Milos Forman

Loves of a Blonde

Home Programme Milos Forman Loves of a Blonde

Credits

Original title :
Lásky jedné plavovlásky
Country :
Tchécoslovaquie
Year :
1965
Director :
Milos Forman
Version :
vostEN
Duration :
81 minutes
Format :
digital | Digital Restoration
Actors :
Hana Brejchová, Vladimír Pucholt, Vladimír Mensík
Awards :
Best Foreign Language Film, Oscars 1967

synopsis

With sixteen women to each man, the odds are against Andula in her desperate search for love – that is, until a rakish piano player visits her small factory town and temporarily eases her longings… 

Loves of a Blonde

Much of Forman’s humour comes from the fact that his characters peer out at the world like timid nocturnal animals, always prepared to defend themselves against attack, but constantly having the ground cut from under their feet by the discovery that people are never quite what they seem at first glance. (…) Using mostly non-professional actors, letting them improvise, then refining, shaping and perfecting, he achieves something indescribably exact, touching and funny.

Time Out

Couched in this seemingly innocuous little gem is a subtle and subversive critique of Stalinism that kept Eastern Europe under the cosh – politically and socially – during the grim 1960s, before the Prague Spring – for a while – put an end to it all.

Filmuforia

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Festival du Cinéma Espagnol de Luxembourg

The Good Luck

Home Programme Festival du Cinéma Espagnol de Luxembourg The Good Luck

Credits

Original title :
La buena suerte
Country :
Espagne
Year :
2025
Director :
Gracia Querejeta
Version :
vostEN
Duration :
90 minutes
Format :
digital
Actors :
Hugo Silva, Megan Montaner, Eva Ugarte Competition, Málaga Film Festival 2025
En collaboration avec le Cercle culturel Espagnol Antonio Machado de Luxembourg

synopsis

Running away from himself, a mysterious and taciturn man in his 50s suddenly gets off a train in a rundown town and decides to settle there. Tormented by the past and his complicated relationship with his son, his present is unsettling, and his prospects are non-existent. Everything changes when he meets a Romanian woman twenty years younger than him, whose innate optimism brings him back the will to live. But family ties are hard to break…

 

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Between Feierdeeg Screenings

Sirât

Home Programme Between Feierdeeg Screenings Sirât

Credits

Country :
Espagne-France 
Year :
2025
Director :
Oliver Laxe
Version :
vostEN
Duration :
115 minutes
Format :
digital 
Actors :
Sergi López, Bruno Núnez
Awards :
Prix du Jury, Cannes 2025
Age classification :
16+

synopsis

Luis travels through southern Morocco with his son, Esteban. They are searching for his daughter, Mar, who disappeared several months earlier during a rave. Guided by fate, they decide to follow a group of ravers on their way to one last party, hoping that Mar will be there.

 
 

Laxe pummels us emotionally and psychologically in ways we can’t predict, and have done little to deserve. To be clear: This is both a heavy caution and a high compliment. Not many movies can trigger your flight instinct while rooting you to your seat.

Variety

Visuel de Sirat

A fever dream in the bleakest sense, Sirât is a wild and apocalyptic epic, mythological in scale but intimate in its story about family.

Screen Rant

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Afternoon Adventures

Le Sommet des dieux

Home Programme Afternoon Adventures Le Sommet des dieux

Credits

Country :
France-Luxembourg 
Year :
2021
Director :
 Patrick Imbert
Version :
vostEN
Duration :
90 minutes
Format :
digital
Awards :
Best Animated Film, César 2022
Age classification :
6+ | Recommandé à partir de 11 ans
📖 Based on the manga by Jirō Taniguchi

synopsis

In Kathmandu, Japanese reporter Fukamachi believes he recognizes Habu Jōji, a mountaineer thought to have disappeared years ago. He appears to be holding a camera that could change the history of mountaineering.

Un discours éminent et profond sur le désir des hommes de surpasser la nature. Un conte philosophique esthétique, réaliste, plein de suspense, qui intéressera par-delà les aficionados des sports alpins.

Bande-à-part.com

Un film d’animation totalement renversant. Avec sa réalisation millimétrée, ses plans incroyables, son design et ses dessins hivernaux et sa musique qui nous transporte, comment ne pas être touché par ce film aux valeurs profondes. A couper le souffle.

Écran Large

Visuel : Le sommet des dieux

What Imbert has done here, some years down the line, may solidify The Summit of the Gods, a work of fiction, as one of the greatest Everest films ever made. If nothing else it’s the Everest film that respects the mountain best.

The Playlist

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Ciné-Théâtre

Le Dernier métro

Home Programme Ciné-Théâtre Le Dernier métro

Credits

Original title :
The Last Metro
Country :
France
Year :
1980
Director :
François Truffaut
Version :
vostEN
Duration :
131 minutes
Format :
digital
Actors :
Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Jean Poiret, Andréa Ferréol
Awards :
10 wins inclusding Best Film, César 1981; nominee Best Foreign Language Film, Oscars 1981

synopsis

Paris, September 1942. Lucas Steiner, the director of the Montmartre Theatre, has been forced to flee because he is Jewish. His wife, Marion, takes over the theatre and hires Bernard Granger to perform alongside her. Until opening night, the troupe faces the threats of a fierce and hostile critic…

Toutes les qualités qui caractérisent le cinéma de François Truffaut. Rigueur de la mise en scène, perfection tant du découpage que du montage, scénario chevillé et dialogues dont chaque mot est essentiel.

Le Parisien

Visuel : Le dernier métro

A romantic delight: a full-bodied, gentle, passionate cross between Casablanca and Day for Night. It is also an inspiring (but not preachy) indictment of anti-Jewish and anti-homosexual cruelty.

Washington Blade

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Classics Before Christmas

Le Père Noël a des yeux bleus

Home Programme Classics Before Christmas Le Père Noël a des yeux bleus

Credits

Country :
France
Year :
1966
Director :
Jean Eustache
Version :
vostEN
Duration :
47 minutes
Format :
digital | 4K Restoration
Actors :
Jean-Pierre Léaud, Gérard Zimmerman, Henri Martinez, René Gilson, Michele Maynard

synopsis

Daniel needs money to buy a fashionable duffle coat, so he agrees to work for a photographer dressed as Santa Claus. He discovers that it’s much easier to meet girls when he’s wearing the costume.

Visuel : Le Père Noël a des yeux bleus

Santa Claus Has Blues Eyes is a great film. It isn’t long at all, packing an emotional punch and providing a great story in under an hour. The performances are natural and fascinating, and overall, it is a great piece of social commentary.

The Wrap

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Japan’s Golden Age of Cinema

The Life of Oharu

Home Programme Japan’s Golden Age of Cinema The Life of Oharu

Credits

Original title :
Saikaku ichidai onna
Country :
Japon
Director :
Kenji Mizoguchi 
Version :
vostEN
Duration :
136 minutes
Format :
digital
Actors :
Kinuyo Tanaka, Toshiro Mifune, Hisako Yamane, Jukichi Uno
Awards :
Competition, Venice Film Festival 1932
In collaboration with the Japan Foundation and the Japanese Embassy in Luxembourg

synopsis

In feudal Japan, Oharu, the daughter of royal samurai Shinzaemon, secretly has a passionate romance with Katsunosuke, a man with a low social standing. When they are found out, Katsunosuke is put to death and Oharu and her family are banished from the kingdom. Destitute and disgraced, Shinzaemon sells Oharu into prostitution, and she spends years searching for love.

Mizoguchi’s limpid heartbreaker is also a fierce denunciation of the subjugation of women, the power of wealth, and Japan’s unjust though splendid traditions.

The New Yorker

The Holy Grail of Japanese Cinema. This portrait of a 17th-century woman’s repeated humiliation by her patriarchal society is devastating from beginning to end, but its genius is not so much Mizoguchi’s caustic criticism of a money-obsessed society’s refusal to acknowledge its accountability for her degradation, but that Mizoguchi uses Oharu’s life to peel back the layers of the physical self and reveal the soul that lies bruised beneath.

Slant Magazine

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Japan’s Golden Age of Cinema

Carmen Comes Home

Home Programme Japan’s Golden Age of Cinema Carmen Comes Home

Credits

Original title :
Karumen kokyo ni kaeru
Country :
Japon
Year :
1954
Director :
Keisuke Kinoshita 
Version :
vostEN
Duration :
86 minutes
Format :
digital 
Actors :
Hidelo Takamine, Shuji Sano, Chishu Ryu, Kuniko Igawa
In collaboration with the Japan Foundation and the Japanese Embassy in Luxembourg

synopsis

Japan’s First Feature in Colour 

A musical comedy about a free-spirited woman named Carmen, who returns to her rural hometown after living in Tokyo as an exotic dancer. Upon arrival, her conservative family and the small town’s residents are shocked by her modern, independent lifestyle and unconventional choices.

Kinoshita’s seemingly disparate fusion of effervescent comedy and subversive satire is particularly evident in this first, all-color Japanese feature. Filmed in 1952 at the end of American occupation, Kinoshita presents a thoughtful, humorous, and (still) relevant commentary on the legacy of cultural imperialism enabled by the Occupation. Within this framework, the tongue-in-cheek characterization of a naïve, scatterbrained heroine serves as an acerbic metaphor for the nation’s collective amnesia in the aftermath of the Pacific War.

Strictly Film School

It is this contrast, of boisterousness and serenity, of the modern and the traditional, of liberalism and conservatism, that best sums up Kinoshita’s film. In the larger scheme of things, the film’s existence in colour, amongst a sea of black-and-white movies at the time of its release, also parallels this notion of contrast.

Filmnomenon

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Japan’s Golden Age of Cinema

A Story from Chikamatsu

Home Programme Japan’s Golden Age of Cinema A Story from Chikamatsu

Credits

Original title :
(The Crucified Lovers) Chikamatsu monogatari
Country :
Japon 
Year :
1954
Director :
Kenji Mizoguchi
Version :
vostEN
Duration :
102 minutes
Format :
digital | 4k Restoration
Actors :
Kazuo Hasegawa, Kyoko Kagawa, Yoko Minamida, Eitaro Shindo
Awards :
Compétition, Festival de Cannes 1955
In collaboration with the Japan Foundation and the Japanese Embassy in Luxembourg

synopsis

In Edo-period Japan, Ishun flourishes in business but remains stingy and cruel, often mistreating his wife, Osan. When her brother desperately needs money, Osan teams up with Ishun’s employee, Mohei, and steals the sum from her husband. After Ishun learns of the theft, he accuses Osan and Mohei of having an affair – an act then punishable by crucifixion. Ironically, the pair flee together and become lovers on the lam. But Ishun’s men aren’t far behind…

Condenses a vast array of injustices – as well as an extraordinary romantic power – into its teeming action. Mizoguchi builds the drama on such underlying pathologies as the sexual harassment of a female worker, the martial cruelty of the samurai class, and a repressive moralism that treats women like property. The tale morphs into a hectic, passionate flight for freedom as the protagonists try to save their own lives and, in the process, discover their love for each other; Mizoguchi films their devotion unto death with a fiercely defiant exaltation.

The New Yorker

Here is the rare Japanese period film of its era that also explicitly recognizes the double standards of sexual morality between the sexes.

The Retro Set

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Japan’s Golden Age of Cinema

Tokyo Story

Home Programme Japan’s Golden Age of Cinema Tokyo Story

Credits

Original title :
Tokyo monogatari 
Country :
Japon
Year :
1953
Director :
Yasujiro Ozu
Version :
vostEN
Duration :
136 minutes
Format :
digital
Actors :
Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara, Haruko Sugimara
Awards :
#4 in the Sight and Sound poll of The Greatest Films of All Time, 2022
In collaboration with the Japan Foundation and the Japanese Embassy in Luxembourg

synopsis

An elderly take couple from a small village go to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their son, a doctor, and their daughter, a hairdresser, don’t have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to the widow of their younger son, who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

 

 

 

In this exquisite merging of specific and universal, infinite and infinitesimal, Tokyo Story perhaps most clearly illuminates that Ozu is not the most Japanese of filmmakers, but the most human.

Slant Magazine

The already towering reputation of this film and its director continues only to grow.

The Guardian

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