f i l m j o u r n e y . o r g

By Robert Koehler
Forum is looking shaky. At least, that’s the impression from the third day, with a bunch of films that are either slight or bad or unwatchable. The slight is, at least, modestly entertaining: USC grad Arvin Chen’s Au revoir Taipei (above) takes a penniless young man, determined to leave his native Taipei and [...]

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By Robert Koehler
As a member of the Berlinale FIPRESCI jury—concentrated on Forum–my first week in Berlinale is almost entirely devoted to Forum films. That was by choice: Forum is, in the roughest terms, Berlin’s Quinzaine, created 40 years ago out of the same impulse that created the Quinzaine, as a revolutionary-minded alternative to the stodgy [...]

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James Benning’s Ruhr
By Robert Koehler
Last things first: Having arrived here in Berlin from the Rotterdam film festival, I wanted to let any readers tracking Filmjourney that my in-depth comments on IFFR will be posted following Berlin. That’s because Rotterdam had too many worthy films to merely mention in passing, and because the programming raised ideas [...]

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Word is quickly spreading that the man whom many regard as the world’s greatest living animator–Yuri Norstein–is making a brief US tour, with visits to Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City and Olympia. My 23-month-old daughter routinely requests viewings of Hedgehog in the Fog, but I’ve been an admirer of Norstein’s work [...]

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