Sebastián Vogler

Island of Tahiti. French government official De Roller is a calculating man with impeccable manners, capable of dealing with both high society and the locals he frequents in shady joints.

Unable to face his new reality in a wheelchair, Ángel develops a deadly obsession with the woman who left him and unleashes a sinister revenge plot.

1774, shortly before the French Revolution, somewhere between Potsdam and Berlin. Madame de Dumeval, the Duke de Tesis and the Duke de Wand, libertines expelled from the puritanical court of Louis XVI, seek the support of the legendary Duc de Walchen, German seducer and freethinker, lonely in a country where hypocrisy and false virtue reign. Their mission is to export libertinage, a philosophy of enlightenment founded on the rejection of moral boundaries and authorities, but moreover to find a safe place to pursue their errant games, where the quest for pleasure no longer obeys laws other than those dictated by unfulfilled desires.

Portraying the last days in the life of philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892–1940), whose writings such as The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction have become of seminal importance in cultural criticism, Ferraro not only deals with a historical and philosophically fascinating subject, but has also crafted a landscape film of immense beauty.

August 1715. After going for a walk, Louis XIV feels a pain in his leg. The next days, the king keeps fulfilling his duties and obligations, but his sleep is troubled and he has a serious fever. He barely eats and weakens increasingly. This is the start of the slow agony of the greatest king of France, surrounded by his relatives and doctors.

Julia, an attractive and elegant woman, is a renowned cellist devoted to her music. After years of intermittent pain in different parts of her body, Julia is finally given the diagnosis: fibromyalgia, a chronic medical disorder that has no known cause or cure. She soon finds herself submerged in a personal state of hell, struggling against her own body.

The film takes place in Ireland – an Ireland where people speak Catalan with a Fassbinder accent – from the 1930 to today, and follows in several parallel directions the sprawling saga of two rival gold mines, the exploitation of artists by Capital, and the simultaneous opening of a brothel where women do not like men. Because he does things his own way, Albert Serra’s most narrative and wordy film was not meant for cinema: produced by the Venice Biennale, it was part of an installation, its chapters shown simultaneously on several screens. Singularity could very well have been called “Velvet Goldmine”, as it sings the meeting of brothels and tunnels, of a golden stud and lustful bodies (both shown as abstractions).

During a brief rule towards the end of the 19th century, the Italian duke Amadeo of Savoy occupied the Spanish throne. However, confined to the safety of life within the palace walls, the lonely, frustrated king and his servants succumb to playful adventures focused more on pleasure than his duties.

Casanova meets a new servant who will witness his last moments in life, from a castle with its libertine 18th century atmosphere to the poor, shadowy Northern lands. There, his rationalist way of thinking and mundane world will succumb to a violent and romantic force, represented by Count Dracula.

Casanova meets a new servant who will witness his last moments in life, from a castle with its libertine 18th century atmosphere to the poor, shadowy Northern lands. There, his rationalist way of thinking and mundane world will succumb to a violent and romantic force, represented by Count Dracula.

A 101-hour long reflection on the construction of Europe, its cultural identity and its foundations through the complete adaptation of the texts ‘Conversations with Goethe’ by J. P. Eckermann, ‘Hitler’s Table Talks’ and ‘Fassbinder über Fassbinder: Die ungekürzten Interviews’ (a compilation of interviews with the German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, which is used as a counterpoint to the first two books). The texts are read, page by page, by non-professional actors.