Two fascinating films, one directed by Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowksy and one actually about him, are only two of the many films opening on the fringes of Hollywood this weekend across the U.S. Along with the Jodorowksy-centric films (The Dance of Reality and Jodorowksy’s Dune), look out for the mesmerizing Brazilian documentary Elena, which opens at New York’s IFC Center May 30 and the social media focused light-hearted dramedy Emoticon 😉 which will hit theaters in both L.A. and N.Y. on the same day.
The Dance of Reality
Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Now Playing: New York, Los Angeles
Opens: May 30 (Chicago, San Francisco); June 6 (Miami)
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Visionary Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky blends his personal history with metaphor, mythology and poetry for his first film in 23 years (his last was 1990’s “The Rainbow Thief”). Jodorowsky shot the film in Tocopilla, a coastal town on the edge of the Chilean desert, where he was born.
Elena
Director: Petra Costa
Opens: May 30 (New York); June 13 (Los Angeles)
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Ranking as one of the most successful documentaries in Brazilian history, the film tells the story of a young women who travels to New York to become an actress like her mother and is followed years later by her younger sister with the same dreams.
Emoticon 😉
Director: Livia De Paolis
Opens: May 30 (New York, Los Angeles)
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An anthropology grad student working on her thesis on modern communication begins to understand how the world is changing when she meets her new boyfriend’s teenage kids.
Jodorowsky’s Dune
Director: Frank Pavich
Now Playing: New York
Opens: May 30 (Phoenix); June 5 (San Francisco); June 7 (Miami)
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This documentary explores the adaptation of author Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic “Dune” to the big screen by filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky. Despite years of pre-production, it ended up being a film that never came to fruition in the late 1970s.
Water & Power
Director: Richard Montoya
Now Playing: Los Angeles
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Twin brothers nicknamed “Water” and “Power” from Eastside L.A. rise in the corrupt world they grew up in, one a police officer and the other a powerful senator.
The German Doctor
Director: Lucia Puenzo
Now Playing: New York, Miami
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An Argentinean family befriends a German doctor not knowing they have let one of the most dangerous criminals in the world into their lives.