Examine two of the films listed in this module.  One must be a foreign film from the M6 Foreign Films Selections (18 films) and the other an independent film from the M6 New Independent Cinema Selections (20 films). You will find many options if you scroll down each page, or you could select movies that you have cleared with the instructor in advance. Write a short (1000 words) essay focused on the following question: What are the characteristics of independent film with particular regard to performance beyond the basic definition? In other words, how do your films EXPAND the basic definition?  The presentation and readings will help you understand the basic definition.  You must do more than merely show how each of your movies meet the basic criteria as an independent film. The movies in this section are easily identified as meeting the basic definition, but you need to go further in your analysis for your essay. Please avoid extensively summarizing the plot at the expense of analyzing the actor’s performance.   Please remember the peer review policy and wait for your peers to be assigned.  You will have the two-day grace period to complete your peer reviews.  I’m changing the policy on late peer reviews for this assignment. They will be assigned no later than 9 am after the deadline, then I will run the tool to assign peers randomly during the two-day grace period.  Therefore, there will be no peer assignments upon request.  There will be no peers assigned within two hours of the expiration of the grace period.  You must keep checking if you submit late in order to find your peers.   Please place this information in your header:

Name
Word Count
Independent Film Title (date)
International Film Title (date)

Give your essay a title and center it below the header information.

I’ve received several inquiries from students who are having trouble understanding the prompt. The presentation, videos and readings will help greatly, but if you are still wondering what to do, I’ll try to simplify it for you as much as possible here:

You know the basic definition of an independent film from the presentations, readings and videos.

You know that independent and foreign films both fit the basic definition (e.g., budget, produced outside the big studio, cast, story, etc.).

As you know from watching the presentation in this module, when you watch movies today with strong ensemble casts or art films with international actors made independently outside the dominance of the corporate studios, you are witnessing the effect of foreign films on the Hollywood film industry.

Therefore, do not merely describe how your independent and international films meet the basic definition, but focus on how they expand the definition. Find elements in the films that you recognize as being unique and influential.   Consider how your films might affect the way big-budget films are made. 

Some examples include camera techniques, storyline, personal issues that concern a director, a role that a celebrity might not usually perform.

1. This assignment is the culmination of the course, pushing you to think for yourself and try to find elements that distinguish your independent and foreign film from the mainstream. You can’t merely say ”budget under $20M” or “premiered at Sundance” and leave it at that.  
2. As an example, the producers of the big-budget ($110+M) big-studio bomb Ghost in the Shell could have learned a lot from the independent film Ex Machina ($16M).  A good essay on Ex Machina would focus on the elements in the film that make it important and meaningful other than its budget and foreign origin (UK). I might also bring in examples from the film Her, which has an independent feel to it (what does that mean?), released by a small U.S. studio and had a relatively low budget.  
3. A simple way to look at this assignment is to ask whether your chosen films could teach Hollywood and the money machine of CGI-driven movies.  Many students seem to think this assignment is about identifying why their choice is independent when the basic definition is clear in the presentation and readings. This assignment requires higher levels of critical thinking.   The best papers are very specific in saying how these films EXPAND the basic definition.   What can Hollywood learn from Indies?  Why are independent film festivals like Sundance so important?  Why do top actors do indies when they can make more money doing television or a CGI feature?  What do your selected films have that could enhance major studio film making?
4. M6 International Films Selections
5. MODULE 6
6. Movie Choices for Film Response 4
7. Select

INSTRUCTIONS

Here is your first set of videos to choose from for your Film Response assignment. You will select one of the following videos from this page and from the M6 New Independent Cinema Movie Selection page to watch.  

If you can’t find a film here, check the Kanopy database in the USF Library.  Here’s the link to World Cinema on Kanopy:

Kanopy at USF Libraries (Links to an external site.)

Currently most of the movies default to the YouTube links. However many of them are also available on one or more of the following platforms:

1. iTunes (Links to an external site.)

Amazon Video (Links to an external site.)

Google Play (Links to an external site.)

Hulu (Links to an external site.)

Netflix (Links to an external site.)

Redbox (Links to an external site.)

Vudu (Links to an external site.)

THE KING’S SPEECH (2010)

England’s Prince Albert (Colin Firth) must ascend the throne as King George VI, but he has a speech impediment. Knowing that the country needs her husband to be able to communicate effectively, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) hires Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), an Australian actor and speech therapist, to help him overcome his stammer. An extraordinary friendship develops between the two men, as Logue uses unconventional means to teach the monarch how to speak with confidence.

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

Available on YouTube for $2.99

MY LEFT FOOT (1989)

No one expects much from Christy Brown (Daniel Day-Lewis), a boy with cerebral palsy born into a working-class Irish family. Though Christy is a spastic quadriplegic and essentially paralyzed, a miraculous event occurs when, at the age of 5, he demonstrates control of his left foot by using chalk to scrawl a word on the floor. With the help of his steely mother (Brenda Fricker) — and no shortage of grit and determination — Christy overcomes his infirmity to become a painter, poet and author.

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

Available on YouTube for $2.99

ROMA (2018)

Written and directed by Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuarón, director of “Gravity” & “Children of Men.” This film is in Spanish with English subtitles. It is also in black and white. Focusing on the life of Cleo, a maid in Sofia’s household, who cleans and takes care of the family while both of them struggle with their personal lives against the context of social turmoil in Mexico in the 1970s.  It has a rich cinematic texture that bristles with emotional impact.  The director clearly loves the medium of film as a way to tell stories of real lives. 

Available on Netflix

• 

PINK (2016)

This Hindi-language courtroom drama directed by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury focuses on the trial of a woman who is implicated in a crime. A retired lawyer steps forward to help her and her two friends clear their names.

Available on Netflix

• THE FAREWELL (2019)

Billi’s family returns to China under the guise of a fake wedding to stealthily say goodbye to their beloved matriarch — the only person that doesn’t know she only has a few weeks to live.

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

• Available on Amazon Prime for free

CENTRAL STATION (CENTRAL DO BRASIL) (1998)

• Bitter former schoolteacher Dora (Fernanda Montenegro) supports herself by taking dictation from illiterate people in Rio de Janeiro who want to write letters to their families and then pocketing their money without ever mailing the envelopes. One day, Josue (Vinicius De Oliveira), the 9-year-old son of one of her clients, is left alone when his mother is killed in a bus accident. Reluctantly taking him in, Dora joins the boy on a road trip to find his long-missing father.

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

Available on iTunes

• 

CITY OF GOD (2002)

In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood. José “Zé” Pequeno (Leandro Firmino da Hora) is an ambitious drug dealer who uses Rocket and his photos as a way to increase his fame as a turf war erupts with his rival, “Knockout Ned” (Seu Jorge). The film was shot on location in Rio’s poorest neighborhoods.

• Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

WADJDA (2012)

• A rebellious Saudi girl (Waad Mohammed) enters a Koran recitation competition at her school and hopes to win enough money to buy her own bicycle.

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

• THE SEVEN SAMURAI (1954)

A samurai answers a village’s request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food. A giant battle occurs when 40 bandits attack the village.

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

NEERJA (2016)

Neerja is an Indian film directed by Ram Madhvani and written by Saiwyn Quadras and Sanyuktha Chawla Shaikh.  This biographical thriller features Sonam Kapoor as the title character, Neerja Bahnot, a model and purser for Pan Am on a flight hijacked in Karachi, Pakistan.  

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

Available on Netflix

THE LOBSTER (GREECE) (2015)

In a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into beasts and sent off into The Woods.

EX MACHINA (UK) (2014)

Caleb, a 26 year old programmer at the world’s largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world’s first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl./span>

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000)

In 19th century Qing Dynasty China, a warrior (Chow Yun-Fat) gives his sword, Green Destiny, to his lover (Michelle Yeoh) to deliver to safe keeping, but it is stolen, and the chase is on to find it. The search leads to the House of Yu where the story takes on a whole different level.

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

CINEMA PARADISO (1988)

Young Salvatore Di Vita (Salvatore Cascio) discovers the perfect escape from life in his war-torn Sicilian village: the Cinema Paradiso movie house, where projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret) instills in the boy a deep love of films. When Salvatore grows up, falls in love with a beautiful local girl (Agnese Nano) and takes over as the Paradiso’s projectionist, Alfredo must convince Salvatore to leave his small town and pursue his passion for filmmaking.

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

Available on Netflix streaming (Links to an external site.)

THE FOREST (2016)

A monk turned teacher befriends a bullied young student, whose life changes when she bonds with a mysterious boy who dwells in a haunted forest.  Thai language with English subtitles.  Directed by Paul Spurrier.

Note: This is not the film with Natalie Dormer with the same title about the Japanese suicide forest.   

You may find it at this link on Vimeo. (Links to an external site.)
Password: commercialfilms

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

Available on Vimeo

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING (1988)

Successful surgeon Tomas (Daniel Day-Lewis) leaves Prague for an operation, meets a young photographer named Tereza (Juliette Binoche), and brings her back with him. Tereza is surprised to learn that Tomas is already having an affair with the bohemian Sabina (Lena Olin), but when the Soviet invasion occurs, all three flee to Switzerland. Sabina begins an affair, Tom continues womanizing, and Tereza, disgusted, returns to Czechoslovakia. Realizing his mistake, Tomas decides to chase after her.

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

Available on YouTube for $2.99

LAGAAN: ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIA (2001)

The year is 1893 and India is under British occupation. In a small village, the tyrannical Captain Russell (Paul Blackthorne) has imposed an unprecedented land tax on its citizens. Outraged, Bhuvan (Aamir Khan), a rebellious farmer, rallies the villagers to publicly oppose the tax. Russell offers a novel way to settle the dispute: he challenges Bhuvan and his men to a game of cricket, a sport completely foreign to India. If Bhuvan and his men can defeat Russell’s team, the tax will be repealed.

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

Available on Amazon (Links to an external site.)

A Touch of Sin (China) (2013)

Steeped in violence and sorrow, this is an astonishing movie from the Chinese director Jia Zhangke. Divided into four chapters, it was inspired by a series of widely reported violent conflicts in China that haunted him. Together the vignettes allow Mr. Jia – as he put it to me in an interview – to “paint the face” of contemporary China.

Zhao Tao, Mr. Jia’s wife and frequent star, plays Xiao Yu, a young receptionist at a sauna. It’s immediately clear that she’s having a rough go of it. She’s in an affair with a married man and his wife not only knows it, but one evening assaults Xiao Yu with the help of two thugs. Like all the sections, this one is largely a slice of brute naturalism spiked with beguilingly surrealistic moments, many involving animals. The overall mood is one of escalating, palpable unease.

Yi Yi (Taiwan) (2000)

A packed, enthralling three-hour chronicle of modern Taiwanese family life, “Yi Yi” has the heft and density of a great novel. Its point of view is shared among Yang-Yang, his older sister, Ting-Ting, and their father, N.J., a video-game designer in the grip of a quiet but intense midlife crisis.  (Links to an external site.)Roger Ebert (Links to an external site.) described “Yi Yi” as “a movie in which nobody knows more than half the truth, or is happy more than half the time,” something that could also be said (optimistically) of life itself. And “Yi Yi” is one of those movies that you remember less as something you saw than as something you experienced, as if you were one of the Jians’ Taipei neighbors.

Timbuktu (Mauritania) (2015)

Not far from the ancient Malian city of Timbuktu, proud cattle herder Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed aka Pino) lives peacefully in the dunes with his wife Satima (Toulou Kiki), his daughter Toya (Layla Walet Mohamed), and Issan (Mehdi Ag Mohamed), their twelve-year-old shepherd. In town, the people suffer, powerless, from the regime of terror imposed by the Jihadists determined to control their faith. Music, laughter, cigarettes, even soccer have been banned. The women have become shadows but resist with dignity. Every day, the new improvised Shariah law courts issue tragic and absurd sentences. Kidane and his family are being spared the chaos that prevails in Timbuktu. But their destiny changes abruptly. 

CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR (THAILAND) (2016)

Soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness are transferred to a temporary clinic in a former school. The memory-filled space becomes a revelatory world for housewife and volunteer Jenjira, as she watches over Itt, a handsome soldier with no family visitors. Jen befriends young medium Keng who uses her psychic powers to help loved ones communicate with the comatose men. Doctors explore ways, including colored light therapy, to ease the mens’ troubled dreams. Jen discovers Itt’s cryptic notebook of strange writings and blueprint sketches. There may be a connection between the soldiers’ enigmatic syndrome and the mythic ancient site that lies beneath the clinic. Magic, healing, romance and dreams are all part of Jen’s tender path to a deeper awareness of herself and the world around her.

DHEEPAN (FRANCE) (2016)

Dheepan is a Tamil freedom fighter, a Tiger. In Sri Lanka, the Civil War is reaching its end, and defeat is near. Dheepan decides to flee, taking with him two strangers – a woman and a little girl – hoping that they will make it easier for him to claim asylum in Europe. Arriving in Paris, the ‘family’ moves from one temporary home to another until Dheepan finds work as the caretaker of a run-down housing block in the suburbs. He works to build a new life and a real home for his ‘wife’ and his ‘daughter’, but the daily violence he confronts quickly reopens his war wounds, and Dheepan is forced to reconnect with his warrior’s instincts to protect the people he hopes will become his true family.

UNDER THE SAME MOON (LA MISMA LUNA) (MEXICO) (2007)

Tells the parallel stories of nine-year-old Carlitos and his mother, Rosario. In the hopes of providing a better life for her son, Rosario works illegally in the U.S. while her mother cares for Carlitos back in Mexico. Unexpected circumstances drive both Rosario and Carlitos to embark on their own journeys in a desperate attempt to reunite. Along the way, mother and son face challenges and obstacles but never lose hope that they will one day be together again.

MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART (CHINA) (2016)

The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.

SING STREET (IRELAND) (2016)

A boy growing up in Dublin during the 1980s escapes his strained family life by starting a band to impress the mysterious girl he likes.

GIRLHOOD (FRANCE) (2014)

A girl with few real prospects joins a gang, reinventing herself and gaining a sense of self confidence in the process. However, she soon finds that this new life does not necessarily make her any happier. Oppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of 3 free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Romania) (2006)

The title is a spoiler. When we first meet Dante Lazarescu, a retired Bucharest resident in his early 60s (though he looks older), he is complaining of stomach pains. A little more than two and a half hours later – more or less in real time – he has left this world, unmourned and all but unnoticed. Why should we care? That is the question – not at all rhetorical – posed by Cristi Puiu’s bleak, gripping, weirdly funny second feature. At the Cannes Film Festival, “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Links to an external site.)” was a word-of-mouth sensation. “Did you see that three-hour Romanian movie? Oh, man. You’ve gotta see it.” And that’s still true. Mr. Puiu’s film was an early sign of the flowering of Romanian cinema that would bring international acclaim to young auteurs like Cristian Mungiu (“4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”) and Corneliu Porumboiu (“Police, Adjective”). Like his colleagues (and sometime rivals), Mr. Puiu uses long takes and minimal camera movement to create a sense of lived reality that is absorbing almost to the point of claustrophobia. He zeroes in remorselessly on the petty absurdities and large iniquities that define life in Romania more than a decade after the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu’s Communist dictatorship.

M6 New Independent Cinema Selections

MODULE 6

Movie Choices for Film Response 4

Select

INSTRUCTIONS

Here is your list of independent films to choose from for your Film Response assignment. You will select one of the following videos from this page and from the M6 Foreign Films Movie Selection page to watch.

If you can’t find a film here, check the Kanopy database in the USF Library.  Here’s the link to Independent Cinema on Kanopy:

Kanopy at USF Libraries (Links to an external site.)

Currently most of the movies default to the YouTube links. However many of them are also available on one or more of the following platforms:

iTunes (Links to an external site.)

Amazon Video (Links to an external site.)

Google Play (Links to an external site.)

Hulu (Links to an external site.)

Netflix (Links to an external site.)

Redbox (Links to an external site.)

Vudu (Links to an external site.)

THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984)

“This Is Spinal Tap” shines a light on the self-contained universe of a metal band struggling to get back on the charts, including everything from its complicated history of ups and downs, gold albums, name changes and undersold concert dates, along with the full host of requisite groupies, promoters, hangers-on and historians, sessions, release events and those special behind-the-scenes moments that keep it all real.

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

WAITING FOR GUFFMAN (1996)

When the town of Blaine, Mo., approaches its sesquicentennial, there’s only one way to celebrate: with a musical revue called “Red, White and Blaine.” Hoping the show will be his ticket back to Broadway, impresario Corky St. Clair (Christopher Guest) rounds up a cast of enthusiastic but untalented locals (Eugene Levy, Fred Willard, Catherine O’Hara) to perform his masterwork. But, when Corky reveals that theater agent Mort Guffman will attend the opening, things really kick into high gear.

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

RESERVOIR DOGS (1992)

A group of thieves assemble to pull of the perfect diamond heist. It turns into a bloody ambush when one of the men turns out to be a police informer. As the group begins to question each other’s guilt, the heightening tensions threaten to explode the situation before the police step in.

Retrieved from Google (Links to an external site.)

 

THIRTEEN (2003)

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke and written together with the then 14-year old Nikki Reed, the film debuted at Sundance where Hardwicke won the Directing Award for Drama.  Reed played a featured part in her acting and writing debut.   Fox Searchlight Pictures subsequently acquired the film and it went on to gross a total of $4.6 million at the U.S. box office.

Though it received numerous favorable reviews from critics, Thirteen generated some controversy for its depiction of youth drug use and self-harm (“cutting”).  The film earned Holly Hunter an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress and Golden Globe nominations for Hunter and Evan Rachel Wood. 

Retrieved from Google

EIGHTH GRADE (2018)

Thirteen-year-ol