If you don't like it, you call it old - if you like it, you call it vintage

My blog, my public diary: Here is a list of movies I saw this year at the local filmfest and my level of enjoyment of each.

Closet Monster

by Stephen Dunn | Canada | 2015
* * * * *
Oscar has an enjoyable childhood – until his parents separate and he witnesses an assault on a gay fellow student. Years later, Oscar still has a hard time with his own sexuality, fleeing into his own dream worlds – falling in love with handsome Wilder at work. In his directing debut, Stephen Dunn combines dream and reality in an eclectic mix, featuring Isabella Rossellini as the voice of Oscar’s talking hamster Buffy. Premiered in Toronto, where it took Best Canadian Film.

Aquarius

by Kleber Mendonça Filho | Brazil, France | 2016
* * * * *
Clara (magnificent: Sônia Braga) has lived in the “Aquarius” for years, an upscale 1940s condo in Recife. By now, she’s the last resident: All the other apartments have been bought up by a real estate developer, only Clara refuses to leave the place where she spent her life. This is the place she survived breast cancer and the whole tumultuous history of her country. She wants to avoid being expelled from her memories of affairs, relationships and loss. But she hasn’t counted on the developers’ criminal energy and the corruption of city hall.

Tanna

by Bentley Dean & Martin Butler | Australia, Vanuatu | 2015
* * * * *
TANNA is set in the South Pacific where Wawa, a young girl from one of the last traditional tribes, falls in love with her chief’s grandson, Dain. When an intertribal war escalates, Wawa is unknowingly betrothed as part of a peace deal. The young lovers run away, but are pursued by enemy warriors intent on killing them. They must choose between their hearts and the future of the tribe, while the villagers must wrestle with preserving their traditional culture and adapting it to the increasing outside demands for and performed by the people of Yakel in Vanuatu.

Blood Of My Blood

by Marco Bellocchio | France, Italy, Switzerland | 2015
* * * * *
A monastery in Norther Italian town of Bobbio (where director Marco Bellocchio was born) at the time of the inquisition: A soldier comes to find out why his twin brother took his life. It seems he had relations with a nun they claim is possessed by the devil. The present day: A Russian oligarch wants to buy the property of the monastery to build a luxury hotel on. But he doesn’t realize the present owner is a vampire… Marco Bellocchio’s latest film is a surreal, hypnotic and unique combination of music and imagery, which won the FIPRESCI Award at Venice last year.