settima

drama

Fata/Morgana [Left-Handed Fate / Panik 75] (Vicente Aranda, 1966)

Mar

9

Fata/Morgana (1966)

Gim (Teresa Gimpera) modelling in a photo studio. The photographer, another woman in silhouette, has an identical hairstyle and outfit. DP: Aurelio G. Larraya.

Nattlek [Night Games] (Mai Zetterling, 1966)

Mar

8

International Women's Day

Nattlek (1966)

Jan (Jörgen Lindström) and his mother (Ingrid Thulin) share a bed while she reads him a bedtime story. DP: Rune Ericson.

A mother for International Women's Day

 

When returning home to the castle he grew up in, Jan attempts to free himself from the suffocating clutches of his neurotic mother.

 

This film was the final straw for Shirley Temple; she resigned from the board of the San Francisco Film Festival calling Zetterling's film “pornography for profit”.

聖母観音大菩薩 [Seibo Kannon daibosatsu / Eros Eterna] (Kōji Wakamatsu, 1977)

Mar

7

immortality

聖母観音大菩薩 (1977)

The yao bikuni (Eiko Matsuda) rises from the ocean. DP: Hideo Itō.

An immortal character on the date Highlander (1986) was released.

– Dont raise your voice! I'll kill you if you make a sound.

– Would you please?

When a woman eats the flesh of a 人魚 (ningyo, litt. “human fish” but in Western context commenly translated as “mermaid”), she may become a 八百比丘尼 [yao bikuni], an 800 year* old Buddhist nun granted youth and longevity.

 

*The number 8 symbolises growth and prosperity. Larger numbers starting with 8 indicate that the amount is endless, comparable to saying “hundreds/thousands/millions of […]” in English. Therefore, 800 years can be understood as immortal.

Io la conoscevo bene [I Knew Her Well] (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1965)

Mar

5

Crispus Attucks – 1770

Io la conoscevo bene (1965)

Adriana (Stefania Sandrelli) seen through her apartment window. Rome is reflected in her face. DP: Armando Nannuzzi.

A wasteful act: Crispus Attucks, (arguably) the first American victim in the American Revolution, dies on March 5th, 1770.

“She's always happy. She desires nothing, envies no one, is curious about nothing. You can't surprise her. She doesn't notice the humiliations, though they happen to her every day. It all rolls off her back like some waterproof material. Zero ambition. No moral code. Not even a whore's love of money.”

– The Writer

An ambitious but aimless girl – she wants to be loved, and to be a model, a proto-Edie – mills about her day.

 

Sublimely shot, we see Adriana through glass panes, in reflections, in an off-focal plane, in other people's words.

უჟმური [Ujmuri / Мрачная равнина / Cheerless] (Nutsa Gogoberidze, 1934)

Mar

3

Florida – 1845

უჟმური (1934)

A young woman, dress and arms covered in swamp water, raises a muddy shotgun. DP: Shalva Apaqidze.

A swamp (or The Everglades) on that day in 1845 Florida became the 27th state.

 

The swamp dwellers' trust in shaman Uzhmuri, the Queen of Frogs, prohibits the authorities from draining the wetlands in their fight against malaria.

Kuhle Wampe oder: Wem gehört die Welt? [Kuhle Wampe or Who Owns the World?] (Slatan Dudow, 1932)

Feb

28

unemployment

Kuhle Wampe oder: Wem gehört die Welt? (1932)

The unemployed at Kuhle Wampe, with Hertha Thiele's Anni front and center. People's states vary between still clinging on to better times up to destitute. DP: Günther Krampf.

Someone quits something or is unemployed: the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI in 2013.

“[Kuhle Wampe] gives witness to the true face of a struggling, suffering nation. Made by four thousand unemployed people, it never aims to be a work of art but simply aims to portray […] workers whose youthful energy is going to waste.”

– Marcel Carné, via

Kuhle Wampe, Berlin slang that means something like “empty stomach”, is the name of a real-world, improvised encampment for the unemployed at the Müggelsee. Here we find a family who lost everything after the death of one of them.

 

This late-Weimar, brechtian film was quickly banned by the German government.

First Man Into Space [Satellite of Blood] (Robert Day, 1959)

Feb

28

1958

First Man Into Space (1959)

A newspaper headline for February 28, 1958 reading THE HIGHEST MAN IN THE WORLD. DP: Geoffrey Faithfull.

“The conquest of new worlds always makes demands of human life. And there will always be men who will accept the risk.”

Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? (Stuart Hamisch, 1958)

Feb

24

technology

Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? (1958)

Straight after dinner, the child returns to his teevee while his mother stands silently in the doorway.

A film about technology on what would've been Steve Jobs' 70th birthday

“The most precious thing that we all have with us, is time.”

– Steve Jobs

A nuclear family goes about their machine-driven day while slowly forgetting to communicate.

Trash (Paul Morrissey, 1970)

Feb

23

freebie: Paul Morrissey born

Trash (1970)

Jane Forth, Paul Morrissey, and Joe Dallesandro in a publicity photo for Trash. DP: Paul Morrissey.

Freebie: Paul Morrissey born (1938 – 2024)

“Just because people throw it out and don't have any use for it, doesn't mean it's garbage.”

– Holly

Laukaus tehtaalla [A Shot in the Factory] (Erkko Kivikoski, 1973)

Feb

21

Nixon goes to China

Laukaus tehtaalla (1973)

Workers and bosses negotiate the situation. DP: Esko Nevalainen.

Diplomacy on Nixon's visit to China (February 21 — 28, 1972)

 

The killing of the factory's boss by one of the workers leads to endless negotiations between the two parties.

 

Shot in cinéma vérité style, with a mostly amateur cast, Laukaus tehtaalla mirrors the working classes' insecurity caused by the 1973 energy crisis in more ways than one.