The Five Obstructions (2003)

Director
Lars von Trier; Jørgen Leth

Main cast
Claus Nissen; Lars von Trier; Majken Algren Nielsen; Jacqueline Arenal; Daniel Hernandez Rodriguez

Genres
Drama, Documentary, Foreign

Description
About a filmmaker not only revisiting, but also recreating (not in a conventional sense) one of his first films, The Perfect Human / Det perfekte menneske (1967)


Similar movies

This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.
Documentary about the life of avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren, who led the independent film movement of the 1940s.
A documentary that exposes the shocking truths behind industrial food production and food wastage, focusing on fishing, livestock and crop farming. A must-see for anyone interested in the true cost of the food on their plate.
This dryly funny mockumentary about the lost work of a pioneering New Zealand film genius is probably one of the best examples of the faux-documentary genre. In fact, it was so successful that when it originally aired on New Zealand television, hundreds of viewers bought the premise hook, line, and sinker. If you didn't know any better yourself, it's entirely possible you might be duped into believing the extremely tall tale of one Colin MacKenzie, an ambitious filmmaker who made the world's first talking movie (years before The Jazz Singer), invented color film, and created a huge biblical epic that would put Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith to shame. Filmmaker Peter Jackson (Heavenly Creatures) shrewdly inserts himself into the film via his documentation of the "discovery" of McKenzie's lost epic, which for years was preserved in a garden shed.
The travels in Italy of director Andrei Tarkovsky in preparation for the making of his film Nostalghia.
This documentary about Henri-Georges Clouzot’s unfinished 1964 psycho-thriller L’Enfer is as tantalizing as it is frustrating. Despite remaining one of the most masterful of French directors, Cluozot inexplicably seems to have lost control on the big-budget production of L’Enfer. The long-lost raw footage is intriguing and dazzling, infused with swirling lights and blue-lipped, cigarette-puffing fantasy temptresses. Although directors Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Mederea have managed to speak to numerous members of the original crew, this behind-the-scenes investigation has so little to say about the reasons behind Clouzot’s failure to complete the film. In spite of this, the undiminished power of Clouzot’s extraordinary images makes the documentary a fascinating watch.
Documentary on director Kim Ki-Duk looking back at his film career.
American: The Bill Hicks Story is a biographical documentary film on the life of comedian Bill Hicks. The film was produced by Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas, and features archival footage and interviews with family and friends, including Kevin Booth. The filmmakers used a cut-and-paste animation technique to add movement to a large collection of still pictures used to document events in Hicks' life. The film made its North American premiere at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival. The film was nominated for a 2010 Grierson British Documentary Award for the "Most Entertaining Documentary" category. It was also nominated for Best Graphics and Animation category in the 2011 Cinema Eye Awards. Awards won include The Dallas Film Festivals Texas Filmmaker Award, at Little Rock The Oxford American's Best Southern Film Award, and Best Documentary at the Downtown LA Film Festival. On Rotten Tomatoes, 81% of the first 47 reviews counted were rated positive.
Lopitos, who is horribly inefficient but quick-witted, is invited (because of the current ambassador's superstition about 13 sitting down to a meal) to a banquet attended by the ambassadors of both superpowers. After the news of a series of coups d'état in Los Cocos arrives throughout the meal, Lopitos becomes the official ambassador. At a summit of world leaders, the representatives of the two world superpowers court the allegiances of third-world diplomats to tilt the balance of global power in their favor. The last diplomat to remain unaligned, Lopitos instead harangues the superpowers for infringing on the rights of developing countries to self determination, talking to them with his point of view as a citizen not as ambassador because he arranged his demise as ambassador one day before his speech.
Loose cannon cop Capone returns to his home town of Kingston to join a group of officers fighting organised crime in the area. On his first day he uncovers gun smuggling operation that may be connected with lead criminal Oney. However his old crew, led by Ratty, also are involved leading Capone to a choice between his job and his old crew.
A young, once-great Hollywood film director refuses to accept changing times during the early 1930s, and confines himself to his decaying mansion to make silent porn flicks.
Karthik (Naga Chaitanya) is an engineering graduate who wants to pursue his career as a film director. Samantha is his neighbour and he falls in love with her at the very first sight. But there are two catches. One is that she is elder to him and the bigger hitch is that she is a Malayali Christian. He proposes to her and she slowly falls for his guts and his perseverance. Her strict father comes to know about it and settles her marriage. She loves him, but can’t hurt her entire family by marrying him. The rest of the story is all about how Karthik achieves his passion to become a film director and tastes success at the personal front.
The love story between an actress and a director. Inspired by the life of the late south Indian actress Silk Smitha.
The film starts with the veteran thespian Harish Mishra, he is gravely ill. The punishments of a film shoot have left the old man in a coma. His co-star, Shabnam, is wracked with worry, but their director, Siddharth, keeps strangely distant and refuses to visit his ailing star. In flashbacks, their story emerges.
Shiva is a new student in the community college. He is welcomed by a group of collegians, including the lovely Asha, to whom Shiva is instantly attracted to. Shiva notices that there is violence within the college by people who are not even students. When he decides to find out their motives, he is met with violence, and threats. Now Shiva must decide to stand up for his college, or just carry on studying, finish college, and move on.
An American, Leopold Kessler (Jean-Marc Barr) goes to post-war Germany in 1945 to work as a railroad conductor for the Zentropa Rail Line instead of going into the Army because he feels its a more valuable thing to do for the state of the world. He meets Katharina Hartmann (Barbara Sukowa), the daughter of the railroad owner and they fall in love.
Stymied by writer's block while crafting his latest script, director Kim Jung-rae persuades his friend Won Chang-wook to drive him to a beach resort—where he promptly becomes involved with Chang-wook's girlfriend. Abandoning her and taking up with another woman, Jung-rae winds up creating enough drama to inspire his writing.
In an urban Indian city, A struggling actor battles for his career, but his friend who loses money in a scam deal commits an action that puts both of their lives in danger. The three last days before the incident follows the struggling actor, an ambitious filmmaker, a wannabe hustler, an opportunist, a lover and two cinephile thugs, through an inter-twining vignette of their lives.
Franco Elica is a film director casting a remake of a pious melodrama in Rome. He's melancholy, heading south for a break. On a beach, he meets a man who films weddings and is roped into helping film the wedding of the daughter of a severe and imperious prince. The wedding is one of convenience - the prince needs money, the groom is a mama's boy. Elica is attracted to the bride, Boda, and tries to convince her not to marry. No matter how outrageous his behavior, the prince keeps Elica on as the wedding director. As the wedding approaches, what's real blurs with Elica's imagination. Is he mad?
The next mayor of Seoul candidate's wife becomes a dance singer in this movie as Hwang Jeong-min takes on the role of poor lawyer turned politician and Uhm Jung-hwa as the wife who makes an attempt at singing without her husband knowing at first.
As one of Suzuki's last fims, it is related to his 1967 Branded to Kill, either as a remake or sequel. The plots of both films involve a third-ranked hit man deposing the top-ranked hit man to claim the top rank.
Set in 1973 Spain, a struggling encyclopedia salesman and his wife take advantage of an offer to make adult films. The act turns him into an aspring legit filmmaker and her into an international sex symbol.
Young Jinhee is taken by her father to an orphanage near Seoul. He leaves her there never to return, and she struggles to come to grips with her fate. Jinhee desperately believes her father will come back for her and take her on a trip. The film is based on the experiences of the director, an ethnic Korean who was adopted by a French couple in the 1970s.
The second of Trier's films known collectively as the Europa trilogy. The other two films in the trilogy are The Element of Crime (1984) and Europa (1991). Co-written by Niels Vørsel, the film focuses on the screenwriting process. Vørsel and von Trier play themselves, coming up with a last-minute script for a producer. This story is intercut with scenes from the film they write, in which von Trier plays a renegade doctor trying to cure a modern-day epidemic. In an ironic twist, the doctor discovers that he himself has been spreading the virus.
A young man is confined in a mental hospital. Through a flashback we see that he was traumatized as a child, when he and his family were circus performers: he saw his father cut off the arms of his mother, a religious fanatic and leader of the heretical church of Santa Sangre ("Holy Blood"), and then commit suicide. Back in the present, he escapes and rejoins his surviving and armless mother.
Night after night, not long before dawn, two young adults, Patricia and Emile, meet on a sound stage to discuss learning, discourse, and the path to revolution. Scenes of Paris's student revolt, the Vietnam War, and other events of the late 1960s, along with posters, photographs, and cartoons, are backdrops to their words. Words themselves are often Patricia and Emile's subject, as are images, sounds, and juxtapositions.
'Page 3' takes a behind-the-scenes look at the lifestyles of the A-list celebrities in metro cities. It explores the networking and the power play between the air-kissing
A symphony in three movements. Things such as a Mediterranean cruise, numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday... Our Europe. At night, a sister and her younger brother have summoned their parents to appear before the court of their childhood. The children demand serious explanations of the themes of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Our humanities. Visits to six sites of true or false myths: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona.
A pro-America superhero destroys France to prevent Communists from taking over.
A struggling actor comes from Delhi to Bombay and enters the Hindi film industry. This gives the audience an in sight into what sometimes happens when making a movie and what happens in the industry and more when it involves the opposite sex and when you are working together. Zoya Akhtar, sister to Farhan Akhtar and daughter of Javed Akhtar, has done a superb job in her directorial debut in showin
In this anthology film centered around the theme of "Eros," five seperate stories are presented by five top Korean directors. The main characters from each segment are connected with each other in one way or another.
In October 2009, the filmmakers went into an abandoned psychiatric hospital to explore the 'haunted' institution, famous for its radical treatment of patients with mental illness. Electroshock, insulin therapy, and lobotomies were commonplace. Once inside, the filmmakers quickly discovered that they were not alone.
Gemini was released in 2002, directed by successful director Saran and it was produced by the AVM company headed by M. S. Guhan and M. Saravanan. The film starred Vikram and Kiran Rathod in the lead roles with Kalabhavan Mani and Charle in supporting roles.The story of Gemini revolves around Gemini (Vikram) and Teja (Kalabhavan Mani), two contemporary rowdies in Chennai. Gemini's friend is murdered by Teja's friend. Then Gemini and his gang search for the person who murdered his friend and kills him. This incident marks the start of their rivalry.
It's New Year's Eve. Larry's parents are at the vicarage dance leaving Larry in charge of the house. Big mistake, because Larry's a party animal and tonight he's going to go wild - with a little help from his friends!
Jean-Luc Godard's poetic meditation on war, violence and defeat. The film is structured in three parts. The three segments are "Hell", "Purgatory", and "Heaven". The first segment is a montage of war images from documentary and fictional sources. The second concerns two young Jewish women attending a European arts conference in Sarajevo. The final segment concerns the after life.
A revolutionary film about the cinematic genius of North Korea's late Dear Leader Kim Jung-IL, with a groundbreaking experiment at its heart - a propaganda film, made according to the rules of his 1987 manifesto. Through the shared love of cinema, AIM HIGH IN CREATION! forges an astonishing new bond between the hidden filmmakers of North Korea and their Free World collaborators. Revealing an unexpected truth about the most isolated nation on earth: filmmakers, no matter where they live, are family.
A Chadian film director who lives and works in France (Haroun) returns home upon the death of his mother. He is shocked at the degraded state of the country and the national cinema. The filmmaker decides to make a film dedicated to his mother entitled Bye Bye Africa but immediately encounters major problems. Cinemas have closed and financing is impossible to secure. The director reunites with an old girlfriend (Yelena), who was shunned by Chadians who could not distinguish between film and reality after appearing in one of his previous films as an HIV victim. Haroun learns about the destruction of the African cinema from directors in neighboring countries, but also finds Issa Serge Coelo shooting his first film, Daressalam. Things go badly and, convinced that it is impossible to make films in Africa, Haroun departs Chad in despair, leaving his film camera to a young boy who had been assisting him.
Thirteen European directors explore the theme of Sarajevo; what this city has represented in European history over the past hundred years, and what Sarajevo stands for today in Europe. These eminent filmmakers of different generations and origins offer exceptional singular styles and visions.
Accomplished British screenwriter Christopher Hampton directs the political drama Imagining Argentina, based on the novel by Lawrence Thornton. Set during the unsettling disappearances in Buenos Aires during the dictatorship of the 1970s, the film involves theater director Carlos Rueda (Antonio Banderas) and his wife Cecilia (Emma Thompson). Shortly after Cecilia writes an editorial commentary questioning the mysterious abductions, she is herself abducted and taken into police custody. Soon Carlos develops the supernatural ability to see into the future and he imagines his wife meeting an awful fate during an escape attempt. To make matters worse, their teenage daughter Teresa (Leticia Dolera) is also kidnapped. Imagining Argentina was nominated for the Golden Lion at the 2003 Venice Film Festival. SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Venice Film Festival (ref. Amazon)
Two filmmakers try to create a film venturing on the life of Jose Rizal. Before they do that, they try to investigate on the heroism of the Philippine national hero. Of particular focus is his supposed retraction of his views against the Roman Catholic Church during the Spanish regime in the Philippines which he expressed primarily through his two novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. The investigation was done mainly by "interviewing" key individuals in the life of Rizal such as his mother Teodora Alonso, his siblings Paciano, Trinidad, and Narcisa, his love interest and supposed wife Josephine Bracken, and the Jesuit priest who supposedly witnessed Rizal's retraction, Fr. Balaguer. Eventually, the two filmmakers would end up "interviewing" Rizal himself to get to the bottom of the issue.
This unusual documentary-style feature starts with ordinary people discussing their private erotic desires; what sets it apart from other documentaries, which often feature a lot of talk, is that in this experimental film, 10 of the subjects then act out their most intimate fantasies. Carl Gurevich and Ralph Rosenblum (the acclaimed editor of Woody Allen's comedies Annie Hall and Sleeper) co-direct this daring peek into the human sexual psyche.
A filmmaker (van den Driessche) holds a series of boundary-pushing auditions for his project about female pleasure.
Chotushkone (Bengali: চতুষ্কোণ; English: Quadrangle) is an Indian Bengali thriller film directed by Srijit Mukherji. "Four directors get together and plan to make a film, consisting of four short stories. They have an appointment with the producer on the outskirts of the city. While they are together, each comes up with a story which is unique in its own way, but connected to the other stories by a common theme - death. They spend a night in a nearby bungalow when their car breaks down. It is here that each of them revisits their past and are held at gunpoint by their 'nemesis'."
Tensions between members of a film crew build while they wait for the arrival of the director and star to arrive on location.
The mostly true story of the legendary "worst director of all time", who, with the help of his strange friends, filmed countless B-movies without ever becoming famous or successful.
While attending a retrospect of his work, a filmmaker recalls his life and his loves: the inspirations for his films.
Woody Allen stars as Val Waxman, a two-time Oscar winner turned washed-up, neurotic director in desperate need of a comeback. When it comes, Waxman finds himself backed into a corner: Work for his ex-wife Ellie or forfeit his last shot. Is Val blinded by love when he opts for the reconnect? Is love blind when it comes to Ellie's staunch support? Literally and figuratively, the proof is the picture.
A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.
A production company begins casting for its next feature, and an up-and-coming actress named Rose tries to manipulate her filmmaker boyfriend, Alex, into giving her a screen test. Alex's wife, Emma, knows about the affair and is considering divorce, while Rose's girlfriend secretly spies on her and attempts to sabotage the relationship. The four storylines in the film were each shot in one take and are shown simultaneously, each taking up a quarter of the screen.
A quirk in time and space gives a failed filmmaker the chance to reshape his destiny when he visits his peculiar alma mater.
Misha (Stephen Papps), a once celebrated filmmaker who has fallen on hard times, resolves to leave his homeland in search of a film-friendly country where he can pursue his career. With his wife Nadia (Elena Stejko) in tow he sets sail from Russia in a tiny lifeboat, drifting cross the Pacific to finally arrive in New Zealand. Before long Misha realises that New Zealand is no more receptive to his ideas and aesthetic than Russia. Yet he perseveres with his experimental film, ignoring his wife’s pleas to find work. Misha increasingly withdraws into himself, and his relationship with Nadia collapses. Alone, his obsessions take hold and he steadily descends into madness. Only a chance encounter with a young Polynesian woman saves him from the ultimate act of self-destruction. His friendship with Roseanna (Stephanie Tauevihi) inspires a re-awakening, as he begins to reconnect with the world around him.
A young British girl travels to Israel/Palestine, retracing the steps of her grandfather - a British soldier stationed there in the 1940s.
Told in flashback form, the film traces the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious Hollywood producer Jonathan Shields, as seen through the eyes of various acquaintances, including a writer James Lee Bartlow, a star Georgia Lorrison and a director Fred Amiel. He is a hard-driving, ambitious man who ruthlessly uses everyone - including the writer, star and director - on the way to becoming one of Hollywood's top movie makers.
Solomon and Tummler are two teenagers killing time in Xenia, Ohio, a small town that has never recovered from the tornado that ravaged the community in the 1970s.
Bob Fosse's semi-autobiographical film celebrates show business stripped of glitz or giddy illusions. Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) is at the top of the heap, one of the most successful directors and choreographers in musical theatre. But he can feel his world slowly collapsing around him--his obsession with work has almost destroyed his personal life, and only his bottles of pills keep him going.
An obese boy named Fat Albert and his friends Rudy, Mushmouth, Bill, Dumb Donald, Russell, and Weird Harold, pulls into trouble when they "fall" out of their TV world into the real world, where Fat Albert tries to help a young girl, Doris, make friends.
Set in Miami, a dancer arrives from Caracas determined to make her name as a film director.
This compelling story vividly recreates Hollywood's infamous 'Blacklist Era'. The witch-hunt has begun and director David Merrill (De Niro) can revive his stalled career by testifying against friends who are suspected communists. Merrill's ex wife (Bening) shares a whirlpool of scandals that draws them closer togheter while his chances for ever making movies again slips further away...
A 2002 French experimental film directed by Philippe Grandrieux and starring Zachary Knighton and Anna Mouglalis. The story involves a young American who falls obsessively in love with a mysterious courtesan named Melania against the backdrop of a dilapidated Eastern European landscape.
The year is 1919. German troops retreat from Ukraine. The Directory, the Ukrainian national government lead by Symon Petliura, takes control of Kyiv. Meanwhile, the Bolshevik division commanded by Mykola Shchors is marching on the capital. The Bolsheviks capture the cities of Vinnytsia, Zhmerynka, and others one by one, but lose Berdychiv to Petliura’s forces. They are demoralized by the defeat. By his personal example of courage and military skill, Shchors inspires the retreating Red troops and leads them to victory over the enemy.

© Valossa 2015–2024