From Chile, Oscar winning “Best Foreign Language Film,” A Fantastic Woman is a readily recognizable love story; including a tragic twist. It is one in which one lover is lost to the other; with the one left behind having to learn how to muster the strength and courage to carry on alone. The unfolding drama is subsequently one that seeks the answer to a question with which anyone who has ever mourned can identify. How shall one grieve? And specifically with the particular set of circumstances in this story, how will Marina, a transgender person, be allowed to grieve the death of Orlando? This fantastic film was Mountain Shadow’s selection for May, 2018. Click on the image above to read the review.

FINDING WHAT LASTS FOREVER - A personal journey of self-discovery combines with a documentary to delight foodies, along with a beautiful travelogue of Italy! Click on the image above to read a film review and commentary of Mountain Shadow’s selection for April, 2018: Matteo Troncone’s document: “Arrangarsi - Pizza and the Art of Living”

If one considers film an art form, and one subscribes to the maxim about art imitating life, then a fine film like THE INSULT is an excellent example. It is also an “everyman’s” story. Lebanon's submission for "Best Foreign Language Film," was aptly selected as one of five nominees at the 2018 Oscars. The film was Mountain Shadow's selection for March, 2018. Click on the image above to read a Mountain Shadow review of this film.

Journey, home and homecoming are universal themes, portrayed time and again in a stock story line. But they can be all the more powerful when depicted with characters who were once total strangers; but now find themselves thrown together by misfortune that becomes the catalyst for a semblance “family” where one never existed before. Such is the story line in Jackie van Beek’s slow-burn film, “The Inland Road.” To read a review of Mountain Shadow's selection for January, 2018, click on the image above.

Nearly sixty years ago, words like “liberated” -- let alone “empowered” -- were terms hardly associated with a woman’s role in Western society.  Now, in an era when TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year” are a group of women known as “The Silence Breakers,” it’s almost quaint to recall the scientific community’s surprise when a young British secretary with no formal training in their field made the cover of The National Geographic magazine in 1965. To read a review of Brett Morgen's documentary, JANE, click on the image above.

LOVING VINCENT is the world’s first fully oil painted feature film. First shot as a live action film with actors, the film was then hand-painted over frame-by-frame in oils. The story line is a standard murder mystery. The total charm of the film, however, is to be found less in the who-done-it-if-Vincent-didn’t storyline; and more in the manner in which each character vividly comes to life as if van Gogh had painted them through his own artistic eye, in his own style. The film was Mountain Shadow's selection for November, 2017. Click on the image above to read a Mountain Shadow review. 

When I see a limber ballet artist bend themselves in half or defy gravity by flying through the air like a leaping gazelle as a form of human expression, it is nothing short of pure poetry in motion.  Capture such visual expression with the eye of a director’s camera and a realistic script and you have the makings of a good film like “Polina.” This was Mountain Shadow's selection for October, 2017. To read the Review, click on the image above.

What better way to try to express the elusive and most inexplicable meanings to be discovered in our lives than in the finest expressions of language, art, music, and perhaps the most powerful form of modern communication, film? In this regard, Patrick Shen’s cinematic pursuit does an eloquent and masterful job of what one contributor in the film calls “the language of the great silent spaces.” You can read a full review of Mountain Shadow's selection for August, 2017, by clicking on the image above. Following his in-person presentation, the filmmaker sent the following message to Mountain Shadow: "Thanks so much for screening the film. I’m so impressed with the important work you’re doing to bring these “small” films to Walnut Creek. Your membership is engaged and thoughtful. A dream for a filmmaker. Thank you again." - Patrick Shen

If honesty is its own reward, the payoff may be hard to measure sometimes. That is, until a full recompense is made for others who try to work both sides of the street between feigned pretense and downright duplicity. That’s the question that’s left up to the viewer to decide in the last few fleeting and startling seconds of Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s Bulgarian film, “Glory.” This was Mountain Shadow's monthly film selection for July, 2017. Click on the image above to read the Review.

[Mountain Shadow's show for June, 2017] - In Ken Lough’s newest, I Daniel Blake, the disabled and unemployed craftsman finds himself caught up in an unwieldy bureaucratic system that only identifies human beings as case numbers to be processed; rather than human beings to be lifted up when the vicissitudes of life’s happenstances have dealt them more than a blow or two.  Fortunately however, indifference is not impervious.  Click on the image above to read the full review.

A review of "LOST IN PARIS." [Mountain Shadow's show for May, 2017] - While the film-making team of Abel and Gordon don’t credit Chaplin directly as the inspirational source for their latest work, they readily acknowledge they are part of what they call the professional “actor-clown” tradition; with what they themselves dub as “burlesque comedy.” In this, their latest film, the dialogue is minimal; leaving facial expression and body movement to tell a tale that’s sheer comic delight. This was Mountain Shadow's selection for May, 2017. Click on the image above to read the review.

"Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent" - [Mountain Shadow's show for April, 2017] - The popularity of Anthony Bourdain’s well known series, Parts Unknown, is all about revealing people and places as yet undiscovered. But what about the first well-known “celebrity chef” who, to this day, remains an unknown mystery?  The answers are not to be found in some secret recipes, but in a study of one extraordinary man’s unique personal gifts and baggage. This was Mountain Shadow's selection for May, 2017, and a Bay Area premiere.Click on the image above to read a Mountain Shadow review.

A Review ofAsghar Fargadi's Oscar-winning film, "The Salesman" - [Mountain Shadow's show for March, 2017] - In Arthur Miller’s 1948 theatrical classic, Death of a Salesman, the main character plays the role of a disgruntled shell of a man; exhausted from a life spent peddling some unnamed commodity that ends up being as meaningless as the sum of all his days.  Willy Loman is plagued by his failures that are a heavier burden to bear than the suitcases full of worthless wares he carries. In the end, he puts an end to his embittered life; but not before inflicting plenty of pain and misery on those around him. In the course of Asghar Fargadi's Oscar winning film, The Salesman, Emad is left to deal with the aftermath of a suspected and presumed assault on his wife, Rana. But the cost of revenge can be both deadening and deadly. To read the full review of this gem of a film, click on the image above.

As the son of a railway worker, Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto’s sympathies for the working class are in his bones. But when he achieves success as a world-renowned poet and later Nobel prize winner, he changes his name to Pablo Neruda; and joins a company of world-class intellectual elites like the artist, Pablo Picasso, and existentialist philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre. He is not just an esoteric, rabble-rouser poet. In 1948, he is also a Chilean opposition leader, whose political views are subversive to the status quo; where gross economic disparity reigns and divides a nation. When a warrant is issued for his arrest, he will run only fast enough to elude and torment his would-be captor. The escapade will blur fiction and non-fiction as an epic cinematic poem. [Mountain Shadow's show for January, 2017] - To read the full review, click on the image above.

Charlie Chaplin once said, “Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot. To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!” There’s also hardly anything funny to be found in the first fifteen minutes of this Norwegian cinematic drama-comedy; but subtle humor that underlies much of the way the real world exists will break through the ice and expose both the absurdity and touching beauty of life. Click on the image above to read the full review.

Fúsi is a baggage handler at the airport, where he spends his days handling everyone else’s arrivals and departures. Unfortunately, it suits him well.  Enter Sjöfn, a spunky, but seriously flawed chick who introduces Fúsi to a whirlwind of new experiences he could hardly have conjured up for himself.  Fúsi then goes through all the pains of growing up; from the innocence and naiveté of childhood to a kind of mature and compassionate affection some adults never achieve. Click on the image above to read more about this little gem of a film.

As a place known only too well as one of international conflict and internal civil strife, modern day Iraq might seem an unlikely place for a film about two star-crossed lovers following an impossible dream.  In fact, the director of El Clasico, Halkawt Mustafa, has described how filming on location in Baghdad’s “Green Zone” was interrupted numerous times by nearby bombings. At the same time, perhaps the point of the storyline is made all the more poignant and persuasive when the internal ways of the heart can withstand all the slings and arrows the outside world can heave, and still triumph in the end.  With no U.S. commercial release for this film (only a few select festivals), this was Mountain Shadow's exclusive screening and selection for October, 2016. Click on the picture above to read the full review.

With the conclusion of our 2nd Annual Short Film Competition the weekend of September 16-17,  the consensus is in: “Wow, ten spectacular films by some remarkable filmmakers!”  All ten Finalists were winners for having beat out hundreds of other submissions; but you can click on the image above to find out the tallied results from the 300+ ballots cast from our three audiences. You can watch a YouTube video of the Q&A with the filmmakers here.

For most players, chess is a game of attrition; knocking off enough of the opponent’s pieces, in order to expose the vulnerability of the king and its capture.  But for the skilled player, cornering the king with an inescapable checkmate can sometimes be accomplished when your opponent still has plenty of other powerful pieces left on the board. Even a few lowly pawns can potentially become the victors.  And sometimes with the help of a knight on horseback. It is the peculiar ability of the knight’s horse to leap over other pieces -- forwards or backwards, up two squares and over one, or vice versa -- that can sometimes be most effective. And therefore, sometimes it’s really just a matter of backing the right horse against all odds. To read a Mountain Shadow review of "The Dark Horse," click on the image above.