Another Year

Thirteen dinners of a Chinese migrant worker's family over the course of fourteen months. The film portrays a series of random occurrences. Joys, frustra- tions and the struggle for survival. The meals unfold in real-time through thirteen static, long takes. Each take captures with vivid detail the reality of the relationships between the different family members. As the seasons unfold, so does time and the echoes for better working conditions penetrate the frame. Issues such as the one-child-policy and the possibilities for better wages weigh heavily on the minds of the three-generation family.

Chris and Maggie look back at some of the stories they have covered in 2021 in the Sky at Night's big review of the year.

The poetic travelogue A Sixth Part of the World and the "visual symphony" The Eleventh Year mark the beginning of Dziga Vertov's most creative period, which peaked in the canonical film Man with the Movie Camera. This 2-disc set presents the two rare masterpieces in a new transfer and with new soundtracks by British composer Michael Nyman. The bonus features offer materials on the methods of the filmmaker, as well as an introduction to the Vienna research project on Vertov, "Digital Formalism."

When 20-something Chinese filmmaker Nanfu Wang (Spirit Award-winner for Hooligan Sparrow) stays at a hostel in Florida on a break from her studies at New York University, she encounters Dylan, a blonde, charismatic, 22-year-old drifter who has left a comfortable home and loving family in Utah for a life of intentional homelessness and unfettered adventure. Fascinated by his choice and rejection of society’s rules, in I Am Another You Nanfu follows Dylan with her camera, living with him on the streets. But what begins as a portrait of a uniquely American quest for freedom reveals some surprising twists and turns in what also becomes a haunting and unforgettable story of family.

A man who spent his formative years in prison for murder is released, and struggles to adjust to the outside world and escape his lurid past. He gets involved with a cheap dancehall girl, and when her protector is accidentally killed, they go on the lam together, getting jobs as farm labourers. But some fellow workers get wise to them.

What did the old parliament look like when Vikings settled Iceland in 874 A.D.? How has the Icelandic environment changed since man first arrived? Is the human species a blight on the face of the Earth? What will the future look like here? Will the glaciers melt whether we like it or not? Will there be a volcanic eruption in the Reykjavik area? Will soil erosion blow Iceland back into the ocean? Can natural waterfalls replace energy with pollutants - and at what cost to the landscape?

One week before proposing to his girlfriend, Kyle, a down-on-his-luck romantic, discovers that she's been sleeping with another man.

Guy Hamilton is a journalist on his first job as a foreign correspondent. His apparently humdrum assignment to Indonesia soon turns hot as President Sukarno electrifies the populace and frightens foreign powers.