Favorite Undistributed Films Of 2006

The number of quality films available solely at festivals and import dvd seems to grow every year. This year I include a separate list of documentaries.

1) Como Pasan Las Horas/Hours Go By (Ines de Oliveira Cesar, Argentina)
2) Accused (Jacob Thuesen, Denmark)
* O Veneno da Madrugada/In The Evil Hour (Ruy Guerra, Brasil)
* Noticias Lejanas/News From Afar (Ricardo Benet, Mexico)
5) Madeinusa (Claudia Llosa, Peru)
6) Le Couperet/The Axe (Costa-Gavras, France)
* El Viento/The Wind (Eduardo Mignogna, Argentina)
8) Crime Delicado/Delicate Crime (Beto Brant, Brasil)
* Mezcal (Ignacio Ortiz, Mexico)
* The Night of Truth (Fanta Regina Nacro, Burkina Faso)

Runners-Up

A Tale of Cinema (Hong Sang-soo, Korea)
Cafe Transit/Border Cafe (Kambuzia Partovi, Iran)
Las Vueltas del Citrillo/The Citrillo's Turns (Felipe Cazals, Mexico)
Stolen Life (Li Shaohong, China)
Princess Raccoon (Seijun Suzuki, Japan)
C.R.A.Z.Y. (Jean-Marc Vallee, Canada)
Whisky Romeo Zulu (Enrique Pineyro, Argentina)
Everlasting Regret (Stanley Kwan, China)
Vida en Color/Life in Color (Santiago Tabernero, Spain)
Perhaps Love (Peter Chan, China)
The Master (Piotr Trzaskalski, Poland)
Thirst (Tawfik Abu Wael, Palestine)
Green Tea (Zhang Yuan, China)
En la Cama/In Bed (Matias Bize, Chile)
One Night (Niki Karimi, Iran)
Roma (Adolfo Aristarain, Argentina)
El Metodo Gronhold/ The Method (Marcelo Pineyro, Spain)

DOCUMENTARIES

1) Black Sun (Gary Tern, UK)
2) Lover Other (Barbara Hammer, USA)
3) La Dignidad de los Nadies/The Dignity of the Nobodies (Fernando Solanas, Argentina)
4) In The Pit (Juan C. Rulfo, Mexico)
5) Echoes of War (Joop Van Wijk, Netherlands)
* The Giant Buddhas (Christian Frei, Switzerland)
7) GITMO:The New Rules of War (Grandini and Saleh, Sweden)

I thought you usaid En la cama was to be avoided in the SFIFF. Dignity of the Nobodies is a good one. I probably should see Gitmo. Of course you know I have an extremely high opinion of Noticias Lejanas. The others I haven't seen, maybe because I don't live in Miami. Oh yes and Perhaps Love I saw on a screener tape and thought really plastic.

Perhaps Love is a highly stylized romance fantasy with a pan-Asian cast, gorgeous art direction, and imaginative choreography. Plastic? Of course. And good enough to place at #19 among undistributed films I watched in '06.

I think you are confusing En La Cama (In Bed) with another movie. This one involves two people inside a hotel room in Santiago and reminded me of Tape or Before Sunrise, but more erotic.

I'm very disappointed that Accused, Madeinusa, Le Couperet and Life In Color have not been picked up for distribution. These are excellent films with strong commercial appeal. Accused has a chance to come out on dvd here. If it does, I'll post about it in the dvd section.

I will stand by my evaulation that Perhaps Love is commercial genre crap and I woudln't list it as a "best" anything.

You're right. You were nice to En la cama. But I am not confused about which one it is, only in thinking you had warned me against it. Email from you to me in April:

Quote:

---

IN BED: I had a nice talk with director Bize. It's a couple talking and fucking over course of one night but well-written and acted, reminds people of Before Sunset, but not quite that good. Will review on MIFF thread soon....

---

That didn't sell me though due to more detailed critical reviews, which did warn me against En la cama: Ed Gonzalez of Slant ("In Bed is a great porn but a piss-poor drama") Nich Schrager, also online, who said once the sex ends and the "squaking begins, all is lost," and Michael Guillen's summary of various opinions (including Ed Gonzalez's and Manohla Dargis'). Hence since I can't see 50 movies at a festival, I skipped it.

Guillen's column on En la cama.

Reprint of it Twitchfilm's Latin American film archives.

Note: Still waiting for you to check your emails.