Cracked

Old Japan Now Old Japan Now (2003) explores temple spaces, traditional Noh drama and modern Butoh dance to discover where ritual began and how it persists in modern practices. With footage from several important temples in Kyoto and Tokyo, as well as interviews with practitioners of Noh and Butoh, Old Japan Now seeks to explain some of the historical significance that descends from the Shinto religion and early animism. More poetic than clinical, the film is part diary and part haiku, considering the spiral path of ritual (KJ Mohr).

Gradiva GRADIVA was shot over a period of five summers and weaves a complex set of themes. Based loosely on the Wilhelm Jensen story, "Gradiva," used by Freud in Delusion and Dream to describe the relation of delusion to dream and both to fetishes, GRADIVA is a portrait of a thirteen-to-seventeen-year-old adolescent girl. The word gradiva is Latin, and roughly translates as "one who walks forward most lightly." The film uses several themes, among them, the role of dolls and fetishized objects (especially rocks, bones, sticks, flowers and other natural forms).

Bouquet "Focusing on the confident and sensuous movement/"dance"/embodiment of performance artist Lynn Book - and energetically bypassing the strictures of everyday language as well as the demands of narrative - BOUQUET unleashes the visceral force of often-repressed joys. Filmmaker Sharon Couzin and performance artist Lynn Book co-perform the galvanizing sound of BOUQUET. We are invited to experience two women's voices in a marvelous cascade of prelinguistic utterances, laughter of every conceivable joyful "color," evocative breathing and moans unleashed and released in order to close off the need for everyday language. It is as if some pre-Socratic mystery cult materialized by the waterfall, by the garden and in the artist's studio. Yet Couzin's film also amplifies primary energies with modern, subversive and ever-so-sly wit. Dynamic montage and joyful camera movement secure BOUQUET's place as a visionary film that invites the attention of critics and fellow artists alike." - Zack Stiglicz

Shells and Rushes "The lush and mysterious realm evoked by SHELLS AND RUSHES recalls the uncanny eclecticism of the surrealists. Strange, flesh-like sea shells, restlessly turning and quivering; enigmatic allusions to classical mythology, such as the Birth of Venus and Leda and the Swan; and paradoxical uses of positive and negative space variously bring to mind Man Ray, Dali and Cornell. But Couzin's film creates its own rich, secretive world and provides its own astonishing pleasures. Accompanied by an otherworldly soundtrack of ancient throat-singing, this deftly edited film is by turns seductive, humorous and serene." – Rafael Wang

Salve "There's a paradox at the center of Couzin's work, in that for all of the wariness of form and order her films express, they remain tightly organized, elegant formal studies. ... SALVE is her most paradoxical film and, I think, her richest. A young girl's discovery of 'the relationships between the quantities' – of geometry, volume, time, and numbers – is seen as an ineffably tragic development." – Dave Kehr Awards: Ann Arbor Film Festival; SF Art Institute Film Festival.

Ana Carolina fala sobre ... Brazilian Director Ana Carolina talks about her filmography.

Brad Dourif on Wise Bloo... The leading actor offers some background on Huston’s film.

Stranded Tensions run high while food runs low as six influencers find themselves stranded on a secluded island after plans for a weekend escape go awry.

Benedict Fitzgerald on W... The screenwriter offers some background on Huston's film.

Kim Newman on The Bloodt... Offers some nice background on Japanese horror in general and this trilogy in particular, delivered with Newman's typical enthusiasm and humor.