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Announcements
UserpicThe Sound of Insects Now Available for Download
Posted by myfilmblog.com
06.01.2011

From The Wall Street Journal: "An experimental narrative... this curious film requires a contemplative mood to really take in. The premise is grim: A man decides to go into the woods, where he will stay until he starves himself to death. Swiss director Peter Liechti adapted the film a novel by Japanese writer Shimada Masahiko. The original work is based on a real-life incident, and the diary kept by a man who followed through with this unusual form of suicide. Observations mundane and profound are related in a low-key narration. For instance: The man lacks a huge appetite for his last unremarkable meal, so he spends his last coins on pinball. Yet, he knows his death will be drawn out, so he stocks his tent with grooming supplies. This ambient meditation certainly isn't for every viewer, but its philosophical tone and embrace of nature make it distinct."

Download to own or watch the film trailer


Very insightful review from Slant Magazine of The Sound of Insects by Diego Costa:

Surprisingly not macabre, this fictionalized record of self-aggrandizement through self-destruction reminds one of Derek Jarman's Blue in its epistolary delivery and its displacement of meaning to that which is never really shown. One can also think of writer Yukio Mishima's seppuku, performance artist Fred Herko's jeté out the window (Andy Warhol was bummed for not having caught the moment of the plunge in a photograph), and the HIV-chasing politics of Guillaume Dustan, who also turned the courting of death into literature through barebacking. But the anonymous suicidal performer mummy in The Sound of Insects  is less interested in the grand finale, more focused on his very shriveling. Still it is death as spectacle, even if a quietly murmured one, that links all of these performers.

Read full review


Announcements
UserpicU.S. Premier of The Sound of Insects at Rubin Museum
Posted by myfilmblog.com
15.12.2010

Winner of the European Film Academy Documentary 2009 award "for its skillful exploration of minimalistic means to create an extraordinary visual story between life and death."

A profound inquiry into the art of representation, Peter Liechti's The Sound of Insects probes the ever-elusive and mystifying line between life and death. The film also blurs the line between documentary and fiction. A hunter in a remote corner of the Austrian wilderness, makes the horrifying discovery of a desiccated human corpse in a makeshift tent deep in the forest. Who was this person? Why did he die? The dead body releases its secrets in a day-by-day account fusing fiction and reality in an unsettling, highly sensory narrative.

Based on the Japanese novel by Shimada Masahiko, which in turn is based on fact.

Craig Blinderman, M.D., chief of the Adult Palliative Medicine Department of Anesthesiology at Columbia University joins poet Paul Muldoon after the screening.

Read more or buy the ticket


Technology
UserpicEarly Adopters Are Willing to Pay for Content
Posted by myfilmblog.com
10.12.2010

There's a spreading sense of optimism in Hollywood regarding young consumers' willingness to pay for digital content: Although members of the so-called Napster generation might be lost forever to a collective addiction to pirated free content, their younger siblings offer digital distributors hope of a brighter business future."You have a whole generation whose attitude toward interactive content is completely different," said Patrick Russo, a principal at the Salter Group advisory firm. "That generation is growing up paying for content. It may be their parents who are actually paying for it right now, but they do recognize that they are paying for content instead of stealing it.

Read the rest on The Hollywood Reporter


Announcements
UserpicBrilliant Moon - Glimpses of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Posted by myfilmblog.com
19.10.2010

Brilliant Moon: Glimpses of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche chronicles the life of the writer, poet, and meditation master Khyentse Rinpoche, one of Tibet’s most revered 20th-century Buddhist teachers. Known as the instructor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Royal Family of Bhutan, his life and teachings were an inspiration to all who encountered him.

Featuring:

Richard Gere and Lou Reed (Narration)
His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Matthieu Ricard
Orgyen Topgyal Rinpoche
Rabjam Rinpoche
Sogyal Rinpoche