas Toth, 2019)

Little Joe (Jessica Hausner, 2019)

Henri de Corinth 

Film writer, contributor to Lo Specchio ScuroKinoscopeMUBI NotebookSenses of Cinema

1. Dylda (Beanpole, Kantemir Balagov, 2019)
2. Ich war zuhause, aber (I Was At Home, But, Angela Schanelec, 2019)
3. Sophia Antipolis (Virgil Vernier, 2018)
4. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, 2019)
5. Transcript (Erica Sheu, 2019)
6. The Scream (Philippe Grandrieux, 2019)
7. Female Human Animal (Josh Appignanesi, 2018)
8. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019)
9. Jujuba (Shun Ikezoe, 2018)
10. They Can Be Seen from a Distance (Rei Hayama, 2019)
11. O que arde (Fire Will Come, Olivier Laxe, 2019)
12. Little Joe (Jessica Hausner, 2019)
13. The Giant (David Raboy, 2019)
14. Moon in Capricorn (Ilaria Pezone, 2019)
15. Neo-Noir (Kirill Savateev, 2019)
16. The Image in the Stone (Eva Kolcze, 2019)
17. Fuga (Fugue, Agnieszka Smoczyńska, 2018)
18. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019)
19. Ka (Amit Dutta, 2019)
20. The Fall (Jonathan Glazer, 2019)

Wheeler Winston Dixon 

JAMES RYAN PROFESSOR OF FILM STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA, EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKER, AUTHOR OF NUMEROUS BOOKS ON CINEMA INCLUDING BLACK AND WHITE: A SHORT HISTORY

Best of 2019
Varda by Agnès (Varda by Agnès Agnès Varda 2019)
Atlantique (Atlantics Mati Diop 2019)
Little Woods (Nia DaCosta 2019)
Fast Color (Julia Hart 2019)
The Wind (Emma Tammi 2019)
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (Pamela Green 2019)
Bombshell (Jay Roach 2019)
Booksmart (Olivia Wilde 2019)
The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch 2019)
Doubles vies (Non-Fiction, Olivier Assayas 2018)
Where’s My Roy Cohn? (Matt Tyrnauer 2019)
No Data Plan (Miko Revezera 2019)
Queen and Slim (Melina Matsoukas 2019)

Bombshell (Jay Roach 2019)

This was the year that theatrical pretty much collapsed, at least in the United States.

Streaming at home, or on the go via cell phone or laptop, has totally taken over; even DVDs are dead. Theatres now offer only tent-pole and comic book franchise films; it’s really surprising when even a mildly interesting film opens in the local megaplex. Indeed, in a recent issue of The New Yorker, the house reviewer, Anthony Lane, more or less implied that rather than seeing a current release, readers should go to see a revival of Robert Hamer’s superb dark comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) at Film Forum (a Manhattan art mainstay) instead.

In other distressing theatrical news, The Paris Theatre, a haven for foreign films since 1948, closed earlier this year, only to be bought outright by Netflix (!!) as a showcase cinema for some of their new releases, and Netflix is also deep into negotiations to buy the fabled Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles as well, again, as a theatrical outlet for Netflix product, put there for the most part to satisfy the Motion Picture Academy’s demand for at least a minimal theatrical run, so that a film might qualify for the Academy Awards.

A visit to a contemporary movie theatre is no longer the communal experience it once might have been. Even my students are wary of the increasing cost, and potential violence, of a night out at the cinema. When I went to see Todd Phillips’ execrable Joker (2019) on the day it opened, I was not surprised, sadly, to see two armed policemen in the lobby frisking all the patrons as they entered, and then patrolling the actual theatre itself during the screening lest anyone whip out a semiautomatic rifle and start killing people. Add to that at least thirty minutes of commercials, trailers, and adverts for the theatre itself, all run at blast level, and the entire experience becomes more than a little unpleasant.

As for the films above, Varda by Agnès, originally a two-part television program in the UK, is really a lengthy lecture by Varda, who clearly knows that the end is hear, and thus wants a final chance to explain her methods and reasons to a receptive audience. As the undisputed foremother of the New Wave – among other things, she’s the person who taught Alain Resnais how to “memory edit” – and one of the cinema’s most gifted artists, she surely deserves our undivided attention. Mati Diop’s Atlantics is one of the most beautiful and assured films to come out of the New African Cinema, a hallucinatory blend of realism and fantasy that is simultaneously enthralling and intoxicating.

Nia DaCosta’s Little Woods is an equally enthralling feminist drama, while Julia Hart’s Fast Color is a smart “super heroine” movie without the comic book trappings, with an ending that literally stuns the viewer. Pamela Green’s Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché is a flawed by absolutely necessary look into the almost complete eradication of Alice Guy in contemporary film history. Despite the film’s frenetic pace, one can’t help but admire the archival work that went into it, even if the film begins with a parade of talking heads all saying “I’ve never heard of her” – and significantly, Ava DuVernay, coming at the end of a long line of clueless critics, is very much aware of Guy-Blaché’s legacy, and says so. It’s an infuriating, angry film, as well it should be.

Bombshell takes dead aim at sexual harassment at Fox News; Booksmart is a sharply observed feminist teen film with international appeal (I saw the film for the first time in a packed theatre in Amsterdam, and the young crowd ate it up); The Dead Don’t Die is a rather lazy Jim Jarmusch film, but still so many pegs higher than the competition that on sheer slacker nerve it succeeds in delivering an equal measure of laughs and social commentary in an amiable, shambling fashion; while Olivier Assayas’ Double vies, shot in Super 16mm from a script that the director worked on for nearly two years, finds Assayas in fine comic form – a much more gentle film than his usual darker projects.

The malign figure of Roy Cohn, reincarnated in the repellent and hucksterish person of Donald Trump, exerts a powerful fascination for any American viewer, though many people in 2019 aren’t aware that Cohn, an utterly corrupt lawyer and loathsome person, served as Trump’s mentor in the early phase of Trump’s climb to power. For that reason alone, Where’s My Roy Cohn? is an absolutely necessary reminder of how American politics became so toxic and non-representational. In Miko Revereza’s documentary No Data Plan is a meditation of loss of identity, place, and human agency, a sort of aide de memoire for a time in which history seems to be missing. And Queen and Slim, just released here, shows us again how intrinsically racist the American mainstream cinema is, by foregrounding the story of a young African-American man and woman on the run from the police after killing an officer in self-defence. Amazingly, the film managed to get some theatrical play dates in mainstream cinemas, and did excellent business despite the lack of the usual massive publicity campaign.

The future? It’s clear; streaming at home on Netflix, Mubi, Vimeo, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Disney – whatever; that’s where the audiences are going to be. It’s simply too expensive, and now too dangerous, to go to the movies. Why not wait for the film to come out on a streaming platform, and see it then on the 55” flat screen in your living room? For theatres, it’s going to be an endless succession of Star Wars, Harry Potter, Star Trek, Spider Man, Batman, Superman, Joker and other franchise films, as cosplay and Comic-Con move to the forefront of film criticism. Lots of great films will be made – shot digitally, of course, for the most part – but they won’t be seen, except by the few people who really look for them – the sort of people who read Senses of Cinema regularly.

Finally, The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019) is easily the worst film Scorsese has made; a $150 million dollar indulgence to make one last mob movie through the use of utterly unconvincing de-aging effects. At three and a half hours, it’s overlong, over-acted, and ultimately collapses under the weight of its own ill-advised ambition, and an overwhelming desire to return to the past. But as the character Nick Carroway astutely observes in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, “you can’t repeat the past” – to which Gatsby instantly replies, “of course you can!” But Carroway is right; this is a film that should never have been made.

Heimat ist ein Raum aus Zeit (Heimat is a Space in Time, Thomas Heise, 2019)

Dzondunkellicht 

Writes and travels for cinema.

NEW/RECENT
Requiem (Jonas Mekas, 2019)
Telemundo (James Benning, 2018)
two moons (James Benning, 2019)
Cityscape (Michael Snow, 2019)
Above The Rain (Ken Jacobs, 2019)
The Sky Socialist: The Environs (Ken Jacobs, 1964-66/2019)
Apricity (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2019)
Erde (Earth, Nikolaus Geyrhalter, 2019)
Ang Hupa (The Halt, Lav Diaz, 2019)
Heimat ist ein Raum aus Zeit (Heimat is a Space in Time, Thomas Heise, 2019)
Noli me tangere (Christophe Bisson, 2019)
White Noise (Antoine d’Agata, 2019)
Skvoz Cherone Steklo (Through Black Glass, Konstantin Lopushansky, 2019)
Science Without Substance (Daniel Barnett, 2019)
27 Thoughts About My Father (Mike Hoolboom, 2019)
Memento Stella (Takashi Makino, 2018)
Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, 2019)
vulture (Philip Hoffman, 2019)
Missing People (Bela Tarr, 2019)
Tlamess (Ala Eddine Slim, 2019)
It Has to Be Lived Once and Dreamed Twice (Rainer Kohlberger, 2019)
Swarm Season (Sarah J. Christman, 2019)
Liberte (Albert Serra, 2019)
48 War Movies (Christian Marclay, 2019)
Atlantique (Atlantics, Mati Diop, 2019)
Psykosia (Psychosia, Marie Grahtø, 2019)
Longa Noite (Endless Night, Eloy Enciso, 2019)
America (Garrett Bradley, 2019)
State Funeral (Sergei Loznitsa, 2019)
Color-Blind (Ben Russell, 2019)
O que arde (Fire Will Come, Oliver Laxe, 2019)
The Scream (Philippe Grandrieux, 2019)
A Tiny Place That Is Hard To Touch (Shelly Silver, 2019)
SaF05 (Charlotte Prodger, 2019)
Suzanne Daveau (Luisa Homem, 2019)
Domains (Natsuka Kusano, 2019)
Self-Portrait: Window in 47KM (Zhang Mengqi, 2019)
Pavlechi keli tirtha (At Home, Walking, Rajula Shah, 2019)
Ts’onot (Cenote, Oda Kaori, 2019)
One Sea, 10 Seas (Nour Ouayda, 2019)
Mouna Kaandam (House of My Fathers, Suba Sivakumaran, 2018)
Enquanto estamos aqui (While We Are Here, Clarissa Campolina, Luiz Pretti, 2019)
That Cloud Never Left (Yashaswini Raghunandan, 2019)
Dylda (Beanpole, Kantemir Balagov, 2019)
Notes From a Journey (Clara Pais, Daniel Fawcett, 2019)
Ich war zuhause, aber… (I was At Home, But…, Angela Shanelac, 2019)
Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, Celine Sciamma, 2019)
Synonymes (Synonyms, Nadav Lapid, 2019)
Krabi, 2562 (Ben Rivers, Anocha Suwichakornpong, 2019) 
George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus (Jeffrey Perkins, 2019)
Ouvertures (Louis Henderson, Olivier Marbœuf, 2019)
Cemetery (Carlos Casas, 2019)
Nos défaites (Our Defeats, Jean-Gabriel Périot, 2019)
It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman, 2019)
Holy Days (Narimane Mari, 2019)
Mother, I Am Suffocating. This is My Last Film About You (Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, 2019)
La Cordillère des songes (The Cordillera of Dreams, Patricio Guzmán, 2019)
L’Île aux oiseaux (Maya Kosa, Sérgio da Costa, 2019)
Blanco en Blanco (Théo Court, 2019)
This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection (Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, 2019)
Carte de Visite (Michel Zumpf, 2019)
Ghost Strata (Ben Rivers, 2019)
Years Of Construction (Heinz Emigholz, 2019)
El diablo entre las piernas (Arturo Ripstein, 2019)
Danses macabres, squelettes et autres fantaisies (Jean-Louis Schefer, Rita Azevedo Gomes, Pierre Léon, 2019)
A Topography of Memory (Burak Çevik, 2019)
Widerstandsmomente (Moments of Resistance, Jo Schmeiser, 2019)
Être Vivant et Le Savoir (Alain Cavalier, 2019)
Xurmalar Yetişən Vaxt (When the Persimmons Grew, Hilal Baydarov, 2019)
Zumiriki (Oskar Alegria, 2019)
Rasendes Grün mit Pferden (Rushing Green With Horses, Ute Aurand, 2019)
Double Ghosts (George Clark, 2019)
La verdad interior (The Inner Truth, Sofia Brito, 2019)
Un film dramatique (Eric Baudelaire, 2019)
Ghost Tropic (Bas Devos, 2019)
Century of Smoke (Nicolas Graux, 2019)
Norie (Yuki Kawamura, 2019)
Carelia: internacional con monumento (Andrés Duque, 2018)
143 rue du désert (143 Sahara Street, Hassen Ferhani, 2019)
O Último Porto (Pierre-Marie Goulet, 2019)
Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello, 2019)
The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019)
Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle (Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream, Frank Beauvais, 2019)
MS Slavic 7 (Sofia Bohdanowicz, Deragh Campbell, 2019)
The Giverny Document (Single Channel) (Ja’Tovia Gary, 2019)
Dau (Ilya Khrzhanovsky, 2019)
Budinok (The Building, Tatjana Kononenko, Matilda Mester, 2019)
Aphasia (Jelena Jureša, 2019)
Répertoire des villes disparues (Ghost Town Anthology, Denis Côté, 2019)
No Data Plan (Miko Revereza, 2019)
Tabi no Owari Sekai no Hajimari (To the Ends of the Earth, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2019)
Wan Mei Jin Xing Shi (Present. Perfect., Shengze Zhu, 2019)
Those That, at a Distance, Resemble Another (Jessica Sarah Rinland, 2019)
Shonajhurir Bhoot (Ghost of the Golden Groves, Aniket Dutta, Roshni Sen, 2019)
Chun nuan hua kai (From Tomorrow On, I Will; Ivan Markovic, Wu Linfeng; 2019)
Om det oändliga (About Endlessness, Roy Andersson, 2019)
Nocturne (Viktor van der Valk, 2019)
Sona Dhwandi Bhed Te Sucha Pahaad (The Gold-Laden Sheep and The Sacred Mountain, Ridham Janve, 2018)
Cerro dos Pios (Miguel de Jesus, 2019)
Accession (Tamer Hassan, Armand Yervant Tufenkian, 2019)
This Action Lies (James N. Kienitz Wilkins, 2019)
Bewegungen eines nahen Bergs (Movements of a Nearby Mountain, Sebastian Brameshuber, 2019)
Nhà Cây (The Tree House, Minh Quý Trương, 2019)
Surematu (Immortal, Ksenia Okhapkina, 2019)
Umbra (Johannes Krell, Florian Fischer, 2019)
African Mirror (Mischa Hedinger, 2019)
Aidiyet (Belonging, Burak Çevik, 2019)
Chão (Landless, Camila Freitas, 2019)
Eine neue Umwelt Heinrich Klotz über Architektur und Neue Medien (Christian Haardt, 2019)
In Memoriam (Jean-Claude Rousseau, 2019)
Black Hole (Arnaud Deshayes, Emmanuel Grimaud, 2019)
Bruno & Bettina (Lutz Dammbeck, 2018)
Zustand und Gelände (Status and Terrain, Ute Adamczewski, 2019)
Partenonas (Parthenon, Mantas Kvedaravičius, 2019)
Sayidat Al Bahr (Scales, Shahad Ameen, 2019)
Aru sendō no hanashi (They Say Nothing Stays the Same, Odagiri Jō, 2019)
Knot/Not (Larry Gottheim, 2019)
La Femme qui pleure dans les nuages (Gérard Courant, 2019)
Caolas na Hearadh (Joshua Bonnetta, 2019)
Ficción Privada (Andrés Di Tella, 2019)

Nhà Cây (The Tree House, Minh Quý Trương, 2019)

REPERTORY/RESTORED/REVIVED
Maso et Miso vont en bateau (Carole Roussopoulos, 1976)
Gabbla (Tariq Teguia, 2008)
Anba’dh al-Ahdath Biduni Ma’na (Mostafa Derkaoui, 1974)
Saugus Series (Pat O’Neill, 1974)
Tomorrow’s Promise (Edward Owens, 1967)
Remembrance: A Portrait Study (Edward Owens, 1967)
Fad’jal (Safi Faye, 1979)
Sodrásban (István Gaál, 1964)
Afrique sur Seine (Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, Mamadou Sarr, 1955)
L’Envers du Décor (Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, 1981)
Khan-e tarikh (Qader Tahiri, 1996)
Egaro Mile (Ruchir Joshi, 1991)
Nuestra voz de tierra, memoria y futuro (Marta Rodríguez, Jorge Silva; 1981)
Muezzin (Sebastian Brameshuber, 2009)
Fengyu zhi ye (Zhu Shouju, 1925)
Beau temps mais orageux en fin de journée (Gérard Frot-Coutaz, 1986)
Dao ma zei (Tian Zhuangzhuang, 1986)

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