Critics’ Choice 2023—City Connections
“Critics’ Choice–City Connections” features Berlin, Bucharest, Istanbul and Tehran, four cities that are full of historical vicissitudes and have undergone various changes over different eras. Each city is represented by two films. The political centre of Germany, Berlin was split into East and West Berlins during the Cold War. Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927) records 1920s Berlin, while Good Bye Lenin! (2003) uses absurd and humourous ways to express how Berliners face the scars of history after reunification. Romanian capital Bucharest went from autocratic rule under Nicolae Ceau?escu to independence. Cristi Puiu’s Aurora (2010) and Corneliu Porumboiu’s The Treasure (2015) both happen to look at social changes in the post-communist era from the perspective of the heads of families. Located at the intersection of Europe and Asia, Turkey’s Istanbul has a varied mix of religions and ethnicities. Fatih Akin’s Head-On (2004) delicately depicts the struggles and pursuits of local women as they stand between traditional culture and freedom, while Ceylan’s semi-autobiographical Distant (2002) depicts the alienated feelings of urbanites. Iran’s capital Tehran, the most densely populated city of West Asia, went from being part of the Persian empire to being ruled by the Islamic regime of today. Set in the city, both Close-Up (1990) and A Moment of Innocence (1996) reveal the humanistic spirits of Iranian directors that lie behind the dialectic between fiction and reality.
“Critics’ Choice–City Connections” features Berlin, Bucharest, Istanbul and Tehran, four cities that are full of historical vicissitudes and have undergone various changes over different eras. Each city is represented by two films. The political centre of Germany, Berlin was split into East and West Berlins during the Cold War. Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927) records 1920s Berlin, while Good Bye Lenin! (2003) uses absurd and humourous ways to express how Berliners face the scars of history after reunification. Romanian capital Bucharest went from autocratic rule under Nicolae Ceau?escu to independence. Cristi Puiu’s Aurora (2010) and Corneliu Porumboiu’s The Treasure (2015) both happen to look at social changes in the post-communist era from the perspective of the heads of families. Located at the intersection of Europe and Asia, Turkey’s Istanbul has a varied mix of religions and ethnicities. Fatih Akin’s Head-On (2004) delicately depicts the struggles and pursuits of local women as they stand between traditional culture and freedom, while Ceylan’s semi-autobiographical Distant (2002) depicts the alienated feelings of urbanites. Iran’s capital Tehran, the most densely populated city of West Asia, went from being part of the Persian empire to being ruled by the Islamic regime of today. Set in the city, both Close-Up (1990) and A Moment of Innocence (1996) reveal the humanistic spirits of Iranian directors that lie behind the dialectic between fiction and reality.
What's Up Connection Critics Choice 2023
120 Minutes
Choice of Eric Tsang:
Part of the boat people community in the fishing village of Po Toi O, Chi Kau-sin (Tse Wai-kit) suddenly wins a free trip to Japan. When he returns home, he realises that he has fallen for a trap set by a multi-national consortium that wants to turn Po Toi O into a commercial centre. To protect their home, the entire Chi family unite to fight the powers that be. As the world had their eyes on Hong Kong on the eve of the 1997 Handover, renowned Japanese indie director Yamamoto Masashi used his signature oddball style to create this unique Hong Kong-Japan co-production. The result is a zany, weird farce that tells a very different kind of good Hong Kong story. Going from the hustle and bustle of Temple Street market to the serenity of Sai Kung’s fishing villages, the film vividly captured the eccentricity of Hong Kong in the middle of its economic boom in the late 80s. Yamamoto has keen observations on the clash between urban development and preservation, while scen
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Berlin: Symphony of a Great City Critics Choice 2023
64 Minutes
Choice of Matthew Cheng:
During the Weimar Republic era between the two World Wars, Berlin was a city of culture and art. In addition to German Expressionist films, there were also avant-garde animation and urban films. This Berlin urban film is the magnum opus of leading German avant-garde director Walter Ruttmann. Split into five acts, the film presents Berlin from day to night, depicting it as a dynamic city as well as a modern industrial and commercial hub. Recording Berlin’s urban landscape, everyday life and mass entertainment before World War II, the film is also a precious historical document that includes the Anhalter Bahnhof train station and Grand Hotel, which were destroyed by the war. The formal beauty of this poetic documentary plays a modern metropolitan symphony, resulting in a masterpiece that is easily comparable to Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929).
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Good By! Lenin Critics Choice 2023
121 Minutes
DIGITALLY RESTORED
Choice of Matthew Cheng:
Time flies. After the last World War came the Cold War. Berlin was divided into East and West, dividing worlds of socialism and capitalism. Wolfgang Becker’s tragicomedy masterpiece starts with an East German mother falling into a coma after she saw her son arrested at a protest. While she slept, the world changed as the Berlin Wall fell, and the two Germanys became one again. After the mother wakes up, the son creates a world in which East Germany is alive and well to avoid sending her into shock, generating moments that will make viewers laugh and cry. Shot on Karl-Marx-Allee and around Alexanderplatz, the film captures Berlin’s historical and rapid transformation. As Western products, Coca Cola and capitalism swarm into East Berlin like a wave, a period of history ends in optimism. It was time to bid farewell to Lenin, but traces of Ostalgie – or the nostalgia for aspects of life in Communist East Germany – remain.
2003 Berlin Internatio
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The Treasure Critics Choice 2023
89 Minutes
Choice of Derek Lam:
Toma's neighbor Adrian has a favor to ask: he's in some money trouble but remembers vaguely that his great-grandfather might have buried some treasure in their family estate before the Communists took power. If Toma can put up the money to hire someone with a professional metal detector, they can all go dig up the treasure and Toma may receive an equal share. Could the adventure allow Toma to play Robin Hood to his young son?
From early successes like 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006) and Police, Adjective (2009), to more recent works like The Whistlers (2019), Corneliu Porumboiu's distinctive brand of deadpan comedy unfolds always as part of a philosophical inquiry into his country's state of affairs and its historical past, however banal or trivial its seeming focus. Here, Toma's treasure hunt takes us on an unexpected tour of Romania's past, reflected by the successive functions of the family estate at different stages of the country's history.
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Distant Critics Choice 2023
110 Minutes
DIGITALLY RESTORED
Choice of Joyce Yang:
Turkey’s Nuri Bilge Ceylan specialises in depicting the emotional black hole that results from clashes between people, as well as those between people and their environments. He has turned his sternness and profoundness into a trademark masterful style. The final instalment of his trilogy of films set in provincial towns, Distant is set in a snow-covered Istanbul as a cold front covers the Bosporus Strait.
Mahmut is a photographer who lives alone. One day, his unemployed cousin Yusuf arrives from the countryside, asking Mahmut for help while he tries to get a job as a sailor. Yusuf’s rural demeanor triggers Mahmut’s sense of urban middle-class superiority. From a condescending perspective, Mahmut looks on from a distance as his cousin mires in failure, unable to change his circumstances. Meanwhile, the camera also sees through Mahmut’s bleak relationships with his ex-wife and his lover. Ceylan’s masterful grip over narrative, camera framing, a
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Close-Up Critics Choice 2023
98 Minutes
Choice of Ernest Chan:
Hossein Sabzian is an unemployed man in Tehran who happens to look like director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. On a whim, he poses as Makhmalbaf to a woman on the bus, but his little white lie snowballs over time. Wanting to know what it feels like to be a director, he tells the woman’s family that he is making a new film and even borrows money from her son. His eventual capture and conviction led to the creation of Abbas Kiarostami’s masterpiece. Not only did Kiarostami get the court’s permission to film the trial, he also convinced everyone involved to play themselves in the dramatic recreation of the case, creating the perfect hybrid of fact and fiction as well as drama and life that ironically fulfills Hossein’s filmmaking dream. The encounter of the real and fake Makhmalbafs is deliberately stuttered to leave room for the imagination. In addition to boldly breaking the boundary between fact and fiction, the film also reflects class differences in Tehran and depicts th
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Head-On Critics Choice 2023
121 Minutes
Choice of Joyce Yang:
How do Turkish immigrants take root in Germany? And how do they find their roots? With intense emotions of rebirth or self-destruction, characters travel through a maze of cultural identity that sits between foreign land and homeland as they cast themselves into an exile of lust and violence. This is the unique wandering soul of Fatih Akin’s films.
Turkish-German widower Cahit has hit rock bottom, spending his days staring down the bottom of a glass. After attempting suicide by crashing his car into a wall, he meets distressed woman Sibel, who wants to enter a sham marriage with him. Barely able to take care of themselves, these two immigrants exploit each other until they discover true love soaked in blood. Yet, there are still far too many hardships ahead of them.
Set in Hamburg, the first half of the film uses dark humor to trace the couple’s encounter, while the Istanbul-set second half turns intense and gloomy as the tragic fate of depravity and self-destr
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