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Explorations and Curiosities

Missed Some of 2020’s Best Films?

2.10.21

In a still from "The Painter and the Thief," the male thief watches the female artist at work.

A still from The Painter and the Thief
From the film


A still from The Painter and the Thief
From the film

Because many viewers missed out on 2020 films, the Brattle Theatre’s Ned Hinkle and Coolidge Corner Theater’s Beth Gilligan shared some recommendations:

Ghost Tropic: A Muslim cleaning woman sleeps through her subway stop and must get home on foot. (Belgium)

Fire Will Come: A released prisoner returns to his rural home to live with his hermit mother. (Spain)

Vitalina Varela: A Cape Verdean woman travels to Lisbon to rejoin her husband, learns he has died, and follows traces of his secret life. (Portugal)

His House: An allegorical horror film about a couple from South Sudan who relocate in an English town. (U.K.)

Black Bear: A filmmaker and a couple sharing a remote Adirondack cottage are drawn into a convoluted, compelling artful experiment. (U.S.A.)

Documentaries:

Sing Me A Song: Thomas Balmés’s follow-up to Happiness centers on a Bhutan­ese monk who has grown into an adult hooked on digital media. (France)

The Painter and the Thief: A Czech artist in Oslo tracks down the man who stole her paintings—an often raw meditation on vulnerability, self-destruction, and forgiveness. (Norway)

Collective: Romanian investigative journalists uncover public fraud and corruption. (Romania)

A Thousand Cuts: Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown on the press includes targeting Filipina journalist Maria Ressa. (U.S.A.)

Coded Bias: A look at the bias, intrusiveness, and misinformation connected to increasingly popular facial-recognition programs. (U.S.A.)

For alternatives to Netflix, try: Criterion, Kanopy, Hoopla, Acorn, BBC America, and PBS.

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Several Harvard Computers and Radcliffe students pose for a photograph together, seated at desks and sitting on the floor

Harvard Computers and Radcliffe students in 1925
Photograph courtesy of the Harvard Library Archives 

Bringing the Stars to Light

Photo of a cheerleader group composed of elderly women, all in red tops and white skirts, with pompoms

A senior cheer group

Photograph courtesy of Lance Oppenheim

“Some Kind of Heaven,” a documentary by Lance Oppenheim

Photo of the exterior of Coolidge Corner Theater, with its vertical red neon sign.

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Photograph courtesy of Coolidge Corner Theater

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