My Top 100 Directors of All Time
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Apichatpong Weerasethakul (b. 1970, Bangkok) grew up in Khon Kaen, a city in the north east of Thailand. He has a degree in Architecture from Khon Kaen University and a Master of Fine Arts in Filmmaking from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has been making films and videos since the early 90s. He is one of the few filmmakers in Thailand who have worked outside the strict Thai studio system. In his films, he experiments with certain elements found in the dramatic plot structure of Thai television and radio programs, comics and old films. He finds his inspiration in small towns around the country. In his work, he often uses non-professional actors and improvised dialogue in exploring the shifting boundaries between documentary and fiction.
In 2000, he completed his first feature, Mysterious Object at Noon (2000), a documentary that has been screened at many international festivals and received enthusiastic reviews and awards as well as being listed among the best films of the year 2000 by Film Comment and the Village Voice. He is active in promoting experimental and independent films through Kick the Machine, the company he founded in 1999. He is currently working on several video projects and a new feature, Tropical Malady.Thai
My Top:
Movie:
1. Tropical Malady 10/10
2. Cemetery of Splendor 10/10
3. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives 10/10
4. Memoria 10/10
5. Blissfully Yours 8/10
6. Syndromes and a Century 8/10
7. Mekong Hotel 8/10
8. Haunted Houses
Short Films and Installations:
1. Phantoms of Nabua 8/10
2. Ashes 7/10
3. A Letter to Uncle Boonmee 7/10
4. Worldly Desires 7/10
5. Empire 7/10
6. Cactus River 7/10
7. The Anthem 6/10
8. Thirdworld 5/10
9. Sakda 5/10
10. Haiku 4/10
Anthology:
1. State of the World 8/10
2. Stories on Human Rights 7/10
3. Ten Years Thailand 7/10
4. Venice 70: Future Reloaded 7/10
5. The Adventures of Iron Pussy 5/10
Documentary:
1. Mysterious Object at Noon 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 57: 1 Documentary; 10 Anthology; 36 Short; 8 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
A true master of his craft, Michael Haneke is one of the greatest film artists working today and one who challenges his viewers each year and work goes by, with films that reflect real portions of life in realistic, disturbing and unforgettable ways. One of the most genuine filmmakers of the world cinema, Haneke wrote and directed films in several languages: French, German and English, working with a great variety of actors, such as Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Toby Jones, Ülrich Muhe, Arno Frisch and the list goes on.
This grand figure from Austrian cinema was born in Germany on 23 March 1942, from a German father and an Austrian mother, with both parents being from the artistic world working as actors, a career that Michael also tried but without much success. At the University of Vienna he studied drama, philosophy and psychology, and after graduation he went on to become a film critic and TV editor. His career behind camera started with After Liverpool (1974), which he wrote and directed. He went on to direct five more TV films and two episodes from the miniseries "Lemminge" (1979)_.
The years spent on television works prompted him to finally direct his first cinema feature, during his early 40's, which is somewhat unusual for film directors. But it was worth waiting. In The Seventh Continent (1989), Haneke establishes the foundation of what his future cinema would be about: a cinema that doesn't provides answers but one that dares to throw more and more questions, a cinema that reflects and analyses the human condition in its darkest and unexpected ways outside of any Hollywood formula. Films that exist to confront audiences and not comfort them. In it, Haneke deals with the duality of social values vs. internal values while exposing an apparent perfect family that runs into physical and material disintegration for reasons unknown. It was the first time a film of his was sent to the Cannes Film Festival (out of competition lineup) but he managed to cause some commotion in the audience with polemic scenes that were meant to extract all possible reactions from the crowd.
His next ventures at the decade's turn was in dealing with disturbed youth and the alienation they have in separating reality from fiction, trying to intersect both to drastic results. In Benny's Video (1992), it's the disturbing story of a teen boy who experiences killing for the first time capturing the murder on tape, impressed by the power of detachment that films and videos can cause to people; and later on the highly controversial Funny Games (1997), where two teens hold a family hostage to play sadistic games just for their own sick amusement. The film cemented Haneke's name as one of the greatest authors of his generation but sparkled a great debate with its themes of violence, sadism and the influence those things have in audiences. At the 1997's Cannes Film Festival, it was the film that had the most walk-out's by the audience. In between both films, he released 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994) and Kafka's The Castle (1997), the latter being one of the rare times when Haneke developed an adapted work.
In the 2000's, he strongly continued in producing more outstanding works prone to debate and reflection in what would become his most prolific decade with the following films: Code Unknown (2000), The Piano Teacher (2001), Time of the Wolf (2003), Caché (2005), an American remake shot-by shot of Funny Games (2007) and The White Ribbon (2009). His study about romance versus masochism in The Piano Teacher (2001) was an intense work, with powerful performances by Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Magimel, that the Cannes jury in the year were so impressed that Haneke managed to actually reverse their award rules where it was decided that film entries at the festival couldn't win more than one main award (the two lead actors won awards and Haneke got the Grand Prize of the Jury, just lost the Palme d'Or). With The White Ribbon (2009), an enigmatic black-and-white masterpiece following the inception of Nazism in this pre WWI and WWII story focusing on repressed children living in this small village where strange events happen all the time and without any possible reasoning, Haneke conquered the world and audiences with an artistic and daring work that won his first Palme d'Or a Golden Globe as Best Foreign Language Film and received an Oscar nomination for the same category plus the cinematography work of Christian Berger.
2012 was the year that marked his supremacy in the film world with the release of the bold and beautiful Amour (2012), a love story with powerful real drama and one where Haneke removed most of his usual dark characteristics to present more quiet and calm elements without losing input in creating controversy. The touching story of George and Anne provided one the greatest moments of that year and earned Haneke his second and consecutive Palme d'Or at Cannes and his first Oscar nominations for Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay - and it was one of the several nominees for Best Picture Oscar, winning as Best Foreign Language Film.
After abandoning a flash-mob film project, he returned to the screen with Happy End (2017), a film dealing with the refugee crisis in Europe and again he debuted his film at Cannes, receiving mildly positive reviews.
Besides his film work, Haneke also directs theatre productions, from drama to opera, from Così fan tutte to Don Giovanni.Austrian
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Piano Teacher 10/10
2. Funny Games 1997 10/10
3. The Seventh Continent 10/10
4. The White Ribbon 10/10
5. Caché 10/10
6. Amour 9/10
7. Happy End 9/10
8. 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance 9/10
9. Benny's Video 8/10
10. Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys 7/10
11. Time of the Wolf 7/10
12. Funny Games 2007 7/10
TV Movie:
1. The Castle 6/10
Cinema Ribbon 24: 1 Anthology; 1 TV Mini-Series; 10 TV Movie; 12 Movie.- Producer
- Director
- Additional Crew
Béla Tarr was born on 21 July 1955 in Pécs, Hungary. He is a producer and director, known for Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), The Turin Horse (2011) and Satantango (1994). He is married to Ágnes Hranitzky.Hungarian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Satantango 10/10
2. The Turin Horse 10/10
3. Damnation 10/10
4. Werckmeister Harmonies 10/10
5. Family Nest 10/10
6. The Man from London 8/10
7. Almanac of Fall 8/10
8. The Prefab People 7/10
9. The Outsider
Short:
1. Hotel Magnezit 7/10
2. Journey on the Plain 7/10
Anthology:
1. Visions of Europe 6/10
TV Movie:
1. Macbeth 6/10
Cinema Ribbon 15: 1 Documentary; 1 Anthology; 1 TV Movie; 3 Short; 9 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Born in Kuching, Malaysia, he graduated from the Drama and Cinema Department of the Chinese Cultural University of Taiwan and worked as a theatrical producer and TV director. His second feature film, Vive L'Amour (1994), won the Golden Lion (best picture) at the 1994 Venice Film Festival. His idiosyncratic oeuvre continues to enthrall audiences worldwide.Taiwanese
My Top:
Movie:
1. Vive L'Amour 10/10
2. The Hole 10/10
3. I Don't Want to Sleep Alone 10/10
4. The Wayward Cloud 10/10
5. Rebels of the Neon God 8/10
6. The River 8/10
7. What Time Is It There? 8/10
8. Stray Dogs 8/10
9. Journey to the West 8/10
10. Good Bye, Dragon Inn 7/10
11. Face 6/10
12. The Deserted: VR (2017)
13. Boys
Short:
1. No No Sleep 7/10
2. The Skywalk Is Gone 7/10
3. A Conversation with God 7/10
4. Walker 6/10
5. Xiao Kang 5/10
Anthology:
1. To Each His Own Cinema 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 32: 2 TV Movie; 3 Documentary; 3 Anthology; 11 Short; 13 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Probably the most ambitious and visually distinctive filmmaker to emerge from Denmark since Carl Theodor Dreyer over 60 years earlier, Lars von Trier studied film at the Danish Film School and attracted international attention with his very first feature, The Element of Crime (1984). A highly distinctive blend of film noir and German Expressionism with stylistic nods to Dreyer, Andrei Tarkovsky and Orson Welles, its combination of yellow-tinted monochrome cinematography (pierced by shafts of blue light) and doom-haunted atmosphere made it an unforgettable visual experience. His subsequent features Epidemic (1987) and Europa (1991) have been equally ambitious both thematically and visually, though his international fame is most likely to be based on The Kingdom (1994), a TV soap opera blending hospital drama, ghost story and Twin Peaks (1990)-style surrealism that was so successful in Denmark that it was released internationally as a 280-minute theatrical feature.Danish
My Top:
Movie:
1. Breaking the Waves 10/10
2. Dancer in the Dark 10/10
3. Dogville 10/10
4. Melancholia 10/10
5. Antichrist 10/10
6. The House That Jack Built 10/10
7. Nymphomaniac: Vol. I 10/10
8. Nymphomaniac: Vol. II 10/10
9. Europa 9/10
10. Manderlay 8/10
11. The Element of Crime 6/10
12. The Idiots 6/10
13. The Boss of It All 6/10
14. Epidemic 6/10
15. Befrielsesbilleder 5/10
Short:
1. A Flower 7/10
2. Dogville: The Pilot 7/10
3. Nocturne 6/10
4. The Trip to Squash Land 6/10
5. Why Try to Escape from Which You Know You Can't Escape from? Because You Are a Coward 5/10
6. Good Night, Dea 4/10
7. The Orchid Gardener 4/10
TV Movie:
1. Medea 10/10
2. D-dag 4/10
3. D-dag - Den færdige film 3/10
4. D-dag - Lise 3/10
Anthology:
1. The Five Obstructions 8/10
2. To Each His Own Cinema 7/10
TV Mini-Series:
1. The Kingdom 10/10
Cinema Ribbon 35: 1 TV Mini-Series; 1 TV Series; 2 Anthology; 4 TV Movie; 12 Short; 15 Movie.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Carlos Reygadas was born on 10 October 1971 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He is a producer and director, known for Silent Light (2007), Japan (2002) and Post Tenebras Lux (2012). He is married to Natalia López.Mexican
My Top:
Movie:
1. Silent Light 10/10
2. Post Tenebras Lux 10/10
3. Japón 9/10
4. Battle in Heaven 8/10
5. Our Time 5/10
6. Serenghetti (No Info)
Short:
1. Maxhumain 6/10
Anthology:
1. Revolución 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 13: 1 Documentary; 2 Anthology; 4 Short; 6 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Naomi Kawase was born on 30 May 1969 in Nara, Japan. She is a director and writer, known for Sweet Bean (2015), Still the Water (2014) and Suzaku (1997). She was previously married to Takenori Sentô.Japanese
My Top:
Movie:
1. Suzaku 10/10
2. Hanezu 10/10
3. Sweet Bean 10/10
4. The Mourning Forest 9/10
5. Radiance 9/10
6. Shara 8/10
7. Nanayo 8/10
8. Still the Water 8/10
9. Firefly
Documentary:
1. Embracing 10/10
2. Katatsumori 10/10
3. Sun on the Horizon 8/10
4. Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth 8/10
5. Letter from a Yellow Cherry Blossom 8/10
6. The Weald 8/10
7. Mangekyô 7/10
8. See Heaven 7/10
Short:
1. The Vampire Lives in Our Next Door 6/10
Anthology:
1. Visitors 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 29: 3 Short; 2 Anthology; 14 Documentary; 10 Movie.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Lee Chang-Dong was born in 1954 in Daegu, which some consider the most right-wing city in South Korea. Lee is a former high-school teacher and an acclaimed novelist. He turned to cinema when he was over 40 years old. His debut film "Green Fish" (1997) brought immediate success and critical acclaim. "Peppermint Candy" (2000), seemingly having the same 'lost innocence' theme as his former work, shoots fiery criticisms against the still-powerful remnants of the Korean military dictatorship regime. With "Oasis" (2002) Lee received countless awards, including the Special Director's Award at the Venice Film Festival. Since 2003, Lee worked as the Minister of Culture in the newly elected liberal national government.South Korean
My Top:
Movie:
1. Poetry 10/10
2. Oasis 10/10
3. Burning 9/10
4. Secret Sunshine 8/10
5. Peppermint Candy 6/10
6. Green Fish 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 6: 6 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
The most internationally acclaimed Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel was born in a small town (Calzada de Calatrava) in the impoverished Spanish region of La Mancha. He arrived in Madrid in 1968, and survived by selling used items in the flea-market called El Rastro. Almodóvar couldn't study filmmaking because he didn't have the money to afford it. Besides, the filmmaking schools were closed in early 70s by Franco's government. Instead, he found a job in the Spanish phone company and saved his salary to buy a Super 8 camera. From 1972 to 1978, he devoted himself to make short films with the help of of his friends. The "premieres" of those early films were famous in the rapidly growing world of the Spanish counter-culture. In few years, Almodóvar became a star of "La Movida", the pop cultural movement of late 70s Madrid. His first feature film, Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom (1980), was made in 16 mm and blown-up to 35 mm for public release. In 1987, he and his brother Agustín Almodóvar established their own production company: El Deseo, S. A. The "Almodóvar phenomenon" has reached all over the world, making his films very popular in many countries.Spanish
My Top:
Movie:
1. All About My Mother 10/10
2. Volver 10/10
3. Talk to Her 10/10
4. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown 10/10
5. Pain and Glory 10/10
6. The Skin I Live In 10/10
7. What Have I Done to Deserve This? 10/10
8. The Flower of My Secret 10/10
9. Julieta 9/10
10. High Heels 9/10
11. Matador 9/10
12. Dark Habits 9/10
13. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! 9/10
14. Broken Embraces 8/10
15. Bad Education 8/10
16. Live Flesh 8/10
17. Kika 7/10
18. Law of Desire 7/10
19. Labyrinth of Passion 6/10
20. Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom 6/10
21. I'm So Excited! 5/10
22. Folle... folle... fólleme Tim! (Unpublished)
Short:
1. Tráiler para amantes de lo prohibido 8/10
2. The Cannibalistic Councillor 8/10
3. Salomé 6/10
Cinema Ribbon 36: 14 Short; 22 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Hong Sang-soo was born on 25 October 1960 in Seoul, Korea. He is a director and writer, known for Right Now, Wrong Then (2015), Night and Day (2008) and The Woman Who Ran (2020).South Korean
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Power of Kangwon Province 10/10
2. Hahaha 10/10
3. In Front of Your Face 10/10
4. The Woman Who Ran 10/10
5. On the Beach at Night Alone 9/10
6. The Novelist's Film 9/10
7. The Day After 8/10
8. Woman on the Beach 8/10
9. Like You Know It All 8/10
10. Claire's Camera 8/10
11. In Another Country 8/10
12. Nobody's Daughter Haewon 8/10
13. Turning Gate 8/10
14. Right Now, Wrong Then 7/10
15. Night and Day 7/10
16. Our Sunhi 7/10
17. Hill of Freedom 7/10
18. Hotel by the River 7/10
19. Grass 6/10
20. Yourself and Yours 6/10
21. Oki's Movie 6/10
22. Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors 5/10
23. The Day He Arrives 5/10
24. Tale of Cinema 5/10
25. The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well 5/10
26. Woman Is the Future of Man 5/10
27. Introduction 2021
28. Walk Up 2022
29. In Our Day 2023
30. In Water 2023
Documentary:
1. 1. Venice 70: Future Reloaded 7/10
Anthology:
1. Visitors 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 36: 1 Anthology; 1 Documentary; 4 Short; 30 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Composer
Is the son of a Spanish mother and a Chilean father. His family moved back to Spain when he was 1 year old, and he grew up and studied in Madrid. He wrote, produced and directed his first short film La cabeza at the age of 19, and he was 23 when he directed his feature debut Thesis (1996). His film Open Your Eyes (1997) was a huge success in Spain and was distributed worldwide. It was remade in Hollywood by Cameron Crowe as Vanilla Sky (2001), starring Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz (also the star of the original version) and Cameron Diaz. The Others (2001) is Amenábar's first English language film.Spanish
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Others 10/10
2. The Sea Inside 10/10
3. Agora 10/10
4. Tesis 8/10
5. Open Your Eyes 8/10
6. Regression 5/10
7. While at War 4/10
Short:
1. Nancys Rubias: Me encanta (I Love It) 6/10
2. Vale 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 13: 1 TV Series; 5 Short; 7 Movie.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Park Chan-wook was born on 23 August 1963 in Seoul, South Korea. He is a producer and writer, known for Oldboy (2003), The Handmaiden (2016) and Decision to Leave (2022). He is married to Eun-hee Kim. They have one child.South Korean
My Top:
Movie:
1. Lady Vengeance 10/10
2. The Handmaiden 10/10
3. I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK 9/10
4. Stoker 9/10
5. Oldboy 8/10
6. Decision To Leave 8/10
7. J.S.A.: Joint Security Area 8/10
8. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance 7/10
9. Thirst 5/10
10. Moon Is the Sun's Dream
11. Saminjo
Short:
1. Judgement 10/10
2. Night Fishing 7/10
3. A Rose Reborn 5/10
Anthology:
1. Three... Extremes 9/10
2. If You Were Me 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 22: 1 Documentary; 2 TV Series; 3 Anthology; 5 Short; 11 Movie.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Nuri Bilge Ceylan was born in Istanbul on January 26th, 1959. In 1976, he began studying chemical engineering at Istanbul Technical University, in a context of strong student unrest, boycotts and political polarization. In 1978, he switched courses to Electrical Engineering at Bogazici University. There, he developed a strong interest in image, entering the photography club at the university. This is also where he fed his taste for visual arts and classical music, by means of the vast resources of the faculty librarians. He also began to take film classes and attend screenings at the Film Society, which reinforced his love of cinema, born years earlier in the dark rooms of the Istanbul Cinematheque. After his 1985 Graduation, he traveled to London and Kathmandu, which allowed him to take the opportunity to reflect upon his future. He returned to Turkey for his 18 months military service and at that moment decided to dedicate his life to cinema. Thereafter, he studied film at the University Mimar Sinan, and worked as a professional photographer to make a living. After 2 years, he decided to abandon his studies to practice. He started with acting, in a short film directed by his friend Mehmet Eryilmaz, while helping with the technical production process. In late 1993, he began shooting his first short film, Koza. The film was screened at Cannes in May 1995 and became the first Turkish short film to be selected for competition. Three full-length feature films followed -the "provincial trilogy": Kasaba (1997), Mayis Sikintisi (1999) and Uzak (2002). In all of these films, Ceylan took on just about every technical role himself: the cinematography, sound design, production, editing, writing and direction. Uzak won the Grand Prix and Best Actor (for the two main actors) in Cannes in 2003, making Ceylan an internationally recognized director. Continuing his tour of festivals after Cannes, Uzak won no less than 47 awards, including 23 international prizes, and thus became the most awarded film in the history of Turkish cinema. His subsequent films were all awarded at Cannes : Iklimler won the FIPRESCI Prize in 2006, Üç Maymun won Best Director in 2008 and Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da won the Grand Prix in 2011. In 2014, his seventh feature film Kis Uykusu won the Palme d'Or as well as the FIPRESCI prize.Turkish
My Top:
Movie:
1. Winter Sleep 10/10
2. The Town 10/10
3. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia 9/10
4. The Wild Pear Tree 9/10
5. Distant 8/10
6. Three Monkeys 8/10
7. Clouds of May 8/10
8. Climates 7/10
Short:
1. Cocoon 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 10: 1 Short; 1 Documentary; 8 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Lisandro Alonso was born on 2 June 1975 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a director and writer, known for La libertad (2001), Los Muertos (2004) and Jauja (2014).Argentinian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Fantasma 10/10
2. Liverpool 10/10
3. The Dead 9/10
4. Freedom 8/10
5. Jauja 7/10
Short:
1. Dos en la vereda 5/10
2. Lechuza 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 8: 3 Short; 5 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Mike Leigh is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter and playwright. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and further at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Technique. He began his career as a theatre director and playwright in the mid-1960s, before transitioning to making televised plays and films for BBC Television in the 1970s and '80s. Leigh is known for his lengthy rehearsal and improvisation techniques with actors to build characters and narrative for his films. His purpose is to capture reality and present "emotional, subjective, intuitive, instinctive, vulnerable films." His films and stage plays, according to critic Michael Coveney, "comprise a distinctive, homogenous body of work which stands comparison with anyone's in the British theatre and cinema over the same period."
Leigh's most notable works include the black comedy-drama Naked (1993), for which he won the Best Director Award at Cannes, the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA- and Palme d'Or-winning drama Secrets & Lies (1996), the Golden Lion-winning working-class drama Vera Drake (2004), and the Palme d'Or-nominated biopic Mr. Turner (2014). Other well-known films include the comedy-dramas Life Is Sweet (1990) Meantime (1983) and Career Girls (1997), the Gilbert and Sullivan biographical film Topsy-Turvy (1999) and the bleak working-class drama All or Nothing (2002). He won great success with American audiences with the female led films, Vera Drake (2004) starring Imelda Staunton, Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) with Sally Hawkins, the family drama Another Year (2010), and the historical drama Peterloo (2018). His stage plays include Smelling A Rat, It's A Great Big Shame, Greek Tragedy, Goose-Pimples, Ecstasy and Abigail's Party.
Leigh has helped to create stars - Liz Smith in Hard Labour, Alison Steadman in Abigail's Party, Brenda Blethyn in Grown-Ups, Antony Sher in Goose-Pimples, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth in Meantime, Jane Horrocks in Life is Sweet, David Thewlis in Naked - and remarked that the list of actors who have worked with him over the years - including Paul Jesson, Phil Daniels, Lindsay Duncan, Lesley Sharp, Kathy Burke, Stephen Rea, Julie Walters - "comprises an impressive, almost representative, nucleus of outstanding British acting talent." His aesthetic has been compared to the sensibility of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu and the Italian Federico Fellini. Ian Buruma, writing in The New York Review of Books in January 1994, commented: "It is hard to get on a London bus or listen to the people at the next table in a cafeteria without thinking of Mike Leigh. Like other original artists, he has staked out his own territory. Leigh's London is as distinctive as Fellini's Rome or Ozu's Tokyo."
Leigh was born to Phyllis Pauline (née Cousin) and Alfred Abraham Leigh, a doctor. Leigh was born at Brocket Hall in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, which was at that time a maternity home. His mother, in her confinement, went to stay with her parents in Hertfordshire for comfort and support while her husband was serving as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Leigh was brought up in the Broughton area of Salford, Lancashire. He attended North Grecian Street Junior School. He is from a Jewish family; his paternal grandparents were Russian-Jewish immigrants who settled in Manchester. The family name, originally Lieberman, had been anglicised in 1939 "for obvious reasons". When the war ended, Leigh's father began his career as a general practitioner in Higher Broughton, "the epicentre of Leigh's youngest years and the area memorialised in Hard Labour." Leigh went to Salford Grammar School, as did the director Les Blair, his friend, who produced Leigh's first feature film Bleak Moments (1971). There was a strong tradition of drama in the all-boys school, and an English master, Mr Nutter, supplied the library with newly published plays.
Outside school Leigh thrived in the Manchester branch of Labour Zionist youth movement Habonim. In the late 1950s he attended summer camps and winter activities over the Christmas break all-round the country. Throughout this time the most important part of his artistic consumption was cinema, although this was supplemented by his discovery of Picasso, Surrealism, The Goon Show, and even family visits to the Hallé Orchestra and the D'Oyly Carte. His father, however, was deeply opposed to the idea that Leigh might become an artist or an actor. He forbade him his frequent habit of sketching visitors who came to the house and regarded him as a problem child because of his creative interests. In 1960, "to his utter astonishment", he won a scholarship to RADA. Initially trained as an actor at RADA, Leigh started to hone his directing skills at East 15 Acting School where he met the actress, Alison Steadman.
Leigh responded negatively to RADA's agenda, found himself being taught how to "laugh, cry and snog" for weekly rep purposes and so became a sullen student. He later attended Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts (in 1963), the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Technique on Charlotte Street. When he had arrived in London, one of the first films he had seen was Shadows (1959), an improvised film by John Cassavetes, in which a cast of unknowns was observed 'living, loving and bickering' on the streets of New York and Leigh had "felt it might be possible to create complete plays from scratch with a group of actors." Other influences from this time included Harold Pinter's The Caretaker-"Leigh was mesmerised by the play and the (Arts Theatre) production"- Samuel Beckett, whose novels he read avidly, and the writing of Flann O'Brien, whose "tragi-comedy" Leigh found particularly appealing. Influential and important productions he saw in this period included Beckett's Endgame, Peter Brook's King Lear and in 1965 Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade, a production developed through improvisations, the actors having based their characterisations on people they had visited in a mental hospital. The visual worlds of Ronald Searle, George Grosz, Picasso, and William Hogarth exerted another kind of influence. He played small roles in several British films in the early 1960s, (West 11, Two Left Feet) and played a young deaf-mute, interrogated by Rupert Davies, in the BBC Television series Maigret. In 1964-65, he collaborated with David Halliwell, and designed and directed the first production of Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs at the Unity Theatre.
Leigh has been described as "a gifted cartoonist ... a northerner who came south, slightly chippy, fiercely proud (and critical) of his roots and Jewish background; and he is a child of the 1960s and of the explosion of interest in the European cinema and the possibilities of television."
Leigh has cited Jean Renoir and Satyajit Ray among his favourite film makers. In addition to those two, in an interview recorded at the National Film Theatre at the BFI on 17 March 1991; Leigh also cited Frank Capra, Fritz Lang, Yasujiro Ozu and even Jean-Luc Godard, "...until the late 60s." When pressed for British influences, in that interview, he referred to the Ealing comedies "...despite their unconsciously patronizing way of portraying working-class people" and the early 60s British New Wave films. When asked for his favorite comedies, he replied, One, Two, Three, La règle du jeu and "any Keaton". The critic David Thomson has written that, with the camera work in his films characterised by 'a detached, medical watchfulness', Leigh's aesthetic may justly be compared to the sensibility of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. Michael Coveney: "The cramped domestic interiors of Ozu find many echoes in Leigh's scenes on stairways and in corridors and on landings, especially in Grown-Ups, Meantime and Naked. And two wonderful little episodes in Ozu's Tokyo Story, in a hairdressing salon and a bar, must have been in Leigh's subconscious memory when he made The Short and Curlie's (1987), one of his most devastatingly funny pieces of work and the pub scene in Life is Sweet..."English
My Top:
Movie:
1. Naked 10/10
2. Secrets & Lies 10/10
3. Career Girls 10/10
4. Another Year 10/10
5. All or Nothing 9/10
6. High Hopes 9/10
7. Peterloo 9/10
8. Vera Drake 8/10
9. Happy-Go-Lucky 8/10
10. Life Is Sweet 7/10
11. Mr. Turner 7/10
12. Topsy-Turvy 6/10
13. Bleak Moments 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 24: 3 Short; 3 TV Movie; 5 TV Series; 13 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Director. Writer. Producer. Actor. Poet. He studied history, literature and theatre for some time, but didn't finish it and founded instead his own film production company in 1963. Later in his life, Herzog also staged several operas in Bayreuth, Germany, and at the Milan Scala in Italy. Herzog has won numerous national and international awards for his poetic feature and documentary films.German
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser 10/10
2. Fitzcarraldo 9/10
3. Stroszek 9/10
4. Nosferatu the Vampyre 8/10
5. Woyzeck 8/10
6. Where the Green Ants Dream 7/10
7. Cobra Verde 7/10
8. Heart of Glass 7/10
9. Queen of the Desert 7/10
10. Aguirre, the Wrath of God 6/10
11. Theatre of Thought (2022)
12. Rescue Dawn (2006)
13. Signs of Life (1968)
14. Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)
15. Family Romance, LLC (2019)
16. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (2009)
17. Invincible (2001)
18. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009)
19. Scream of Stone (1991)
20. The Wild Blue Yonder (2005)
21. Salt and Fire (2016)
Documentary:
1. Land of Silence and Darkness 10/10
2. The White Diamond 10/10
3. Little Dieter Needs to Fly 8/10
4. Encounters at the End of the World 8/10
5. The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner 8/10
6. Cave of Forgotten Dreams 8/10
7. Bells from the Deep 8/10
8. Into the Inferno 8/10
9. Grizzly Man 7/10
10. My Best Fiend 7/10
11. Happy People: A Year in the Taiga 7/10
12. Meeting Gorbachev 7/10
13. Fata Morgana 7/10
14. The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft (2022)
15. Into the Abyss (2011)
16. Echoes from a Sombre Empire (1990)
17. Wheel of Time (2003)
18. Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (2016)
19. Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds (2020)
20. Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (2019)
Cinema Ribbon 74: 13 Short or Video; 19 TV Series, Mini Series or TV Movie; 1 Anthology; 20 Documentary; 21 Movie.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Darren Aronofsky was born February 12, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, Darren was always artistic: he loved classic movies and, as a teenager, he even spent time doing graffiti art. After high school, Darren went to Harvard University to study film (both live-action and animation). He won several film awards after completing his senior thesis film, "Supermarket Sweep", starring Sean Gullette, which went on to becoming a National Student Academy Award finalist. Aronofsky didn't make a feature film until five years later, in February 1996, where he began creating the concept for Pi (1998). After Darren's script for Pi (1998) received great reactions from friends, he began production. The film re-teamed Aronofsky with Gullette, who played the lead. This went on to further successes, such as Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Wrestler (2008) and Black Swan (2010). Most recently, he completed the films Noah (2014) and Mother! (2017).American
My Top:
Movie:
1. Black Swan 10/10
2. Requiem for a Dream 10/10
3. Mother! 10/10
4. The Fountain 9/10
5. Pi 9/10
6. The Wrestler 8/10
7. The Whale 7/10
8. Noah 5/10
Short:
1. Lou Reed & Metallica: The View 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 16: 1 Video Game; 1 TV Series; 6 Short; 8 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Yorgos Lanthimos was born in Athens, Greece. He studied directing for Film and Television at the Stavrakos Film School in Athens. He has directed a number of dance videos in collaboration with Greek choreographers, in addition to TV commercials, music videos, short films and theater plays. Kinetta, his first feature film, played at Toronto and Berlin film festivals to critical acclaim. His second feature Dogtooth, won the "Un Certain Regard prize" at the 2009 Cannes film festival, followed by numerous awards at festivals worldwide. It was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award (Oscar) in 2011. Alps won the "Osella for best screenplay" at the 2011 Venice film festival and Best Film at the Sydney film festival in 2012. His first English language film The Lobster was presented in Competition at the 68th Cannes Film Festival. Moreover, "The Lobster" was nominated for the (Oscar about the) Best Original Screenplay by the Academy and won Best Screenplay and Best Costume Design at the European Film Awards of 2015. His fifth project "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" was also presented in Competition at the 70th Cannes Film Festival where it won the award for the best Screenplay. Lanthimos's last film "The Favorite" is a historical Drama about the British Queen Anne.Greek
My Top:
Movie:
1. Dogtooth 10/10
2. The Favourite 10/10
3. The Lobster 10/10
4. The Killing of a Sacred Deer 8/10
5. Alps 6/10
6. Kinetta 5/10
Short:
1. Necktie 6/10
2. Despina Vandi: Deka Entoles 1/10
Documentary:
1. Venice 70: Future Reloaded 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 13: 1 Anthology; 1 Documentary; 5 Short; 6 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Marco Berger was born on 8 December 1977 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a director and writer, known for Absent (2011), The Blonde One (2019) and Taekwondo (2016).Argentinian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Plan B 10/10
2. Hawaii 10/10
3. The Blonde One 8/10
4. Taekwondo 7/10
5. Ausente 6/10
Young Hunter
6. Mariposa
Short:
1. The Clock 7/10
2. Una última voluntad 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 14: 1 Documentary; 3 Short; 3 Anthology; 7 Movie.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Ulrich Seidl was born on 24 November 1952 in Vienna, Austria. He is a producer and director, known for Rimini (2022), Paradise: Love (2012) and Goodnight Mommy (2014). He is married to Veronika Franz. They have two children.Austrian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Dog Days 10/10
2. Import Export 9/10
3. Paradise: Faith 8/10
4. Paradise: Love 7/10
5. Models 7/10
6. Paradise: Hope 6/10
7. The Prom
Documentary:
1. Animal Love 8/10
2. In the Basement 8/10
3. Safari 7/10
4. Venice 70: Future Reloaded 7/10
Documentary Short:
1. One Fourty 5/10
TV Movie Documentary:
1. Pictures at an Exhibition 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 23: 1 Anthology; 2 TV Movie Documentary; 3 Documentary Short; 10 Documentary; 7 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
João Pedro Rodrigues was born in 1966 in Lisbon, Portugal. He is a director and writer, known for Will-o'-the-Wisp (2022), Morrer Como Um Homem (2009) and The Last Time I Saw Macao (2012).Portuguese
My Top:
Movie:
1. O Fantasma 10/10
2. To Die Like a Man 9/10
3. The Last Time I Saw Macao 8/10
4. The Ornithologist 8/10
5. Two Drifters 6/10
Short:
1. China China 8/10
2. O Pastor 7/10
3. Happy Birthday! 5/10
Documentary:
1. Venice 70: Future Reloaded 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 16: 3 Documentary; 8 Short; 5 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Cinematographer
Philippe Grandrieux born 1954 is a French film director and screenwriter. Grandrieux was born in Saint-Étienne. He studied film at the Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle in Belgium. He exhibited his first video work at Galerie Albert Baronian, Bruxelles. In the 1980s, he worked in collaboration with the French Institut National de Audiovisuel and the television channel La Sept Arte where he helped develop new cinematographic forms and formats that called into question some basic principles of film writing: for instance, the conventions behind documentary, information and film essays.Since 2005, programs devoted to Grandrieux's features Sombre, La Vie nouvelle, Un lac installations, video, documentary work and shorts have been broadcast all over the world. Un Lac, was ready for the 65th Venice Film Festival (2008) where he won a Special Mention in the Orrizzonti Section which rewards movies that initiate new cinematographic trends.French
My Top:
Movie:
1. A New Life 10/10
2. Un lac 8/10
3. Sombre 7/10
4. Meurtrière
5. Malgré la nuit
6. Unrest
Documentary:
1. It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve: Masao Adachi 8/10
2. White Epilepsy 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 14: 3 Short; 5 Documentary; 6 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Ciro Guerra was born on 6 February 1981 in Río de Oro, Cesar, Colombia. He is a director and writer, known for Embrace of the Serpent (2015), Birds of Passage (2018) and Los viajes del viento (2009). He is married to Cristina Gallego.Colombian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Embrace of the Serpent 10/10
2. Birds of Passage 9/10
3. Waiting for the Barbarians 9/10
4. The Wind Journeys 8/10
5. Wandering Shadows 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 6: 1 TV Series; 5 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Editor
César Augusto Acevedo was born in 1984 in Cali, Colombia. César Augusto is a writer and director, known for Land and Shade (2015), Los pasos del agua (2016) and Horizonte.Colombian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Land and Shade 10/10
Cinema Ribbon 2: 1 Short, 1 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Sanal Kumar Sasidharan is an Indian film director known for his distinctive and thought-provoking work in the Malayalam film industry. Born in Perumkadavila, Kerala, he initially pursued a career in law before transitioning to filmmaking.
Sasidharan gained widespread recognition for his debut feature film, "Oraalppokkam" (2014), which garnered critical acclaim for its unique narrative style and exploration of existential themes. However, it was his subsequent film, "S Durga" (2017), that brought him international acclaim. The film won the Hivos Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, solidifying Sasidharan's position as a filmmaker with a distinct voice.
Known for his commitment to exploring societal issues and pushing cinematic boundaries, Sasidharan continued to make waves with films like "Sexy Durga" (2017) and "Chola" (2019). His films often challenge conventional storytelling norms, offering audiences a fresh perspective on contemporary issues.
Beyond filmmaking, Sasidharan has been an influential figure in advocating for the independent film movement in India. His dedication to storytelling and his willingness to address societal complexities have made him a notable figure in the world of cinemaIndian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Sexy Durga 10/10
2. Parole
3. Six Feet High
4. An Off-Day Game
Cinema Ribbon 6: 2 Short; 4 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Roy Arne Lennart Andersson is a Swedish film director, best known for his distinctive style of absurdist humor and melancholic depictions of human life. His personal style is characterized by long takes, and stiff caricaturing of Swedish culture and grotesque. Over his career Andersson earned prizes from the Cannes Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival and Venice International Film Festival.
Andersson spent much of his professional life working on advertisement spots, directing over 400 commercials and two short films; directing six feature-length films in six decades. He made his feature film debut with A Swedish Love Story (1970) followed by Giliap (1975). Anderson received the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize for Songs from the Second Floor (2000). His film A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014) won the Venice International Film Festival's Golden Lion. He other notable films include You, the Living (2007), and About Endlessness (2019).Swedish
My Top:
Movie:
1. Songs from the Second Floor 10/10
2. You, the Living 10/10
3. A Swedish Love Story 8/10
4. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence 7/10
5. About Endlessness 7/10
6. "Giliap" 6/10
7. Saturday October 5th
Cinema Ribbon 22: 1 Anthology; 12 Short; 2 Documentary; 7 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Jeff Nichols was born on 7 December 1978 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. He is a writer and director, known for Take Shelter (2011), Mud (2012) and Midnight Special (2016).American
My Top:
Movie:
1. Take Shelter 10/10
2. Shotgun Stories 9/10
3. Mud 9/10
4. Midnight Special 8/10
5. Loving 6/10
Cinema Ribbon 6: 1 Short; 5 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Born in 1966 in Salta in the North of Argentina,Lucrecia Martel settled down in Buenos Aires where she attended the ENERC (National Film School). She started by directing a few shorts among which Historias Breves I: Rey muerto (1995), which garnered several awards in the international film festival circuit. From 1995 to 1998, she made a series of documentaries for TV as well as a children's TV programme, hailed by the Argentinian press for its unusual dark humor. From 2001 until today, Lucrecia Martel has managed to make three very personal feature films, The Swamp (2001), The Holy Girl (2004) and The Headless Woman (2008), in which she explores her favorite theme, troubled minds.Argentinian
My Top:
Movie:
1. La Ciénaga 10/10
2. The Headless Woman 8/10
3. The Holy Girl 7/10
4. Zama 6/10
Cinema Ribbon 23: 1 Anthology; 2 TV Series; 4 Documentary; 12 Short; 4 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
The films of Claire Denis frequently explore the fragile connections between people and the ways in which the most seemingly inconsequential relationship can have life-changing effects. At the heart of Denis' cinema is a fascination with the delights and difficulties of belonging and otherness, the gravity and gift of foreignness. Often revolving around reactions to the intrusion of the other, be it a stranger or foreigner, Denis' films insist on the vital necessity of the unusual to coexist within the "normal" world. In films such as I Can't Sleep (1994) and Nénette and Boni (1996), Denis captures the mercurial and instant shifts in tone, from the pleasurably sensual to the menacing or the simply unaccountable, caused by the intrusion of the strange into the fabric of the everyday. In Denis' films one often feels that all is well even as worlds collide and collapse or, conversely, that a grave challenge underlies the seemingly calm moments. While Denis' childhood in French colonial Africa is reflected most directly in the African setting shared by her debut feature Chocolat (1988) and best-known film, Beau Travail (1999), this encounter with the intimacies and injustices of colonialism resounds throughout much of her work. Also shaping Denis' unique vision are the apprenticeships she served, just out of film school, under a variety of renowned directors, including Jacques Rivette, Wim Wenders, Dusan Makavejev and Jim Jarmusch - an eclectic company that is itself suggestive of the unique juxtaposition of careful craft and seeming casualness within Denis' work. Denis has often spoken of her shock as a young woman at discovering the novels of Faulkner that have exerted such a major influence over postwar French cinema. For Denis, Faulkner "was a plunge into the senses, into terror and the pain of his characters." These words describe Denis' films as well. But whatever terror and pain her characters may sometimes experience is outmeasured by the depths of Denis' deep affection for them and by her curiosity in their experiences of pleasure as well as fear. Even in the unsettling Trouble Every Day (2001), the not-infrequent catastrophes in Denis' films provoke a sense of wonder at, and even delight in, the sheer weight of existence.French
My Top:
Movie:
1. Beau travail 10/10
2. Trouble Every Day 10/10
3. 35 Shots of Rum 8/10
4. Friday Night 7/10
5. Chocolat 7/10
6. I Can't Sleep 7/10
7. Nenette and Boni 7/10
8. Bastards 7/10
9. High Life 7/10
10. The Intruder 6/10
11. White Material 5/10
12. Let the Sun Shine In 5/10
13. No Fear, No Die 4/10
14. The Stars at Noon
Documentary:
1. Venice 70: Future Reloaded 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 32: 4 TV Series; 4 Anthology; 5 Documentary; 5 Short; 14 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Actress
Marina de Van was born in France in 1971, her father being a musicologist. She studied at the Lycée Henri IV and at the Sorbonne University where she earned a degree in philosophy. Then, in 1993 she became a student at the FEMIS, the French school for cinematic studies, where she graduated in 1996. She directed and wrote 6 short movies as well as working as an actress and a writer with fellow FEMIS student director François Ozon. In 2002 she made her first feature film In My Skin (2002) as director, writer and actress.French
My Top:
Movie:
1. In My Skin 10/10
2. Dark Touch 8/10
3. Don't Look Back 7/10
4. Luce Turnier
5. Hop-o'-My-Thumb
Cinema Ribbon 14: 9 Short; 5 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Born in Tokyo in 1962. Originally intended to be a novelist, but after graduating from Waseda University in 1987 went on to become an assistant director at T.V. Man Union. Snuck off set to film Mou hitotsu no kyouiku - Ina shogakkou haru gumi no kiroku (1991). His first feature, Maborosi (1995), based on a Teru Miyamoto novel and drawn from his own experiences while filming August Without Him (1994), won jury prizes at Venice and Chicago. The main themes of his oeuvre include memory, loss, death and the intersection of documentary and fictive narratives.Japanese
My Top:
Movie:
1. Still Walking 10/10
2. Our Little Sister 9/10
3. Nobody Knows 9/10
4. Shoplifters 9/10
5. Maborosi 8/10
6. Like Father, Like Son 8/10
7. Distance 8/10
8. After Life 7/10
9. I Wish 7/10
10. Air Doll 7/10
11. After the Storm 7/10
12. The Truth 6/10
13. Hana 4/10
14. The Third Murder 4/10
Cinema Ribbon 24: 1 Short; 2 TV Movie Documentary; 3 TV Series; 4 Documentary; 14 Movie.- Director
- Producer
- Production Designer
Brillante Mendoza is a Philippine director and producer. He is the first Filipino to receive the Best Director award at Cannes for his film Kinatay in 2009. He is also the only Filipino to receive France's "Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres" (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) in 2014.
He was born on October 30, 1960, in San Fernando, Pampanga, Philippines. He studied Advertising Arts at the University of Santo Tomas.
He worked in advertising, and became a production designer. He was in his forties when he directed his first film, Masahista, which won the 2005 Locarno International Film Festival's Golden Leopard (video competition). His films have received awards and nominations in major competitions in Venice, Berlin, Cannes, San Sebastian, Cairo and others.
His film Mindanao in 2019 received the Henry Barakat Best Artistic Contribution and Best Actress awards. In 2018 his film Alpha: The Right to Kill took home the Special Jury Prize in the San Sebastian International Film Festival. In 2016 Ma Rosa was nominated for Cannes' Palm d'Or, and won Best Actress for Jaclyn Jose, the first Filipina to bag it.
His film Taklub, which tackles climate change, was nominated for the Un Certain Regard, and won the Ecumenical Jury Prize in the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Captive, which stars Isabelle Huppert, competed for the Golden Bear at the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival. Thy Womb, which was selected for the main competition in 2012 Venice Film Festival also took home the La Navicella, P. Nazareno Taddei and Bisato d'Oro awards; it also won the Best Director award at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Lola, in 2009, was the Best Feature Film in Dubai International Film Festival, and was nominated for Venice's Golden Lion. In 2007 Tirador won Singapore International Film Festival's Best Director and Best Asian Feature Award; it also received the Caligari Film Award in Berlin. In 2007 Serbis was the first Philippine film to be nominated for Cannes' Palm d'Or. The same year his film Foster Child was screened at the Directors Fortnight in Cannes, which also bagged the NETPAC Jury award in Brisbane. Manoro in 2006 took home the Cinema for Peace award at the Torino Film Festival.
Mendoza's Amo is the first Philippine crime drama series shown on Netflix. His upcoming films are Resbak, and the Philippine-Japanese co-produced sports biopic Gensan Punch (2020). He produced successful festival films like Kintsugi (2020), Verdict (2019) Pailalim (2016), and Imbisibol (2015); he is also a producer of The Brokers, to be released soon.Filipino
My Top:
Movie:
1. Foster Child 10/10
2. Lola 9/10
3. Serbis 8/10
4. Kinatay 6/10
5. The Masseur 6/10
6. Pantasya 4/10
7. Thy Womb
8. Captive
9. Tirador
10. Kaleldo
11. Ma' Rosa
12. Taklub
13. Sapi
Documentary:
1. Venice 70: Future Reloaded 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 23: 2 TV Series; 2 Documentary; 3 Anthology; 3 Short; 13 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Bi Gan is known for Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018), Kaili Blues (2015) and A Short Story (2022).Chinese
My Top:
Movie:
1. Kaili Blues 10/10
2. Long Day's Journey into Night 8/10
Cinema Ribbon 4: 2 Short; 2 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Jonathan first found fame for his revolutionary work on Radiohead's 'Street Spirit' and Jamiroquai's multi-MTV award winning 'Virtual Insanity' video.
In 1999 he directed the ground-breaking Guinness 'Surfer', which picked up 2 D&AD Black Pencils and the top spot at most of the other awards festivals that year. The film still heads many lists as one of the best commercials of all time. He has made iconic commercials for Stella Artois, Levis, Nike, Sony, Volkswagen, Channel 4, Wrangler, Apple and many others. His film for Alexander McQueen won a Grand Prix at the Ciclope Festival in Berlin.
In 2000 Jonathan directed Sexy Beast which was nominated for Best British Film by BAFTA. This was followed 4 years later with Birth, staring Nicole Kidman and Lauren Bacall. His 2014 film, Under The Skin stars Scarlett Johansson and is an adaptation of Michel Faber's 2000 novel of the same name. Under The Skin received 2 BAFTA nominations and won critical acclaim as a 'landmark in filmmaking'.
Later on, Jonathan directed work for the BBC in the form of 2019's 'The Fall', a short film influenced by Goya's 'The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters' and a hunting photograph of Donald Trump's two sons posing with a dead leopard; and 2020's Strasbourg 1518, a collaboration in isolation created during Covid, inspired by a unique plague striking inhabitants of the city who danced until their ultimate demise.English
My Top:
Movie:
1. Under the Skin 10/10
2. Birth 8/10
3. Sexy Beast 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 20: 16 Video short; 4 Movie.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Ari Aster is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is known for writing and directing the A24 horror films Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019). Aster was born into a Jewish family in New York City on July 15, 1986, the son of a poet mother and musician father. He has a younger brother. He recalled going to see his first movie, Dick Tracy, when he was four years old. The film featured a scene where a character fired a Tommy gun in front of a wall of fire. Aster reportedly jumped from his seat and "ran six New York City blocks" while his mother tried to catch him. In his early childhood, Aster's family briefly lived in England, where his father opened a jazz nightclub in Chester. Aster enjoyed living there, but the family returned to the U.S. and settled in New Mexico when he was 10 years old.American
My Top:
Movie:
1. Hereditary 10/10
2. Midsommar 10/10
3. Beau Is Afraid 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 11: 8 Short; 3 Movie.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Of the ten films that Hsiao-Hsien Hou directed between 1980 and 1989, seven received best film or best director awards from prestigious international films festivals in Venice, Berlin, Hawaii, and the Festival of the Three Continents in Nantes. In a 1988 worldwide critics' poll, Hou was championed as "one of the three directors most crucial to the future of cinema."
Hou's birthplace, a county in Kuangtung Province, had been well-known as an intellectual center in China. In 1948, his family moved to Taiwan and, like all children raised there, he went through an extremely demanding educational system. In 1969, he studied film at the National Taiwan Arts Academy. After graduation in 1972, he worked briefly as a salesman. Later he began his film career as a scriptwriter and assistant director.
Hou's films are often concerned with his experiences of growing up in rural Taiwan in the 1950s and 1960s. The 1950s marked a time in which refugee families from the mainland were struggling painfully for survival, while the 1960s saw the beginning of the most significant social change in modern Taiwan. The economic boom of that period meant the beginning of Western-style industrialization and urbanization. The normal frustrations of growing up were aggravated by these complicated changes, and Hou's films are intimate expressions of those experiences.
His emotionally charged work is replete with highly nostalgic images and beautiful compositions; their power lies in his total identification with the past and the fate of families who suffered through difficult times. His stories, often written in collaboration with scriptwriters T'ien-wen Chu and Nien-Jen Wu, depict the complex intertwining of the different strands that shape the lives of individuals. In a poetic yet relaxed style, they reflect a deep sympathy and a profound humanism.Taiwanese
My Top:
Movie:
1. A Time to Live, A Time to Die 10/10
2. A Summer at Grandpa's 10/10
3. IThe Boys from Fengkuei 8/10
4. Dust in the Wind 8/10
5. Flight of the Red Balloon 7/10
6. The Assassin 7/10
7. WA City of Sadness 6/10
8. Good Men, Good Women 5/10
9. Millennium Mambo 5/10
10. Three Times 5/10
11. Café Lumière 5/10
12. The Green, Green Grass of Home 5/10
Anthology:
1. To Each His Own Cinema 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 22: 2 Anthology; 20 Movie.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Alex Garland is an English novelist, screenwriter, film producer and director. He is best known for the films Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018).
Garland's others works as a writer includes The Beach (2000), 28 Days Later (2002), Sunshine (2007), Never Let Me Go (2011) and Dredd (2012).
He is also the co-writer on the video game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
In 2015, Garland made his directorial debut with Ex Machina and was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Writing, Original Screenplay category.English
My Top:
Movie:
1. Annihilation 10/10
2. Men 9/10
3. Ex Machina 8/10
TV Mini-Series:
1. Devs 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 4: 1 TV Mini-Series; 3 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Pascal Laugier was born on 16 October 1971 in France. He is a director and writer, known for Incident in a Ghostland (2018), Martyrs (2008) and The Tall Man (2012).French
My Top:
Movie:
1. Martyrs 10/10
2. House of Voices 9/10
3. The Tall Man 8/10
4. Ghostland 6/10
Cinema Ribbon 12: 2 TV Movie; 2 Video; 2 TV Series; 2 Short; 4 Movie.- Director
- Editor
- Cinematographer
Scott Barley is an artist-filmmaker based between Scotland and Wales, UK. His work has been screened in Europe, Asia, and The Americas, including The Institute of Contemporary Arts London, BFI Southbank, Sheffield Doc Fest, Centre of Contemporary Culture Barcelona, Doclisboa, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Venice Biennale, Dokufest, Festival du nouveau cinéma, EYE Filmmuseum, Singapore Art Museum, Telluride Film Festival, Museum of Modern Art Rio, Museum of Contemporary Art Buenos Aires, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, and Fronteira International Documentary & Experimental Film Festival.
His work is primarily concerned with the anthropocene, nature, darkness, cosmology, phenomenology, and mysticism, and has been associated with the Remodernist and Slow Cinema movements. His filmmaking and imagery has been compared with the sensibilities of filmmakers, Béla Tarr & Ágnes Hranitzky, David Lynch, Maya Deren, Aleksandr Sokurov, Stan Brakhage, Peter Hutton, Jean Epstein, and Philippe Grandrieux, as well as the artists, J. M. W. Turner, Caspar David Friedrich, Anselm Kiefer, Arkhip Kuindzhi, Michael Biberstein, and John Martin.
Since early 2015, Barley has exclusively shot his films on iPhone. His short film, Hinterlands was voted one of the best films of 2016 in Sight & Sound's yearly film poll. His first feature-length work, Sleep Has Her House was released in early 2017, garnering universal acclaim, and winning the Jury Award for Best Film at Fronteira International Documentary & Experimental Film Festival, in Goiânia, Brazil. It later received nominations in Sight & Sound's 2017 and 2018 film polls, as well as in Sight & Sound's 'The best video essays of 2018'. The film also received nominations in Senses of Cinema's 2017 poll, and The Village Voice 2017 film poll for Best Film, Best First Feature, and Best Director.
In 2018, Barley co-founded Obscuritads - "an international collective focused on rendering the invisible visible" - with filmmaker, Mikel Guillen (Toronto) and curator and programmer, Miquel Escudero Diéguez (Paris, Barcelona).
In early 2020, film historian and theoretician, Nicole Brenez cited Sleep Has Her House as one of the ten best films of the decade, after previously writing that "[Barley's works] renew our conception of visuality", and describing him as, "one of the most gifted visual poets of his generation." In the same year, academic and film critic, Borja Castillejo Calvo cited Sleep Has Her House as the second best film of the 2010's, and Womb (2017) as the best short film of the decade.
As of 2022, Barley's second feature-length film, The Sea Behind Her Head is in production. The film is produced by Luke Moody and is funded by the British Film Institute (BFI) and DocSociety.
Danish film critic, and former director of the European Documentary Network, Tue Steen Müller has described him as the "Anselm Kiefer of cinema".English
My Top:
Movie:
1. Sleep Has Her House 10/10
2. Painting
Short:
1. The Ethereal Melancholy of Seeing Horses in the Cold 10/10
2. The Green Ray 10/10
3. Hunter 10/10
4. Womb 10/10
5. Nightwalk 10/10
6. Polytechnique 10/10
7. Evenfall 9/10
8. Ille Lacrimas 9/10
9. Closer 8/10
10. Retirement 8/10
11. Hours 8/10
12. The Sadness of the Trees 8/10
13. Shadows 8/10
14. Hinterlands 8/10
15. Irresolute 7/10
16. Passing 7/10
17. Blue Permanence/Swan Blood 7/10
18. Glass/Truth 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 20: 18 Short; 2 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Actress
Céline Sciamma was born on 12 November 1978 in Pontoise, Val-d'Oise, France. She is a writer and director, known for Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), Petite Maman (2021) and Tomboy (2011).French
My Top:
Movie:
1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire 10/10
2. Water Lilies 8/10
3. Tomboy 8/10
4. Petite Maman 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 7: 2 Short; 5 Movie.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Nadine Labaki was born on 18 February 1974 in Beirut, Lebanon. She is an actress and director, known for Where Do We Go Now? (2011), Capernaum (2018) and Caramel (2007). She has been married to Khaled Mouzanar since October 2007.Lebanese
My Top:
Movie:
1. Where Do We Go Now? 10/10
2. Capernaum 9/10
3. Caramel 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 13: 1 TV Series; 1 Anthology; 8 Music Video; 3 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
Julia Ducournau is a French film director and screenwriter. She attended film school at La Fémis in Paris, where she studied screenwriting. In 2011, her short film JUNIOR won the Petit Rail d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Her first feature, the horror movie Raw (2016), won the coveted FIPRESCI prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.French
My Top:
Movie:
1. Raw 10/10
2. Titane 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 5: 1 Short; 2 TV Series or TV Movie; 2 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Chloé Zhao or Zhao Ting (born March 31, 1982) is a Chinese film director, screenwriter, and producer. Her debut feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015), premiered at Sundance Film Festival. Her second feature film, The Rider (2017), was critically acclaimed and received several accolades including nominations for Independent Spirit Award for Best Film and Best Director.
Zhao was born and raised in Beijing, China, to father and stepmother, Chinese actress Song DanDan. Growing up, she was very rebellious, and drawn to influences from Western pop culture. She attended a boarding school in London before moving to Los Angeles to finish high school. Zhao studied at Mount Holyoke College earning a bachelor's degree in political science. She worked odd jobs as a party promoter, in real estate, and bartending before studying film production at New York University Tisch School of the Arts.
In 2010, Zhao's short film Daughters premiered at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and won Best Student Live Action Short at the 2010 Palm Springs International ShortFest and Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Cinequest Film Festival.
In 2015, Zhao directed her first feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me. Filmed on location at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the film depicts the relationship between a Lakota Sioux brother and his younger sister. The film premiered as part of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance Film Festival. It later played at Cannes Film Festival as part of the Director's Fortnight selection. The film was nominated for Best First Feature at the 31st Independent Spirit Awards.
In 2017, she directed The Rider, a contemporary western drama which follows a young cowboy's journey to discover himself after a near-fatal accident ends his professional riding career. Similar to her first feature, Zhao utilised a cast of non-actors who lived on the ranch where the film was shot. Zhao's impetus for making the film came when Brady Jandreau - a cowboy whom she met and befriended on the reservation where she shot her first film - suffered a severe head injury when he was thrown off his horse during a rodeo competition. Jandreau later starred in the film playing a fictionalised version of himself as Brady Blackburn. The film premiered at Cannes Film Festival as part of the Directors' Fortnight selection and won the Art Cinema Award. The film earned her nominations for Best Feature and Best Director at the 33rd Independent Spirit Awards. At the same ceremony, Zhao became the inaugural winner of the Bonnie Award, named after Bonnie Tiburzi, which recognizes a mid-career female director. The film was released on April 13, 2018 by Sony Pictures Classics and was critically acclaimed.
In April 2018, it was announced that Amazon Studios greenlit Zhao's upcoming untitled Bass Reeves biopic, a historical Western about the first black U.S. Deputy Marshal. Zhao is set to direct the film and write the screenplay. In September 2018, Marvel Studios hired her to direct a film based on the Eternals.Chinese
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Rider 10/10
2. Nomadland 9/10
3. Eternals 3/10
4. Songs My Brothers Taught Me
Cinema Ribbon 9: 5 Short; 4 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Albert Serra was born in 1975 in Banyoles, Girona, Catalonia, Spain. He is a director and writer, known for Pacifiction (2022), The Death of Louis XIV (2016) and Quixotic/Honor de Cavelleria (2006).Spanish
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Death of Louis XIV 10/10
2. Honour of the Knights 8/10
3. Story of My Death 7/10
4. Birdsong 6/10
5. Crespià
6. Els noms de Crist
7. Els tres porquets
8. The Lord Worked Wonders in Me
9. Roi Soleil 2018
10. Liberté 2019
11. Pacifiction 2022
Cinema Ribbon 18: 1 Anthology; 6 Short; 11 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married Peggy Lynch and then fathered future director Jennifer Lynch shortly after he turned 21. That experience, plus attending art school in a particularly violent and run-down area of Philadelphia, inspired Eraserhead (1977), a film that he began in the early 1970s (after a couple of shorts) and which he would work on obsessively for five years. The final film was initially judged to be almost unreleasable weird, but thanks to the efforts of distributor Ben Barenholtz, it secured a cult following and enabled Lynch to make his first mainstream film (in an unlikely alliance with Mel Brooks), though The Elephant Man (1980) was shot through with his unique sensibility. Its enormous critical and commercial success led to Dune (1984), a hugely expensive commercial disaster, but Lynch redeemed himself with the now classic Blue Velvet (1986), his most personal and original work since his debut. He subsequently won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival with the dark, violent road movie Wild at Heart (1990), and achieved a huge cult following with his surreal TV series Twin Peaks (1990), which he adapted for the big screen, though his comedy series On the Air (1992) was less successful. He also draws comic strips and has devised multimedia stage events with regular composer Angelo Badalamenti. He had a much-publicized affair with Isabella Rossellini in the late 1980s.American
My Top:
Movie:
1. Mulholland Dr. 10/10
2. Wild at Heart 10/10
3. The Elephant Man 8/10
4. The Straight Story 8/10
5. Eraserhead 8/19
6. Blue Velvet 7/10
7. Lost Highway 7/10
8. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me 7/10
9. Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces 6/10
10. Inland Empire 5/10
11. Dune 1/10
Cinema Ribbon 98: 14 TV Series, Mini Series, TV Short or TV Movie; 70 Video; Music Video or Short; 3 Anthology; 11 Movie.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
David Cronenberg, also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father, Milton Cronenberg, was a journalist and editor, and his mother, Esther (Sumberg), was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early age (he wrote and published eerie short stories, thus following his father's path) and for music (playing classical guitar until he was 12), Cronenberg graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Literature after switching from the science department. He reached the cult status of horror-meister with the gore-filled, modern-vampire variations of Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977), following an experimental apprenticeship in independent film-making and in Canadian television programs.
Cronenberg gained popularity with the head-exploding, telepathy-based Scanners (1981) after the release of the much underrated, controversial, and autobiographical The Brood (1979). Cronenberg become a sort of a mass media guru with Videodrome (1983), a shocking investigation of the hazards of reality-morphing television and a prophetic critique of contemporary aesthetics. The issues of tech-induced mutation of the human body and topics of the prominent dichotomy between body and mind were back again in The Dead Zone (1983) and The Fly (1986), both bright examples of a personal film-making identity, even if both films are based on mass-entertainment materials: the first being a rendition of a Stephen King best-seller, the latter a remake of a famous American horror movie.
With Dead Ringers (1988) and Naked Lunch (1991), the Canadian director, no more a mere genre movie-maker but a fully realized auteur, got the acclaim of international critics. Such profound statements on modern humanity and ever-changing society are prominent in the provocative Crash (1996) and in the virtual reality essay of eXistenZ (1999), both of which well fared at the Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals. In the last two film projects Spider (2002) and A History of Violence (2005), Cronenberg avoids expressing his teratologic and oneiric expressionism in favor of a more psychological exploration of human contradictions and idiosyncrasies.American
My Top:
Movie:
1. Naked Lunch 10/10
2. Crash 10/10
3. Spider 9/10
4. Videodrome 9/10
5. Maps to the Stars 9/10
6. The Fly 8/10
7. Dead Ringers 7/10
8. The Dead Zone 7/10
9. eXistenZ 7/10
10. A History of Violence 7/10
11. A Dangerous Method 7/10
12. Shivers 6/10
13. Scanners 6/10
14. Eastern Promises 6/10
15. M. Butterfly 5/10
16. The Brood 5/10
17. Rabid 5/10
18. Crimes of the Future 5/10
19. Stereo (Tile 3B of a CAEE Educational Mosaic) 4/10
20. Cosmopolis 4/10
21. Fast Company 2/10
Anthology:
1. To Each His Own Cinema 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 42: 2 Anthology; 5 TV Series; 14 short; 21 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Cristi Puiu was born on 3 April 1967 in Bucharest, Romania. He is a director and writer, known for Aurora (2010), Sieranevada (2016) and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005). He has been married to Anca Puiu since 21 April 1998. They have three children.Romanian
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Death of Mister Lazarescu 10/10
2. Sieranevada 7/10
3. Aurora 6/10
4. Malmkrog 6/10
5. Stuff and Dough 6/10
6. Three Exercises of Interpretation 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 8: 1 Anthology; 1 Short; 6 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
François Ozon was born on 15 November 1967 in Paris, France. He is a director and writer, known for In the House (2012), 8 Women (2002) and Swimming Pool (2003).French
My Top:
Movie:
1. Time to Leave 10/10
2. 8 Women 10/10
3. Swimming Pool 10/10
4. Under the Sand 10/10
5. Hideaway (Le refuge) 10/10
6. In the House 10/10
7. Frantz 10/10
8. Young & Beautiful 9/10
9. Sitcom 8/10
10. The New Girlfriend 8/10
11. The Double Lover 8/10
12. Water Drops on Burning Rocks 8/10
13. Ricky 8/10
14. Criminal Lovers 8/10
15. See the Sea 7/10
16. Potiche 6/10
17. 5x2 6/10
18. Angel 6/10
Short:
1. A Curtain Raiser 8/10
2. X2000 8/10
3. Scènes de lit 8/10
4. Truth or Dare 8/10
5. Les doigts dans le ventre 8/10
6. Little Death 7/10
7. Photo de famille 6/10
8. A Summer Dress 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 39: 1 Documentary; 1 Anthology; 19 Short; 18 Movie.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Walter Salles was born on 12 April 1956 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is a director and producer, known for Central Station (1998), The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) and Terra Estrangeira (1995). He is married to Maria Klabin. They have one child.Brazilian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Central Station 10/10
2. Shredded April 10/10
3. The Motorcycle Diaries 8/10
4. Dark Water 7/10
5. On the Road 5/10
6. High Art 4/10
Anthology:
1. Terra Estrangeira 8/10
2. Chacun son cinéma 7/10
3. Venice 70: Future Reloaded 7/10
4. Stories on Human Rights 7/10
5. Linha de Passe 6/10
6. Paris, je t'aime 4/10
7. O Primeiro Dia (1998)
8. Where Has the Time Gone? (2017)
Cinema Ribbon 30: 7 TV Series, Mini Series; TV Special or TV Movie; 2 Documentary; 7 Short or Video; 8 Anthology; 6 Movie.- Director
- Producer
- Actor
Gus Green Van Sant Jr. is an American filmmaker, painter, screenwriter, photographer and musician from Louisville, Kentucky who is known for directing films such as Good Will Hunting, the 1998 remake of Psycho, Gerry, Elephant, My Own Private Idaho, To Die For, Milk, Last Days, Finding Forrester, Promised Land, Drugstore Cowboy and Mala Noche.American
My Top:
Movie:
1. Elephant 10/10
2. My Own Private Idaho 10/10
3. To Die For 10/10
4. Gerry 10/10
5. Restless 9/10
6. Milk 8/10
7. Drugstore Cowboy 7/10
8. Mala Noche 6/10
9. Finding Forrester 6/10
10. Good Will Hunting 5/10
11. Last Days 4/10
12. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot 4/10
13. Promised Land 4/10
14. Paranoid Park 2/10
15. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues 2/10
16. The Sea of Trees 2/10
17. Psycho 1/10
Cinema Ribbon 53: 6 TV series, Mini series; TV Short or TV Movie; 1 Documentary; 3 Anthology; 27 Video, Music Video or Short; 17 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Asghar Farhadi was born in 1972 in Iran. He became interested in cinema in his teenage years and started his filmmaking education by joining the Youth Cinema Society of Esfahan in 1986 where he made 8mm and 16mm short films. He received his Bachelors in Theater from University of Tehran's School of Dramatic Arts in 1998 and his Masters in Stage Direction from Tarbiat Modarres University a few years later. During these formative years, Farhadi made six shorts and two TV series for Iran's National Broadcasting Corporation (IRIB) of which Story of a City (2000) is most noteworthy. In 2001, he debuted in professional cinema by co-writing the script for Low Heights (2002), a post-9/11 political chronicle of Southwest Iran, with famed war film director, Ebrahim Hatamikia. The film was met with both critical and public success. The following year, Farhadi made his directorial debut, Dancing in the Dust (2003), about a man forced to divorce his wife and go hunting snakes in the desert in order to repay his debts to his in-laws. The film earned recognition at Fajr and Moscow International Film Festivals and a year later, Beautiful City (2004), a grave work about a young man condemned to death at the age of sixteen, received awards from Fajr and Warsaw International Film Festivals. His third film, Fireworks Wednesday (2006), won the Gold Hugo at the 2006 Chicago International Film Festival. His fourth film, About Elly (2009), was called "a masterpiece" by film critic David Bordwell and won the Silver Bear for Best Director at 59th Berlin International Film Festival as well as Best Picture at Tribeca Film Festival. It was also Iran's official submission for the Foreign Language Film competition of Academy Awards in 2009. His more recent film, A Separation (2011), became a sensation. It got critical acclaim inside and outside of Iran; Roger Ebert called it "the best picture of the year," and it was awarded the Crystal Simorgh from Fajr Film Festival, Golden Bear and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury from Berlin International Film Festival, and also won Best Foreign Language Film from The Boston Society of Film Critics, Chicago and Los Angeles Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, National Board of Review, Golden Globes, César Award, Independent Spirit Award, and ultimately the Academy Award in the "Best Foreign Language Film of the Year," making him the first Iranian filmmaker ever to win an Oscar. His Oscar acceptance speech at the 84th Academy Awards, a message of peace in tens political times in his country, made him an instant hero among st Iranians. His film also received nomination for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award in the "Best. Film Not in the English Language" category and for an Academy Award in the "Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen" category. A few days after receiving an Oscar, Farhadi signed with the United Talent Agency (UTA). While A Separation (2011) was being screened in different festivals and countries, Asghar Farhadi and his family moved to Paris so he could start work on the screenplay of The Past (2013), a story that takes place outside of Iran. The main character, Ahmad, returns to Paris after a four-year absence to finalize the legal aspects of his divorce from Marie. Ahmad's presence in Marie's life after all this time creates a complicated situation for them, and forces them to dig into their common past. The Past (2013) was released in 2013 in France during the Cannes Film Festival and again it had around one million admissions. It won the Best Actress Award at Cannes Festival and was nominated for the Golden Globes and the César. Farhadi returned to Iran in 2015 to shoot The Salesman (2016). The film was completed in 2016 and selected in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where Farhadi won Best Screenplay while Shahab Hosseini, the lead actor, took home Best Actor. The Salesman (2016) was released in France that fall as well as in Iran where it became Farhadi's biggest success. In February 2017, he won his second Oscar for Best Film in a Foreign Language, making him one of the few directors worldwide who have won the category twice. A few months after, Farhadi kicked off his following project for which he reunites on screen Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem. All shot in Spain and in Spanish, Everybody Knows (2018) also stars the Argentinean actor Ricardo Darín. The film is selected as the 71st Cannes Film Festival's opening film while also being in competition. Then at the 74th Cannes Film Festival, for his fourth appearance on the Official Competition, he presented A Hero (2021), which won the Grand Prix.Iranian
My Top:
Movie:
1. A Separation 10/10
2. About Elly 8/10
3. Fireworks Wednesday 8/10
4. Beautiful City 7/10
5. The Salesman 7/10
6. Everybody Knows 5/10
7. The Past 5/10
8. A Hero 5/10
9. Dancing in the Dust
Cinema Ribbon 11: 2 TV Series; 9 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Lav Diaz was born on 30 December 1958 in Datu Paglas, Maguindanao, Mindanao, Philippines. He is a writer and director, known for The Woman Who Left (2016), Season of the Devil (2018) and From What Is Before (2014).Filipino
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Woman Who Left (2016) 10/10
2. Norte, the End of History (2013) 10/10
3. Death in the Land of Encantos (2007)10/10
4. Evolution of a Filipino Family (2004) 8/10
5. Melancholia (2008) 7/10
6. Century of Birthing (2011) 7/10
7. Naked Under the Moon (1999) 7/10
8. Florentina Hubaldo, CTE (2012) 6/10
9. Genus Pan (2020) 6/10
10. When the Waves Are Gone (2022) 5/10
Anthology:
1. Visitors (2009) 7/10
Documentary:
1. Venice 70: Future Reloaded (2013) 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 39: 3 Documentary; 7 Anthology; 7 Short; 22 Movie.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Writer
Born in Kyiv (Ukraine) in 1974, Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi graduated from the filmmaking department of the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University, majoring in feature film directing. He has worked at various Ukrainian film studios in Kyiv (such as the Dovzhenko Film Studio) and Russian film studios in St. Petersburg (such as the Lenfilm Studios). He also worked as a script writer on numerous TV films and published a number of stories, one of which The Chornobyl Robinson won the prize of the All-Ukrainian Script Contest Coronation of the Word (2000). His debut short "The Intsydent" has competed in 25 festivals in 17 countries. His second feature film "Diagnosis" has been nominated for Golden Bear. His latest short film "Deafness" is his second Berlinale outing that got him another Golden Bear nomination. In autumn 2010 Myroslav received a grant to create his first full-length feature film 'The Tribe" from the Hubert Bals Fund of Rotterdam Film Festival. In 2012, Myroslav won the Silver Leopard of the Locarno Film Festival's competition program "Pardi di domani" for his film "Nuclear Waste". "Nuclear Waste" was nominated for an EFA Award in 2013. His latest film, "The Tribe" (2014), won the Nespresso Grand Prize for La Semaine de la Critique in 2014.Ukrainian
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Tribe 10/10
Short:
1. Diagnosis 7/10
2. Deafness 6/10
Cinema Ribbon 5: 4 Short; 1 Movie.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Cristian Mungiu was born on 27 April 1968 in Iasi, Romania. He is a producer and writer, known for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007), Graduation (2016) and Beyond the Hills (2012).Romanian
My Top:
Movie:
1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days 10/10
2. Beyond the Hills 8/10
3. Graduation 8/10
4. Occident 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 12: 2 Anthology; 6 Short; 4 Movie.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Gaspar Noé is an Argentinian filmmaker and screenwriter who lives in France. He is the son of Luis Felipe Noé, an Argentinian artist. He directed I Stand Alone, Irréversible, Enter the Void, Love, Climax, Carne, Lux Æterna, Sodomites and Vortex. His films are known for having a sensory overload style, most notably in Enter the Void. He is married to Lucile Hadzihalilovic.Argentinian
My Top:
Movie:
1. I Stand Alone 10/10
2. Irreversible 10/10
3. Climax 10/10
4. Enter the Void 7/10
5. Love 5/10
6. Lux Æterna
Short:
1. Carne 9/10
2. Sodomites 5/10
Anthology:
1. Destricted 8/10
Cinema Ribbon 29: 1 TV Series; 4 Anthology; 17 Short; 6 Movie.- Producer
- Director
- Additional Crew
In 1989, Stephen Daldry worked as a freelance reader of unsolicited manuscripts for Literary Manager Nicholas Wright in the Scripts Department at the Royal National Theatre. In July of that year, he directed a Dadaist/expressionist production of "Judgement Day," a play by Odon von Horvath, at the Old Red Lion in London.English
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Hours 10/10
2. Billy Elliot 10/10
3. The Reader 10/10
4. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close 10/10
5. National Theatre Live: The Audience
6. Billy Elliot the Musical Live
7. Trash
8. Wicked
Cinema Ribbon 13: 1 TV Series; 2 Anthology; 2 Short; 8 Movie.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
One of the most influential personalities in the history of cinema, Steven Spielberg is Hollywood's best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. He has an extraordinary number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed credits to his name, either as a director, producer or writer since launching the summer blockbuster with Jaws (1975), and he has done more to define popular film-making since the mid-1970s than anyone else.
Steven Allan Spielberg was born in 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Leah Frances (Posner), a concert pianist and restaurateur, and Arnold Spielberg, an electrical engineer who worked in computer development. His parents were both born to Russian Jewish immigrant families. Steven spent his younger years in Haddon Township, New Jersey, Phoenix, Arizona, and later Saratoga, California. He went to California State University Long Beach, but dropped out to pursue his entertainment career. Among his early directing efforts were Battle Squad (1961), which combined World War II footage with footage of an airplane on the ground that he makes you believe is moving. He also directed Escape to Nowhere (1961), which featured children as World War Two soldiers, including his sister Anne Spielberg, and The Last Gun (1959), a western. All of these were short films. The next couple of years, Spielberg directed a couple of movies that would portend his future career in movies. In 1964, he directed Firelight (1964), a movie about aliens invading a small town. In 1967, he directed Slipstream (1967), which was unfinished. However, in 1968, he directed Amblin' (1968), which featured the desert prominently, and not the first of his movies in which the desert would feature. Amblin' also became the name of his production company, which turned out such classics as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg had a unique and classic early directing project, Duel (1971), with Dennis Weaver. In the early 1970s, Spielberg was working on TV, directing among others such series as Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1969), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969) and Murder by the Book (1971). All of his work in television and short films, as well as his directing projects, were just a hint of the wellspring of talent that would dazzle audiences all over the world.
Spielberg's first major directorial effort was The Sugarland Express (1974), with Goldie Hawn, a film that marked him as a rising star. It was his next effort, however, that made him an international superstar among directors: Jaws (1975). This classic shark attack tale started the tradition of the summer blockbuster or, at least, he was credited with starting the tradition. His next film was the classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), a unique and original UFO story that remains a classic. In 1978, Spielberg produced his first film, the forgettable I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), and followed that effort with Used Cars (1980), a critically acclaimed, but mostly forgotten, Kurt Russell/Jack Warden comedy about devious used-car dealers. Spielberg hit gold yet one more time with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), with Harrison Ford taking the part of Indiana Jones. Spielberg produced and directed two films in 1982. The first was Poltergeist (1982), but the highest-grossing movie of all time up to that point was the alien story E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg also helped pioneer the practice of product placement. The concept, while not uncommon, was still relatively low-key when Spielberg raised the practice to almost an art form with his famous (or infamous) placement of Reese's Pieces in "E.T." Spielberg was also one of the pioneers of the big-grossing special-effects movies, like "E.T." and "Close Encounters", where a very strong emphasis on special effects was placed for the first time on such a huge scale. In 1984, Spielberg followed up "Raiders" with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), which was a commercial success but did not receive the critical acclaim of its predecessor. As a producer, Spielberg took on many projects in the 1980s, such as The Goonies (1985), and was the brains behind the little monsters in Gremlins (1984). He also produced the cartoon An American Tail (1986), a quaint little animated classic. His biggest effort as producer in 1985, however, was the blockbuster Back to the Future (1985), which made Michael J. Fox an instant superstar. As director, Spielberg took on the book The Color Purple (1985), with Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, with great success. In the latter half of the 1980s, he also directed Empire of the Sun (1987), a mixed success for the occasionally erratic Spielberg. Success would not escape him for long, though.
The late 1980s found Spielberg's projects at the center of pop-culture yet again. In 1988, he produced the landmark animation/live-action film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). The next year proved to be another big one for Spielberg, as he produced and directed Always (1989) as well as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), and Back to the Future Part II (1989). All three of the films were box-office and critical successes. Also, in 1989, he produced the little known comedy-drama Dad (1989), with Jack Lemmon and Ted Danson, which got mostly mixed results. Spielberg has also had an affinity for animation and has been a strong voice in animation in the 1990s. Aside from producing the landmark "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", he produced the animated series Tiny Toon Adventures (1990), Animaniacs (1993), Pinky and the Brain (1995), Freakazoid! (1995), Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain (1998), Family Dog (1993) and Toonsylvania (1998). Spielberg also produced other cartoons such as The Land Before Time (1988), We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993), Casper (1995) (the live action version) as well as the live-action version of The Flintstones (1994), where he was credited as "Steven Spielrock". Spielberg also produced many Roger Rabbit short cartoons, and many Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs and Tiny Toons specials. Spielberg was very active in the early 1990s, as he directed Hook (1991) and produced such films as the cute fantasy Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991). He also produced the unusual comedy thriller Arachnophobia (1990), Back to the Future Part III (1990) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). While these movies were big successes in their own right, they did not quite bring in the kind of box office or critical acclaim as previous efforts. In 1993, Spielberg directed Jurassic Park (1993), which for a short time held the record as the highest grossing movie of all time, but did not have the universal appeal of his previous efforts. Big box-office spectacles were not his only concern, though. He produced and directed Schindler's List (1993), a stirring film about the Holocaust. He won best director at the Oscars, and also got Best Picture. In the mid-90s, he helped found the production company DreamWorks, which was responsible for many box-office successes.
As a producer, he was very active in the late 90s, responsible for such films as The Mask of Zorro (1998), Men in Black (1997) and Deep Impact (1998). However, it was on the directing front that Spielberg was in top form. He directed and produced the epic Amistad (1997), a spectacular film that was shorted at the Oscars and in release due to the fact that its release date was moved around so much in late 1997. The next year, however, produced what many believe was one of the best films of his career: Saving Private Ryan (1998), a film about World War Two that is spectacular in almost every respect. It was stiffed at the Oscars, losing best picture to Shakespeare in Love (1998).
Spielberg produced a series of films, including Evolution (2001), The Haunting (1999) and Shrek (2001). he also produced two sequels to Jurassic Park (1993), which were financially but not particularly critical successes. In 2001, he produced a mini-series about World War Two that definitely *was* a financial and critical success: Band of Brothers (2001), a tale of an infantry company from its parachuting into France during the invasion to the Battle of the Bulge. Also in that year, Spielberg was back in the director's chair for A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), a movie with a message and a huge budget. It did reasonably at the box office and garnered varied reviews from critics.
Spielberg has been extremely active in films there are many other things he has done as well. He produced the short-lived TV series SeaQuest 2032 (1993), an anthology series entitled Amazing Stories (1985), created the video-game series "Medal of Honor" set during World War Two, and was a starting producer of ER (1994). Spielberg, if you haven't noticed, has a great interest in World War Two. He and Tom Hanks collaborated on Shooting War: World War II Combat Cameramen (2000), a documentary about World War II combat photographers, and he produced a documentary about the Holocaust called Eyes of the Holocaust (2000). With all of this to Spielberg's credit, it's no wonder that he's looked at as one of the greatest ever figures in entertainment.American
My Top:
Movie:
1. Jurassic Park 10/10
2. Schindler List 10/10
3. TRaiders of the Lost Ark 9/10
4. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 9/10
5. West Side Story 9/10
6. Lincoln 8/10
7. War Horse 8/10
8. Saving Private Ryan 7/10
9. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 7/10
10. The Fabelmans 7/10
11. The Color Purple 7/10
12. Close Encounters of the Third Kind 7/10
13. Bridge of Spies 7/10
14. Ready Player One 7/10
15. The Post 7/10
16. Hook 7/10
17. War of the Worlds 7/10
18. The Lost World: Jurassic Park 7/10
19. Catch Me If You Can 6/10
20. Jaws 6/10
21. Empire of the Sun 6/10
22. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 6/10
23. Minority Report 5/10
24. Munich 5/10
25. The Terminal 5/10
26. Amistad 5/10
27. A.I. Artificial Intelligence 5/10
28. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 5/10
29. The Adventures of Tintin 4/10
30. The Sugarland Express 4/10
31. Always 4/10
32. The BFG 4/10
33. Firelight 4/10
34. 1941 3/10
Cinema Ribbon 58: 11 TV Series, Mini Series or TV Movie; 11 Short, Video or Music Video; 2 Anthology; 34 Movie.- Producer
- Director
- Production Designer
Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom and Europe before they eventually returned to Teesside. Scott wanted to join the British Army (his elder brother Frank had already joined the Merchant Navy) but his father encouraged him to develop his artistic talents instead and so he went to West Hartlepool College of Art and then London's Royal College of Art where he helped found the film department.
In 1962, he joined the BBC as a trainee set designer working on several high profile series. He attended a trainee director's course while he was there and his first directing job was on an episode of the popular BBC police series Z Cars (1962), Error of Judgement (1965). More TV work followed until, frustrated by the poor financial rewards at the BBC, he went into advertising. With his younger brother, Tony Scott, he formed the advertising production company RSA (Ridley Scott Associates) in 1967 and spent the next 10 years making some of the best known and best loved TV adverts ever shown on British television, including a series of ads for Hovis bread set to the music of Dvorak's New World Symphony which are still talked about today ("'e were a great baker were our dad.")
He began working with producer David Puttnam in the 1970s developing ideas for feature films. Their first joint endeavor, The Duellists (1977) won the Jury Prize for Best First Work at Cannes in 1977 and was nominated for the Palm d'Or, more than successfully launching Scott's feature film career. The success of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) inspired Scott's interest in making science fiction and he accepted the offer to direct Dan O'Bannon's low budget science fiction horror movie Alien (1979), a critical and commercial success that firmly established his worldwide reputation as a movie director.
Blade Runner (1982) followed in 1982 to, at best, a lukewarm reception from public and critics but in the years that followed, its reputation grew - and Scott's with it - as one of the most important sci-fi movies ever made. Scott's next major project was back in the advertising world where he created another of the most talked-about advertising spots in broadcast history when his "1984"-inspired ad for the new Apple Macintosh computer was aired during the Super Bowl on January 22, 1984. Scott's movie career has seen a few flops (notably Legend (1985) and 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)), but with successes like Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000) and Black Hawk Down (2001) to offset them, his reputation remains solidly intact.
Ridley Scott was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire at the 2003 Queen's New Year Honours for his "substantial contribution to the British film industry". On July 3, 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Royal College of Art in a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship in 2018. BAFTA described him as "a visionary director, one of the great British film-makers whose work has made an indelible mark on the history of cinema. Forty years since his directorial debut, his films continue to cross the boundaries of style and genre, engaging audiences and inspiring the next generation of film talent."English
My Top:
Movie:
1. Alien 10/10
2. Thelma & Louise 9/10
3. The Martian 8/10
4. Prometheus 8/10
5. The Last Duel 7/10
6. American Gangster 6/10
7. Black Hawk Down 6/10
8. The Duellists 6/10
9. Kingdom of Heaven 6/10
10. Hannibal 6/10
11. All the Money in the World 6/10
12. The Counselor 6/10
13. Gladiator 5/10
14. Blade Runner 5/10
15. Matchstick Men 5/10
16. A Good Year 5/10
17. Black Rain 5/10
18. Alien: Covenant 5/10
19. Exodus: Gods and Kings 5/10
20. Body of Lies 4/10
21. White Squall 4/10
22. Someone to Watch Over Me 4/10
23. G.I. Jane 3/10
24. House of Gucci 2/10
25. Robin Hood 2/10
26. 1492: Conquest of Paradise 2/10
27. Legend 1/10
Cinema Ribbon 52: 9 TV Series, Mini Series or TV Movie; 13 Short, Video or Music Video; 3 Anthology; 27 Movie.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
A whiz-kid with special effects, Robert is from the Spielberg camp of film-making (Steven Spielberg produced many of his films). Usually working with writing partner Bob Gale, Robert's earlier films show he has a talent for zany comedy (Romancing the Stone (1984), 1941 (1979)) and special effect vehicles (Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Back to the Future (1985)). His later films have become more serious, with the hugely successful Tom Hanks vehicle Forrest Gump (1994) and the Jodie Foster film Contact (1997), both critically acclaimed movies. Again, these films incorporate stunning effects. Robert has proved he can work a serious story around great effects.American
My Top:
Movie:
1. Death Becomes Her 10/10
2. Contact 8/10
3. Back to the Future 8/10
4. Forrest Gump 8/10
5. Cast Away 7/10
6. Flight 7/10
7. The Walk 7/10
8. Romancing the Stone 7/10
9. What Lies Beneath 7/10
10. Back to the Future Part II 6/10
11. I Wanna Hold Your Hand 6/10
12. Who Framed Roger Rabbit 5/10
13. Back to the Future Part III 5/10
14. Amazing Stories 5/10
15. Used Cars 5/10
16. Allied 4/10
17. Pinocchio 4/10
18. A Christmas Carol 3/10
19. The Polar Express 3/10
20. Welcome to Marwen 3/10
21. The Witches 3/10
22. Beowulf 1/10
Cinema Ribbon 31: 5 TV Series or TV Movie; 2 Video; 2 Short; 22 Movie.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
James Francis Cameron was born on August 16, 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. He moved to the United States in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University before switching to English, and eventually dropping out. He then drove a truck to support his screenwriting ambition. He landed his first professional film job as art director, miniature-set builder, and process-projection supervisor on Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and had his first experience as a director with a two week stint on Piranha II: The Spawning (1982) before being fired.
He then wrote and directed The Terminator (1984), a futuristic action-thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton. It was a low budget independent film, but Cameron's superb, dynamic direction made it a surprise mainstream success and it is now regarded as one of the most iconic pictures of the 1980s. After this came a string of successful, bigger budget science-fiction action films such as Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). In 1990, Cameron formed his own production company, Lightstorm Entertainment. In 1997, he wrote and directed Titanic (1997), a romance epic about two young lovers from different social classes who meet on board the famous ship. The movie went on to break all box office records and earned eleven Academy Awards. It became the highest grossing movie of all time until 12 years later, Avatar (2009), which invented and pioneered 3D film technology, and it went on to beat "Titanic", and became the first film to cost two billion dollars until 2019 when Marvel took the record.
James Cameron is now one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood. He was formerly married to producer Gale Anne Hurd, who produced several of his films. In 2000, he married actress Suzy Amis, who appeared in Titanic, and they have three children.Canadian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Avatar 10/10
2. Aliens 8/10
3. The Terminator 8/10
4. Titanic 8/10
5. Avatar: The Way of Water 8/10
6. Terminator 2: Judgment Day 7/10
7. The Abyss 7/10
8. True Lies 6/10
9. Piranha Part Two: The Spawning 1/10
Cinema Ribbon 25:1 Short; 1 TV Series; 3 TV Movie; 5 Video; 15 Movie.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Indian director Tarsem Singh is the son of an aircraft engineer. He was educated at Bishop Cotton Boy's School in Shimla and relocated to the USA to study business at Harvard and, significantly, film studies at the Art Center College of Design in California. Upon graduating he embarked on a career as a director of music videos, working with such artists as Suzanne Vega, En Vogue, Vanessa Paradis and, most notably, R.E.M.. Tarsem's video for their song 'Losing My Religion' went on to win six MTV Video Music Awards, including the coveted 'Video of the Year'. He's made several music videos influenced by the work of the genius Sergei Parajanov and his masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates (1969), most notably Lady Gaga's song 911.
As well as music videos, Tarsem has directed some high profile television commercials, including the Pepsi "We Will Rock You" campaign, featuring Britney Spears, Pink and Beyoncé. He went on to make his feature film directorial debut with the visually striking The Cell (2000). His other films include The Fall (2006), Immortals (2011) and Mirror Mirror (2012).Indian
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Cell 10/10
2. The Fall 10/10
3. Immortals 8/10
4. Self/less 7/10
5. Mirror Mirror 6/10
Cinema Ribbon 16: 1 TV Series; 1 Documentary; 9 Short, Video or Music Video; 5 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Jessica Hausner was born on 6 October 1972 in Vienna, Austria. She is a director and writer, known for Little Joe (2019), Lourdes (2009) and Amour Fou (2014).Austrian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Hotel 10/10
2. Little Joe 8/10
3. Amour fou 7/10
4. Lourdes 6/10
5. Lovely Rita 4/10
6. Toast
7. Inter-View
Cinema Ribbon 10: 3 Short; 7 Movie.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
George Ovashvili was born on 14 November 1963 in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, USSR [now Republic of Georgia]. He is a producer and director, known for Gagma napiri (2009), Corn Island (2014) and Zgvis donidan... (2005).Georgian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Corn Island 10/10
2. The Other Bank 9/10
3. Khibula 3/10
4. Wagonette 1997
5. Beautiful Helen 2022
Cinema Ribbon 6: 1 Short; 5 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Benedek Fliegauf was born on 15 August 1974 in Budapest, Hungary. He is a director and writer, known for Just the Wind (2012), Womb (2010) and Dealer (2004).Hungarian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Milky Way 10/10
2. Womb 7/10
3. Just the Wind 6/10
4. Dealer 3/10
5. Rengeteg
6. Liliom ösvény
7. Rengeteg - Mindenhol látlak
Cinema Ribbon 15: 2 Documentary; 1 Anthology; 5 Short; 7 Movie.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Daniel Kwan with Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels, are a duo of film directors and writers. They began their career as directors of music videos, including the popular DJ Snake promotional for the single "Turn Down for What" (2013). They have since ventured into film, having written and directed the surreal comedy-drama Swiss Army Man (2016) and the science-fiction action comedy Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), the latter became A24's highest-grossing film of all time.American
My Top:
Movie:
1. Everything Everywhere All at Once 10/10
2. Swiss Army Man 8/10
Cinema Ribbon 30: 23 Short, Video or Music Video; 4 TV Series; 1 Anthology; 2 Movie.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Luca Guadagnino was born on 10 August 1971 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. He is a director and producer, known for Call Me by Your Name (2017), Suspiria (2018) and Bones and All (2022).Italian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Suspiria 10/10
2. Call Me by Your Name 7/10
3. Bones and All 6/10
4. A Bigger Splash 6/10
5. I Am Love 5/10
6. The Protagonists (1999)
7. Melissa P. (2005)
Cinema Ribbon 33: 2 Music Video; 16 Shorts, 1 Video, 1 TV Series; 5 Documentary; 7 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Eldar Shengelaia was born on 26 January 1933 in Tiflis, Transcaucasian SFSR, USSR [now Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia]. He is a director and writer, known for Blue Mountains, or Unbelievable Story (1983), The Chair (2017) and Tetri karavani (1964). He was previously married to Ariadna Shengelaia.Georgian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Blue Mountains, or Unbelievable Story 10/10
2. The Eccentrics 10/10
3. An Unusual Exhibition 7/10
4. The Chair 6/10
5. Miqela 6/10
6. Stepmother Samanishvili 5/10
7. Expres-Inpormatsia
8. Dog Rose
Anthology:
1. The White Caravan 8/10
Cinema Ribbon 13: 1 Short; 4 Anthology; 8 Movie.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Born in Puducherry, India, and raised in the posh suburban Penn Valley area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, M. Night Shyamalan is a film director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional actor, known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots.
He is the son of Jayalakshmi, a Tamil obstetrician and gynecologist, and Nelliate C. Shyamalan, a Malayali doctor. His passion for filmmaking began when he was given a Super-8 camera at age eight, and even at that young age began to model his career on that of his idol, Steven Spielberg. His first film, Praying with Anger (1992), was based somewhat on his own trip back to visit the India of his birth. He raised all the funds for this project, in addition to directing, producing and starring in it. Wide Awake (1998), his second film, he wrote and directed, and shot it in the Philadelphia-area Catholic school he once attended--even though his family was of a different religion, they sent him to that school because of its strict discipline.
Shyamalan gained international recognition when he wrote and directed 1999's The Sixth Sense (1999), which was a commercial success and later nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Shyamalan team up again with Bruce Willis in the film Unbreakable (2000), released in 2000, which he also wrote and directed.
His major films include the science fiction thriller Signs (2002), the psychological thriller The Village (2004), the fantasy thriller Lady in the Water (2006), The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender (2010), After Earth (2013), and the horror films The Visit (2015) and Split (2016).Indian-American
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Happening 10/10
2. The Village 10/10
3. Unbreakable 8/10
4. Signs 8/10
5. Old 8/10
6. After Earth 8/10
7. Knock at the Cabin 8/10
8. Split 7/10
9. Glass 6/10
10. Wide Awake 6/10
11. Sixth Sence 5/10
12. Lady in the Water 5/10
13. The Last Airbender 5/10
14. The Visit 3/10
15. Praying with Anger (1992)
Cinema Ribbon 18: 1 Video; 2 TV Series; 15 Movie.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Lana Wachowski and her sister Lilly Wachowski, also known as the Wachowskis, are the duo behind such ground-breaking movies as The Matrix (1999) and Cloud Atlas (2012). Born to mother Lynne, a nurse, and father Ron, a businessman of Polish descent, Wachowski grew up in Chicago and formed a tight creative relationship with her sister Lilly. After the siblings dropped out of college, they started a construction business and wrote screenplays. Their 1995 script, Assassins (1995), was made into a movie, leading to a Warner Bros contract. After that time, the Wachowskis devoted themselves to their movie careers. In 2012, during interviews for Cloud Atlas and in her acceptance speech for the Human Rights Campaign's Visibility Award, Lana spoke about her experience of being a transgender woman, sacrificing her much cherished anonymity out of a sense of responsibility. Lana is known to be extremely well-read, loves comic books and exploring ideas of imaginary worlds, and was inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in creating Cloud Atlas.American
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Matrix 10/10
2. The Matrix Reloaded 10/10
3. The Matrix Revolutions 10/10
4. Bound 10/10
5. Cloud Atlas 10/10
6. Jupiter Ascending 9/10
7. Speed Racer 6/10
8. The Matrix Resurrections 3/10
TV Series:
1. Sense8 10/10
Cinema Ribbon 14: 1 TV Series; 1 TV Movie; 4 Video Game; 8 Movie.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Guillermo del Toro was born October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Raised by his Catholic grandmother, del Toro developed an interest in filmmaking in his early teens. Later, he learned about makeup and effects from the legendary Dick Smith (The Exorcist (1973)) and worked on making his own short films. At the age of 21, del Toro executive produced his first feature, Dona Herlinda and Her Son (1985). Del Toro spent almost 10 years as a makeup supervisor, and formed his own company, Necropia in the early 1980s. He also produced and directed Mexican television programs at this time, and taught film.
Del Toro got his first big break when Cronos (1992) won nine Ariel Awards (the Mexican equivalent of the Oscars), then went on to win the International Critics Week Prize at Cannes. Following this success, del Toro made his first Hollywood film, Mimic (1997), starring Mira Sorvino.
Del Toro had some unfortunate experiences working with a demanding Hollywood studio on Mimic (1997), and returned to Mexico to form his own production company, The Tequila Gang.
Next for del Toro, was The Devil's Backbone (2001), a Spanish Civil War ghost story. The film was hailed by critics and audiences alike, and del Toro decided to give Hollywood another try. In 2002, he directed the Wesley Snipes vampire sequel, Blade II (2002).
On a roll, Del Toro followed up Blade II (2002) with another successful comic-book inspired film, Hellboy (2004), starring one of Del Toro's favorite actors, Ron Perlman.
Del Toro is divorced, has a daughter and a son and lives in Los Angeles and Toronto.Mexican
My Top:
Movie:
1. Pan's Labyrinth 10/10
2. The Devil's Backbone 9/10
3. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio 9/10
4. The Shape of Water 8/10
5. Crimson Peak 8/10
6. Pacific Rim 7/10
7. Cronos 6/10
8. Nightmare Alley 6/10
9. Blade II 5/10
10. Hellboy 5/10
11. Hellboy II: The Golden Army 5/10
12. Mimic 5/10
TV Series:
1. The Strain 9/10
Cinema Ribbon 22: 1 Documentary; 2 Video game; 2 Short; 5 TV Series; 12 Movie.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, Essex, England. He was the son of Emma Jane (Whelan; 1863 - 1942) and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock (1862 - 1914). His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William Hitchcock (born 1890) and Eileen Hitchcock (born 1892). Raised as a strict Catholic and attending Saint Ignatius College, a school run by Jesuits, Hitch had very much of a regular upbringing. His first job outside of the family business was in 1915 as an estimator for the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. His interest in movies began at around this time, frequently visiting the cinema and reading US trade journals.
Hitchcock entering the film industry in 1919 as a title card designer. It was there that he met Alma Reville, though they never really spoke to each other. It was only after the director for Always Tell Your Wife (1923) fell ill and Hitchcock was named director to complete the film that he and Reville began to collaborate. Hitchcock had his first real crack at directing a film, start to finish, in 1923 when he was hired to direct the film Number 13 (1922), though the production wasn't completed due to the studio's closure (he later remade it as a sound film). Hitchcock didn't give up then. He directed The Pleasure Garden (1925), a British/German production, which was very popular. Hitchcock made his first trademark film in 1927, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) . In the same year, on the 2nd of December, Hitchcock married Alma Reville. They had one child, Patricia Hitchcock who was born on July 7th, 1928. His success followed when he made a number of films in Britain such as The Lady Vanishes (1938) and Jamaica Inn (1939), some of which also gained him fame in the USA.
In 1940, the Hitchcock family moved to Hollywood, where the producer David O. Selznick had hired him to direct an adaptation of 'Daphne du Maurier''s Rebecca (1940). After Saboteur (1942), as his fame as a director grew, film companies began to refer to his films as 'Alfred Hitchcock's', for example Alfred Hitcock's Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976), Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972).
Hitchcock was a master of pure cinema who almost never failed to reconcile aesthetics with the demands of the box-office.
During the making of Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's wife Alma suffered a paralyzing stroke which made her unable to walk very well. On March 7, 1979, Hitchcock was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award, where he said: "I beg permission to mention by name only four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation, and encouragement, and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter Pat, and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen and their names are Alma Reville." By this time, he was ill with angina and his kidneys had already started to fail. He had started to write a screenplay with Ernest Lehman called The Short Night but he fired Lehman and hired young writer David Freeman to rewrite the script. Due to Hitchcock's failing health the film was never made, but Freeman published the script after Hitchcock's death. In late 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock. On the 29th April 1980, 9:17AM, he died peacefully in his sleep due to renal failure. His funeral was held in the Church of Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. Father Thomas Sullivan led the service with over 600 people attended the service, among them were Mel Brooks (director of High Anxiety (1977), a comedy tribute to Hitchcock and his films), Louis Jourdan, Karl Malden, Tippi Hedren, Janet Leigh and François Truffaut.English
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Birds 10/10
2. Psycho 10/10
3. Rebecca 10/10
4. Marnie 9/10
5. Rear Window 8/10
6. North by Northwest 8/10
7. Dial M for Murder 8/10
8. Notorious 8/10
9. The Lady Vanishes 8/10
10. The 39 Steps 8/10
11. Lifeboat 8/10
12. Spellbound 8/10
13. Foreign Correspondent 8/10
14. The Man Who Knew Too Much 8/10
15. Suspicion 8/10
16. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog 8/10
17. The Trouble with Harry 8/10
18. Vertigo 7/10
19. Strangers on a Train 7/10
20. Shadow of a Doubt 7/10
21. To Catch a Thief 7/10
22. The Wrong Man 7/10
23. Frenzy 7/10
24. Stage Fright 7/10
25. Sabotage 7/10
26. Blackmail 7/10
27. The Paradine Case 7/10
28. Jamaica Inn 7/10
29. Rope 6/10
30. I Confess 6/10
31. Saboteur 6/10
32, Family Plot 6/10
33. Young and Innocent 6/10
34. Torn Curtain 6/10
35. Murder! 6/10
36. Topaz 6/10
37. The Pleasure Garden 6/10
38. Secret Agent 5/10
39. Mr. & Mrs. Smith 5/10
40. The Manxman 5/10
41. The Ring 5/10
42. Downhill 5/10
43. The Farmer's Wife 5/10
44. Waltzes from Vienna 5/10
45. The Skin Game 5/10
46. Number Seventeen 5/10
47. Mary 5/10
48. Easy Virtue 5/10
49. Champagne 5/10
50. The Man Who Knew Too Much 4/10
51. Under Capricorn 4/10
52. Rich and Strange 4/10
53. Juno and the Paycock 4/10
54. Kaleidoscope (1967) (Abandoned)
55. Number 13 (1922) (Never completed or shown)
56. The Mountain Eagle (1926) (Damaged)
Anthology:
1. Elstree Calling 4/10
Cinema Ribbon 69: 1 TV Movie; 4 TV Series; 7 Short; 1 Anthology; 56 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Originally planning to become a lawyer, Billy Wilder abandoned that career in favor of working as a reporter for a Viennese newspaper, using this experience to move to Berlin, where he worked for the city's largest tabloid. He broke into films as a screenwriter in 1929 and wrote scripts for many German films until Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. Wilder immediately realized his Jewish ancestry would cause problems, so he emigrated to Paris, then the US. Although he spoke no English when he arrived in Hollywood, Wilder was a fast learner and thanks to contacts such as Peter Lorre (with whom he shared an apartment), he was able to break into American films. His partnership with Charles Brackett started in 1938 and the team was responsible for writing some of Hollywood's classic comedies, including Ninotchka (1939) and Ball of Fire (1941). The partnership expanded into a producer-director one in 1942, with Brackett producing and the two turned out such classics as Five Graves to Cairo (1943), The Lost Weekend (1945) (Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay) and Sunset Blvd. (1950) (Oscars for Best Screenplay), after which the partnership dissolved. (Wilder had already made one film, Double Indemnity (1944) without Brackett, as the latter had refused to work on a film he felt dealt with such disreputable characters.) Wilder's subsequent self-produced films would become more caustic and cynical, notably Ace in the Hole (1951), though he also produced such sublime comedies as Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960) (which won him Best Picture and Director Oscars). He retired in 1981.Austrian-American
My Top:
Movie:
1. Sunset Blvd. 10/10
2. Witness for the Prosecution 10/10
3. Some Like It Hot 10/10
4. Double Indemnity 9/10
5. Ace in the Hole 9/10
6. The Lost Weekend 8/10
7. One, Two, Three 8/10
8. A Foreign Affair 8/10
9. Love in the Afternoon 8/10
10. Kiss Me, Stupid 8/10
11. The Apartment 7/10
12. The Front Page 7/10
13. Avanti! 7/10
14. Stalag 17 6/10
15. Sabrina 6/10
16. The Major and the Minor 6/10
17. Irma la Douce 6/10
18. Five Graves to Cairo 6/10
19. The Fortune Cookie 6/10
20. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes 6/10
21. Fedora 6/10
22. Buddy Buddy 6/10
23. Mauvaise graine 6/10
24. The Emperor Waltz 6/10
25. The Seven Year Itch 5/10
26. The Spirit of St. Louis 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 27: 1 Short; 26 Movie.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
John Cassavetes was a Greek-American actor, film director, and screenwriter. He is considered a pioneer of American independent film, as he often financed his own films.
Cassavetes was born in New York City in 1929 to Nicholas John Cassavetes (1893-1979) and his wife, Katherine Demetre (1906-1983). Nicholas was an immigrant from Greece, while Katherine was Greek-American who had been born in New York City. The Cassavetes family moved back to Greece in the early 1930s, and John learned Greek as his primary language. The family moved back to the United States around 1936, possibly to evade Greece's new dictatorship, the 4th of August Regime (1936-1941). Young John had to learn to speak English. He spent his late childhood and most of his teenage years in Long Island, New York. From 1945-47, he attended the Port Washington High School. He wrote for the school newspaper and the school yearbook. The 18-year-old Cassavetes was then transferred to the Blair Academy, a boarding school located in Blairstown, New Jersey. When the time came for him to start college, Cassavetes enrolled at Champlain College (in Burlington, Vermont) but was expelled owing to poor grades.
After a brief vacation to Florida, Cassavetes enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA), in New York City. Several of his old friends were already students there and had recommended it to Cassavetes, who would be mentored by Don Richardson (1918-1996). After graduating, he began to regularly perform on stage while also appearing in small roles in films and television shows.
Cassavetes's first notable film role was that of Robert Batsford, one of the three villains (along with Vince Edwards and David Cross) in The Night Holds Terror (1955). His next major role was juvenile delinquent Frankie Dane in the crime film "Crime in the Streets" (1956). He won a lead role in Edge of the City (1957) as drifter Axel Nordmann. His co-star for the film was Sidney Poitier, who played stevedore Tommy Tyler. The film helped break new ground, portraying a working-class interracial friendship. Cassavetes gained critical acclaim for his role, and film critics compared him to Marlon Brando. Cassavetes's success as an actor led to his becoming a contract player for MGM. In 1959, he directed his first film, Shadows (1958). It depicted the lives of three African-American siblings in New York City. It won the Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival.
His next directing effort, Too Late Blues (1961), was about the professional and romantic problems of a struggling jazz musician. The film was poorly received at the time, though its autobiographical elements are considered remarkable. Cassavetes then directed A Child Is Waiting (1963), which depicted life in a state institution for mentally handicapped and emotionally disturbed children. The film was a documentary-style portrayal of problems in the social services. It was praised by critics but failed at the box office.
In 1968, Cassavetes had a comeback as a director with Faces (1968), which depicts a single night in the life of a middle-aged married couple. After 14 years of marriage, the two feel rather miserable and seek happiness in the company of friends and the beds of younger lovers, but neither manages to cure their sense of misery. The film gained critical acclaim, and, in 2011, was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Cassavetes returned to the theme of a midlife crisis in his next film, Husbands (1970). The film depicts three middle-aged men, professionally successful and seemingly happily married. The death of a close childhood friend reminds them of their own mortality, and of their fading memories of youth. They flee their ordinary lives with a shared vacation to London, but their attempts to rejuvenate themselves fail. This film attracted mixed reviews, with some critics praising its "moments of piercing honesty" and others finding fault with its rambling dialogue.
Cassavetes's next film was Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), about the romantic relationship between a seemingly incompatible couple, jaded museum curator Minnie Moore and the temperamental drifter Seymour Moskowitz. It was well received and garnered Cassavetes a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen. His next film was A Woman Under the Influence (1974), concerning the effects of mental illness on a working-class family. In the film, ordinary housewife Mabel Longhetti starts displaying signs of a mental disorder. She undergoes psychiatric treatment for six months while her husband, Nick Longhetti, attempts to play the role of a single father. But Nick seems to be a social misfit in his own right, and neither parent seems to be "normal". Cassavetes was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for this film, but the award was won by Francis Ford Coppola.
Cassavetes next directed the gritty crime film, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976). In the film, Korean War veteran and cabaret owner Cosmo Vittelli owes a large debt to a criminal organization and is coerced to serve as their hit-man in an assassination scheme. He has been told that the target is an insignificant bookie, but after the assassination Vittelli learns that he just killed a high-ranking crime boss of the Chinese mafia and that he himself is now a target for assassination. The film gained good reviews and a cult following.
His next film, Opening Night (1977), was more enigmatic, mixing drama with horror elements. Protagonist Myrtle Gordon (played by Cassavetes's wife, Gena Rowlands) is a famous actress, but aging and dissatisfied with the only theatrical role available to her. After seeing teenager Nancy Stein, one of her obsessive fans , get killed in a car accident, Myrtle starts having visions of Nancy's ghost. As she keeps fighting the ghost, drinking heavily and chain-smoking, the film ends without explaining what seems to be going wrong with Myrtle's perception of reality. The film was a hit in Europe but flopped in the United States.
Cassavetes had another directing comeback with "Gloria" (1980). In the film, Gloria Swenson (formerly a gangster's girlfriend) is asked to protect Phil Dawn, the young son of an FBI informant within a New York crime family. After the apparent assassination of Phil's parents, Gloria finds herself targeted by gangsters and wanted by the police as a kidnapping suspect. The film won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, and protagonist Gena Rowlands was nominated for several acting awards.
Cassavetes's 11th directing effort was the rather unconventional drama Love Streams (1984), about the relationship between two middle-aged siblings. In the film, Sarah Lawson suffers from depression following a messy divorce and moves in with her brother, Robert Harmon, an alcoholic writer with self-destructive tendencies. Though estranged from his ex-wife and his only son and unable to protect himself from violent foes, in the end Robert finally has someone for whom to care. The film won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Cassavetes' swan song as a director was the comedy Big Trouble (1986), replacing the much younger Andrew Bergman. The film concerns an insurance agent who needs $40,000 for college tuition for his three daughters. He agrees to cooperate in an insurance scam with the wife of one of his clients, though the plan may require them to murder her husband. Several elements of the film were recycled from the plot of the iconic film noir Double Indemnity (1944), and "Big Trouble" served as its unofficial remake. The film was unsuccessful, and Cassavetes himself reportedly disliked the script.
In the late 1980s, Cassavetes suffered from health problems and his career was in decline. He died in 1989 from cirrhosis of the liver caused by many years of heavy drinking. He was only 59 years old. He is buried at the Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles, having left more than 40 unproduced screenplays and an unpublished novel. His son, Nick Cassavetes, eventually used one of the unproduced screenplays to direct a new film, the romantic drama, She's So Lovely (1997). It was released eight years after the death of John Cassavetes, and was well received by critics.American
My Top:
Movie:
1. A Woman Under the Influence 10/10
2. Opening Night 8/10
3. Faces 8/10
4. A Child Is Waiting 8/10
5. Love Streams 7/10
6. Minnie and Moskowitz 7/10
7. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie 6/10
8. Gloria 6/10
9. Shadows 5/10
10. Husbands 5/10
11. Too Late Blues 5/10
12. Big Trouble 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 16: 4 TV Series; 12 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Abbas Kiarostami was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1940. He graduated from university with a degree in fine arts before starting work as a graphic designer. He then joined the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, where he started a film section, and this started his career as a filmmaker at the age of 30. Since then he has made many movies and has become one of the most important figures in contemporary Iranian film. He is also a major figure in the arts world, and has had numerous gallery exhibitions of his photography, short films and poetry. He is an iconic figure for what he has done, and he has achieved it all by believing in the arts and the creativity of his mind.Iranian
My top:
Movie:
1. And Life Goes on... 10/10
2. Taste of Cherry 10/10
3. Through the Olive Trees 8/10
4. The Wind Will Carry Us 8/10
5. Close-up 8/10
6. Ten 8/10
7. Where Is My Friend's House? 7/10
8. The Traveler 7/10
9. Certified Copy 6/10
10. The Experience 6/10
11. Shirin 6/10
12. A Wedding Suit 5/10
13. 24 Frames 5/10
14. Gozaresh
Anthology:
1. Like Someone in Love 7/10
2. Venice 70: Future Reloaded 7/10
3. To Each His Own Cinema 7/10
4. Tickets 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 48: 11 Documentary; 19 Short; 4 Anthology; 14 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Ken Russell tried several professions before choosing to become a film director; he was a still photographer and a dancer and he even served in the Army, but film was his destiny. He began by making several short films which paved the way for his brilliant television films of the 1960s that are acclaimed for his attention to detail and opulent visuals. His third feature film Women in Love (1969) was a triumph that made him known internationally. In the 1970s, his talent truly blossomed. Over the next two decades he would direct a succession of remarkable films, most containing the trademark flamboyance that critics generally dismiss but many find engrossing. He will forever be remembered as a controversial, visionary artist with something of a third eye for oddball dramas with captivating images and themes.British
My Top:
Movie:
1. Women in Love 10/10
2. The Music Lovers 8/10
3. Savage Messiah 8/10
4. Altered States 8/10
5. The Devils 7/10
6. Mahler 7/10
7. The Rainbow 7/10
8. Lisztomania 7/10
9. The Boy Friend 6/10
10. Tommy 6/10
11. Salome's Last Dance 6/10
12. Valentino 6/10
13. French Dressing 6/10
14. Gothic 6/10
15. Crimes of Passion 5/10
16. Billion Dollar Brain 5/10
17. Whore 5/10
18. he Lair of the White Worm 4/10
19. The Fall of the Louse of Usher 3/10
Anthology:
1. Aria 4/10
Cinema Ribbon 75: 1 Documentary; 27 Short, TV Short or Music Video; 8 TV Series or Mini Series; 3 Anthology; 17 TV Movie; 19 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Agnès Varda was born on 30 May 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on 29 March 2019 in Paris, France.French
My Top:
Movie:
1. Vagabond 10/10
2. Le bonheur 9/10
3. Cléo from 5 to 7 9/10
4. One Sings, the Other Doesn't 8/10
5. La Pointe-Courte 8/10
6. One Hundred and One Nights 7/10
7. Kung-fu master! 5/10
8. The Creatures 5/10
9. Jacquot de Nantes (1991)
10. Jane B. par Agnès V. (1988)
11. Documenteur (1981)
12. Lions Love (1969)
Documentary:
1. The Beaches of Agnès 8/10
2. Daguerreotypes 8/10
Short:
1. Ulysse 10/10
Cinema Ribbon 61: 1 TV Movie; 5 TV Series; 25 Short; 6 Video; 12 Documentary; 12 Movie.- Director
- Writer
Kote Marjanishvili was born on 9 June 1872 in Kvareli, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire [now Kakheti, Republic of Georgia]. He was a director and writer, known for The Gadfly (1928), Komunaris chibukhi (1929) and Amoki (1927). He died on 17 April 1933 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia].Georgian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Gogi Ratiani 10/10
2. Amok 10/10
3. Pipe of Communard 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 6: 2 Short; 4 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Zaza Khalvashi was born on 17 May 1957 in Batumi, Adjar ASSR, Georgian SSR, USSR [now Republic of Georgia]. He was a director and writer, known for Solomon (2015), Namme (2017) and Lotto (2023). He died on 4 February 2020 in Tbilisi, Georgia.Georgian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Namme 10/10
2. Ik-Chemtan
3. Mizerere
4. Solomon
5. Lotto
Cinema Ribbon 5: 5 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Actress
Chantal Akerman was born on 6 June 1950 in Brussels, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for The Meetings of Anna (1978), I, You, He, She (1974) and A Couch in New York (1996). She was married to Sonia Wieder-Atherton. She died on 5 October 2015 in Paris, France.Belgian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles 10/10
2. Anna's Meetings 8/10
3. Almayer's Folly 8/10
4. Night and Day 6/10
5. A Couch in New York 6/10
6. All Night Long 5/10
7. I, You, He, She 5/10
8. The Captive 5/10
9. Golden Eighties
10. Letters Home
11. American Stories, Food, Family and Philosophy
12. Tomorrow We Move
Documentary:
1. From the East 10/10
Anthology:
1. State of the World 8/10
Cinema Ribbon 48: 3 TV Series; 4 Anthology; 13 Documentary; 14 Short; 12 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Shohei Imamura's films dig beneath the surface of Japanese society to reveal a wellspring of sensual, often irrational, energy that lies beneath. Along with his colleagues Nagisa Ôshima and Masahiro Shinoda, Imamura began his serious directorial career as a member of the New Wave movement in Japan. Reacting against the studio system, and particularly against the style of Yasujirô Ozu, the director he first assisted, Imamura moved away from the subtlety and understated nature of the classical masters to a celebration of the primitive and spontaneous aspects of Japanese life. To explore this level of Japanese consciousness, Imamura focuses on the lower classes, with characters who range from bovine housewives to shamans, and from producers of blue movies to troupes of third-rate traveling actors. He has proven himself unafraid to explore themes usually considered taboo, particularly those of incest and superstition. Imamura himself was not born into the kind of lower-class society he depicts. The college-educated son of a physician, he was drawn toward film, and particularly toward the kinds of films he would eventually make, by his love of the avant-garde theater. Imamura has worked as a documentarist, recording the statements of Japanese who remained in other parts of Asia after the end of WWII, and of the "karayuki-san"--Japanese women sent to accompany the army as prostitutes during the war period. His heroines tend to be remarkably strong and resilient, able to outlast, and even to combat, the exploitative situations in which they find themselves. This is a stance that would have seemed impossible for the long-suffering heroines of classical Japanese films. In 1983, Imamura won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for The Ballad of Narayama (1983), based on a Shichirô Fukazawa novel about a village where the elderly are abandoned on a sacred mountaintop to die. Unlike director Keisuke Kinoshita's earlier version of the same story, Imamura's film, shot on location in a remote mountain village, highlights the more disturbing aspects of the tale through its harsh realism. In his attempt to capture what is real in Japanese society, and what it means to be Japanese, Imamura used an actual 40-year-old former prostitute in his The Insect Woman (1963); a woman who was searching for her missing fiancé in A Man Vanishes (1967); and a non-actress bar hostess as the protagonist of his History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess (1970). Despite this anthropological bent, Imamura has cleverly mixed the real with the fictional, even within what seems to be a documentary. This is most notable in his A Man Vanishes (1967), in which the fiancée becomes more interested in an actor playing in the film than with her missing lover. In a time when the word "Japanese" is often considered synonymous with "coldly efficient," Imamura's vision of a more robust and intuitive Japanese character adds an especially welcome cinematic dimension.Japanese
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Ballad of Narayama 10/10
2. Intentions of Murder 10/10
3. Black Rain 10/10
4. Pigs and Battleships 9/10
5. Profound Desires of the Gods 8/10
6. The Eel 8/10
7. Dr. Akagi 7/10
8. The Insect Woman 6/10
9. The Pornographers 6/10
10. Vengeance Is Mine 6/10
11. Stolen Desire
12. Endless Desire
13. Nishi Ginza Station
14. My Second Brother
15. Why Not?
16. Zegen
17. Warm Water Under a Red Bridge
Cinema Ribbon 25: 1 Anthology; 7 Documentary; 17 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Louis Malle, the descendant of a French nobleman who made a fortune in beet sugar during the Napoleonic Wars, created films that explored life and its meaning. Malle's family discouraged his early interest in film but, in 1950, allowed him to enter the Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Paris. His résumé showed that he had worked as an assistant to film maker Robert Bresson when Malle was hired by underwater explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau to be a camera operator on the Calypso. Cousteau soon promoted him to be co-director of The Silent World (1956) ("The Silent World"). Years later, Cousteau called Malle the best underwater cameraman he ever had. Malle's third film, The Lovers (1958) ("The Lovers"), starring Jeanne Moreau broke taboos against on screen eroticism. In 1968 the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the obscenity conviction of an Ohio theater that had exhibited "Les Amants." A director during the Nouvelle Vague, New Wave" of 1950s and 1960s (though technically not considered a Nouvelle Vague auteur), he also made films on the other side of the Atlantic, starting with Pretty Baby (1978), the film that made Brooke Shields an international superstar. The actress who played a supporting role in that film was given a starring role in Malle's next American film, Atlantic City (1980). That promising actress was Susan Sarandon.
In one of his later French films, Goodbye, Children (1987), Malle was able to find catharsis for an experience that had haunted him since the German occupation of France in World War II. At age 12, he was sent to a Catholic boarding school near Paris that was a refuge for several Jewish students, one of them was Malle's rival for academic honors and his friend. A kitchen worker at the school with a grudge became an informant. The priest who was the principal was arrested and the Jewish students were sent off to concentration camps.
In his final film, Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), Malle again penetrated the veil between life and art as theater people rehearse Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya." In that film, Malle worked again with theater director Andre Gregory and actor-playwright Wallace Shawn, the conversationalists of My Dinner with Andre (1981). Malle was married to Candice Bergen, and he succumbed to lymphoma in 1995.French
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Fire Within 10/10
2. The Lovers 9/10
3. Goodbye, Children 9/10
4. Viva Maria! 9/10
5. Elevator to the Gallows 8/10
6. Murmur of the Heart 8/10
7. Zazie in the Subway 8/10
8. Lacombe, Lucien 8/10
9. May Fools 7/10
10. Damage 7/10
11. My Dinner with Andre 7/10
12. Atlantic City, USA 7/10
13. Black Moon 6/10
14. The Thief of Paris 6/10
15. Alamo Bay 5/10
16. A Very Private Affair 4/10
17. Pretty Baby 4/10
18. Crackers 4/10
19. Vanya on 42nd Street 3/10
Short:
1. Crazeologie 5/10
Anthology:
1. Histoires extraordinaires 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 33: 1 Anthology; 6 Short; 7 Documentary; 19 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Cinematographer
The key person of the New German Cinema of the '70s. His works, mostly shot in 16mm, combine an intense interest and knowledge of German history and personal dramatic and emotional investigations. Malina (1991) which stars Isabelle Huppert is one of the great classics of modern cinema and deals with a perpetually burning apartment, a crazed love affair, and the definitions of the soul. A rare treat.German
My Top:
Movie:
1. Malina 10/10
2. Two 10/10
3. Day of the Idiots 10/10
4. Willow Springs 8/10
5. Eika Katappa 8/10
6. Der Tod der Maria Malibran 7/10
7. The Rose King 7/10
8. Palermo or Wolfsburg 7/10
9. The Reign of Naples 6/10
10. This Night 6/10
11. Nicaragua
12. Anglia
13. Der schwarze Engel
14. Goldflocken
15. Weiße Reise
16. Liebeskonzil
Short:
1. Maria Callas Porträt 6/10
2. Argila 6/10
3. Aggressionen 5/10
TV Movie:
1. Der Bomberpilot 6/10
Cinema Ribbon 41: 1 TV Movie Documentary; 3 TV Movie; 5 Documentary; 16 Short; 16 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Editor
The illegitimate son of a Danish farmer and his Swedish housekeeper, Carl Theodor Dreyer was born in Copenhagen on the 3th of February, 1889. He spent his early years in various foster homes before being adopted by the Dreyers at the age of two. Contrary to popular belief (perhaps nourished by the fact that his films often deal with religious themes) Dreyer did not receive a strict Lutheran upbringing, but was raised in a household that embraced modern ideas: in his spare time the adoptive father was an avid photographer, and the Dreyers voted for The Danish Social Democrates. When he was baptized the reasoning was culturally, not religiously motivated. Dreyer's childhood was an unhappy one. He did not feel his adoptive parents' love (especially the mother), and longed for his biological mother, whom he never knew.
After working as a journalist, he entered the film industry, and advanced from reading scripts to directing films himself. In the silent era his output was large, but it quickly diminished with the arrival of the talkie. In his lifetime he was recognized as being a fanatical perfectionist amongst producers, and thus difficult to work with. His career was dogged by problems with the financing of his films, which led to large gaps in his output - and after the critics, too, denounced Vampyr (1932), he returned to journalism in 1932, and became a cinema manager in 1952 - though he still made features up to the mid- 1960s, a few years before his death. His films are typically slow, intense studies of human psychology, usually of people undergoing extreme personal or religious crises. He is now regarded as the greatest director ever to emerge from Denmark.Danish
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Passion of Joan of Arc 10/10
2. Day of Wrath 10/10
3. Ordet 10/10
4. Vampyr 8/10
5. The Parson's Widow 7/10
6. Michael 7/10
7. Master of the House 7/10
8. The Bride of Glomdal 7/10
9. Leaves From Satan's Book 7/10
10. Die Gezeichneten 6/10
11. Der var engang 6/10
12. Två människor 6/10
13. Gertrud 5/10
14. The President 4/10
Documentary short:
1. Vandet på landet 7/10
2. Storstrømsbroen 7/10
3. Thorvaldsen 6/10
4. Landsbykirken 6/10
5. Mødrehjælpen 6/10
6. Et slot i et slot: Krogen og Kronborg 6/10
7. Kampen mod kræften 5/10
Short:
1. They Caught the Ferry 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 22: 1 Short; 7 Documentary short; 14 Movie.- Additional Crew
- Writer
- Director
The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school VGIK. He shot to international attention with his first feature, Ivan's Childhood (1962), which won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. This resulted in high expectations for his second feature Andrei Rublev (1966), which was banned by the Soviet authorities for two years. It was shown at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival at four o'clock in the morning on the last day, in order to prevent it from winning a prize - but it won one nonetheless, and was eventually distributed abroad partly to enable the authorities to save face. Solaris (1972), had an easier ride, being acclaimed by many in Europe and North America as the Soviet answer to Kubrick's '2001' (though Tarkovsky himself was never too fond of his own film nor Kubrick's), but he ran into official trouble again with Mirror (1975), a dense, personal web of autobiographical memories with a radically innovative plot structure. Stalker (1979) had to be completely reshot on a dramatically reduced budget after an accident in the laboratory destroyed the first version, and after Nostalghia (1983), shot in Italy (with official approval), Tarkovsky defected to Europe. His last film, The Sacrifice (1986) was shot in Sweden with many of Ingmar Bergman's regular collaborators, and won an almost unprecedented four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. He died of lung cancer at the end of the year. Two years later link=Sergei Parajanov dedicated his film Ashik Kerib to Tarkovsky.Russian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Stalker 10/10
2. The Sacrifice 10/10
3. Andrei Rublev 10/10
4. Nostalgia 10/10
5. Ivan's Childhood 9/10
6. Solaris 8/10
7. The Steamroller and the Violin 8/10
8. The Mirror 7/10
9. The First Day (Lost Film)
Short:
1. The Killers 7/10
TV Movie documentary:
1. Voyage in Time 7/10
Anthology:
1. There Will Be No Leave Today 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 12: 1 Anthology; 1 TV Movie documentary; 1 Short; 9 Movie.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Stanley Kubrick was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Sadie Gertrude (Perveler) and Jacob Leonard Kubrick, a physician. His family were Jewish immigrants (from Austria, Romania, and Russia). Stanley was considered intelligent, despite poor grades at school. Hoping that a change of scenery would produce better academic performance, Kubrick's father sent him in 1940 to Pasadena, California, to stay with his uncle, Martin Perveler. Returning to the Bronx in 1941 for his last year of grammar school, there seemed to be little change in his attitude or his results. Hoping to find something to interest his son, Jack introduced Stanley to chess, with the desired result. Kubrick took to the game passionately, and quickly became a skilled player. Chess would become an important device for Kubrick in later years, often as a tool for dealing with recalcitrant actors, but also as an artistic motif in his films.
Jack Kubrick's decision to give his son a camera for his thirteenth birthday would be an even wiser move: Kubrick became an avid photographer, and would often make trips around New York taking photographs which he would develop in a friend's darkroom. After selling an unsolicited photograph to Look Magazine, Kubrick began to associate with their staff photographers, and at the age of seventeen was offered a job as an apprentice photographer.
In the next few years, Kubrick had regular assignments for "Look", and would become a voracious movie-goer. Together with friend Alexander Singer, Kubrick planned a move into film, and in 1950 sank his savings into making the documentary Day of the Fight (1951). This was followed by several short commissioned documentaries (Flying Padre (1951), and (The Seafarers (1953), but by attracting investors and hustling chess games in Central Park, Kubrick was able to make Fear and Desire (1952) in California.
Filming this movie was not a happy experience; Kubrick's marriage to high school sweetheart Toba Metz did not survive the shooting. Despite mixed reviews for the film itself, Kubrick received good notices for his obvious directorial talents. Kubrick's next two films Killer's Kiss (1955) and The Killing (1956) brought him to the attention of Hollywood, and in 1957 he directed Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory (1957). Douglas later called upon Kubrick to take over the production of Spartacus (1960), by some accounts hoping that Kubrick would be daunted by the scale of the project and would thus be accommodating. This was not the case, however: Kubrick took charge of the project, imposing his ideas and standards on the film. Many crew members were upset by his style: cinematographer Russell Metty complained to producers that Kubrick was taking over his job. Kubrick's response was to tell him to sit there and do nothing. Metty complied, and ironically was awarded the Academy Award for his cinematography.
Kubrick's next project was to direct Marlon Brando in One-Eyed Jacks (1961), but negotiations broke down and Brando himself ended up directing the film himself. Disenchanted with Hollywood and after another failed marriage, Kubrick moved permanently to England, from where he would make all of his subsequent films. Despite having obtained a pilot's license, Kubrick was rumored to be afraid of flying.
Kubrick's first UK film was Lolita (1962), which was carefully constructed and guided so as to not offend the censorship boards which at the time had the power to severely damage the commercial success of a film. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) was a big risk for Kubrick; before this, "nuclear" was not considered a subject for comedy. Originally written as a drama, Kubrick decided that too many of the ideas he had written were just too funny to be taken seriously. The film's critical and commercial success allowed Kubrick the financial and artistic freedom to work on any project he desired. Around this time, Kubrick's focus diversified and he would always have several projects in various stages of development: "Blue Moon" (a story about Hollywood's first pornographic feature film), "Napoleon" (an epic historical biography, abandoned after studio losses on similar projects), "Wartime Lies" (based on the novel by Louis Begley), and "Rhapsody" (a psycho-sexual thriller).
The next film he completed was a collaboration with sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is hailed by many as the best ever made; an instant cult favorite, it has set the standard and tone for many science fiction films that followed. Kubrick followed this with A Clockwork Orange (1971), which rivaled Lolita (1962) for the controversy it generated - this time not only for its portrayal of sex, but also of violence. Barry Lyndon (1975) would prove a turning point in both his professional and private lives. His unrelenting demands of commitment and perfection of cast and crew had by now become legendary. Actors would be required to perform dozens of takes with no breaks. Filming a story in Ireland involving military, Kubrick received reports that the IRA had declared him a possible target. Production was promptly moved out of the country, and Kubrick's desire for privacy and security resulted in him being considered a recluse ever since.
Having turned down directing a sequel to The Exorcist (1973), Kubrick made his own horror film: The Shining (1980). Again, rumors circulated of demands made upon actors and crew. Stephen King (whose novel the film was based upon) reportedly didn't like Kubrick's adaptation (indeed, he would later write his own screenplay which was filmed as The Shining (1997).)
Kubrick's subsequent work has been well spaced: it was seven years before Full Metal Jacket (1987) was released. By this time, Kubrick was married with children and had extensively remodeled his house. Seen by one critic as the dark side to the humanist story of Platoon (1986), Full Metal Jacket (1987) continued Kubrick's legacy of solid critical acclaim, and profit at the box office.
In the 1990s, Kubrick began an on-again/off-again collaboration with Brian Aldiss on a new science fiction film called "Artificial Intelligence (AI)", but progress was very slow, and was backgrounded until special effects technology was up to the standard the Kubrick wanted.
Kubrick returned to his in-development projects, but encountered a number of problems: "Napoleon" was completely dead, and "Wartime Lies" (now called "The Aryan Papers") was abandoned when Steven Spielberg announced he would direct Schindler's List (1993), which covered much of the same material.
While pre-production work on "AI" crawled along, Kubrick combined "Rhapsody" and "Blue Movie" and officially announced his next project as Eyes Wide Shut (1999), starring the then-married Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. After two years of production under unprecedented security and privacy, the film was released to a typically polarized critical and public reception; Kubrick claimed it was his best film to date.
Special effects technology had matured rapidly in the meantime, and Kubrick immediately began active work on A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), but tragically suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep on March 7th, 1999.
After Kubrick's death, Spielberg revealed that the two of them were friends that frequently communicated discreetly about the art of filmmaking; both had a large degree of mutual respect for each other's work. "AI" was frequently discussed; Kubrick even suggested that Spielberg should direct it as it was more his type of project. Based on this relationship, Spielberg took over as the film's director and completed the last Kubrick project.
How much of Kubrick's vision remains in the finished project -- and what he would think of the film as eventually released -- will be the final great unanswerable mysteries in the life of this talented and private filmmaker.American
My Top:
Movie:
1. The Shining 10/10
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey 10/10
3. A Clockwork Orange 10/10
4. Paths of Glory 10/10
5. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb 10/10
6. Eyes Wide Shut 9/10
7. Full Metal Jacket 8/10
8. The Killer's Kiss 7/10
9. The Killing 7/10
10. Spartacus 7/10
11. Fear and Desire 6/10
12. Lolita 5/10
13. Barry Lyndon 4/10
Cinema Ribbon 16: 3 Documentary short; 13 Movie- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born July 14, 1918, the son of a priest. The film and T.V. series, The Best Intentions (1992) is biographical and shows the early marriage of his parents. The film Sunday's Children (1992) depicts a bicycle journey with his father. In the miniseries Private Confessions (1996) is the trilogy closed. Here, as in 'Den Goda Viljan' Pernilla August play his mother. Note that all three movies are not always full true biographical stories. He began his career early with a puppet theatre which he, his sister and their friends played with. But he was the manager. Strictly professional he begun writing in 1941. He had written a play called 'Kaspers död' (A.K.A. 'Kaspers Death') which was produced the same year. It became his entrance into the movie business as Stina Bergman (not a close relative), from the company S.F. (Swedish Filmindustry), had seen the play and thought that there must be some dramatic talent in young Ingmar. His first job was to save other more famous writers' poor scripts. Under one of that script-saving works he remembered that he had written a novel about his last year as a student. He took the novel, did the save-poor-script job first, then wrote a screenplay on his own novel. When he went back to S.F., he delivered two scripts rather than one. The script was Torment (1944) and was the fist Bergman screenplay that was put into film (by Alf Sjöberg). It was also in that movie Bergman did his first professional film-director job. Because Alf Sjöberg was busy, Bergman got the order to shoot the last sequence of the film. Ingmar Bergman is the father of Daniel Bergman, director, and Mats Bergman, actor at the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theater. Ingmar Bergman was also C.E.O. of the same theatre between 1963-1966, where he hired almost every professional actor in Sweden. In 1976 he had a famous tax problem. Bergman had trusted other people to advise him on his finances, but it turned out to be very bad advice. Bergman had to leave the country immediately, and so he went to Germany. A few years later he returned to Sweden and made his last theatrical film Fanny and Alexander (1982). In later life he retired from movie directing, but still wrote scripts for film and T.V. and directed plays at the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre for many years. He died peacefully in his sleep on July 30, 2007.Swedish
My Top:
Movie:
1. Persona 10/10
2. Autumn Sonata 10/10
3. Fanny and Alexander 10/10
4. Cries & Whispers 10/10
5. Winter Light 10/10
6. Shame 10/10
7. The Magician 10/10
8. Face to Face 10/10
9. Dreams 10/10
10. The Seventh Seal 9/10
11. The Virgin Spring 9/10
12. Hour of the Wolf 9/10
13. Brink of Life 9/10
14. Through a Glass Darkly 8/10
15. The Silence 8/10
16. Smiles of a Summer Night 8/10
17. The Passion of Anna 8/10
18. Sawdust and Tinsel 8/10
19. Summer with Monika 8/10
20. Summer Interlude 8/10
21. A Lesson in Love 8/10
22. The Devil's Eye 7/10
23. It Rains on Our Love 7/10
24. Das Schlangenei 7/10
25. Music in Darkness 7/10
26. Wild Strawberries 6/10
27. To Joy 6/10
28. Prison 6/10
29. Port of Call 6/10
30. A Ship Bound for India 6/10
31. Crisis 6/10
32. Waiting Women 5/10
33. Thirst 5/10
34. The Touch 5/10
35. All These Women 5/10
36. This Can't Happen Here 5/10
TV Movie:
1. The Rite 6/10
2. After the Rehearsal 6/10
TV Mini-Series:
1. Scenes from a Marriage 8/10
Cinema Ribbon 67: 1 Anthology; 1 TV Mini-Series; 3 Documentary; 4 Short; 22 TV Movie; 36 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Born in Lvov, Ukraine; then he moved with his father Miroslaw Zulawski to Czechoslovakia and later to Poland. In the late 1950s, he studied cinema in France. In the 1960s, he was an assistant of the famous Polish film director Andrzej Wajda. His feature debut The Third Part of the Night (1971) was an adaptation of his father's novel. His second feature The Devil (1972) was prohibited in Poland, and Zulawski went to France. After the success of his French debut That Most Important Thing: Love (1975) in 1975, he returned to Poland where he spent two years in making On the Silver Globe (1988). The work on this film was brutally interrupted by the authorities. After that, Zulawski moved to France where became known for his highly artistic, controversial, and very violent films. Zulawski is well known for his ability to discover and "rediscover" actresses. Romy Schneider, Isabelle Adjani and Sophie Marceau played their best parts in his films.Polish
My Top:
Movie:
1. Possession 10/10
2. The Devil 10/10
3. La note bleue 10/10
4. On the Silver Globe 10/10
5. Boris Godounov 10/10
6. My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days 9/10
7. That Most Important Thing: Love 8/10
8. Szamanka 8/10
9. Cosmos 8/10
10. The Third Part of the Night 7/10
11. L'amour braque 7/10
12. Fidelity 7/10
13. The Public Woman 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 15: 2 TV Short; 13 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Pier Paolo Pasolini achieved fame and notoriety long before he entered the film industry. A published poet at 19, he had already written numerous novels and essays before his first screenplay in 1954. His first film Accattone (1961) was based on his own novel and its violent depiction of the life of a pimp in the slums of Rome caused a sensation. He was arrested in 1962 when his contribution to the portmanteau film Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963) was considered blasphemous and given a suspended sentence. It might have been expected that his next film, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) (The Gospel According to St. Matthew), which presented the Biblical story in a totally realistic, stripped-down style, would cause a similar fuss but, in fact, it was rapturously acclaimed as one of the few honest portrayals of Christ on screen. Its original Italian title pointedly omitted the Saint in St. Matthew). Pasolini's film career would then alternate distinctly personal and often scandalously erotic adaptations of classic literary texts: Oedipus Rex (1967) (Oedipus Rex); The Decameron (1971); The Canterbury Tales (1972) (The Canterbury Tales); Arabian Nights (1974) (Arabian Nights), with his own more personal projects, expressing his controversial views on Marxism, atheism, fascism and homosexuality, notably Teorema (1968) (Theorem), Pigsty and the notorious Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), a relentlessly grim fusion of Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy with the 'Marquis de Sade' which was banned in Italy and many other countries for several years. Pasolini was murdered in still-mysterious circumstances shortly after completing the film.Italian
My Top:
Movie:
1. Mamma Roma 10/10
2. Medea 10/10
3. Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom 10/10
4. Acaattone 8/10
5. Oedipus Rex 8/10
6. Teorema 8/10
7. Arabian Nights 8/10
8. The Decameron 8/10
9. The Canterbury Tales 7/10
10. Porcile 7/10
11. The Hawks and the Sparrows 6/10
12. The Gospel According to St. Matthew 5/10
Anthology:
1. The Witches 6/10
Cinema Ribbon 26: 3 Short; 4 Documentary; 7 Anthology; 12 Movie.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
He studied fine arts in Paris in 1990-1992. In 1993 he won the award for Best Screenplay from the Educational Institute of Screenwriting with "A Painter and A Criminal Condemned to Death". After two more screenplay awards, he made his directorial debut with Crocodile (1996) ("Crocodile"). Then he went on to direct Wild Animals (1997) ("Wild Animals"), Birdcage Inn (1998) ("Birdcage Inn"), The Isle (2000) ("The Isle") and the highly experimental Real Fiction (2000) ("Real Fiction"), shot in just 200 minutes. In 1999, Address Unknown (2001) ("Address Unknown") was selected by the Pusan Film Festival's Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP) for development.South Korean
My Top:
Movie:
1. 3-Iron 10/10
2. Pieta 10/10
3. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring 10/10
4. Breath 9/10
5. Birdcage Inn 8/10
6. Address Unknown 8/10
7. Crocodile 8/10
8. Samaritan Girl 7/10
9. The Bow 7/10
10. The Isle 7/10
11. Moebius 7/10
12. Amen 7/10
13. One on One 7/10
14. Wild Animals 6/10
15. The Net 6/10
16. Dream 6/10
17. Time 6/10
18. The Coast Guard 5/10
19. Bad Guy 5/10
20. Real Fiction 5/10
21. The Time of Humans 5/10
22. Stop 2015
23. Dissolve 2019
24. Who Is God? 2022
Documentary:
1. Arirang 10/10
2. Venice 70: Future Reloaded 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 26: 2 Documentary; 24 Movie.- Animation Department
- Writer
- Art Department
Hayao Miyazaki is one of Japan's greatest animation directors. The entertaining plots, compelling characters, and breathtaking visuals in his films have earned him international renown from critics as well as public recognition within Japan.
Miyazaki started his career in 1963 as an animator at the studio Toei Douga studio, and was subsequently involved in many early classics of Japanese animation. From the beginning, he commanded attention with his incredible drawing ability and the seemingly endless stream of movie ideas he proposed.
In 1971, he moved to the A Pro studio with Isao Takahata. In 1973, he moved to Nippon Animation, where he was heavily involved in the World Masterpiece Theater TV animation series for the next 5 years. In 1978, he directed his first TV series, Future Boy Conan (1978). Then, he moved to Tokyo Movie Shinsha in 1979 to direct his first movie, the classic Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979). In 1984, he released Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), which was based on the manga of the same title he had started 2 years before. The success of the film led to the establishment of a new animation studio, Studio Ghibli. Since then, he has since directed, written, and produced many other films with Takahata. More recently, he has produced with Toshio Suzuki. All enjoyed critical and box office success, in particular Princess Mononoke (1997). It received the Japanese equivalent of the Academy Award for Best Film and was the highest-grossing (about USD $150 million) domestic film in Japan's history at the time of its release.
In addition to animation, he also draws manga. His major work was Nausicaä, an epic tale he worked on intermittently from 1982 to 1984 while he was busy making animated films. Another manga Hikotei Jidai, later evolved into Porco Rosso (1992).Japanese
My Top:
Anime:
1. Spirited Away 10/10
2. Howl's Moving Castle 10/10
3. Princess Mononoke 10/10
4. My Neighbor Totoro 10/10
5. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind 10/10
6. Ponyo 10/10
7. Kiki's Delivery Service 10/10
8. Castle in the Sky 10/10
9. The Wind Rises 10/10
10. The Castle of Cagliostro 9/10
11. Conan the Future Boy: The Big Giant Robot's Resurrection 9/10
12. Porco Rosso 8/10
13. The Boy and the Heron
TV Series:
1. Future Boy Conan 10/10
Short:
1. On Your Mark 8/10
2. Yuki no Taiyou 7/10
Cinema Ribbon 29: 4 TV Series; 11 Short; 13 Anime.- Director
- Cinematographer
- Writer
Wang Bing was born on 17 November 1967 in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. He is a director and cinematographer, known for The Ditch (2010), Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2002) and Three Sisters (2012).Chinese
My Top:
Documentary:
1. Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks 10/10
2. 'Til Madness Do Us Part 10/10
3. Mrs. Fang 10/10
4. Fengming: A Chinese Memoir 9/10
5. Bitter Money 8/10
6. Crude Oil 8/10
7. Three Sisters 8/10
8. Alone 8/10
9. Man with No Name 7/10
10. Coal Money 7/10
11. Father and Sons
12. Ta'ang
13. 15 Hours
14. Dead Souls
15. Beauty Lives in Freedom
16. Shanghai Qingnian
Anthology:
1. State of the World 8/10
2. Venice 70: Future Reloaded 7/10
Movie:
1. The Ditch 5/10
Cinema Ribbon 22: 1 Movie; 2 Short; 3 Anthology; 16 Documentary.- Producer
- Director
- Cinematographer
Nikolaus Geyrhalter was born in 1972 in Vienna, Austria. He is a producer and director, known for Earth (2019), Over the Years (2015) and Our Daily Bread (2005).Austrian
My Top:
Documentary:
1. Our Daily Bread 10/10
2. Pripyat 10/10
3. Homo Sapiens 10/10
Cinema Ribbon 17: 17 Documentary.- Writer
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
Michael Glawogger was born on 3 December 1959 in Graz, Austria. He was a writer and director, known for Workingman's Death (2005), Untitled (2017) and Whores' Glory (2011). He died on 23 April 2014 in Liberia.Austrian
My Top:
Documentary:
1. Whores' Glory 10/10
2. Megacities 10/10
3. Workingman's Death 10/10
Cinema Ribbon 21: 2 TV Series; 4 Short; 15 Documentary.- Director
- Producer
- Cinematographer
Joshua Oppenheimer was born on 23 September 1974 in Texas, USA. He is a director and producer, known for The Act of Killing (2012), The Entire History of the Louisiana Purchase (1998) and The Look of Silence (2014).American
My Top:
Documentary:
1. The Act of Killing 10/10
2. The Look of Silence 10/10
3. The Entire History of the Louisiana Purchase
Cinema Ribbon 15: 1 Video documentary; 1 TV Series documentary; 10 Short; 3 Documentary.- Director
- Writer
- Cinematographer
Salomé Jashi was born in 1981 in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, USSR [now Georgia]. She is a director and writer, known for Taming the Garden (2021), The Dazzling Light of Sunset (2016) and Bakhmaro heißt Paradies (2011).Georgian
My Top:
Documentary:
1. Taming the Garden 10/10
2. The Dazzling Light of Sunset 8/10
Cinema Ribbon 4: 1 Short; 1 TV Movie documentary; 2 Documentary.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Writer
Ron Fricke is known for Samsara (2011), Baraka (1992) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005).American
My Top:
Documentary:
1. Baraka 10/10
2. Samsara 10/10
Cinema Ribbon 4: 2 Short; 2 Documentary.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Gregory Colbert is known for Ashes and Snow (2005), On the Brink: An AIDS Chronicle (1988) and Unity (2015).Canadian
My Top:
Documentary:
1. Ashes and Snow 10/10
Cinema Ribbon 2: 1 TV Movie; 1 Documentary.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Producer
Beniamino Barrese is known for The Disappearance of My Mother (2019), Sodom (2017) and Departure (2015).Italian
My Top:
Documentary:
1. Storia di B. - La scomparsa di mia madre 10/10
Cinema Ribbon 1: 1 Documentary.- Director
- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
Tamara Kotevska was born on 9 August 1993 in Prilep, Macedonia. She is a director and writer, known for Honeyland (2019), Games (2014) and The Walk (2023).Macedonian
My Top:
Documentary:
1. Honeyland 10/10
Cinema Ribbon 7: 6 Short; 1 Documentary.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Godfrey Reggio is a pioneer of a film style that creates poetic images of extraordinary emotional impact for audiences worldwide. Reggio is prominent in the film world for his QATSI trilogy, essays of visual images and sound that chronicle the destructive impact of the modern world on the environment. Reggio, who spent 14 years in silence and prayer while studying to be a monk, has a history of service not only to the environment but to youth street gangs, the poor, and the community as well.
Born in New Orleans in 1940 and raised in southwest Louisiana, Reggio entered the Christian Brothers, a Roman Catholic pontifical order, at age 14. He spent 14 years of his adolescence and early adulthood in fasting, silence, and prayer. Based in New Mexico during the 1960s, Reggio taught grade school, secondary school, and college. In 1963, he co-founded Young Citizens for Action, a community organization project that aided juvenile street gangs. Following this, Reggio co-founded La Clinica de la Gente, a facility that provided medical care to 12,000 community members in Santa Fe, and La Gente, a community-organizing project in Northern New Mexico's barrios. In 1972, he co-founded the Institute for Regional Education in Santa Fe, a non-profit foundation focused on media development, the arts, community organization, and research. In 1974 and 1975, with funding from the American Civil Liberties Union, Reggio co-organized a multi-media public interest campaign on the invasion of privacy and the use of technology to control behavior.
_Koyaanisqatsi (1983)_, Reggio's debut as a film director and producer, is the first film of the QATSI trilogy. The title is a Hopi word meaning "life out of balance." Created between 1975 and 1982, the film is an apocalyptic vision of the collision of two different worlds--urban life and technology versus the environment. The musical score was composed by renowned composer Philip Glass. Powaqqatsi (1988), Reggio's second film, conveys a humanist philosophy about the earth, the encroachment of technology on nature and ancient cultures, and the splendor that disappears as a result. The film focuses on the so-called modern way of life and the concept of the Global Village, entwining the distinctive textures of ancient and so-called Third World cultures. Powaqqatsi was co-written, co-produced and directed by Reggio and had music composed by Philip Glass between 1985 and 1987. In 1991 Reggio directed Anima Mundi (1991), a film commissioned by Bulgari, the Italian jewelry company, for the World Wide Fund for Nature, which used the film for its Biological Diversity Program. Accompanied by the music of Philip Glass, the 28-minute Anima Mundi is a montage of intimate images of over seventy animal species that celebrates the magnificence and variety of the world's fauna.
In 1993, Reggio was invited to develop a new school of exploration and production in the arts, technology, and mass media being founded by the Benetton company. Called Abrica--Future, Presente, it opened in May 1995, in Treviso, Italy, just outside Venice. While serving as the initial director of the school through 1995, Reggio co-authored the 7-minute film Evidence (1995) that provides another point of view to observe the subtle but profound effects of modern living on children. In 2002, Godfrey Reggio completed Naqoyqatsi (2002), the final film of the QATSI trilogy, again with music by Philip Glass. Currently, Reggio is in the initial stages of production on a new film, working with a narrative structure for the first time, that will explore the negative impact that consumerism and fundamentalism has had on the world. He resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is a frequent lecturer on philosophy, technology, and film.American
My Top:
Documentary:
1. Koyaanisqatsi 10/10
2. Powaqqatsi 9/10
3. Naqoyqatsi 8/10
4. Visitors 8/10
Short:
1. Evidence 8/10
2. Anima Mundi 8/10
Cinema Ribbon 7: 1 Video; 2 Short; 4 Documentary.