Within the boundaries of Sharon Lockhart's static camera, girls from Goshogaoka junior high school practice basketball. In six uninterrupted 10 minute scenes, we see them warm up and train several typical moves, shots, and blocks. With the camera set in one position, some of the action happens off-screen, resulting in unrehearsed synchronised choreography.

Nyatta is not ready to have Jizō take away his big sister Nyāko to Ne-no-kuni, the land of the dead. The kitten grabs his sister's paw, resulting in her soul being ripped in two and leaving Nyāko in a state of limbo. The cats' mother then sends the two off on a mission to buy fried #tofu. Maybe now Nyatta can find a way to put Nyāko's divided soul back together. But first, there's a circus to visit!

 

ねこぢる草 is based on works by mangaka Nekojiru / ねこぢる (1967—1998) whose trademark crudely drawn #cats caused a ripple in Japan's underground #manga circuit. Nyatta and Nyāko continued their surreal adventures by way of widower Yamano Hajime after Nekojiru's tragic suicide in 1998.

R… ne répond plus is Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's exploring the airwaves. Some is clearly political. Radio Schwarzi Chatz (“Radio Black Cat”) and the feminist witches from Wellenhexe (”[radio] wave witch”) have important messages, unheard of in the mainstream media. Others broadcast in languages on the verge of extinction, so may that tongue survive in a world that – already forty years ago – was rapidly homogenising.

“This is called the comeback of reality.”

And then there are those, they're unnamed, who travel the land and across the borders with walkie-talkies – those too are radios, two-way – using their meandering frequencies to hold on to reality. It's all very elusive, but it's there. Maybe #radio is not dead. We just need to learn how to tune into that Enochian frequency again. It's real after all.

Zbigniew Rybczyński's autobiographical Zupa follows an unnamed couple's faltering monotonous relationship.

 

Produced by the groundbreaking Se-ma-for Studios in Łódź – you may be familiar with their 1981 Oscar-winning Tango by, again, Rybczyński – the story is told through colourised analogue still #photography and electronic music and sound effects created by PRES's Eugeniusz Rudnik.

A black forest. A man walks through, holding a smoke machine. Then a carriage with a familiar coachman. Dracula! Where are we? No, not 19th century #Transylvania. The film stock reveals bullet holes in ancient walls, and beyond these walls a ladder, maybe scaffolding. A pneumatic drill, more crew members, lights, a clapperboard. Are the characters aware of that? Them seem to interact with the disturbance yet oblige to the interruptions of the movie set. In a state of hypnopompia, guided by kuroko, maybe?

“cut”

Pere Portabella created a hyper-reality with his Cuadecuc, vampir. A director dismantles the man-behind-the-curtain, Franco, the other #Franco while setting up scaffolding for the next Spain. Everything's a reality, or an illusion, then nothing is.

Coming of Age Day in Japan.

“What the hell are you doing?”