a palette of arts & cultures
KINOCaviar
a window to world cinema
On the Screen
Flying High with Buladó Eché Janga Shows Us Curaçao Representing the Netherlands with its submission as Best International Feature Film to the 93rd Academy Awards, Buladó shows us what it means “to take off”—for an 11-year-old girl, her father, her grandfather, and their country. A mythopoetic voice haunts the film in image, color, sound, and music in an old legend from oral history more....
Hubert Sauper’s Epicentro A Utopian Tropical Island? Politically, Cuba stands at the crossroads of capitalism and communism. Historically, it’s been the epicenter of Spanish America as well as the nucleus of US-American expansionism. We ask what its “little prophets” have in store for themselves in this tender portrait of Havana, past and present more...
August at Akiko’s, the Place to Be Hawaiian Independent Cinema What happens when an avant-garde saxophonist meets the Zen practitioner of a Buddhist bed-and-breakfast on the Big Island of Hawaii? Or when three artists—a filmmaker, a musician, and a dancer—find a way to create something new together? Christopher Makoto Yogi shows the way more...
Behind the Scenes
Open Door—Best of the Fest See Albania at SEEfest Los Angeles Director Florenc Papas brings a fresh new breeze over the Hollywood hills with his stunningly artistic debut feature, a road-movie about two sisters that takes in a whole countryside of traditions. Writing, casting, locations, music--he talks about how it all came together more...
Papicha Is a Winner Algeria Then and Now Mounia Meddour’s award-winning first feature takes us right into the middle of Algeria’s Civil War in the 1990s but also to the drafting table of a budding fashion designer who resists wearing the veil. A devout patriot and a champion of self-expression, 18-year-old Nedjma forges her own identity amidst an insurgence of more...
Close-Up on Festivals
Something Blue and Papi at LALIFF Women Directors Wear Many Hats From June 2-6, 2021, the short-but-sweet Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival celebrated its 20th anniversary showcasing women filmmakers from Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S., for example, counting just feature films. Two others were highlights from the Caribbean, the debut features of Mariel García Spooner with her satirical comedy Something Blue made in Panama City and of Noelia Quintero Herencia with her girl’s-day-in-the-life mixed-genre film Papi shot in Santo Domingo. Both directors also wrote their screenplays and cast compelling young actresses who carried their films in nearly every frame, from chase scenes through the capital to star-bound flights of fantasy more…
Antonio Pisu’s Est A Romanian Road Trip, A Journey Within The 16th SEEfest Los Angeles offers fresh eyes on Romania under Ceaucescu from the point of view of three young adventurers from Italy who videotape a country they never imagined and people they hope to help—but can they? A road trip brings lessons for living in any country more…
Kino-Arts in Focus
Angela Hewitt, Piano Bach Odyssey at The Wallis In her debut at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, Angela Hewitt, soloist on the piano, performs a recital of Johann Sebastian Bach’s works, both popular and demanding: Four Duets, Eighteen Little Preludes, Fantasia and Fugue, Italian Concerto, and French Overture, comprising the eleventh recital of twelve that will complete the cycle in June of 2020 more...
Magic, Creatures and Legends A Journey into Nordic Folklore On February 7th and 8th at California Lutheran University in Woodland Hills, the 21st Nordic Spirit Symposium presents lectures and performances by eight invited scholars of Scandinavian culture who investigate and comment on the role of giants and trolls, gnomes and ghosts in mythology, folk lore, paintings, song, and popular culture through the legends and tales of the North collected more…
The Top Shelf
Eric Rohmer's “Six Moral Tales” An American Tribute Tucked away complacently in his Parisian home under the pseudonym “Eric Rohmer,” and noted for spending years without a phone, a car, or even a taxi ride from time to time, but with family, faith, and a firm devotion to nature, cinema, and its related arts, Eric Rohmer presented us with paradoxes more...
The Lady with the Dog Pure Cinema at the Black Sea In 1960 Iosif Heifitz knew that Anton Chekhov’s short stories were really films waiting to happen more…
Digital Releases
It's Winter The
Enigma of Rafi Pitts
It’s not every day that a screenwriter/director who
studied in London and lives in Paris
chooses to more...
Between the Covers
Life Comes to the Screen The Arts of Iran Anyone who has ever doubted that a country like Iran could develop its own film industry should be more...
