stray dogs ( 2014 film )
2014 (25th) singapore international film festival - dec. 4 - 14, 2014 - asian vision
2014 (14th) new horizons international film festival - july 24 - aug. 3, 2014 - ale kino +
writer / director ian waugh’s short film as he lay falling was one of the scottish shorts 2014 and was nominated for best film at eiff 2014 and received a special mention in the golden egg award at the reykjavik international film festival .
cornell cinema presents two contemporary world cinema premieres this week, including the winner of the palme d' or at the 2014 cannes film festival, “winter sleep” from turkey; and “stray dogs, ” from taiwan .
to find out more about the dogs available for adoption or fostering, please check out ‘i love bali dogs’ and ‘saving bali puppies & dogs’ on facebook .
writer / director sam firth’s short film stay the same won a special mention at glasgow film festival 2014. sam is now in development with stray bear films with her feature and has received development funding from the wellcome trust .
director colin kennedy’s first feature swung screened in the european film market 2014 and had its world premiere at eiff in june 2015 .
a contemplative portrait of ron' stray dog' hall: biker, vietnam vet, and lover of small dogs .
if this, truly, is tsai' s send - off, stray dogs is a finish for the history books .
“cyrille is a passionate dog lover and animal activist who devotes much of his time and resources to helping stray dogs in bali, ” comments matt from sunset vet. ”the echo beach adoption days feature puppies and adult dogs rescued by kris ritchie from ‘saving bali puppies & dogs’ and francesca montoneri from ‘i love bali dogs’. francesca currently feeds 57 dogs on a daily basis. if you ask her how many dogs she has rescued, she probably can’t tell you, as it has been so many! ”
stray dogs is a short starring bhushan borgaonkar, bobby parvez, and poornanand wandhekar. stray dogs is a story about a person trapped in typical social structure. the protagonist tony lives his middle class dreams and desires. he is an employee in a manufacturing industry. the... see full summary »
a railway line crosses the park so children must not be allowed to stray .
pick lovers with the same hair colour to avoid stray locks on the pillow .
a stray dog or cat has wandered away from its owner' s home .
hong kong – “ stray dogs, ” the austere, and possibly final film, by tsai ming - liang is after all to be given a theatrical release in the u. s. and in tsai’s adopted home, taiwan .
there have been many reports about the numbers of stray and abandoned animals in rescue centres .
the echo beach puppy adoption day started its inaugural adoption in january 2014. the old dogs @ old man’s event in batu bolong began in may later this year. their mission is to raise awareness about bali dogs, their characteristics and highlight their plight, at the same time as raising funds for the tireless people who continue to help bali dogs, and who find them a safe, loving home .
stray dogs really starts to come alive in its second half, when... the family - of - outcasts narrative tips completely into the slippery realm of the avant - garde .
stray dogs does have something extraordinary to it, but it left me, finally, almost as cold, if not as wet, as its protagonists on taipei' s unforgiving streets .
the text is peppered with gossipy asides and lengthy footnotes that often stray wildly off the subject .
use a cotton bud dipped in white vinegar to remove any stray hair dye from your skin .
producer sarah drummond and writer / director martin smith’s short film seagulls had festival premieres at both berlinale (nominated for crystal bear award) and eiff in 2014 (nominated for best short film). martin is now in development with edge city films on the feature version of seagulls .
that said, mr. tsai has his fervent admirers, some of whom have declared “stray dogs” a masterpiece. the 10th feature by this malaysian - born, taiwan - based director, it won the grand jury prize at the 2013 venice film festival and was shown at the new york film festival. in the production notes, mr. tsai professes to have become “tired of cinema. ” and “stray dogs, ” with its glacial pace and disconnected narrative, often feels more like an art installation than like a movie .
a stray is a domestic animal, fowl, etc, that has wandered away and is lost .
stray dogs ,
tsai ming - liang' s first feature in five years, is a mysterious and deliberately prolonged series of tableaus about the fragility of flesh and the smallness of humanity, among other things .
no longer was it necessary to wait for an animal to stray into the noose of a carefully set snare .
hsiao - kang, a taiwanese film director, travels to the louvre in paris, france, to shoot a film that explores the salomé myth .
hong kong – “stray dogs, ” the austere, and possibly final film, by tsai ming - liang is after all to be given a theatrical release in the u. s. and in tsai’s adopted home, taiwan. taiwan distributor, atom cinema said that it would give the film one or two commercial screenings per day from late february. after that [ … ]
producer kathy speirs is in co - development with ffilm cymru wales and creative scotland on feature film moon dogs. she is also developing a slate of projects working with new and established writers .
the point of no return in “stray dogs, ” tsai ming - liang’s glum, humorless exercise in asian miserablism, is an 11 - minute scene of a homeless man smothering and devouring a cabbage with a face painted on it .
the film’s male lead and tsai regular, lee kang - sheng also won best actor at the golden horse awards and at the asia - pacific film festival for his role in “dogs” as a single father who scrapes a living by holding up advertisement boards on the streets .
2015 sees the second year of the eiff short film challenge. the inaugural year saw submissions coming from locations spread from shetland to the borders with films provided by ages from 16 – 60. experience levels were vast and each film was considered on its own merit. local audiences really engaged with the public screenings and winners of the 2014 edition have most recently be selected to take their short film through development with the scottish film talent network, which provides the scottish arm of the bfi net. work .
echo beach puppy adoption day is held every last sunday of the month at olé olé ollie cupcake shop in echo beach, bali. two adoption days are dedicated to displaying adorable rescued pups and healthy adult dogs. what a great day out for bali dog lovers, supporters, and of course for the kids! olé olé ollie have teamed up with sunset vet, i love bali dogs and saving bali puppies & dogs, to run this regular event in the hope of pairing loving individuals with bali dogs .
best films lacking u. s. distribution: “from what is before, ” “stray dog” (debra granik), “walking under water”
lennon, an associate professor of english, has published seven novels, including “mailman, ” “familiar” and “happyland, ” and two story collections including his recent book “see you in paradise” (2014) .
“the solution to overpopulation of dogs in bali is to spay and neuter them. the number of rabies cases in both humans and dogs has fallen dramatically due to the government and bali animal welfare association vaccination program. however, we are starting to see a comeback this year as the immunity wanes, especially in north and east bali. it’s vital that all pet dogs get their rabies shots. ”
writer - director denis côté’s film offers an oxymoronic parable that’s been utilized countless times by cinema .
all participating dogs have been checked and vaccinated by sunset vet. everyone who fosters or adopts fills in a form, and the attending vet will then do a follow - up check after the adoption. the old dogs @ old man’s event is created specifically for older dogs. the event offers people a chance to meet and bond with lovely older dogs looking for homes, as well as a great opportunity to relax by the beach, browse the fun flea market wares, eat delicious products offered from the many vendors and also buy a few items from the charity table .
stray dogs evokes the whole of tsai’s filmography, but also pays off his collaboration with lee, who shows a side of himself that’s been hidden away for all these years. though lee’s presence has always emanated loneliness and sadness, seeing real tears crack his visage is like seeing greta garbo smiling: it’s a momentous occasion that tsai held off on unveiling until now. it’s one of the things that make stray dogs feel like tsai’s career should be taken not as a disparate collection of films, but one complete story, with this as the conclusion. for fans of his work, the payoff is overwhelming .
other filmmakers supported by the expo fund have feature films in development, with confirmed financial support from film financiers including film four, bbc films, creative scotland, creative england, the bfi and the wellcome trust .
watching stray dogs means realizing how much the offbeat melancholy of tsai’s other work takes the condition of poverty as a given rather than a subject: the eponymous opening in his 1998 film the hole, after all, is a giant hole in the floor of a taipei apartment, connecting the upstairs and downstairs neighbors, but it takes the form of an often - wondrous musical. 2003’s goodbye, dragon inn connects the closing of a movie palace with the gay subculture that persists there, but the actual space is decaying and rotten. his 2006 film i don’t want to sleep alone comes closer, since much of the action takes place among transients in kuala lumpur, but even that is dominated by the phenomenon of a forest fire blanketing the city in smoke. stray dogs is simply about how a family survives without money, and the devastating emotional consequences .
“stray dogs, ” a visually stunning yet stark portrait of poverty and homelessness on the streets of modern - day taipei by taiwanese master tsai ming - liang, screens friday, march 13 at 9: 15 p. m. and sunday, march 15 at 4 p. m. cosponsored by the east asia program .
1. boyhood 2. whiplash 3. the strange little cat 4. two days, one night 5. stray dogs 6. under the skin 7. force majeure 8. blue ruin 9. gone girl 10. the missing picture 11. nightcrawler 12. the babadook 13. ida 14. the immigrant 15. inherent vice
writer / director siri rodnes recently completed her self funded short film asking for it which is currently out to festivals. she has been commissioned as director on one of the recently selected scottish shorts through the scottish film talent network .
british - born polly christensen is a documentary film maker, features writer and environmentalist. she can be contacted at urltoken
“we thought what if we have an adoption day where instead of the pups being penned or caged, they get to run around in a big yard and interact with people? it gives them a chance to bond with the dogs and hopefully it will translate into more bali dogs being adopted. and it has turned out to be a fun and happening event where like - minded people meet up and exchange ideas, receive advice from our vet, and get better informed about the dogs’ welfare and how to care. ”
sai ming - liang’s stray dogs won the jury prize at venice, and many critics have unhesitatingly accorded it “masterpiece” status. i myself am agnostic, despite its obvious artistry and vision. for me, its mystery is opaque and its persistent note of stricken and agonised near - catatonia is sometimes unrewarding: it does not quite have all the generous qualities of
producer bianca herold is currently working on the second season of her webseries judas goat and has been able to develop their marketing and distribution strategy after her expo supported attendance at toronto international film festival. her short film rat king has been selected for commission via the sftn scottish shorts and she is developing a feature film wolf pack and in discussions with german co - producers .
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
talent labbers producers irune gurtubai and writer / director ben sharrock have just finished shooting their first feature film on location in spain .
if this is tsai ming - liang' s last film, he' s leaving the cinema farther along than he found it .
the film continues like that, observing the harshness of the children' s lives, and their father' s exhaustion and seemingly constant depression (he seems to spend a lot of the money they make as a family on alcohol and smokes). “heaven and earth are heartless, treating creatures like straw dogs ,
says the
eiff short film challenge: provides an entry - level opportunity for new filmmakers of all ages from across scotland to get their first experience of taking their film to an audience. the screening of the 2015 shortlisted submissions will be at filmhouse on saturday august 15, 2015 .
“putting adult dogs together with puppies for adoption does not work well, because nine out of ten times, the puppy will be chosen instead of the older dog. so we thought, why not have an adoption event especially for these lovely mature dogs? thanks to the kind support of hannah from chewy’s and working together with old man’s, we hold the event on popular saturday market day. ”
speaking ahead of a film industry reception she and the first minister will host tonight (thursday) at edinburgh castle, ms hyslop said that through the edinburgh festivals expo fund, the scottish government has transformed the film festival’s ability to nurture, develop and promote scottish filmmaking talent .
stray dogs is the kind of film that teases you with a narrative; it makes just enough sense that you want to piece it all together, even though the film resists easy resolution. a third - act turn in particular leaves us wondering if we’ve jumped forward in time, or backwards — whether we’re seeing a new stage in the characters’ desolation or a glimpse of what helped bring them to this moment. at one point, the kids dress a head of cabbage with lipstick and fake hair and slip it into bed beside their father; what he then drunkenly does to the cabbage is by turns hilarious, pathetic, unsettling, and horrifying, leaving us with a million more questions than before. there’s a real eerie quality to the film’s slipperiness. it’s unnatural, almost uncanny: the more we watch these people, the less we understand them .
luckily, we’re in the care of a master. tsai is renowned for his audaciously controlled, static shots; in the 2001 comedy what time is it over there? he practically turned his aesthetic into a running gag. and his work has become even more experimental and installationlike over the years. i counted fewer than 80 shots in all of stray dogs, each gorgeous and immersive and bewildering in its own way. the power of the director’s cinema lies in its aural and tactile quality — and that’s where we might find a hint of a meaning. if i had to find one word to describe stray dogs, it would be cavernous. there is no warmth to be found anywhere in the film. even the one nice house we see is cold and vast. the impoverished characters are often at the mercy of the elements – the driving rain that pounds their ramshackle bedroom, or the howling wind that blasts dad at work on that taipei street, or the huge, chilling blackness of night .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
this is a desperately needed home - video upgrade that at last presents leos carax’s film in its correct aspect ratio, and with excellent video and sound quality .
stray dogs is a story about a person trapped in typical social structure. the protagonist tony lives his middle class dreams and desires. he is an employee in a manufacturing industry. the hierarchy always dominates his freedom. he becomes tired of the pressure exerted on him at work front. being suppressed by the superior, he can' t keep his commitments and priorities in personal life. the story unfolds his journey in which he shifts his tangent and starts performing the role of manipulator. being secluded in a hotel room, he creates the same social pyramid and experiences the effect of his dominance on a waiter. finally he confronts the reality of this vicious circle, where everybody is trapped within it including a stray dog .
half a million semi - feral dogs, one to every six people, roam the island. when rabies arrived during 2008, the government attempted to control the disease with mass culls. but these animals have become woven into the tapestry of bali’s hindu lifestyle for almost 5, 000 years. bali dogs typically forage for food amongst the trash, and especially around warungs where food may be discarded. the lucky ones meet a human who has sympathy and leaves food out for them .
,
which has just three shots; and this one—it refuses to engage with anything resembling conventional, commercially viable storytelling. this is a director whose 1997 film
for more than 20 years, taiwanese master tsai ming - liang has been cinema’s premier poet of urban alienation, advancing a single - take / master - shot style that’s studied and deliberate, but open to unexpected bursts of humor, whimsy, and even musical sequences. his star and muse, lee kang - sheng, is the closest thing modern movies have to a buster keaton successor: a slight but physically deft performer with an implacably stone - faced demeanor. but lately, first with 2009’s face and now with the beautiful stray dogs, tsai appears to have lost interest in appealing to anyone beyond fans of his work, which sounds like a criticism, but is in fact the contrary. stray dogs isn’t a gateway, but an exit, a stunning culmination of a career that has taken poverty as a condition of its lonely characters, but not its true subject until now. the more of tsai’s filmography viewers know, the more that history adds power to this particular effort .
there is a plot to stray dogs, but it’s spare and tenuous, and you could have a quick chuckle reading various reviews to see how different writers interpret it. a father (tsai regular lee kang - sheng) and his two kids live in abject poverty on the outskirts of taipei. dad, an alcoholic and a depressive, is a haunted, quiet guy. something, or some things, have broken him. he holds up real - estate signs for a living, standing still at the edge of busy intersections for hours on end, pretty much the perfect job for a tsai ming - liang character. the two kids wander cheerfully on their own, often passing the time and eating the samples at a local supermarket, where a female clerk seems to take an interest in them. does she know them? we’re not sure. at nights, the woman wanders abandoned lots feeding stray dogs. she also seems to be looking for something. is she looking for the kids ?
tsai ming - liang’s stray dogs is not billed as a horror film, but it might as well be. opening with an ominous, hypnotic, and perplexing image of a woman slowly brushing her hair while two kids snooze beside her, this amazing, maddening film presents a series of extended, mostly static, terrifying tableaux of despair, poverty, and decay. the lengthy, locked - down images contain a tension all their own — like that aforementioned first shot, whose meaning remains just out of our grasp. sometimes tsai fixes his camera on an actor and lets us watch them up close for impossibly long periods of time, as if challenging the performer. but, in fact, he’s challenging us — not so much our patience (though he’s challenging that, too), but our ability to live with the uncertainty of his otherwise concrete images .
on a dark, wet night a historic and regal chinese cinema sees its final film. together with a small handful of souls they bid
goodbye, dragon inn .
assembling a year - end top - 10 list has always been a personal, even self - indulgent, ritual, a way of disguising a whimsical ranking of favorites as a carefully curated declaration of personal taste. at the risk of making things even more solipsistic than usual, let me begin by noting that the fraught relationship between artists and critics provided 2014 with one of its most compelling movie [ … ]
“through expo - supported projects including the talent lab, animation lab and short film challenge, we have given emerging film and animation makers a chance to expand their access to and knowledge of the industry, spend time with experienced professionals, gain invaluable advice and information, develop their skills and build their confidence. “these projects have made a real difference to people’s careers – with several participants going on to achieve significant success in screenwriting, film production, direction and co - production. we are proud of our contribution to their success .
earlier this month, the film, about a homeless family living on the desperately mean streets of taipei, was acquired for u. s. release by specialty distributor cinema guild .
if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, than john carpenter must be blushing pretty hard right now. while filmmakers have been biting on his style since at least the early ’80s, when the first wave of halloween knockoffs began flooding theaters, some of the most affectionate and skillful homages to his work arrived in 2014. this past january’s sundance film festival featured not one, but two blatant carpenter nods: jim mickle’s unpredictable crime drama, cold in july, and adam wingard’s crackerjack genre pastiche, the guest. then in may, at the cannes film festival, david robert mitchell successfully mixed his own indie sensibilities with those of the master, emerging with the superbly scary horror film it follows. all three movies evoke carpenter in their framing choices, their dread - infused small - town environments, and, especially, their synth - heavy scores. it’s a good omen for the future of genre cinema, which could use fewer blair witch clones and more the thing impersonations .
“since this government introduced the edinburgh festivals expo fund in 2008, we have invested £950, 000 to support around 320 emerging film makers to develop their screen skills and hone their talents .
we voted, we tallied, we made a list: the a. v. club ’s tribute to the best films of 2014 was democratically assembled, with each of its six contributors submitting a ranked inventory of their favorites. the individual ballots are below, each affixed with six superlatives, including an outlier (a film that made one list but no others) and a wild - card category of the writer’s choosing. did we forget something essential? set the record straight in the comments section, and head over to the results of the readers’ poll to see if this indisputable masterpiece got its due there .
“the expo fund supported eiff talent labs are now an integral part of scotland’s support for new and emerging filmmaking talent, developing eiff and scotland’s international reputation as a hotbed of film talent. ”
assembling a year - end top - 10 list has always been a personal, even self - indulgent, ritual, a way of disguising a whimsical ranking of favorites as a carefully curated declaration of personal taste. at the risk of making things even more solipsistic than usual, let me begin by noting that the fraught relationship between artists and critics provided 2014 with one of its most compelling movie themes, with critics themselves — food critics, art critics, theater critics and, yes, film critics — figuring among the year’s most favored characters. and by favored, of course, i mean mocked, loathed and misunderstood at every turn .
until it goes haywire with the cabbage scene, “stray dogs” sustains a hypnotic intensity anchored in exquisite cinematography that portrays the modern industrial cityscape as a chilly wasteland. we see double and triple reflections in a supermarket where a kindly clerk lets the children feast on food samples. the camera tracks family members from a distance as they inch from one end of the screen to the other. for every tableau of the people on the far horizon, there is an intimate shot of family members, bathing, brushing their teeth and urinating, sometimes in a public restroom and other times outdoors .
none of this is especially dramatic. when they’re onscreen together, there’s no evident tension between the family members, and no conventional through - line of a plot. stray dogs is about the condition of living hand - to - mouth, of being among those forgotten urban dwellers who are pressed so far into the margins that nobody notices them at all. in one of the film’s most extraordinary scenes, tears slowly well up in lee’s eyes as he stands with his placard in the driving rain, singing a chinese lyrical poem with a cracked voice. he’s hidden by the sign and the downpour—no one can see him or hear him at this moment, other than the audience. tsai implies that pain doesn’t even register enough for people to feel apathetic about it; they just don’t know he’s there .
taiwan distributor, atom cinema said that it would give the film one or two commercial screenings per day from late february. after that it will shift online and in summer be screened again in museums .
the scottish government has supported more than 300 emerging filmmakers to develop their screen skills through an eight - year funding package to the edinburgh international film festival totalling £950, 000, culture secretary fiona hyslop said today .
aside from its intense focus on surface materiality and atmosphere (and the aforementioned batshit crazy cabbage scene), stray dogs also takes a unique approach to time. tsai’s shots are as long as they’ve ever been and the camera movement even more limited, which combined with the listless movements of his actors — particularly those of the father (longtime tsai muse lee kang - sheng at his deadpan best) — creates a sense of boundlessness within the finite, where moments of pain and boredom are stretched beyond all manageable limits. in stray dogs, tedium is lethal and time is the enemy of those caught within its inescapable and vicious circularity. besides the few scenes where the characters are eating and, as animalistic as it’s portrayed, are achieving some sort of pleasure, nearly every other sequence is a mere endurance test against a never - ending array of insufferable circumstances, be they physical, mental, or spiritual. the intensified materiality of tsai’s cinematic world enhances the brutality of this most - demanding means of existence, but also helps to ground its transitions into more ethereal territory in the final act where the cerebral and the corporeal, the dream and the reality all merge in a powerful and mystifying climax. the emotional and geographical wasteland where this takes place is both foreign and achingly real, and for those with the patience to traverse its terrains, its rewards are as vast as they are strange and unsettling .
the malaysian - born, taiwan - based tsai won the grand jury prize at venice and was named best director at the golden horse awards in november, but he has repeatedly expressed frustration with the commercial scene and impatient cinema audiences. he has also suggested that he may retire after “dogs” and make any future films for museums and art galleries instead .
snake feed is a glimpse into the lives of irene and rick, two people struggling with life - long addiction and marginal employment. the film follows a day in their lives at a time when rick... see full summary »
producer rebecca day is a key member of the scottish documentary institute team and is currently in development with fellow labber, writer / director felipe bustos sierra on the feature version of their short film nae pasaran, rebecca and felipe met at the lab .
scene after scene in
stray dogs
drives home the difficulty of daily existence while also (perhaps paradoxically—or not, if you' re buddhist, as tsai is) making you appreciate the incidental, beautiful sights and sounds that our busyness or our pain might otherwise cause us to ignore: the way tall swamp grass rustles as the father pushes a small wooden rowboat through it; the hiss of rain on wet ground and foliage in the storm sequence; the play of sunlight on the tile and white glass of a luxury apartment that the father has wandered into (briefly experiencing, and imagining, a life of comfort). this is, as you' ve surely gathered, the sort of film that does not have what studio executives would call
a pre - sold audience .
it asks a lot of us. in fact it asks us to set aside everything we' ve been conditioned to think movies are, and roll with a different way of seeing and hearing things, and connect .
i backed out of answering this question on last year’s ballot, but since a. a. dowd has told me i can’t pull the same stunt again this year, i’ll say that i’m irked by a certain tendency within the culture of film criticism to view movies through the diffuse, rosy filter of festival hype. a girl walks home alone at night isn’t a terrible movie, but its reception provides a perfect example. so many of the movie’s reviews bring up the influences listed in the film’s press kit, without getting into how the film really works and moves; somehow, through the alchemy of hype, an art - schoolish american indie full of slow - motion sequences set to synth - laden, sub - hip indie rock has willed itself into being described and addressed as an iranian western. go figure .
it seems like tsai is trying way too hard to be tarkovsky (his previous film also gave strong indications of that) with extremely elongated static shots that can be really tiring for most viewers and dilutes into near banality the strength of the sad story that he wants to tell .
eiff talent lab: provides an intensive residency programme for live action, first time feature filmmakers set within the context of eiff. it delivers workshops and masterclasses with international film industry talent, advice sessions with financiers, producers, and talent scouts, and a range of networking opportunities .
but arguably the year’s smartest, most big - hearted and nuanced onscreen portrait of a critic could be found in “top five, ” and not just because it had the good grace to suggest that a profession of mostly white male schlumps might plausibly be represented by rosario dawson. virtually alone among this year’s movies, chris rock’s marvelously rounded comedy was broad - minded enough to put the artist and the critic on equal footing, and to suggest that, without forsaking their ideals, the two need not always be adversaries. it’s in a similar spirit of reciprocal generosity and unguarded admiration that i offer up this list of my favorite films released theatrically in 2014 :
on the other hand, stray dogs is also far from a straightforward portrayal of poverty. from the ever - presence of water (tsai’s most common motif) and the cracked walls of their various abodes, to the mysterious return of the mother (or mother figure ?) from the opening shot and an unexplained manifestation of an expensive full - body massage chair, it’s clear that tsai isn’t operating on a purely realistic, logical level either. the film’s most bizarre and chilling scene involves a doll the children made from a head of cabbage that the father discovers next to him when he awakes one morning. upon staring at its blank, expressionless face that the children drew onto it, he attempts to violently suffocate it with his pillow, kiss it, gouge out its eyes, then feverishly eat it for several minutes before fully breaking down. all this unfolds in a mesmerizing single take that culminates at the peak of his despair and is packed with conflicting emotions unearthed from what must have been years of mental hardship in unsustainable, inhumane conditions. this scene — easily the greatest food - item - cum - emotional - catharsis sequence in cinema since there will be blood ’s milkshake diatribe — is a perfect encapsulation of the film, brimming with raw emotion yet tinged with the enigmatic strangeness that pervades all of tsai’s work. it’s terrifying, hilarious, wholly tragic, and among the greatest, most memorable scenes in recent years .
opening with a shot of a mother (played, mysteriously, by three different women) brushing her hair in silence as her sleeping children (lee yi - cheng and lee yi - chieh) huddle under blankets behind her, stray dogs settles into a mood of pervasive sadness. the members of this family—none of whom are given a name—are rarely together at once, and they never seem to sleep in the same place, moving from a crumbling industrial space one night to an abandoned building another. the father (lee) works as a human placard, holding up an advertising sign in the wind and rain, as cars howl under the overpass. the mother works in a grocery store; the kids sometimes have to fend for themselves. tsai arranges them all like satellites without a home to orbit—washing up in public restrooms, shivering as they bunk in exposed concrete shelters .
the penultimate shot of tsai ming - liang’s recent stray dogs is a 13 - minute close - up of lee kang - sheng and chen shiang - chyi’s characters achingly regarding a mural on a wall. their sense of almost holy contemplation is encoded in the very being of the taiwanese auteur’s follow - up, journey to the west, with tsai stationary camera and customary use of long takes observing little more than a nameless buddhist monk (lee) inching along urban landscapes in marseilles, france, with visual beauty extracted from the contrast between his snail’s - pace movements and the hustle and bustle of his surroundings. maintaining constant eye contact on his feet, seemingly oblivious to what’s around him, the monk appears trapped in a zone of perpetual meditation, one in which time is of no consequence as he works his way, step by carefully considered step, toward some never - specified destination .
as i sat and watched
stray dog
, i felt very annoyed. again and again and again, scenes where nothing particular is happening, the camera remained there for a very long time. in each case, the film could have been edited and you would have had roughly the same effect... without boring the audience. so, when you show two men in ponchos in the rain holding signs, you don' t need to show this scene for a full minute and then return to do the same thing again - - especially when the men aren' t doing anything other than holding signs! ! the same goes for the introduction, as you see a lady staring at her kids as they sleep... for the longest time! ! in addition, showing a guy taking a leak is another sign that this is a self - indulgent sort of film from director ming - liang tsai. editing and pacing are important to most directors, but not apparently in this case! as a result, a decent story is marred unnecessarily by the direction that tends to bore and annoy many viewers. i know i sure felt both. what should have been an important film about a homeless family on the fringes instead is an interminable bore. we get it that the folks are depressed and that' s why they do nothing... but think about the audience having to watch this .
in a fit of despair and self - loathing, he suffocates the vegetable with a pillow, eats and spits out parts, then furiously gouges out its features before ravenously consuming the rest and bursting into sobs. augmenting the anguished mood, a drenching rain falls outside, as it does through much of the film .
a small group of dog lovers bonded over coffee and cupcakes and the adoption idea was born. olivia from olé olé ollie, hannah stone from chewy’s, together with sunset vet and a group of friends, neighbours, and volunteers help run the event. on average, half of the dogs at adoption day get adopted or fostered. they also get a lot of people coming and then falling in love with a certain dog and will end up fostering or adopting a few days afterwards .
in february 2015, ms hyslop announced £3m of additional support for film production and skills development. the screen skills fund announced as part of that package has received 22 strong proposals covering the entire range of the sector’s activity. it’s expected the first successful recipients of those funds will be announced next month. for background, see: urltoken
writer / director ruth paxton has completed three short films since taking part in the lab. pulse won the award for best woman director at the london short film festival 2015. ruth is currently in development with her first feature a hymn for mars which is being produced by tom wood of wellington films and has received development funding from creative scotland .
tsai ming - liang’s cinema has always been primarily about physical spaces. the people and events that occur within these spaces are not so much secondary as they are defined, transformed, and dominated by it, even reflected within it. whether it’s the gradually flooding apartment in the river, the smoke seeping throughout kuala lumpor in i don’t want to sleep alone, or the closing cinema in goodbye dragon inn, the textures and physical conditions of these settings remain powerful representations of the psychic states of its inhabitants, yet they’re always mysterious and elusive. the taipei of stray dogs is no different, where even the highway (where the nameless protagonist holds a heavy sign advertising a luxury apartment complex) and the enormous supermarket (where his children hang out at eating free samples while he works) take on an alien feeling that’s as equally unsettling as the sinister abandoned building where they sleep. poverty has rendered these people emotionless, and as ghosts, they float throughout these spaces merely enduring their existence with what little help alcohol and makeshift toys can provide .
directed by: tsai ming - liang genre: fiction - runtime: 2 h 18 min french release: 12 / 03 / 2014 production year: 2013 a father and his two children wander the margins of modern day taipei, from the woods and rivers of the outskirts to the rain streaked streets of the city. by day the father scrapes out a meager income as a human billboard for luxury apartments, while his young son and daughter roam the supermarkets and malls surviving off free food samples. each night the family takes shelter in an abandoned building. the father is strangely affected by a hypnotic mural adorning the wall of this makeshift home. on the day of the father' s birthday the family is joined by a woman - might she be the key to unlocking the buried emotions that linger from the past? more info: urltoken
but even when the characters find safety and shelter, the elements are there. late in the film, we see everyone tucked away cozily in what is best described as a house made of rain, whose walls have melted and molded over from the water (someone says the house is “crying”). right near the end, in the film’s most audacious static shot, two characters stand in a decaying room surrounded by rocks — looking at a giant painting of rocks. have they entered the painting, or has the painting burst through its frame? does it matter? despair is its own ecosystem, the director seems to say; it won’t leave you alone even if you have a roof over your head. i’m still shivering .
in the story, such as it is, mr. lee’s character slowly loses all hope as he drags his children and a female partner (played by three actresses) around the muddy fringes of taipei. few words are spoken. in the longest monologue, mr. lee, tears welling in his eyes, recites a southern song dynasty poem that distills the film’s fatalistic mood :
if
stray dogs
is a challenging movie for some viewers, it might have to do with more than just its deliberate pacing. in fact, director tsai ming liang has structured this movie unlike most others in that it resembles a jigsaw puzzle more than anything else. so, what might seem confusing at first, soon clarifies to show a portait of a family in crisis living on the edge of starvation with the mother having just left because she can no longer stand it even before the opening credits. after which, her daughter and son hang around a supermarket all day, eating free samples and buying a cabbage. whether this is because of the fractured family dynamic or the daughter just being one weird kid is up for debate. in the meantime, the father works at a miserable low paying job holding a sign advertising apartments in a highway median in all sorts of weather which is certainly not for the faint of heart. what tsai ming liang does well is use the irony of all of these luxury apartments being built and then left unoccupied and compare that to people like this family who are homeless and living in squalor in taipei .
a lot of the puppies are boarded at sunset vet in kuta or at other facilities 29 days out of the month while waiting for a permanent home. for these pups, going to adoption day is also a fun ‘field trip’ where they get to be free, play and get cuddles. not all the rescued dogs are boarded at sunset vet. if they are too young or still recovering from medical conditions they receive proper treatment and many are put in foster care. a network of amazing people, the majority of which are locals, are the backbone of the rescue and adoption process .
jennifer kent’s exceedingly over - heralded the babadook is, in many respects, a fine film, detailing the psychological disintegration of a single mother (essie davis) whose efforts to raise her son (noah wiseman) while still grieving over the death of her husband—who died while taking her to the hospital to deliver their child—is complicated by the arrival of a scary children’s book dubbed mister babadook. yet for all its acuity about parental anxieties, replete with fine performances from its two leads, kent’s film fails to be the one thing that any horror film must, first and foremost, strive to be: scary. the babadook is an obvious creation, making painfully clear from the outset that its demon is merely a figment of its protagonist’s tormented imagination, and that obviousness is a knife to the heart of any potential tension or terror. without anything approaching a decent jolt scare, much less any convincing sense that its child - in - peril scenario might actually end in tragic circumstances, the babadook just sits there, predictable and inert, teasing viewers with horrors it has no intention of ever actually delivering, and thus making one pine for the truly scary predecessors (the shining, it’s alive) that inspired it .
directed by tsai ming - liang; written by tung cheng yu, mr. tsai and peng fei; directors of photography, liao pen jung and sung wen zhong; edited by lei zhen qing; art directors, masa liu and mr. tsai; costumes by wang chia hui; produced by vincent wang; released by urban distribution international. in mandarin, with english subtitles. running time: 2 hours 18 minutes. this film is not rated .
given director lukas moodysson’s recent, more out - there output, it was more than a bit surprising to find him returning to the upbeat spirit of his first two films (show me love and together) with we are the best! , the story of three young swedish girls who endeavor to form their own punk rock band in 1982 stockholm. featuring the best child - actor performances in years, moodysson’s film is a rollicking blast of adolescent rebellion and camaraderie, one in which music strengthens the bonds between kids viewed as outsiders by both their families and peers. with a sly sense of humor and period detail that never tips into nostalgic mawkishness, we are the best! paints a believably scraggly portrait of childhood as a period of pushing back against elders (and the cliques that dominate social life), and finding yourself through experiences both embarrassing and enlivening. it’s the coming - of - age film so many others only wish they could be .
the 12 major festivals in edinburgh contribute more than £250 million to scotland’s economy and promote scotland' s rich culture, heritage and distinct identity on the world stage. the edinburgh festivals expo fund was set up in 2008 / 09 to support the festivals’ continued growth and to ensure scotland’s own emerging talent is placed at their centre. the total scottish government expo funding awarded to the film festival is £950, 000 since the expo fund began. filmmaking talent supported through the expo fund since 2008 has included:
stray dogs ( hangul : 들개들 ; rr : deul-gae-deul ) is a 2014 south korean thriller film starring kim jeong-hoon , cha ji-heon and myung kae-nam . it is co-written and directed by first-time director ha won-jun . 
stray dogs (hangul: 들개들; rr: deul-gae-deul) is a 2014 south korean thriller film starring kim jeong-hoon, cha ji-heon and myung kae-nam. it is co-written and directed by first-time director ha won-jun.
stray dogs (hangul: 들개들; rr: deul-gae-deul) is a 2014 south korean thriller film starring kim jeong-hoon, cha ji-heon and myung kae-nam. it is co-written and directed by first-time director ha won-jun.