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Entries in part 2:

Toni D’Angela
Fergus Daly
Adrian Danks
Dustin Dasig
Michael Da Silva
Mónica Delgado
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Patrick Dorner
Marie-Pierre Duhamel
Dzondunkellicht
Vassilis Economou
Russell Edwards
William Edwards
Ted Fendt
Donal Foreman
Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
Jean-Michel Frodon
Cynthia Fuchs
Hugo Gamarra
Geoffrey Gardner
Andrew Gilbert
Antony I. Ginnane
Leo Goldsmith
Carmen Gray
Robert Greene
Victor Guimarães

TONI D’ANGELA

FOUNDER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, LA FURIA UMANA.

1. (ex aequo) Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014), Three Landscapes (Peter Hutton, 2013)
3. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013)

No order

Educação sentimental (Sentimental Education, Júlio Bressane, 2013)
La Jalousie (Jealousy, Philippe Garrel, 2013)
Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)
Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)
Jersey Boys (Clint Eastwood, 2014)
X-Men: Days of Future Past (Bryan Singer,2014)
Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)

Shorts

Broken Tongue (Mónica Savirón, 2014)
Serpentine (Stephanie Wuertz, 2014)
Deep Sleep (Basma Alsharif, 2014)
Psalm IV: “Valley of the Shadow” (Phil Solomon, 2013)
White Ash (Leighton Pierce, 2014)

Video installation

Parallel I-IV (Harun Farocki) at Fronteira Documentary & Experimental International Film Festival)

TV series

True Detective
The Knick

Extra

Rushes from Andrea Tonacci, Os Arara (1981-83)

Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)

Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)

FERGUS DALY

FILM CRITIC AND WRITER

Best recent films seen in 2014

Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
Un conte de Michel de Montaigne (Jean-Marie Straub, 2013)
Dialogue d’ombres (Jean-Marie Straub, 2013)
God’s Pocket (John Slattery, 2014)
Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
HSP: There Is No Escape From The Terrors Od The Mind (Rouzbeh Rashidi, 2013)
La Jalousie (Jealousy, Philippe Garrel, 2013)
Jimmy’s Hall (Ken Loach, 2014)
Listen Up Philip (Alex Ross Perry, 2014)
Muppets Most Wanted (James Bobin, 2014)
Night Regulation (Maximilian Le Cain, 2014)
Return of Suspicion (Dean Kavanagh, 2014)
Still the Water (Naomi Kawase, 2014)
War Story (Mark Jackson, 2014)

Worst films of 2014

Calvary (John Michael McDonagh, 2014)
Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)
Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)

Best TV series

American Horror Story: Freakshow (FX)
Olive Kitteridge (HBO)
Peaky Blinders (BBC)
Rectify (Sundance Channel)
True Detective (HBO)

Best film criticism

Rouzbeh Rashidi’s speech after the Iranian Shorts 2 program at the Cork Film Festival. What began as a Q&A developed into an impassioned defence of an ultra-radical approach to filmmaking: part improvised manifesto, part riveting love poem.

Dean Kavanagh, “A Reaction to Maximilian Le Cain’s Night Regulation” (online at www.deankavanagh.com)

Those of us who still have a modicum of faith in American independent filmmaking were in for a mixed year. It’s bad enough that the Hollywood Establishment has for years been handing out Oscars to British actors just for showing up at the ceremony, passport in hand, now indie auteurs like Jim Jarmusch and Wes Anderson have fallen for the postcolonial notion that British actors have some kind of innate charm that will compensate for sub-standard scrip-writing, even if they practice the kind of acting completely at odds with these filmmakers cinematic styles. Alex Ross Perry’s use of Jonathan Pryce demonstrated how the British acting tradition can be integrated into a post-mumblecore aesthetic if the writing is skillful enough in the first place. Charm and “Cool” are never givens.
While Naomi Kawase, Philippe Garrel and Olivier Assayas made their best films in over a decade, Max Le Cain, Dean Kavanagh and Rouzbeh Rashidi continued to prove how much they’ve raised the bar for filmmaking in Ireland. Meanwhile the English filmmaker John Michael McDonagh mercifully denied that the appalling Calvary was an Irish film. And to further the current absurd situation, another Englishman Ken Loach made the best commercial Irish film of the year, Jimmy’s Hall.

 

ADRIAN DANKS

10 best “new” films screening somewhere in Melbourne (in order of preference):

1. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
2. Kış uykusu (Winter Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014)
3. The Silences (Margot Nash, 2014)
4. National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman, 2014)
5. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
6. Dot Matrix (Richard Tuohy, 2013)
7. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2013)
8. At Berkeley (Frederick Wiseman) 2013
9. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese) 2013
10. Life on Tape (Oscar Strangio, 2014)

Bubbling Under: Life Itself (Steve James, 2014); Her (Spike Jonze, 2013); Fargo (TV Series, 2014); Al doilea joc (The Second Game, Corneliu Porumboiu, 2014); Queen and Country (John Boorman, 2014); Don’t Throw Stones (Mike Brook, 2014); How to Train Your Dragon 2 (Dean DeBlois, 2014); Me and Me Dad (Katrine Boorman, 2012)

6 overrated films by major auteurs:

Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)
Adieu au langage (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Yi dai zong shi (The Grandmaster, Wong Kar-wai, 2013) – has it ended yet?
Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt, 2013)
Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)

Retrospective rediscoveries:

At home:

Robert Altman: Combat: “Cat and Mouse” (1962); Kraft Suspense Theatre: “Once Upon a Savage Night” (1964); Thieves Like Us (1974); The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1988); Vincent & Theo (1990) – full-length TV version

Delmer Daves: Destination Tokyo (1943); Dark Passage (1947); The Last Wagon (1956); 3:10 to Yuma (1957)

Un’ora sola ti vorrei (Alina Marazzi, 2002); Battleground (William Wellman, 1949); Experiment in Terror (Blake Edwards, 1962); The Spectre of Hope (Paul Carlin,
2002)
At the Melbourne Cinémathèque:
Le trou (Jacque Becker, 1960); Xia nü (A Touch of Zen, King Hu, 1971); Nightmare Alley (Edmund Goulding, 1947); Gishiki (The Ceremony, Nagisa Oshima, 1971); Shônen (Boy, Nagisa Oshima, 1969); Casque d’or (Jacques Becker, 1952)

At MIFF:
Mafioso (Alberto Lattuada, 1962)

At ACMI:
The Lusty Men
(Nicholas Ray, 1952); Documenteur (Agnès Varda, 1981); Sorcerer (William Friedkin, 1977) – more for Tangerine Dream live than the often striking but pulpy film itself

 

DUSTIN DASIG

PROFESSOR, COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA STUDIES; FILM HISTORY AND CRITICISM; SECURITY TRAINING; DIRECTOR; FILM CRITIC, PHILIPPINES.

Best films of 2014:

Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014
Kaze tachinu (The Wind Rises, Miyazaki Hayao, 2013)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)
Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2013)
Hoje eu quero voltar sozinho (The Way He Looks, Daniel Ribeiro, 2014)
Grzeli nateli dgeebi (In Bloom, Nana Ekvtimishvili & Simon Gross, 2013)
L’image manquante (The Missing Picture, Rithy Panh, 2013)
Kış Uykusu (Winter Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014)
Norte, hangganan ng kasaysayan (Norte, The End of History, Lav Diaz, 2013)
Kaguyahime no monogatari (The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Takahata Isao, 2013)

Notable Films:

Soshite chichi ni Naru(Like Father, Like Son, Hirokazu Koreeda, 2013)
Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)
Ilo Ilo (Anthony Chen, 2013)
Vi är bäst! (We are the Best!, Lukas Moodysson, 2013)
Miss Violence (Alexandros Avranas, 2013)
Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh, 2014)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
Borgman (Alex van Warmerdam, 2013)
Kreuzweg (Stations of the Cross, Dietrich Brüggemann, 2014)
Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)

Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2013)

Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2013)

MICHAEL DA SILVA

GRADUATE STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO.

The usual caveats about my list apply: I focus on primarily English-language films released in Toronto in 2014. Several of my favourite films this year were shown in competition at 2013 festivals but only received even limited Canadian releases this year. If I had to remove the nominally 2013 films from my list, I would add Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014). Perhaps I would also add Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller, 2014). Lest the list below should suggest that I do not have a sense of humour, note that I also enjoyed Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s films. I particularly enjoyed The Lego Movie. It may have been added to my list instead. Among non-English language films, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014).

As an update, my favourite 2013 film that I saw after completing my World Poll 2013 submission was Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2013). I thought it did an excellent job of showing the tedium that attends to art production. This year’s best film about art production, Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014), instead tended to follow the Darren Aronofsky route and show the pains that attends to it; its message transcends the art context.

2014’s most overrated films were Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014) (which I nonetheless enjoyed) and The Theory of Everything (James Marsh, 2014) (which I did not).

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
The Unknown Known (Errol Morris, 2013)
Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman, 2014)
Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho, 2013)
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro González Iñárritu,2014)
Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbijn, 2014)
Citizenfour (Laura Poitras, 2014)

 

MÓNICA DELGADO

PERUVIAN FILM CRITIC, MANAGING EDITOR OF DESISTFILM. 

Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)
P’tit Quinquin (Li’l Quinquin, Bruno Dumont, 2014)
Maïdan (Sergei Loznitsa, 2014)
Mercuriales (Virgil Vernier, 2014)
Réveillon (Cristi Puiu, 2014) episode from Les ponts de Sarajevo (Bridges of Sarajevo, 2014)
J’ai oublié! (I Forgot!, Eduardo Williams, 2014)
Broken Tongue (Mónica Savirón, 2014)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)
Plemya (The Tribe, Miroslav Slaboshpitsky, 2014)
La princesa de Francia (The Princess of France, Matías Piñeiro, 2014)
Cold in July (Jim Mickle, 2014)
A Vizinhança do Tigre (The Hidden Tiger,Affonso Uchoa, 2014)
Haganenet(The Kindergarten Teacher, Nadav Lapid, 2014)
National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman, 2014)
Xi You (Journey to the West, Tsai Ming-liang, 2014)
Le meraviglie (The Wonders, Alice Rohrwacher, 2014)
Kış uykusu (Winter Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014)
El corral y el viento (The Corral and the Wind, Miguel Hilari, 2014)
It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014)

Special Mention

Violet (Bas Devos, 2014)

 

WHEELER WINSTON DIXON 

JAMES RYAN PROFESSOR OF FILM STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA, EDITOR OF BOOK SERIES NEW PERSPECTIVES ON WORLD CINEMA.

Ten most interesting films of 2014 

Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)
Deux jours, une nuit (Two Days, One Night, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2014)
Jodorowsky’s Dune (Frank Pavich, 2013)
Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Anthony & Joe Russo, 2014)
Poziția copilului (Child’s Pose, Călin Peter Netzer, 2013)
Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt, 2013)
 
Ten least interesting films of 2014 

Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 (Francis Lawrence, 2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn, 2014)
The Lego Movie (Phil Lord & Chris Miller, 2014)
Transformers: Age of Extinction (Michael Bay, 2014)
Fury (David Ayer, 2014)
Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)
Maleficent (Robert Stromberg, 2014)
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller, 2014)
The Maze Runner (Wes Ball, 2014)
 
I had to really struggle to find ten really successful films in 2014; more and more, thoughtful work is being consigned to the margins of distribution, dumped on streaming VOD if it’s released at all. Theatres just run mainstream junk, and Netflix has wiped out all the niche video stores on a worldwide basis, and is now actively doing pre-sales deals on new films, tailoring the content to reach the widest number of viewers. Under The Skin was, for me, the single best film of 2014, and it opened in only a few theatres in the US and then vanished; Godard’s dazzling 3D film is also having trouble finding bookings.

Meanwhile, Nightcrawler aspires to some sort of gritty authenticity, but manages only to look contrived and derivative; Fury is just another by-the-numbers war film, and only Captain America: The Winter Soldier manages to blend serious social commentary with action filmmaking in the style of Republic serials – but all in all, it’s a bleak landscape. Without a theatrical release, independent films get no publicity at all, and most people aren’t even aware of their existence. The new model seems to be a director makes one good, small film; uses it as a calling card to sell out to the majors; makes junk for the rest or her/his career. For the rest, oblivion.

 

PATRICK DORNER 

GRADUATE STUDENT IN DRAMATICS, THE UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA.

12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho, 2013)
Deux jours, une nuit (Two Days, One Night, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2014)
Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)
All is Lost (J. C. Chandor, 2013)
Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 & 2 (Lars Von Trier, 2013)
Her (Spike Jonze, 2013)
Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt, 2013)

 

MARIE-PIERRE DUHAMEL

FILM CURATOR, TRANSLATOR AND INDEPENDENT FILM TEACHER, PARIS.

I did not see all the films, nor did I attend all the festivals… and maybe I did not see enough… but quantity is irrelevant. Many great films by great directors came out in 2014, but my list is about the films, from various horizons and genres, that somehow outmaneuvered my expectations and shamed my laziness (so many films to see…). Films that not only “delivered” but renewed the awe or stirred a fruitful confusion.

Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Tian zhu ding (Touch of Sin, Jia Zhangke, 2014)
Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)
Cold in July (Jim Mickle, 2014)
Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014)
Os Maias (The Maias, João Botelho, 2014)
Haider (Vishal Bhardwaj, 2014)
La Cina è vicina (China is Near, Marco Bellocchio, 1967)
Comrades (Bill Douglas, 1987)
Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn, 2014)
Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)
February (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2014)

 

DZONDUNKELLICHT

PLANS TO WRITE ON FILM AND PHILOSOPHY. IN THE MEANTIME, HE TRAVELS FOR CINEMA.

New and Recent

Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Simindis kundzuli (Corn Island, George Ovashvili, 2014)
Nabat (Elchin Musaoglu, 2014)
A vida invisível (The Invisible Life, Vítor Gonçalves, 2013)
La Sapienza (Eugène Green, 2014)
Saatvin sair (The Seventh Walk, Amit Dutta, 2013)
Tiantang jiaoluo (A Corner of Heaven, Zhang Miaoyan, 2014)
Onirica – Psie pole (Field of Dogs, Lech Majewski, 2014)
Mula sa kung ano ang noo (From What is Before, Lav Diaz, 2014)
Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)
Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)
Plemya (The Tribe, Miroslav Slaboshpitsky, 2014)
La princesa de Francia (The Princess of France, Matías Piñeiro, 2014)
Hotel Nueva Isla (Irene Gutiérrez & Javier Labrador, 2014)
Jiao you (Stray Dogs, Tsai Ming-liang, 2013)
Xi you (Journey To The West, Tsai Ming-liang, 2014)
Tokyo Tribe (Sion Sono, 2014)
Coming to Terms (Jon Jost, 2013)
Trudno byt bogom (Hard to be a God, Aleksei German, 2013)
Tie dao (The Iron Ministry, J.P. Sniadeckis, 2014)
Meurtre à Pacot (Murder in Pacot, Raoul Peck, 2014)
Feng ai (‘Til Madness Do Us Part, Wang Bing, 2013)
Educação sentimental (Sentimental Education, Júlio Bressane, 2013)
Lettres à Max (Letters To Max, Eric Baudelaire, 2014)
P’tit Quinquin (Li’l Quinquin, Bruno Dumont, 2014)
Ja-yu-eui eon-deok (Hill of Freedom, Hong Sang-soo, 2014)
Haganenet (The Kindergarten Teacher, Nadav Lapid, 2014)
Nobi (Fires On The Plain, Shinya Tsukamoto, 2014)
Pays barbare (Barbaric Land, Yervant Gianikian & Angela Ricci Lucchi, 2013)
Maidan (Sergei Loznitsa, 2014)
Episode of the Sea (Siebren de Haan and Lonnie van Brummelen, 2014)
Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014)
O Velho do Restelo (The Old Man of Belem, Manoel de Oliveira, 2014)
Kommunisten (Jean-Marie Straub, 2014)
Zwei Museen (Two Museums, Heinz Emigholz, 2014)
The Guests (Ken Jacobs, 2014)
Manakamana (Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez, 2013)
Parallel I-IV (Harun Farocki, 2012-14)
Detour de Force (Rebecca Baron, 2014)
Natural History (James Benning, 2014)
Le Beau Danger (René Frölke, 2014)
Loubia hamra (Bloody Beans, Narimane Mari, 2013)
72-82 (William Raban, 2014)
Lucifer (Gust Van Den Berghe, 2014)
Buzzard (Joel Potrykus, 2014)
Ce qu’il reste de la folie (What Remains of Madness, Joris Lachaise, 2014)
Al doilea joc (The Second Game, Corneliu Porumboiu, 2014)
The Island of St. Matthews (Kevin Jerome Everson, 2013)
Mahi va gorbeh (Fish & Cat, Shahram Mokri, 2013)
Dólares de arena (Sand Dollars, Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán, 2014)
National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman, 2014)
Amour Fou (Jessica Hausner, 2014)
Pasolini (Abel Ferrara, 2014)
En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron (A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Roy Andersson, 2014)

Repertory, Restored, Remastered, Revived

Vedreba (Tengiz Abuladze, 1968)
Jai Bhim Comrade (Anand Patwardhan, 2011)
The Formative Years I-II (Heinz Emigholz, 1977)
Moana with Sound (Robert Flaherty, Frances Hubbard Flaherty and Monica Flaherty; 1926/1980)
Horror Dream (Sidney Peterson, 1947)
Night of The Ghouls (Edward D. Wood, Jr., 1958)
House of Strangers (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1949)
Level 5 (Chris Marker, 1996)
The Sun Film (John Cage and Richard Lippold, 1956)
Shen Nu (The Goddess, Wu Yonggang, 1934)
Out 1: Noli me tangere (Jacques Rivette, 1971)
Puntos suspensivos o Esperando a los bárbaros ((…) or Waiting For The Barbarians, Edgardo Cozarinsky, 1971)
Détruire dit-elle (Destroy, She Said, Marguerite Duras, 1969)
Les trottoirs de Saturne (The Sidewalks of Saturn, Hugo Santiago, 1986)
Spark of Being (Bill Morrison, 2010)
Water and Power (Pat O’Neill, 1989)
Pride of Place (Kim Longinotto & Dorothea Gazidis, 1976)
Jim Shvante (marili svanets) (Salt For Svanetia, Mikhail Kalatozov, 1930)
Buba (Nutsa Gogoberidze, 1930)
Unheimlich I: Secret Dialogue (Maria Klonaris & Katerina Thomadaki, 1977-1979)
Tetri karavani (White Caravan, Eldar Shengelaia, 1964)
Long men kezhan (Dragon Inn, King Hu, 1967)
Phase IV (Saul Bass, 1974)
Sorcerer (William Friedkin, 1977)
Juan Moreira (Leonardo Favio, 1973)
München-Berlin Wanderung (Walking From Munich to Berlin, Oskar Fischinger, 1927)
Vtackovia, siroty a blazni (Birds, Orphans and Fools, Juraj Jakubisko, 1969)
M (Joseph Losey, 1951)
Baal (Volker Schlöndorff, 1970)
Epic of Everest (Captain John Noel, 1925)
Touki Bouki (Djibril Diop Mambéty, 1973)
Sayat Nova (The Color of Pomegranates, Sergei Parajanov, 1968)
Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest (Yang Fudong, 2003-07)
Todo Modo (Elio Petri, 1976)
Untitled Joseph Cornell Film (The Wool Collage) (Joseph Cornell, 1940-55)
Perfect Film (Ken Jacobs, 1985)
Zum Vergleich (In Comparison, Harun Farocki, 2009)

Best Retrospectives/Events

Discovering Georgian Cinema @ BAM/PFA + MoMA
Heinz Emigholz @ IFFR
Chris Marker @ BAMcinématek
Derek Jarman @ BAMcinématek
To Save and Project: The 12th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation @ MoMA
Gregory Markopoulous @ Anthology Film Archives + HFA
John Ford @ Viennale + Austrian Film Museum
Wavelengths @ TIFF
Projections (erstwhile Views From The Avant-Garde) @ NYFF
Experimenta @ LFF
Jodie Mack @ AFW + OtherFilm + Gertrude Comtemporary
Luther Price @ ACMI + Gertrude Contemporary

Xi You (Journey to the West, Tsai Ming-Liang, 2014)

Xi You (Journey to the West, Tsai Ming-Liang, 2014)

VASSILIS ECONOMOU

FILM CRITIC AND CINEPHILE; WRITES FOR BLOG 24 FOIS LA VÉRITÉ PAR SECONDE.

This was one of the most polarised years. On one hand many of my favourite and “experienced” directors are still active, they released impressive new films, participated in film festivals, won awards and also they have reached the top positions of my list. On the other hand, new filmmakers, especially from emerging cinematic countries, and many of them with their debut feature films, captured my attention instantly and they are also among the best films of this year. This was also a festival-driven year. Despite the fact that some of the major film festivals are still afraid to provoke their audience, there are some films that kept my expectations high. Also, as it happens in the recent years, the innovation lies in the parallel sections and the lesser-known film festivals. I think that 2014 was a mainly European year, it seems that despite the crisis the creative part of our continent is still powerful and can always deliver something new. Unfortunately I have missed some films that I firmly believe that they could easily make it into my top 20, so I already keep some places reserved for my next year’s classification. Talking about classification I have to mention that it is difficult, almost impossible, to exactly select which film was better than the other just because to me, each one of them had a different impact and for that reason I have included them in my selection. So the films are classified in groups of 5 just to be sure that every single one could get a right spot in this 2014 list.

Positions 20 – 16

Retour à Ithaque (Return to Ithaca, Laurent Cantet, 2014)
Patardzlebi (Brides, Tinatin Kajrishvili, 2014)
Viharsarok (Land of Storms, Ádám Császi, 2014)
Theeb (Naji Abu Nowar, 2014)
Nabat (Elchin Musaoglu, 2014)

Positions 15 – 11

Blind (Eskil Vogt, 2014)
Nicije dete (No One’s Child, Vuk Rsumovic, 2014)
Arta (Art, Adrian Sitaru, 2014)
Tri Dritare dhe një Varje (Three Windows and a Hanging, Isa Qosja, 2014)
Fehér Isten (White God, Kornél Mundruczó, 2014)

Positions 10 – 6

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)
Nymphomaniac (Lars von Trier, 2013)
Belye nochi pochtalona Alekseya Tryapitsyna (The Postman’s White Nights, Andrei Konchalovsky, 2014)

Positions 5 – 1

P’tit Quinquin (Li’l Quinquin, Bruno Dumont, 2014)
Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)
The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2014)
En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron (A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Roy Andersson, 2014)
Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language 3D, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)

Special Mention and beyond classification: Trudno byt bogom (Hard to be a God, Aleksei German, 2013)

 

RUSSELL EDWARDS 

SYDNEY-BASED FILM CRITIC WHO FREQUENTLY COMMUTES TO ASIA TO WATCH FILMS.

Kış uykusu (Winter Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014)
Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2014)
Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
Charlie’s Country (Rolf de Heer, 2013)
The Infinite Man (Hugh Sullivan, 2014)
Durak (The Fool, Yury Bykov, 2014)
Bai Ri Yan Huo (Black Coal, Thin Ice, Diao Yinan, 2014)
Kano (Umin Boya, 2014)
Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
Deux jours, une nuit (Two Days, One Night, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2014)

 

WILLIAM EDWARDS

FILM FANATIC, SYDNEY. 

Top ten 
Kreuzweg (Stations of the Cross, Dietrich Brüggemann, 2014)
Still Life (Uberto Pasolini, 2013)
Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)
Amour Fou (Mad Love, Jessica Hausner, 2014)
Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)
Turist (Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund, 2014)
Fehér Isten (White God, Kornél Mundruczó, 2014)
Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2013)
Abus de faiblesse (Abuse of Weakness, Catherine Breillat, 2013)
Welcome to New York (Abel Ferrara, 2014)
 
Worst five
August: Osage County (John Wells, 2013)
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (David Lowery, 2013)
Blood Ties (Guillaume Canet, 2013)
Möbius(Eric Rochant, 2013)
The Railway Man (Jonathan Teplitzky, 2013) 

Amour Fou (Mad Love, Jessica Hausner, 2014)

Amour Fou (Mad Love, Jessica Hausner, 2014)

TED FENDT

PROJECTIONIST, TRANSLATOR AND FILMMAKER BASED IN NEW YORK.

2014 Top Ten (alphabetical by director): 

Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)
Mes séances de lutte (Love Battles, Jacques Doillon, 2013)
Jersey Boys (Clint Eastwood, 2014)
Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Ja-yu-eui eon-deok (Hill of Freedom, Hong Sang-soo, 2014)
Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman, 2014)
Gebo et l’ombre (Gebo and the Shadow, Manoel de Oliveira, 2012)
La princesa de Francia (The Princess of France, Matías Piñeiro, 2014)
Kommunisten (Jean-Marie Straub, 2014)
Here’s to the Future! (Gina Telaroli, 2014)

 

DONAL FOREMAN

IRISH FILMMAKER AND CRITIC BASED IN NEW YORK CITY.

I didn’t see enough of new cinema this year to make any claims about the current state of the art, beyond a vague sense of an ongoing trend towards narratives of crisis and revolution in commercial cinema and a stubbornly consistent introspection on behalf of most of our stalwart auteurs. But I’d like to single out three YouTube videos as my picks of the year: three unedited amateur pieces that have played important, albeit problematic, roles in the ongoing struggles against police and state violence in my adopted home of New York City.

1)    The Cecily McMillan video
In Manhattan on 17 March, 2012, the six month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, Cecily McMillan, a participant in the protests, was arrested and charged with assaulting a cop by elbowing him in the face – a reflex action, Cecily claimed, in response to the cop grabbing her breast. One murky, low-res video of the incident was used both by the prosecution and defence in the subsequent trial that took place in April 2014. Defence claimed a black shape on screen was the cop’s arm grabbing Cecily’s breast. The prosecution insisted it was merely a shadow. Cecily was convicted of assault and sentenced to three months in jail and five years of probation.

2)    The Eric Garner video
In Staten Island on 17 July, 2014, Eric Garner, a black man, was held in a chokehold by a white cop that resulted in his death, while passer-by Ramsey Orta filmed the incident at close range. The video went viral, with Garner’s last words resulting in the widely disseminated slogans and hashtags #ThisStopsToday and #ICan’tBreathe, all further mobilising the resistance that had emerged in the US after the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. But despite this unambiguous documentation, a New York grand jury chose not to indict the cop on any charge – although the video’s author was indicted on an ostensibly unrelated charge.

3)    “NYPD Lieutenants Assaulted on Brooklyn Bridge”
On 13 December, 2014, protesters blocked the Brooklyn Bridge after a protest of tens of thousands marched against racist police violence. In one incident on the bridge, a group of protesters attempted to prevent a cop from arresting someone for allegedly throwing a trash can. A video of the incident, filmed and uploaded by Chris Nooney with the aforementioned title and widely spread through mainstream news outlets, was used to identify six protesters by the NYPD, who announced a reward of $12,000 for information leading to their arrest and conviction.

The aesthetic significance of these videos may be negligible, their authors more “filmers” than filmmakers as Jonas Mekas might put it – but each seems motivated by a certain faith in moving-image making as a means of witnessing and documenting, and as a result exposing injustice and holding its perpetrators accountable. This concept of filming as intervention is often embraced by protest movements, as evident in the popular chant “The whole world is watching!” – or, in Nooney’s video, from the fascinating refrain of “Record it!” screamed endlessly by an offscreen protester (perhaps unaware that the uploading of such a recording would end up being tantamount to collaboration with the police.) It is also implicit in the now popular call for cops to wear “body cameras”. What the state’s response to the aforementioned videos indicate, however, is the uneasier reality that such images can also be a means of surveillance and incrimination; can be interpreted in the state’s favour wherever ambiguities exist; and, where they are unequivocal, can simply be ignored. The latter is the case with the Eric Garner video, perhaps the most politically important and necessary video of the year because of how it has highlighted these profound contradictions between justice and the law, between reality and ideology.

 

GWENDOLYN AUDREY FOSTER

PROFESSOR OF FILM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA. 

Ten best films of 2014 

Welcome to New York (Abel Ferrara, 2014)
Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
Poziția copilului (Child’s Pose, Călin Peter Netzer, 2013)
Abus de faiblesse (Abuse of Weakness, Catherine Breillat, 2013)
Deux jours, une nuit (Two Days, One Night, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2014)
Borgman (Alex van Warmerdam, 2013)
Les beaux jours (Bright Days Ahead, Marion Vernoux, 2013)
The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014)
Exhibition (Joanna Hogg, 2013)
Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2013)

Ten most overrated films of 2014
 
Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 & 2 (Lars Von Trier, 2013)
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro González Iñárritu,2014)
Le Week-End (Roger Michell, 2013)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)
Jodorowsky’s Dune (Frank Pavich, 2013)
Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)
Vi är bäst! (We Are the Best!, Lukas Moodysson, 2013)
L’Inconnu du lac (Stranger by the Lake, Alain Guiraudie, 2013)
Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)

There were so many great films in 2014 that I could easily list another ten. Many of my choices were released earlier abroad, but finally made it to the USA via pay per view or DVD. I did not bother with a Top Ten list of the Worst films, many of which are mind numbing, infantile, CGI laden spectacles that crowd the multiplex. Theatres (other than arthouses) are now mostly just “content providers,” and the content provided has precious little to do with cinema. I see little point in trashing blockbusters like Transformers and the like: to me they are simply not movies or films, they are merely content – designed to sell more product and merchandise. Instead, I provide a list of the over-rated. These are films that I expected to be better, some of which I still have decidedly mixed feelings.

It is encouraging that despite all the odds, there are still so many well-made, thoughtful independent and foreign films. We must support the work of those passionate and uncompromising filmmakers who keep the art form alive and well. That they succeed in finding funding (and finding an audience) in an increasingly bottom line driven climate – one that is hostile towards anything cinematic or challenging – is in itself a testament to the power of the cinema as an enduring art form.

 

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON

FRENCH FILM CRITIC (SLATE.FR) AND PROFESSOR.

Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)
Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)
Bai ri yan huo (Black Coal, Thin Ice, Diao Yinan, 2014)
Mille Soleils (A Thousand Suns, Mati Diop, 2013)
Mommy (Xavier Dolan, 2014)
Nymphomaniac (Lars Von Trier, 2013)
P’tit Quinquin (Li’l Quinquin, Bruno Dumont, 2014)
Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
Ma’a al-Fidda (Silvered Water: Syria Self-Portrait, Wiam Bedirxan and Ossama Mohammed, 2014)
Futatsume no mado (Still the Water, Naomi Kawase, 2014)

Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)

Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)

CYNTHIA FUCHS

FILM REVIEWS EDITOR, POPMATTERS.

1. Citizenfour (Laura Poitras, 2014)
2. Tales of the Grim Sleeper (Nick Broomfield, 2014)
3. The Return to Homs (Talal Derki, 2013)
4. Manakamana (Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez, 2013)
5. Actress (Robert Greene, 2014)
6. Fifi az Khoshhali Zooze Mikeshad(Fifi Howls from Happiness, Mitra Farahani 2013)
7. Stand Clear of the Closing Doors (Sam Fleischner, 2013)
8. Elena (Petra Costa, 2012)
9. Life Itself (Steve James, 2014)
10. L’image manquante (The Missing Picture, Rithy Panh, 2013)
11. National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman, 2014)
12. Virunga (Orlando Von Einsiedel, 2014)
13. Point and Shoot (Marshall Curry, 2014)
14. Selma (Ava DuVernay, 2014)

Best Undistributed Film:

Approaching the Elephant (Amanda Wilder, 2014)

 

HUGO E. GAMARRA

FOUNDER/DIRECTOR 23rd INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF PARAGUAY.

My selection of best films include only films seen at cinemas and festivals:

Azú (Luis Alberto Lamata, 2013)
Before I Disappear (Shawn Christensen, 2014)
Dans la maison (In the House, François Ozon, 2012)
El cuarto desnudo (The Naked Room, Nuria Ibañez Castañeda, 2013)
Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013)
Haemoo (Shim Sung-Bo, 2014)
Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2013)
Le passé (The Past, Asghar Farhadi, 2013)
O menino e o mundo (The Boy and the World, Alé Abreu, 2013)
Revelando Sebastião Salgado (Meeting Sebastiao Salgado, Betse de Paula, 2013)

Retrospective titles seen at festivals:

Cuando besa mi marido (When My Husband Kisses, Carlos Schlieper, 1950)
Hijo de hombre (Son of Man, Lucas Demare, 1961)
La ley de Herodes (Herod’s Law, Luis Estrada, 1999)
Shunko (Lautaro Murúa, 1960)
Letyat zhuravli (The Cranes are Flying, Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957)
This is England (Shane Meadows, 2006)

 

GEOFFREY GARDNER

BLOGS AWAY ON MATTERS OF INTEREST.

My top twelve in alphabetical order:

Adieu au langage (Good bye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Charlie’s Country (Rolf De Heer, 2013)
Huang jin shi dai (The Golden Era, Ann Hui, 2014)
Haider (Vishal Bhardwaj, 2014)
Ja-yu-eui eon-deok (Hill of Freedom, Hong Sang Soo, 2014)
Nebraska (Alexander Payne, 2013)
Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt, 2013)
Nuoc (2030, Nguyen Vo Nghiem-Minh, 2014)
Hwajang (Revivre, Im Kwontaek, 2014)
Kışuykusu (Winter Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014)
Nakinureta haru no onna yo (A Woman Crying in Spring, Hiroshi Shimizu, 1933)
Le meraviglie (The Wonders, Alice Rohrwacher, 2014)

 

ANDREW GILBERT 

PHD STUDENT, PUBLISHED IN SCREEN MACHINE AND CLÉO. 

Pompeii (Paul W.S. Anderson, 2014)
Kaguyahime no monogatari (The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Isao Takahata, 2013)
Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Dumb and Dumber To (Peter & Bobby Farrelly, 2014)
The Homesman (Tommy Lee Jones, 2014)
Welcome to New York (Abel Ferrara, 2014)
The Immigrant (James Gray, 2013)
Abus de faiblesse (Abuse of Weakness, Catherine Breillat, 2013)
Proxy (Zack Parker, 2013)
Jersey Boys (Clint Eastwood, 2014)

 

ANTONY I. GINNANE 

PRODUCER, DISTRIBUTOR AND COMMENTATOR, MELBOURNE / LOS ANGELES. PRESIDENT OF FG FILM PRODUCTIONS (AUSTRALIA) PTY LTD / IFM WORLD RELEASING INC.

Top 10 (Eligibility: 2014 theatrical, festival or premiere DVD or VOD first release in the USA, Canada, Australia or New Zealand) listed alphabetically by title:

Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)

Godard’s most visually beautiful film since Pierrot le Fou. As usual chock full of conflicting debates concerning reason and emotion. Formal and yet playfully exploratory notably in its unusual 3D framings. The two sets of couples bicker and ponder the world and each other’s failures and Godard’s dog Roxy is a mute observer.

American Sniper (Clint Eastwood, 2014)

Clint Eastwood interrogates the psychological make up of the modern warrior – both in war and at home. He blends sequences of extraordinary tension with long reflective pauses. The adrenaline addiction of patriotism is viewed through an ice cold eye. No director working today dissects legends better.

John Wick (Chad Stahelski, David Leitch [uncredited], 2014)

Co-directors David Leitch and Chad Stahelski in their first feature fashion a powerful and kinetic revenge thriller driven by the rage of a returned hitman (Keanu Reeves) whose puppy, a last gift from his dead wife, is killed by gangsters – up there with Get Carter and The Limey.

Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)

Christopher Nolan’s meditative sci-fi epic blends new age mysticism in the vein of 2001- A Space Odyssey with the environmentalistic concerns of Silent Running and a sense of family obligations drawn from many a John Ford war movie. Cutting edge VFX and spectacular performances make for a significantly innersive experience.

Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)

David Cronenberg brings his blow-torch to Hollywood and the film industry in this acerbic analysis which rivals Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve in its bitchy intensity Cronenberg has always practised an anthropological approach to his cinema subjects and here he casts his laser gaze over Julianne Moore, John Cusack, Carrie Fisher and the rest in a pitiless stare.

Metro Manila (Sean Ellis, 2013)

Sean Ellis’ hard-eyed crime thriller set against the exotic backgrounds of Manila. A struggling couple move to the big city. The husband’s job as a security van driver sucks him into a web of corruption. The third act is reminiscent of Bruce Beresford’s almost forgotten Money Movers.

A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbijn 2014)

Anton Corbijn follows The American with another slick and polished piece of procedural espionage, double cross and Le Carre text set in a grimly foreboding Hamburg – ethnically divided and on the European front line of Islamic unrest. One of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last great performances.

Welcome to New York (Abel Ferrara, 2014)

One can always rely on Abel Ferrara to approach provocative material in a way that pushes limits. Here he shows us the lead up to the Dominique Strauss – Kahn sexual assault case and its aftermath. Depardieu rivals Harvey Keitel in The Bad Lieutenant for orgiastic nihilism. Ferrara’s fundamental disbelief in goodness or redemption imbues the film with a real sense of hysteria.

The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013)

Another Scorsese rise and fall saga peppered with excess, melodramatic intrigue and capitalistic critique. Like Casino, Wall Street returns to Scorsese’s recurring themes of guilt, forgiveness, avarice and unfulfilled dreams. There are layers of black comedy – almost slapstick here – unusual in Scorsese’s recent work – as if the sheer madness of the tale can only be understood through the lens of extreme cruelty.

Other titles that have excited or inspired me during the year include:

La Vie d’Adele: chapitres 1 & 2 (Blue is the Warmest Colour, Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013)
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (Alex Gibney, 2012)
300: Rise of the Empire (Noam Murro, 2014)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
Sabotage (David Ayer, 2014)
Dom Hemmingway (Richard Shepard, 2013)
Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)
Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 & 2 (Lars Von Trier, 2013)
X Men: Days of Future Past (Bryan Singer, 2014)
Belle (Amma Asante, 2013)
Chef (Jon Favreau, 2014)
The Immigrant (James Gray, 2013)
The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014)
The Two Faces of January (Hossein Amini, (2014)
Lucy (Luc Besson, 2014)
Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn, 2014)
The Equalizer (Antoine Fuqua, 2014)
Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)
Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)
Fury (David Ayer, 2014)
Exodus: Gods and Kings (Ridley Scott, 2014)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)

LEO GOLDSMITH

PHD STUDENT AT NYU AND FILM EDITOR FOR BROOKLYN RAIL.

Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)
Brûle la mer (Burn the Sea, Nathalie Nambot & Maki Bechache, 2014)
El Futuro (Luís Lopez Carrasco, 2013)
Maidan (Sergei Loznitsa, 2014)
Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2014)
Fe26 (Kevin Jerome Everson, 2014)
Lettres à Max (Letters to Max, Eric Baudelaire, 2014)
Gowanus Canal (Sarah Christman, 2014)
Listen Up Philip (Alex Ross Perry, 2014)
Infiltrators (Khaled Jarrar, 2012)
Kissing Point (Peggy Ahwesh, 2014)
Loubia hamra (Bloody Beans, Narimane Mari, 2013)
As Cidades e as Trocas (Trading Cities, Luísa Homem & Pedro Pinho, 2014)
Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)
Butter on the Latch (Josephine Decker, 2014)

 

CARMEN GRAY

FILM EDITOR, DAZED.

Maidan (Sergei Loznitsa, 2014)
Master of precision Sergei Loznitsa’s urgent, shiver-inducing portrait of protest remarkably captures the rhythms of mass mood in the making of a revolution.

Plemya (The Tribe, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, 2014)
This astonishingly unique, bold dance of brutality and alienation left my head reeling. 

Turist (Force Majeure, Ruben Ostlund, 2014)
The devil is in the details of human behaviour in this startlingly original and blackly hilarious provocation, in which primal nature shatters illusion. 

Amour Fou (Jessica Hausner, 2014)
Sumptuously shot and wickedly irreverent, this is a take-down of delusional romanticism with fascinatingly ambiguous layers and strange touches. 

The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2014)
This nightmarishly surreal but searingly human portrait of the horror of radical historical denial is no less essential as testimony than its predecessor The Act of Killing.

Nymphomaniac (Lars Von Trier, 2013)
Von Trier’s playfully irreverent, sly twist on the morality tale is an assault on hypocrisy and an unexpected delight. 

Krov (Blood, Alina Rudnitskaya, 2013)
A raw and intimate, absurdist tragicomedy of economic desperation from a brave Russian filmmaking talent. 

It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014)
A smart, atmospheric and wholly innovative riff on the horror genre inspired by the virality of Twitter. 

20,000 Days on Earth (Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, 2014)
This innovative take on the rock bio was a thrilling, insightful and humorous investigation into the nature of creative inspiration. 

The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, 2014)
Comical and gothic-tinged, this is a wonderfully original exploration of the banality within routine extremity.

Eûtelle été criminelle… (Even If She Had Been a Criminal…, Jean-Gabriel Périot, 2006)
Included in program of political resistance shorts Know Your Enemy curated by Bristol’s Encounters festival and screened at this year’s Vienna Independent Shorts, this is a truly devastating and haunting interrogation of blinding hatred, meticulously constructed from archival footage.

 

ROBERT GREENE

FILMMAKER, FILM EDITOR AND WRITER.

Top 10 in Cinematic Nonfiction that I saw in 2014

1. Ne me quitte pas (Niels van Koevorden and Sabine Lubbe Bakker, 2013)
2. National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman, 2014)
3. Heaven Knows What (Josh & Benny Safdie, 2014)
4. Living Stars (Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn, 2014)
5. The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2014)
6. The Overnighters (Jesse Moss, 2014)
7. Tales of the Grim Sleeper (Nick Broomfield, 2014)
8. Stop the Pounding Heart (Roberto Minervini, 2013)
9. Buffalo Juggalos (Scott Cummings, 2014)
10. Maidan (Sergei Loznitsa, 2014)

 

VICTOR GUIMARÃES

FILM CRITIC (CINÉTICA) AND PROGRAMMER (16TH FESTCURTASBH, CINECLUBE COMUM).

Two brief notes:

I considered films released since 2012 and watched in 2014.

I haven’t seen many important films of this year, but I think it’s fundamental to point out that I haven’t seen Godard’s Adieu au langage yet.

The irrevocable experiences or two ways of turning the world inside out (with cinema):

Cavalo Dinheiro (Horsey Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)
Trudno byt bogom (Hard to Be a God, Aleksei German, 2013) 

The reinvention of a style or 12 outstanding works by great filmmakers:

A vingança de uma mulher (A Woman’s Revenge, Rita Azevedo Gomes, 2012)
Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)
Atlantis (Ben Russell, 2014)
J’ai oublié (I Forgot, Eduardo Williams, 2014)
Cut (Matthias Müller and Christoph Girardet, 2012)
vis à vis (Abigail Child, 2013)
Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)
Welcome to New York (Abel Ferrara, 2014)
La Jalousie (Jealousy, Philippe Garrel, 2013)
Dumb and Dumber To (Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly, 2014)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
 
The ones that came out of the blue or when the urgency becomes form:

Our Terrible Country (Mohammad Ali Atassi and Ziad Homsi, 2014)
Il Segreto (cyop&kaf, 2013)
 
The first apex of a generation or a great year for Brazilian cinema:

A vizinhança do tigre (The Hidden Tiger, Affonso Uchôa, 2014)
Branco sai, preto fica (White Out, Black In, Adirley Queirós, 2014)
Nova Dubai (New Dubai, Gustavo Vinagre, 2014)
Em trânsito (Marcelo Pedroso, 2013)
Quintal (André Novais Oliveira, 2014)
Ela volta na quinta (She Will Be Back on Thursday, André Novais Oliveira, 2014)
Casa forte (Rodrigo Almeida, 2014)
Mundo incrível remix (Amazing World Remix, Gabriel Martins, 2014)
Karioka (Takumã Kuikuro, 2014)
Brasil S/A (Brazilian Dream, Marcelo Pedroso, 2014)

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