MUMBAI: NDTV Lumiere and Excel Home Videos have released world titles namely Short Sharp Shock (German), Crossed Tracks (French), Playtime (1967) (French), Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (1953) (French), Jour De Fete (1953) (French) and Mon Uncle (1958) (French) on DVD. The DVDs are priced at Rs 499.
German director Fatih Akin’s debut film Short Sharp Shock is a ghetto-centric gangster movie, depicting the gritty story of three men whose friendship is put to test on the mean streets of the city.
Claude Lelouch’s Crossed Tracks won the Cesar Awards 2008 and was screened at festival de Cannes 2008, The Copenhagen International film festival 2007 and The Palm Springs International Film Awards 2008. Crossed Tracks, a romantic thriller, is a taut and tense journey of suspense and second-guessing filled to the brim with red herrings and false endings.
French filmmaker Jacque Tati’s fourth film, Playtime, won the 1969 Bodil Award for Best European Film. Playtime depicts Paris a soulless concrete jungle where Monsieur Hulot has to contact an American official in Paris, but he gets lost in the maze of modern architecture which is filled with the latest technical gadgets. Caught in the tourist invasion, Hulot roams around Paris with a group of American tourists, causing chaos in his usual manner.
Considered by many to be Jacques Tati’s funniest film, Mr. Hulot’s Holiday was nominated for an Oscar for best writing, story and screenplay in 1956, and won the Prix Louis Delluc, France’s highest film award, in 1953.
Jacques Tati’s first feature film, Jour De Fete, was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival (1949). A silent comedy film set in the French countryside, it casts a look at the modern day obsession with speed and efficiency.
Jacques Tati’s third feature Mon Uncle has won multiple awards including the Prix Special Du Jury at the Festival de Cannes, the New York Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Film and the 1959 Oscar for Best Foreign Film. This comedy centers around a dimwitted yet lovable character of Monsieur Hulot and his quixotic struggle with postwar France‘s infatuation with modern architecture, mechanical efficiency and American-style consumerism.
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