Andrei Tarkovsky’s whole new percept of cinema helped discovering newer boundaries to the medium and aided the formation of some of the greatest directors of the future. Undoubtedly, Tarkovsky is one the immovable pillars in the palace of the seventh art. Tarkovsky’s features are often condemned to be inaccessible and too cerebral. In fact, it is Tarkovsky’s films that expect the users to eschew interpretation and “live the film”. These are films that require viewing with the heart and not the mind. Hence, his films become more of an experiential journey

Lebanon director Labaki’s first appearance film Caramel is a sticky-sweet serving of women who work in and wander around a quaintly colorful beauty salon, set in the capital of the Lebanon Republic. The dazzling debut director (who plays the role of Layale, the salon owner herself) shows an appetizing mishmash of women who tread along and seek for themselves in their subtle ways, a life of happiness, love and security. Five women who slickly run their glossy salon, eagerly preoccupied with their lurking lovers…

Jazz can be described in many ways – a JAZZY musical extravaganza with sterling performances and mellifluous music, a musical paean to the unsung musicians in Bollywood who work behind the scenes to compose some of the most memorable songs, or simply, a musical journey of an old man taking a trip down the memory lane. Whatever the description may go like, it will certainly appeal to the fastidious ears of a theatre critic or a music connoisseur, with its satirical wit, uncompromising conviction, and alluring music score.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s classic tale of murder, remorse and redemption set in the modern city of St. Petersburg follows the crime of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov and its consequences that haunt him to near insanity. What separates Dostoyevsky’s work from others is his ability to reproduce human psyche as it is and not cover it up with any kind of pretense. Aging almost 150 years, this fantastic work of Dostoyevsky only seems to get better and more appealing with time.

Alp Bora has been strumming his guitar and humming Turkish tunes since the age of 12. It’s been over 2 decades but his affair with music only seems to get stronger and more passionate. Calling themselves Nim Sofyan, (which took 3 years to put together), Alp and his colleagues have been busy travelling to countries from India to Syria, enthralling audience with their spectacular skills and innovative music – Music that refuses itself to be bound to any conventional style, rhythm or beat. Stunning music…

Writers often cannot reproduce the brilliance they exhibit in their masterpieces that give them a demigod-like stature in the literary world; a perfect case in point would be J.D Salinger, who went though an unenviable phase after his most famous creation became a worldwide phenomenon. After a book as revolutionary as Catcher in the rye, he probably tried too hard with his novella Franny and Zooey, but failed on most accounts –But all’s not lost. There are pleasant reminders for those of us who believe we have come too far too soon.

A subterranean quadriplegic fights for the right to a dignified death for three agonizingly continuous decades, wrestling fearlessly despite his benumbed body for a freedom that eliminates life. The Sea Inside is director Alejandro Amenábar’s powerful 2004 Oscar winning film, Based on a true life story of Ramon Sampedro, a traveling sailor who was paralyzed neck down after a deathlike accident… A stirring account of a man’s appeal for the right to release from his crippled life, disabled love, claustrophobic…

A lantern can only accentuate the beauty of everything around it, but the shadows it creates cannot hide the deceit, lies and misery that permeate through the spirits and ghosts of the house it illuminates. Raise the red lantern, a stellar attempt by the Chinese director Zhang Yimou, manages to expose those very ghosts that lurk behind the resplendent façade of the residents of a palace. The fact that the palace and the household is an oblique reference to the Chinese dictatorial government gives this movie its double edged sword like character…

Abbas Kiarostami’s claustrophobic documentation of a day in the life of a woman in Iran. who is on the verge of a divorce. and the people she meets during her long ride in the city. Kiarostami’s quarter century long innovation continues as Ten scores. There are not more than a handful of directors who have the special ability to look beyond the boundaries and hop over the conventions of the medium. Abbas Kiarostami, with his radically fresh perspective and consistent streak of “different” films…

There is an actor in each of us that is always raring to come out. And it is that actor Mohsen Makhmalbaf wanted to capture in his camera and present to the world. He shoots two birds with one stone in this one – provide a stunning salute to the spirit of cinema on its centennial anniversary, and gives the very audience who adore cinema a shot at stardom. Makhmalbaf’s documentary, not without flaws, is definitely one to pay a salam (salute) to – a salute to the spirit of people, and to the spirit of cinema.