#nacho-vigalondo

#nacho-vigalondo

When I was about 13 or 14, I knew I was a poet. And then, of course, I knew I had to make films. Although I had hardly ever seen any films. The very first time I had noticed that there was such a thing like movies was when I was 11.

My father was naturally a great storyteller. He always started with what was almost the end of the story, so he threw you a hook, but then he went back to the middle. He was a great storyteller, always finding ways to get new hooks here and there, to get you to listen to a long story.

From figures with multiple legs and noodles for arms to frolicking trees, Paco Pomet summons the absurd. Known for his uncanny oil paintings rendered mostly in monochrome and enlivened by colorful details of overly stretchy limbs or celestial objects, a sense of nostalgia greets surreal scenarios. The artist often derives his imagery from vintage black-and-white photographs, adding an absurd dimension to history.

Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo made his feature debut in 2007 with the independent film that provided the template for all his work to come. Timecrimes - newly released in a 4K UHD restoration by Vinegar Syndrome - is a low-budget exploration of an exceptionally bizarre time loop problem, deploying essentially no visual effects while telling an increasingly complex tale of a man trapped in a temporal paradox who keeps creating new versions of himself.

Bernardo grew up in Monterrey, Mexico. From a young age, movement was part of his life. He rode BMX and mountain bikes daily. That routine shaped his mindset. "Being on a bike teaches you focus," he says. "You fall, you get back up, and you keep going." That early discipline stayed with him. It later showed up in his professional life, even when the work looked very different.

More than 80 actors, directors and writers who are current or former participants in Germany's Berlin International Film Festival have signed an open letter condemning the organization's "institutional silence" and "censoring" over the war in Gaza. The open letter, first published by leading US entertainment trade magazine and website Variety, was signed by the likes of British actress Tilda Swinton, Spanish actor Javier Bardem, Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles and British filmmaker Mike Leigh.

Un Chien Andalou means "an Andalusian dog," though the much-studied 1929 short film of that title contains no dogs at all, from Andalusia or anywhere else. In fact, it alludes to a Spanish expression about how the howling of an Andalusian signals that someone has died. And indeed, there is death in Un Chien Andalou, as well as sex, albeit death and sex as processed through the unconscious minds of the young filmmaker Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí, whose collaboration on this enduringly strange movie did much to make their names.

Jodorowsky's most recent project is Alejandro Jodorowsky. Art Sin Fin (Taschen), two volumes in which he reviews his career, almost as boundless as it is surreal. Curated by editor and academic Donatien Grau, director of contemporary programs at the Louvre, this monograph is a work of art in itself and a manifesto that captures Jodorowsky's kaleidoscopic, mysterious, and dreamlike creative spirit across all his universes, from film and theater to poetry and comics, by way of philosophy and tarot.