Jorge Didaco

Jorge Didaco is a Brazil-based teacher and writer in theatre, performance and film.

I have always avoided lists like “the greatest films”, because I suffer a lot in having to choose. To amend my pain a little bit, I imposed myself several limits and rules: I’m going to select 50favourite/most cherished/most admired extraordinary films, seen (for the first time or simply revisions) between June 2008 and June 2009; only one film per director; and in chronological order:

• After Death (1915) .. Yevgeni Bauer
• The Big Parade (1925) .. King Vidor
• Varieté (1925) .. Ewald André Dupont
• Lonesome (1928) .. Pál Fejös
• A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929) .. Anthony Asquith
• Lucky Star (1929) .. Frank Borzage
• Tabu (1931) .. F.W. Murnau
• Policeman (1933) .. Tomu Uchida
• Day of Wrath (1943) .. Carl Theodor Dreyer
• Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) .. Maya Deren
• Romance in a Minor Key (1943) .. Helmut Käutner
• Un Chant d'Amour (1950) .. Jean Genet
• Day of the Outlaw (1959) .. Andre de Toth
• Chronicle of a Summer (1960) .. Edgar Morin & Jean Rouch
• The Cloud-Capped Star (1960) .. Ritwik Ghatak
• La Jetée (1962) .. Chris Marker
• The Green Years (1963) .. Paulo Rocha
• Muriel ou Le Temps d'un Retour (1963) .. Alain Resnais
• Scorpio Rising (1964) .. Kenneth Anger
• Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) .. Russ Meyer
• Secrets Behind the Wall (1965) .. Kôji Wakamatsu
• Pharaoh (1966) .. Jerzy Kawalerowicz
• High School (1968) .. Frederick Wiseman
• The Human Bullet (1968) .. Kihachi Okamoto
• Our Daily Bread (1970) .. Mani Kaul
• Bang Bang (1971) .. Andrea Tonacci
• Lisa and the Devil (1973) .. Mario Bava
• The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) .. Werner Herzog
• Karl May (1974) .. Hans-Jürgen Syberberg
• Jeanne Dielman (1975) .. Chantal Akerman
• Letter from My Village (1975) .. Safi Faye
• Seasons of the Year (1975) .. Artavazd Peleshian
• Trás-os-Montes (1976) .. Margarida Cordeiro & António Reis
• The Grapes of Death (1978) .. Jean Rollin
• The Place Without Limits (1978) .. Arturo Ripstein
• Veredas (1978) .. João César Monteiro
• The Survivors (1979) .. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea
• Block (1982) .. Hieronim Neumann
• Ulysse (1982) .. Agnès Varda
• Class Relations (1984) .. Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub
• Breakfast on the Grass (1987) .. Priit Pärn
• In a Glass Cage (1987) .. Agustí Villaronga
• Rodrigo D: No Future (1990) .. Víctor Gaviria
• The Days (1993) .. Wang Xiaoshuai
• History of the Main Complaint (1996) .. William Kentridge
• L'Arrière Pays (1998) .. Jacques Nolot
• Millenium Mambo (2001) .. Hou Hsiao-hsien
• Marseille (2004) .. Angela Schanelec
• A Country Doctor (2007) .. Koji Yamamura
• Birdsong (2008) .. Albert Serra