Coffee and Cigarettes

A Film by Jim Jarmusch (US 2003)



Coffee and Cigarettes is an 2003 independent film that consists of eleven short stories which share coffee and cigarettes as a common thread.

A comic series of short vignettes built on one another to create a cumulative effect, as the
characters discuss things as diverse as caffeine popsicles, Paris in the '20s, and the use of nicotine as an insecticide--all the while sitting around sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes. As director Jim Jarmusch delves into the normal pace of our world from an extraordinary angle, he shows just how absorbing the obsessions, joys and addictions of life can be, if truly observed.

cast: Roberto Benigni, Steven Wright, Iggy Pop, Joie Lee, Cinqué Lee,Steve Buscemi,Tom Waits,Joseph Rigano,
Vinny Vella, etc.

The Apple

A film by Samira Makhmalbaf
Iran 1997


The Apple is a stunning feature film debut from Samira Makhmalbaf, the 18-year-old daughter of Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Her father is the director of films such as "Gabbeh," "Salaam Cinema," and "The Cyclist," but with "The Apple," the younger Makhmalbaf definitively establishes her own voice. Richly allusive and beautifully photographed, "The Apple" follows the aftermath of a real-life situation in which a father had kept his two daughters confined to their home since birth. When neighbors reported the situation to the welfare authorities in Teheran, the daughters, who are slightly retarded, were removed from the home and returned to their parents only on the condition that the father allow the two to leave home and explore the outside world.

Samaritan Girl (Samaria)

(2004 South Korea)
A film by Kim Ki-duk



Yeo-jin and Jae-yeong are two teenage girls who are trying to earn money for a trip to Europe. To reach this end, Jae-yeong is prostituting herself while Yeo-jin acts as her pimp, setting her up with the clients and staying on guard for the police.

As with many other films by Kim Ki-duk,(Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring, 2003) Samaritan Girl wasn't a box office success in its home country, but was better received overseas. In the film's first large scale showing it won the Silver Bear, the second place award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2004 After this, it became a sought after film for other international film festivals.

Vivre sa Vie

(1962 France)
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard


Original title:
Vivre sa Vie: Film en Douze Tableaux, or "To Live One's Life: A Film in Twelve Tableaux."

Anna Karina, Godard's then wife, stars as Nana, a young Parisian woman who abandons her marriage and a child in order to pursue a career as an actress. Faced with financial troubles she drifts into prostitution. Nana believes she makes this choice of her own free will, but the film emphasises the social structure that forces the poor into such situations, and builds to a tragic conclusion. Rather than glamorizing prostitution Godard analyses it from a sociological perspective. In fact, one of the film's original sources is a study of contemporary prostitution, Où en est la prostitution by Marcel Sacotte.

Vivre sa Vie catalogues the nature of modernity. In particular it is saturated with quotations from, and observations about, the popular or consumerist culture of Godard's Paris.