Vanishing Point
Richard C Sarafian
USA – 1971 Cast: Barry Newman (Kowalski), Cleavon Little (Super Soul), Dean Jagger (Prospector), Victoria Medlin (Vera Thornton)
Screenplay: Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Barry Hall
Cinematography: John A. Alonzo
Production: Cupid Productions
Language: English
Duration: 99 min
Color: Color

Synopsis: Kowalski works for a car delivery service. His job getting a 1970 Dodge Challenger from Colorado to San Francisco turns into a bet that he can make the trip in less than fifteen hours. After a few run-ins with motorcycle cops, the highway patrol launches an operation to bring the speeding law-breaker into custody. Along the way, Kowalski’s car radio remains tuned to the KOW station from where Super Soul, a blind show host equipped with a police radio scanner, uses the airwaves to communicate with our rebel without a cause. Following countless chase scenes, gay hitchhikers, a naked woman riding a motorbike, lots of Benzene and Benzedrine, the last American hero’s ride finally catches up to the opening of the film in a glorious fireball of muscle and motor parts.

Fitzcarraldo
Werner Herzog
Germany – 1982 Cast: Klaus Kinski (Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald – ‘Fitzcarraldo’), Claudia Cardinale (Molly), José Lewgoy (Don Aquilino), Miguel Ángel Fuentes (Cholo)
Screenplay: Werner Herzog
Cinematography: Thomas Mauch
Production: Werner Herzog Filmproduktion, Pro-ject Filmproduktion, Filmverlag der Autoren, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), Wildlife Films Peru
Language: German, Spanish, Italian with English subtitles
Duration: 158 min
Color: Color

Synopsis: Brian Sweeney “Fitzcarraldo” Fitzgerald is an Irishman living in Iquitos, a small town east of the Andes. This eccentric entrepreneur has an indomitable spirit, but he is a terrible businessman. He dreams of building an opera house in Iquitos, and the booming rubber industry should readily supply the necessary capital. The parcel he leases from the Peruvian government for exploitation is nearly inaccessible, but with money borrowed from his paramour Molly, the brothel owner, Fitzcarraldo devises an ingenious plan to transport a steamship over dry land. Defying skeptical competitors, his unfaithful crew, and Nature herself, and aided by the indigenous people of the jungle, Fitzcarraldo successfully drags the ship over the mountain via a complex system of pulleys and sweat. However, when the crew falls asleep after a drunken celebration, the native Chief severs the rope securing the ship, releasing it in sacrifice to the river gods, who would otherwise be angered that the humans have defied them by taking a short-cut. Although the venture ends in failure, Fitzcarraldo goes through with his plan to bring opera to Iquitos.

Genghis Khan
Manuel Conde, Lou Salvador
Philippines – 1950Cast: Manuel Conde (Genghis Khan), Elvira Reyes (Li Hu), Inday Jalandoni, Jose Villafranca, Lou Salvador
Production: Manuel Conde (MC Production)
Language: Filipino, Tagalog
Duration: 88 min
Color: Black and White

Synopsis: Temujin, who later becomes Genghis Khan, is a handsome, ferocious, cunning, but likable fellow, leading by virtue of his charisma as much as through physical prowess. While competing at the Man of Men contest, he falls in love with an enemy commander’s daughter, Li Hu. His great leadership trial, however, comes when he must restore order and exact justice for the sacking of his hometown, and he soon demonstrates his potential as a great conqueror.

A Journey to the Beginning of Time
Cesta do praveku
Karel Zeman
Czechoslovakia – 1955Cast: Vladimír Bejval (Jirka), Petr Herrman (Toník), Zdenek Hustak (Jenda), Josef Lukás (Petr), James Lucas (Doc)
Screenplay: J.A. Novotný
Cinematography: Antonín Horák, Václav Pazdernik
Production: Ceskoslovenský Státní Film
Language: Czech
Duration: 93 mn
Color: Color

Synopsis: When a little boy finds a strange fossil, his friends decide to take him on a fantastic voyage through prehistory, to the very beginnings of life on Earth. As the four boys set out down the river of Time to explore the earliest living creatures on the planet, their adventures follow the evolution of natural history. Inspired by scientific illustrations, magnificent special effects return primeval plants and animals to life and look sharp even today, over 60 years later. The film has been acclaimed for its educational value and scientific accuracy. One by one, the boys explore a sequence of prehistoric ages until they find a living predecessor of the fossil found at the beginning of the film.

La Jetée (The Jetty)
Chris Marker
France – 1962 Cast: Jean Négroni (Narrator), Hélène Chatelain (The Woman), Davos Hanich (The Man), Jacques Ledoux (The Experimenter)
Screenplay: Chris Marker
Cinematography: Jean Chiabaut Chris Marker
Production: Argos Films
Language: French, German
Duration: 28 min
Color: Black and White

Synopsis: In post-apocalyptic Paris survivors live underground and scientists research time travel, hoping to send test subjects to different time periods to beseech both Past and Future to help save the Present. Only one test subject can withstand the psychological strain of time travel, the key to which is a vague but obsessive memory from his pre-war childhood, of a woman he had seen on the jetty at Orly Airport shortly before witnessing a man—his future self—die on the observation platform. During his numerous time-jumps to the past he develops a romantic relationship with the woman. The experimenters next send him into the far future were he acquires the technology to regenerate his own destroyed society, but upon his return he senses that he is to be executed by his jailers. The people of the future offer to help him escape to their time permanently, but he asks instead to be returned to the pre-war time of his childhood, hoping to find the woman. On the jetty at the airport the child version of himself witnesses how an agent of the present kills his future self as he rushes to the woman for the last time.

Moranbong, une aventure coréenne
Claude-Jean Bonnardot
France – 1960Cast: Claude-Jean Bonnardot (Le reporter), Si Mieun (L’interprète), Do-Sun Osum (Tong Il), Djoehung-hi Ouan (Yang Nan)
Screenplay: Armand Gatti, Claude-Jean Bonnardot (adaptation)
Cinematography: Kiung-Ouan Pak
Production: Films d’Aujourd’hui Ombre et Lumière
Language: Korean
Duration: 84 min
Color: Black and White

Synopsis: The year is 1950 and Korea is on the brink of civil war. In Kaesong village, a young carpenter and the daughter of a traditional musician are in love. On the eve of the conflict, the girl’s father is arrested by the South Korean police, and hostilities break out as the village is occupied by troops from the North. The young man signs up to fight alongside them, but is wounded and survives thanks to the young woman who gives him shelter. When he regains his strength he rejoins the fight, but is taken prisoner. He does whatever he can to escape back to his beloved, who has in the meantime become one of the principle pansori singers at the Moranbong theatre, where performances lift the people’s spirits in an underground shelter.

Solaris
Andrei Tarkovsky
Russia – 1972 Cast: Natalya Bondarchuk (Khari), Donatas Banionis (Kris Kelvin, psychologist), Jüri Järvet (Doktor Snaut, cyberneticist), Anatoliy Solonitsyn (Doktor Sartorius, astrobiologist)
Screenplay: Fridrikh Gorenshteyn, Andrei Tarkovsky
Cinematography: Vadim Yusov
Production: Creative Unit of Writers & Cinema Workers Kinostudiya “Mosfilm” Unit Four
Language: Russian, German
Duration: 167 min
Color: Black and White and Color

Synopsis: Psychologist Kris Kelvin is sent to a space station hovering over the Solaris Ocean, orbiting the moon of a distant planet. Once built to accommodate a crew of over 80 people, the research facility now has only a handful of occupants who suffer from unexplained solid hallucinations. Kris arrives to find the station in various states of abandon and disrepair and the remaining two scientists are withdrawn and secretive. When he himself starts seeing impossible things, he begins to appreciate the baffling nature of the defensive mechanism of alien intelligence emanating from the planet below.

The Black Hand Gang
Che Mamat Parang Tumpol
Lakshmana Krishnan
Singapore – 1960

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..Cast: Wahid Satay (Che Mamat), M. Amin, Latifah Omar (Fatimah), Dollah Sarawak
Screenplay: Pelham Groom
Cinematography: Nan Kai Juan
Production: Cathay-Keris Films
Language: Malay, Hokkien
Duration: 95 min
Color: Black and White
Rights / Thanks to Che Mamat Parang Tumpol, now preserved by the Asian Film Archive, is one of the 91 surviving Cathay-Keris Malay Classics film titles made in Singapore between the 1950s and early 1970s. In 2014, the collection was inscribed onto the UNESCO Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Register, a list of endangered library and archive holdings. Thanks to the Asian Film Archive for providing access to their Cathay-Keris Malay Classics Collection, and to Cathay-Keris Films for their support of the screening.

Synopsis: Che Mamat is a clumsy but charming daydreamer from the coast. While his nagging mother finds him hopeless, his girlfriend Fatimah encourages him to enter a story-writing competition organized by the newspaper Berita Singapura. As chance would have it, Mamat wins the top prize and lands a job as an investigative journalist. His first assignment is to track down the infamous Black Hand Gang, a criminal organization suspected of exhorting shop-owners into buying their beer and leaving their gang sign—a black handprint—wherever they go as a warning. When the police also join in Mamat’s investigation, handprints suddenly begin appearing all over the place. Wild pursuits and hilarity ensue as a singing Mamat rides his lambretta in pursuit of the triads.

Wild Strawberries
Smultronstället
Ingmar Bergman
Sweden – 1957Cast: Victor Sjöström (Dr. Isak Borg), Bibi Andersson (Sara), Ingrid Thulin (Marianne Borg), Gunnar Björnstrand (Dr. Evald Borg)
Screenplay: Ingmar Bergman
Cinematography: Gunnar Fischer
Production: Svensk Filmindustri
Language: Swedish, Latin
Duration: 91 min
Color: Black and White

Synopsis: Dr. Isak Borg, now 78 years old, is traveling by car to Lund to receive an honorary degree. He’s traveling with his daughter-in-law Marianne, married to his son Evald. Isak now lives a lonely life which, by his own admission, is partly his own fault, having consciously withdrawn from most social interaction. Along the way they stop at the family’s summer home where he spent time during the first twenty years of his life. It’s the place where the wild strawberries grow and reminds him of his beautiful cousin, Sara, to whom he was secretly engaged until she eloped with his irresponsible brother Sigfrid. They give rides to several people along the way, including a girl—also named Sara—and her two friends, followed by a married couple whose bickering almost runs them off the road. Borg’s reminiscences and disturbing dreams add to his melancholy as he questions the decisions he has made in his life.

The Burmese Harp
Biruma no tategoto
Kon Ichikawa
Japan – 1956 Cast: Rentarô Mikuni (Captain Inouye), Shôji Yasui (Mizushima), Jun Hamamura (Ito), Taketoshi Naitô (Kobayashi), Shunji Kasuga (Maki)
Screenplay: Natto Wada
Cinematography: Minoru Yokoyama
Production: Nikkatsu
Language: Japanese, English
Duration: 133 min
Color: Black and White

Synopsis: In July, 1943, the Japanese army is on the retreat. Posted in Burma, Mizushima tries to keep up the spirits of his fellow soldiers with the sounds of his harp. The British ask him to go into the mountains and talk a Japanese platoon into surrender. With only 30 minutes to do it, Mizushima us unable to convince his fellow countrymen to avoid needless bloodshed for the sake of indifferent political powers, and is devastated when they choose to fight and die with honour. Deeply affected by a senseless war, he becomes a Buddhist monk and travels the countryside, burying the remains of those Japanese who never made it home alive. While his friends await repatriation, temporarily interned at the Mudon POW camp, Mizushima vows to remain in Burma, dedicating his life to prayer and the way of Lord Buddha.