If Jagger and Richards were the Glimmer Twins, Ron Wood was the glam rocker. Today he‘s a 70 year old who has fun doing creative work and is happy to have the wild days behind him and yet (or maybe for this reason?) doesn‘t feel older than 29. Director Mike Figgis, who was a musician in different bands before his film career, assembles a portrait from different interviews of the man that plays the second guitar with the Stones – and who is indispensible, whether it comes to the sound or handling the band‘s circus of personalities. more

After the death of her partner, Corine Sombrun (Cécile de France) stumbles in her everyday life while in deep mourning. In order to gain some distance, the sound engineer travels to Mongolia to record a Dhukan shaman during her rituals in a small village. When Corine hears the big drum of the shaman for the first time, she falls into a frightening trance. The shaman tells her that she, Corine, is a chosen one and has to train to be a shaman to control her gift and be able to return from the empire of spirits. At first Corine believes it to be nonsense and returns to Paris, but whenever she ... more

I was admittedly a bit worried. Both in TRANSIT as well as PHEONIX it was the mysterious, disappearing women who were more like ideas than people that I liked the least, and now comes a film about water sprite Undine – a nymph who can only get a soul if she‘s loved. But the worries were unfounded. Paula Beer as the water creature Undine is very present and contemporary. In the first scene she sits in a cafe, the conversation she had with her boyfriend Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) in which he broke up with her must‘ve taken place shortly before. “You can‘t do that,“ she says, “you ... more

Abel Ferrara’s career stretches back to the 1970’s, when he provided his own brand of arty exploitation movies for New York’s grindhouse theaters. Since then, his films have continued to be both artful and transgressive, often going to extremes while pursuing his personal obsessions and idiosyncrasies. In other words, he fits the bill as one of America’s more outre auteurs.

Like most indie filmmaker’s of his era, the 1990’s was a high-water mark, with works like KING OF NEW YORK, BAD LIEUTENANT and ADDICTION earning him both praise and controversy. The last decade or so has been ... more