Established by Martin Scorsese in 2007, the World Cinema Project
expands the horizons of moviegoers everywhere. The mission of the
WCP is to preserve and present marginalized and infrequently
screened films from regions of the world ill equipped to provide
funding for major restorations. This collector’s set brings
together six superb films from various countries, including
Bangladesh/India (A River Called Titas), Mexico (Redes), Morocco
(Trances), Senegal (Touki bouki), South Korea (The Housemaid),
and Turkey (Dry Summer); each is a cinematic revelation,
depicting a culture not often seen by outsiders.
TOUKI BOUKI With a stunning mix of the surreal and the
naturalistic, Djibril Diop Mambéty paints a vivid, fractured
portrait of Senegal in the early 1970s. In this French New
Wave–influenced fantasy-drama, two young lovers long to leave
Dakar for the glamour and comforts of Europe, but their escape
plan is beset by complications both concrete and mystical. Marked
by dazzling imagery and music, the alternately manic and
meditative Touki bouki is widely admired as one of the most
important African films ever made. 1973
* 89 minutes
* Color
* Monaural
* In Wolof with English subtitles
* 1.37:1 aspect ratio
REDES Early in his career, the Austrian-born, future O
winner Fred Zinnemann (From Here to Eternity) codirected with
Emilio Gómez Muriel the politically and emotionally searing
Redes. In this vivid, documentary-like dramatization of the daily
grind of men struggling to make a living by fishing on the Gulf
of Mexico (mostly played by real-life fishermen), one worker’s
terrible loss instigates a political awakening among him and his
fellow laborers. A singular coming together of stunning talents,
Redes, commissioned by a progressive Mexican government, was
gorgeously and cowritten by the legendary photographer Paul
Strand. 1936 * 59 minutes
* Black & White
* Monaural
* In Spanish with English subtitles
* 1.33:1 aspect ratio
A RIVER CALLED TITAS The Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak’s
stunningly beautiful, elegiac saga concerns the tumultuous lives
of people in fishing villages along the banks of the Titas River
in pre-Partition East Bengal. Focusing on the tragic intertwining
es of a series of fascinating characters, in particular the
indomitable widow Basanti, Ghatak tells the poignant story of an
entire community’s vanishing way of life. Made soon after
Bangladesh became an independent nation, the elliptical,
stylized, painterly A River Called Titas is a grand epic from a
director who has had a devoted following for decades. 1973* 156
minutes
* Black & White
* Monaural
* In Bengali with English subtitles
* 1.37:1 aspect ratio
DRY SUMMER Winner of the prestigious Golden Bear at the 1964
Berlin International Film Festival, Metin Erksan’s wallop of a
melodrama concerns the machinations of an unrepentantly selfish
farmer who builds a dam to prevent water from flowing
downhill to nourish his neighbors’ crops. Alongside this tale of
soul-devouring competition is one of overheated desire, as a love
triangle develops between the farmer, his more decent brother,
and the beautiful villager the latter takes as his bride,
resulting in a Cain and Abel–like struggle. A benchmark of
Turkish cinema, this is a visceral, innovatively and
vibrantly acted depiction of the horrors of greed. 1964* 90
minutes
* Black & White
* Monaural
* In Turkish with English subtitles
* 1.33:1 aspect ratio
TRANCES The beloved Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane is the dynamic
subject of this captivating musical documentary. Storytellers
through song, some with a background in political theater, the
band’s members became an international sensation (Western rock
critics have often referred to them as “the Rolling Stones of
North Africa”), thanks to their political lyrics and sublime,
fully acoustic sound, which draws on the Moroccan trance music
tradition. Both a concert movie and a free-form audiovisual
experiment, Ahmed El Maânouni’s Trances is cinematic poetry.
1981* 88 minutes
* Color
* Monaural
* In Arabic with English subtitles
* 1.66:1 aspect ratio
THE HOUSEMAID A torrent of obsession, revenge, and
betrayal is unleashed under one roof in this venomous melodrama
from South Korean master Kim Ki-young. Immensely popular in its
home country when it was released, The Housemaid is the
thrilling, at times jaw-dropping story of the devastating effect
an unstable housemaid has on the domestic cocoon of a bourgeois,
morally dubious music teacher, his devoted wife, and their
precocious young children. Grim and taut yet perched on the
border of the absurd, Kim’s film is an engrossing tale of class
warfare and familial disintegration that has been hugely
influential on the new generation of South Korean directors.
1960* 108 minutes
* Black & White
* Monaural
* In Korean with English subtitles
* 1.66:1 aspect ratio