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| LEPER | SACRIFICE | SKY BURIAL |
| "Impressionistic, vivid, and otherworldly! (Bruno) provides not only context but artistic empathy and a genuine aesthetic charge.” – New York Magazine "(Ms. Bruno's) work takes risks with form to imply that individual suffering and transcendence are but particles in a river of spiritual energy that dwarfs geography and time.” – Matt Zoller Seitz, The New York Times "It’s the depth of Bruno’s commitment – not to abstract principles of liberal idealism, but to flesh-and-blood people – that creates tension within her films…Bruno wrestles with contradictory impulses: to expose or to protect, to report or to shelter… (The three films) are windows that open outward, not cases slamming shut." – Jim Ridley, Village Voice "Profound humanism and (the) refusal to sentimentalize – or objectify.” – Tom Beer, Time Out NY "Grouped together, these sensitive works by the filmmaker Ellen Bruno are a triptych about body and spirit, provoking a welter of emotions. SKY BURIAL shows an elegance and lucidity… (the film) is devoid of sensationalism or any other attempt to adorn or explicate the spirituality of these acts … Ms. Bruno’s shots are so carefully composed, timed, and editing that they make possible an empathetic, unintrusive encounter, unavoidably awed but not voyeuristic. SACRIFICE…intersperses the interviews with brief lyrical passages. These impressionistic glimpses of village life – a twirling doll-like dancer , swaying bamboo – limn the tales of horror with memories of beauty and the sanctuary of home… It’s a testament to Ms. Bruno’s grace, if that’s the word, that she can present the often wrenching material in these three documentaries with integrity.” – Nicolas Rapold, The New York Sun |
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Ellen Bruno is an independent filmmaker of spectacular courage and artistry. Filming in the Far East, she records secret worlds whose existences are known, first-hand, by only a handful of Westerners – in part, because it is easier and safer to simply ignore such disturbing truths. SACRIFICE examines the selling of Burmese girls (some as young as 12) into prostitution in Thailand; LEPER travels to Nepal to meet a society of lepers in a remote village, victims of a disease that has ravaged people’s lives since ancient times; SKY BURIAL records a Tibetan monastery ritual in which corpses are consumed by huge vultures, allowing the cycle of life to continue as the spirits of the deceased merge with the sky. Q & A with SACRIFICE / LEPER / SKY BURIAL director Ellen Bruno (Recorded January 3, 2007)
3 Films Directed, Photographed, Edited & Written By Ellen Bruno USA • 1998-2005 • Program Runs 85 minutes In English, Burmese, Thai, Nepali & Tibetan with English Subtitles • BrunoFilms |
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