World Poll 2020 – Part 4

ENTRIES IN PART 4:

Parviz jahed

Critic & Cinephile based in Lockport, NY

2020 was a less than stellar year for movies. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a serious impact on the film industry across the globe. Cinemas shut or were restricted almost everywhere and many film festivals and film events were cancelled or postponed, others were held digitally (and whilst some tried innovative ways to adapt their events to the digital sphere, some communal aspects and film experiences are just about impossible to capture in this way). So I, like many other film lovers, haven’t had the chance to see many films during last year. Even so, here is the list of my favourite films amongst those that I was able to see in 2020 (in no particular order):

1. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, 2019)
2. Mank (David Fincher, 2020)
3. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick, 2019)
4. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles, 2019)
5. The Chess of the Wind (Shatranj-e Baad, Mohammad Reza Aslani, Iran) a restored print of a long-lost film was made in 1976 and discovered in a junk shop in 2014 and restored in 2020 by Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project.
6. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello, 2019)
7. Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)
8. Nomadland (Chloé Zhao, 2020)
9. Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee, 2020)
10. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

Tara judah

CRITIC. BRISTOL, UK

Theatrical Releases
Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, 2019)
Shirley (Josephine Decker, 2020)
Gisaengchung (Parasite, Bong Joon-Ho, 2019)
Relic (Natalie Erika James, 2020)
Possessor (Brandon Cronenberg, 2020)
She Dies Tomorrow (Amy Seimetz, 2020)
The Assistant (Kitty Green, 2019)
The Other Lamb (Malgorzata Szumowska, 2019)

Honourable Mentions
Host (Rob Savage, 2020)
The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell, 2020)
Koko-Di Koko-Da (Johannes Nyholm, 2019)
Rocks (Sarah Gavron, 2019)
Trolls World Tour (Walt Dohrn, 2020)
O que arde (Fire Will Come, Oliver Laxe, 2019)
The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019)

Repertory
I saw far less repertory this year than any other year. Aside from the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), which was my last in-person festival, I only managed a handful of journeys into the cine-past as I prefer to watch repertory (perhaps even above new releases) in a cinema. That said, I did encounter the following greats this year:

Night Time Go (Karrabing Film Collective, 2017)
Which Way is East? (Lynne Sachs, 1994)
The Washing Society (Lynne Sachs, 2017)
Tip of My Tongue (Lynne Sachs, 2017)
Flickorna (The Girls, Mai Zetterling, 1968)
Månen är en grön ost (The Moon is a Green Cheese, Mai Zetterling, 1977)
The Addiction (Abel Ferrara, 1995)
The People Under the Stairs (Wes Craven, 1991)

The year started brilliantly, with members of the Karrabing Film Collective presenting their work at IFFR. Though their new film, Day in the Life (2020) is the single best thing I saw all year, an earlier work, Night Time Go, which I had not seen, was also piercingly good. Then, Lynne Sachs entranced me with her docu-poetry retrospective online via Sheffield Doc/Fest. This proved to be one of the greatest discoveries for me in 2020, as I then went on to participate in an online filmpoem-making workshop that she led (out of Beyond Baroque in LA), and which led me to my first adventures in amateur home movie making, a new passion I hope to build on in 2021. A home spotlight on Mai Zetterling also took place as Dr Peter Walsh and I were, in January and February at least, preparing for a mini focus on the Swedish filmmaker for Bristol’s annual classic, archive and repertory film festival, Cinema Rediscovered. We’ve stuck a pin in it for now, but Flickorna is truly one of those visual and cerebral treats of film history, so I hold out hope for the future and can’t wait to see it on a big screen. The Moon is a Green Cheese, though critically unacclaimed, is a fine visual treat and the sort of cinema that reminds you why fun should always be a part of the equation. Finally, I delved into a couple of genre greats: watching Abel Ferrara’s incredibly striking The Addiction before discussing it with Anna Bogutskaya on The Final Girls’ podcast and, as the pandemic prevented me from what was going to be my first trip to a local cinema for repertory in 2020, I watched Wes Craven’s brilliant The People Under the Stairs just for fun, at home.

Online Festivals
As for online festivals, a special shout out goes to Encounters Film Festival as they developed a TV app which meant I could select and watch their films on my TV with as much ease as flicking onto Netflix or BBC iPlayer. This was huge, because other online festivals had to go via my laptop. Meaning I had to faff about with Chromecast and, to be perfectly honest with you, I’m tired and lazy at home. So, I watched far more of the Encounters program than any other online festival and it’s definitely because they put thought and energy into accessibility and user experience. Cheers Dave Taylor-Matthews, Encounters Festival Producer.

I also attended Sheffield Doc/Fest for the first time ever, as I am usually in Bologna at the time, so it was nice to finally dip my toe into such a brilliant program. I especially enjoyed Viera Cákanyová’s incredibly atmospheric Frem (2020). Though I could also have watched treats from Il Cinema Ritrovato this summer, I didn’t fancy it. Aperol in East Bristol just isn’t the same. But, I did catch glimpses of it from my kitchen as my partner immersed himself in its silent and classic cinema offerings.

Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival was also a first for me this year (as it usually clashes with Encounters, which takes place in Bristol) and Nuit Debout (Up at Night, Nelson Makengo, 2019) gave me pause for thought that echoed my earlier cine-epiphany at IFFR where I saw my first ever (I know, I know) Pedro Costa film, Vitalina Varela. I am now determined to see all of Costa’s films – but not at home, I’m awaiting a retrospective as they are, for me, reserved for the cinema experience only.

I also attended the London Film Festival online and made my living room a rage-filled rant space as the racist history of Britain spewed forth from my screen in films like Ultraviolence (Ken Fero, 2020) and Mangrove (Steve McQueen, 2020). While it was nice not to have to take the tube or attend a Picturehouse this year, I missed my morning trips to Wholefoods for donuts, as well as the opportunity to talk films with fellow critics in the queue. Largely, though, I felt overwhelmed by a barrage of choices and oppressed by my inability to concentrate in my home. I’m prepared for another six to 12 months of the same in 2021, but I long for the cinema experience. It’s something I haven’t had since early March and the longest ever period in my life that I’ve been away from such gloriously darkened rooms.

Possessor

daniel kasman

VP OF CONTENT, MUBI. YONKERS, USA

Theatrical Releases – New
Campo de Mayo (Corporate Accountability, Jonathan Perel, 2020)
Rizi (Days, Tsai Ming-liang, 2020)
Generations (Lynne Siefert, 2020)
The Giverny Document (Single Channel) (Ja’Tovia Gary, 2019)
The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell, 2020)
Ochite mi sini, rokljata sharena (Blue Eyes and Colorful My Dress, Polina Gumiela, 2020)
Le sel des larmes (The Salt of Tears, Philippe Garrel, 2020)
Small Axe: Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen, 2020)
Time (Garrett Bradley, 2020)

Repertory
Hallelujah (King Vidor, 1929)
Reckless Eyeballing (Christopher Harris, 2004)

Home Viewing – New
À l’abordage (All Hands on Deck, Guillaume Brac, 2020)
City Hall (Frederick Wiseman, 2020)
Dasatskisi (Beginning, Dea Kulumbegashvili, 2020)
Figure Minus Fact (Mary Helena Clark, 2020)
Her Socialist Smile (John Gianvito, 2020)
Umibe no eigakan: Kinema no tamatebako (Labyrinth of Cinema, Ōbayashi Nobuhiko, 2019)
Malembe (Luis Arnías, 2020)
My First Film (Zia Anger, April 10, 2020 performance)
Nam-mae-wui yeo-reum-bam (Moving On, Yoon Dan-bi, 2019)
Totetsumonaku okina (Humongous!, Aya Kawazoe, 2020)
Untitled Sequence of Gaps (Vika Kirchenbauer, 2020)

Repertory
Blowing Wild (Hugo Fregonese, 1953)
Born in Flames (Lizzie Bordon, 1983)
Original Cast Album: Company (D.A. Pennebaker, 1970)
The Country Doctor (Henry King, 1936)
Dance Girl Dance (Dorothy Arzner, 1940)
Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991)
The Devil-Doll (Tod Browning, 1936)
Duvidha (Mani Kaul, 1973)
Ekdromi (Excursion, Takis Kanellopoulos, 1966)
Escape from New York (John Carpenter, 1981)
Girlfriends (Claudia Weill, 1978)
Ilha das flores (Isle of Flowers, Jorge Furtado, 1989)
Krzyżacy (Knights of the Teutonic Order, Aleksander Ford, 1960)
Mare’s Tail (David Larcher, 1968)
Mayak (The Lighthouse, Mariya Saakyan, 2006)
Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (Roy Rowland, 1945)
Polizeiruf 110: Die Lüge, die wir Zukunft nennen (Dominik Graf, 2019)
Season of the Witch (George Romero, 1972)
Theodora Goes Wild (Richard Boleslawski, 1936)
The Whip Hand (William Cameron Menzies, 1951)
Wild Nights with Emily (Madeleine Olnek, 2018)
Working Girl (Mike Nichols, 1988)

Christopher kearney

INDEPENDENT SCREENWRITER; TEACHES TV PRODUCTION AND ENGLISH AT GEORGE M. STEINBRENNER HIGH SCHOOL. LUTZ, USA

Top Ten Films of 2020

1. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, 2019)
2. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)
3. Mank (David Fincher, 2020)
4. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin, 2020)
5. Il traditore (The Traitor, Marco Bellocchio, 2019)
6. Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, 2019)
7. Ammonite (Francis Lee, 2020)
8. Wij (We, Rene Eller, 2018)
9. Le jeune Ahmed (Young Ahmed, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, 2019)
10. Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach, 2019)

Honourable Mentions
Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made (David Amito, Michael Laicini, 2018)
Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee, 2020)
The Hunt (Craig Zobel, 2020)
The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell, 2020)
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe, 2020)
On the Rocks (Sofia Coppola, 2020)
The Outpost (Rod Lurie, 2019)
Tenki no ko (Weathering With You, Makoto Shinkai, 2019)
Tenet (Christopher Nolan, 2020)
Swallow (Carlo Mirabella-Davis, 2019)

dominique kobler

CINEPHILE. LONDON, UK

My favourite movies of 2020 (in no particular order)
Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles, 2019)
Uncut Gems (Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie, 2019)
I’m Thinking Of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)
Les Misérables (Ladj Ly, 2019)
Il Traditore (The Traitor, Marco Bellocchio, 2019)
The Devil All The Time (Antonio Campos, 2020)
Mangrove (Steve McQueen, 2020)
Lynn + Lucy (Fyzal Boulifa, 2019)

rainer knepperges

FILMMAKER. COLOGNE, GERMANY 

2020 Top Ten
Les plus belles années d’une vie (The Best Years of a Life, Claude Lelouch, 2019)
Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)
Ein Callgirl für Geister (Klaus Lemke, 2020)
Heisser Sand (Hot Sand, Bruno Sukrow, 2020)
Paris Calligrammes (Ulrike Ottinger, 2020)
The Climb (Michael Angelo Covino, 2019)
Die Rüden (Connie Walther, 2019)
Driveways (Andrew Ahn, 2019)
The Green Fog (Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Guy Maddin, 2017)
Malle (Johannes Lehnen, 2020)

44 Discoveries in 2020
The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Maurice Elvey, 1918)
Hindle Wakes (Maurice Elvey, 1927)
Mädchen am Kreuz (Crucified Girl, Jacob Fleck, Luise Fleck, 1929)
Ihre Majestät die Liebe (Her Majesty Love, Joe May, 1931)
Poil de carotte (Carrot Head, Julien Duvivier, 1932)
The Crimes Of Stephen Hawke (George King, 1936)
Doctor Syn (Roy William Neill, 1937)
Désiré (Desire, Sacha Guitry, 1937)
Quadrille (Sacha Guitry, 1938)
Hatter’s Castle (Lance Comfort, 1942)
Resisting Enemy Interrogation (Bernard Vorhaus, 1944)
Wing and a Prayer (Henry Hathaway, 1944)
Painted Boats (Charles Crichton, 1945)
Great Day (Lance Comfort, 1945)
Hue and Cry (Charles Chrichton, 1947)
Temptation Harbor (Lance Comfort, 1947)
The Amazing Mr. X (Bernard Vorhaus, 1948)
Daughter of Darkness (Lance Comfort, 1948)
Caged (John Cromwell, 1950)
The Killer that Stalked New York (Earl McEvoy, 1950)
Hollywood Story (William Castle, 1951)
Darling, How Could You! (Mitchell Leisen, 1951)
Come Next Spring (Robert G. Springsteen, 1956)
Assassins et Voleurs (Lovers and Thieves, Sacha Guitry, 1956)
Operation Eichmann (R.G. Springsteen, 1961)
Cash On Demand (Quentin Lawrence, 1961)
Dark Odyssey (William Kyriakis, Radley Metzger, 1961)
Tomorrow at Ten (Lance Comfort, 1963)
La ragazza che sapeva troppo (Evil Eye, Mario Bava, 1963)
Bonanza: A Question of Strength (Don McDougall, 1963)
Dear Heart (Delbert Mann, 1964)
Queen of Blood (Curtis Harrington, 1966)
Gražuolė (The Beauty, Arūnas Žebriūnas, 1969)
La maison des bois (The House in the Woods, Maurice Pialat, 1971)
Cops and Robbers (Aram Avakian, 1973)
11 Harrowhouse (Aram Avakiam, 1974)
Undine 74 (Rolf Thiele, 1974)
Einschlafgeschichten: Schiffe (Bedtime Stories: Ships, Harun Farocki, 1977)
3 Women (Robert Altman, 1977)
The Frisco Kid (Robert Aldrich, 1979)
Teachers (Arthur Hiller, 1984)
La Machine a découdre (The Unsewing Machine, Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1986)
Ken Russell In Search Of The English Folk Song (Ken Russell, 1997)
ZIPPER: Coney Island’s Last Wild Ride (Amy Nicholson, 2012)

Paris Calligrammes

jan kŘipač 

EDITOR, FILM A DOBA MAGAZINE. PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

2020 Top Ten

1. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick, 2019)
   2. Andrey Tarkovsky. A Cinema Prayer (Andrey A. Tarkovsky, 2019)
   3. Malmkrog (Manor House, Cristi Puiu, 2020)
   4. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, 2019)
   5. Jeanne (Joan of Arc, Bruno Dumont, 2019)
   6. J’accuse (An Officer and a Spy, Roman Polański, 2019)
   7. Oroslan (Matjaž Ivanišin, 2019)
   8. Osobní život díry (Personal Life of a Hole, Ondřej Vavrečka, 2020)
   9. Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)
   10. Krajina ve stínu (Shadow Country, Bohdan Sláma, 2019)

jay kuehner 

FREELANCE CRITIC, INSTRUCTOR, AND INDEPENDENT PROGRAMMER SPECIALISING IN DOCUMENTARY CINEMA. SEATTLE, USA

A Shape Of Things To Come (J.P. Sniadecki, Lisa Marie Malloy, 2020)
El año del descubrimiento (The Year of the Discovery, Luis López Carrasco, 2020)
The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin) (Anders Edström, C. W. Winter, 2020)
Domangchin yeoja (The Woman Who Ran, Hong Sang-soo, 2020)
Gunda (Viktor Kosakovskiy, 2020)
Notturno (Gianfranco Rosi, 2020)
Dasatskisi (Beginning, Déa Kulumbegashvil, 2020)
Apiyemiyekî? (Ana Vaz, 2020)
Tendre (Tender, Isabel Pagliai, 2020)
My Mexican Bretzel (Nuria Giménez, 2019)
Fauna (Nicolás Pereda, 2020)
Los Conductos (Camilo Restrepo, 2020)
A Metamorfose Dos Pássaros (The Metamorphosis Of Birds, Catarina Vasconcelos, 2020)
Rizi (Days, Tsai Ming-liang, 2020)
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)
The Annotated Field Guide of Ulysses S. Grant (Jim Finn, 2020)
Le sel des larmes (The Salt of Tears, Philippe Garrel, 2020)
Point and Line to Plane (Sofia Bohdanowicz, 2020)
In Sudden Darkness (Tayler Montague, 2020)
First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, 2019)
City Hall (Frederick Wiseman, 2020)

eugenia lai 

CINEPHILE. PARIS, FRANCE

New Releases
Nunca subí el Provincia (I Never Climbed the Provincia, Ignacio Agüero, 2019)
Diz a Ela que me Viu Chorar (Let it burn, Maíra Bühler, 2019)
Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, 2019)
A Febre (The Fever, Maya Da-Rin, 2019)
Jeanne (Joan of Arc, Bruno Dumont, 2019)
Suzanne Daveau (Luisa Homen, 2019)
La Mami (Laura Herrero Garvin, 2019)
Erde (Earth, Nikolaus Geyrhalter, 2019)
Estou Me Guardando Para Quando O Carnaval Chegar (Waiting for the Carnival, Marcelo Gomes, 2019)
Heimat ist ein Raum aus Zeit (Heimat is a Space in Time, Thomas Heise, 2019)
Vendrá la Muerte y Tendrá Tus Ojos (Death Will Come and Shall Have Your Eyes, José Luis Torres Leiva, 2019)
L’Apprendistato (The Young Observant, Davide Maldi, 2019)
Colectiv (Collective, Alexander Nanau, 2019)
Servants (Ivan Ostrochovský, 2020)
Fauna (Nicolás Pereda, 2020)
Window Boy Would also Like to Have a Submarine (Alex Piperno, 2020)
La Gomera (The Whistlers, Corneliu Porumboiu, 2019)
Los Conductos (Camilo Restrepo, 2020)
Bergmál (Echo, Rúnar Rúnarsson, 2019)
Shadow flowers (Seung-jun Yi, 2019)
Seishin 0 (Zero, Kazuhiro Sôda, 2020)
Correspondencia (Correspondence, Carla Simón, Dominga Sotomayor, 2020)
Apiyemiyekî? (Ana Vaz, 2020)
Sapphire Crystal (Virgil Vernier, 2019)
Overseas (Sung-a Yoon, 2019)

Repertory
News from Home (Chantal Akerman, 1977)
Images (Robert Altman, 1972)
My Brilliant Career (Gillian Armstrong, 1979)
The Landlord (Hal Ashby, 1970)
Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975)
Fatma 75 (Selma Baccar, 1975)
The United States of America (James Benning, Bette Gordon, 1975)
Don’s Party (Bruce Beresford, 1976)
The Loveless (Kathryn Bigelow, Monty Montgomery, 1981)
Bette Tells her Stories (Liane Brandon, 1972)
Joyce at 34 (Joyce Chopra, 1972)
Smooth Talk (Joyce Chopra, 1985)
Heung Gong jai jo (Made in Hong Kong, Fruit Chan, 1997)
Pressure Point (Hubert Cornfield, 1962)
Sapphire (Basil Dearden, 1959)
Victim (Basil Dearden, 1961)
All Night Long (Basil Dearden, 1962)
The Spook Who Sat by the Door (Ivan Dixon, 1973)
Family Viewing (Atom Egoyan, 1987)
Next of Kin (Atom Egoyan, 1984)
Angst vor der Angst (Fear of fear, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1975)
Empty Suitcases (Bette Gordon, 1980)
Variety (Bette Gordon, 1983)
Audience (Barbara Hammer, 1982)
Beiqíng chéngshì (A City of Sadness, Hou Hsian-Hsien, 1989)
Tóngnián wangshì (A Time to Live and A Time to Die, Hou Hsian-Hsien, 1985)
Er zi de da wan ou (The Sandwich Man, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Wan Jen, Tseng Chuang-Hsiang, 1983)
Emergency Ward (Leo Hurwitz, Fons Iannelli 1952)
The Young Fighter (Leo Hurwitz, Fons Iannelli 1953)
Dancing James Berry (Mura Dehn, Leo Hurwitz, Herbert Matter, 1955)
Cane River (Horace Jenkins, 1982)
In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967)
Coup de Foudre (Between Us, Diane Kurys, 1983)
Balnearios (Mariano Llinás, 2002)
Sweet Movie (Dusan Makaveyev, 1974)
Guns of the tree (Jonas Mekas, 1961)
Growing up Female (Julia Reichert, Jim Klein, 1971)
Color Adjustment (Marlon Riggs, 1992)
Drylonso (Cauleen Smith, 1998)
Soft Fiction (Chick Strand, 1979)
Simone Barbès ou la vertu (Simone Barbes and Virtue, Marie-Claude Treilhou, 1980)
Les Créatures (The Creatures, Agnès Varda, 1966)
Chan is Missing (Wayne Wang, 1982)
Girlfriends (Claudia Weill, 1978)
Gallipoli (Peter Weir, 1981)
Bless their little Hearts (Billy Woodberry, 1983)

Umibe no eigakan: Kinema no tamatebako 

marc lauria

CINEPHILE. BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

1. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, 2019)
2. Gunda (Viktor Kosakovskiy, 2020)
3. Los Reyes (Ivan Osnovikoff, Bettina Perut, 2018)
4. Rizi (Days, Tsai Ming-liang, 2020)
5. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, 2019)
6. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles, 2019)
7. Îmi este indiferent daca în istorie vom intra ca barbari (I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians, Radu Jude, 2018)
8. El año del descubrimiento (The Year of the Discovery, Luis López Carrasco, 2020)
9. Un pays qui se tient sage (The Monopoly of Violence, David Dufresne, 2020)
10. Beauty Lives in Freedom (Bing Wang, 2018)

elaine lennon 

film historian, author of chinetowne: the screenplays of robert towne 1960 – 2000 and pathways of desire: emotional architecture in the films of nancy meyers. dublin, ireland

1. Tenet (Christopher Nolan, 2020). Awesome affect and attractions.
2. The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell, 2020). Gender meets genre.
3. Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma, 2019). Framing the feminine.
4. Seberg (Benedict Andrews, 2019). Celebrity undone.
5. Lucy In The Sky (Noah Hawley, 2019). Down to earth.
6. Waiting for the Barbarians (Ciro Guerra, 2019). White saviour undone.
7. Wonder Woman 1984 (Patty Jenkins, 2020). You go, Gal!
8. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020). Put to rights.
9. The Assistant (Kitty Green, 2019). Backroom gals.
10. The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone (Francis Ford Coppola, 2020). Return of the capo.

thomas logoreci 

FILMMAKER AND WRITER. TIRANA, ALBANIA

Like the rest of the world this year, collective movie-going pretty much ceased to exist in Tirana, Albania. As a festival selector, I got to see innumerable documentaries on a monitor in the safety of my apartment. Maybe the cold slab of reality was the reason I only selected non-fiction film for my top ten list. Regardless, all of these intense movie experiences briefly took me from the sustained gloom that defined 2020.

During lockdown, we lost one of our most popular actor/directors, Rikard Ljarja. In the 1960s when Albania was a Marxist nation, China was its superpower ally. During the Cultural Revolution, the only foreign movies that could be shown in Maoist China were from Albania. In 1967, Ljarja starred in a film seen by millions of Chinese moviegoers, a black and white drama entitled Ngadhnjim mbi vdekjen (Victory Over Death, Gëzim Erebara, Piro Milkani). In late 2019, my partner (Iris Elezi) and I honoured Ljarja at our cinémathèque with a 35mm screening of a film he wrote and directed that had been banned during the Albanian dictatorship, Skëterrë 43! (Hell 43, 1980).

No one but his immediate family could attend Ljarja’s funeral. But, the day after he died, a socially distanced crowd stood outside his apartment block as his coffin was brought down. As the hearse drove away, the now elderly film crews and cinephiles broke into applause. Thinking about this moment, I have some hope that the flicker of images will somehow prevail. Here, in Albania, and around the world.

Andrey Tarkovsky. A Cinema Prayer (Andrey A. Tarkosvsky, 2019)
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross, 2020)
Campo de Mayo (Corporate Accountability, Jonathan Perel, 2020)
Coup 53 (Taghi Amirani, 2019)
Iesirea trenurilor din gara (The Exit of the Trains, Adrian Cioflâncã, Radu Jude, 2020)
Grève ou crève (Strike or Die, Jonathan Rescigno, 2020)
Il Varco – Once More into the Breach (Michele Manzolini, Federico Ferrone, 2020)
Pino (Walter Fasano, 2020)
The Viewing Booth (Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, 2019)
Réveil sur Mars (Wake Up on Mars, Dea Gjinovci, 2020)

jennifer lynde barker 

associate professor of animation and film history. director of the film studies program at bellarmine university. Louisville, usa

Since I saw almost nothing in the theatre, these are my 10 favourite film experiences (first time viewings) at home during 2020.

Ô saisons, ô châteaux (Agnès Varda, 1958)
Plaisir d’amour en Iran (The Pleasure of Love in Iran, Agnès Varda, 1976)
Kawaita hana (Pale Flower, Shinoda Masahiro, 1964)
Umibe no eigakan: Kinema no tamatebako (Labyrinth of Cinema, Ōbayashi Nobuhiko, 2019)
Golden Eighties (Chantal Akerman, 1986)
If You Could Only Cook (William A. Seiter, 1935)
Staged (Simon Evans, 2020)
Sangatsu no Lion (March Comes in Like a Lion, Shinbō Akiyuki, 2016-2018)
Coming or Going (David Ehrlich, 2020)
Druk (Another Round, Thomas Vinterberg, 2020)
Freddie Mercury Tribute: Concert for AIDS Awareness (David Mallet, 1992)