International Harvest [Films about Films]

From the Chicago Reader (November 22, 1996)..– J.R.

Typically British

•

Directed by Mike Dibb and Stephen Frears

Written by Charles Barr and Frears.

2 X 50 Years of French Cinema

Rating **** Masterpiece

Directed and written by Anne-

Marie Mieville and Jean-Luc Godard

With Godard and Michel Piccoli.

I Am Curious, Film

Rating ** Worth seeing

Directed and written by Stig Bjorkman

With Lena Nyman and Bjorn Granath.

100 Years of Japanese Cinema

Rating * Has redeeming facet

Directed and written by

Nagisa Oshima.

Yang + Yin: Gender in Chinese Cinema

***

Directed and written by Stanley Kwan.

To celebrate the “100th anniversary of cinema,” the British Film Institute has commissioned a series of documentaries about national cinemas. Some of them are still being made, but the first 13 are showing at the Film Center as part of a series that started early this month with the three-part A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (excellent) and has continued with documentaries by Sam Neill on New Zealand cinema (witty), by Nelson Pereira dos Santos on Latin American cinema (ambitious but unsuccessful), by Edgar Reitz on German cinema (embarrassing), and by Pawel Lozinski on Polish cinema, realizing an outline by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski (I haven’t seen it). Read more