#Kiro Russo

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Viejo calavera (Kiro Russo, 2016)

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This Relationship is a Complicated EVIL! "Blood-Red Ox" reviewed! (Breaking Glass Pictures / DVD)

This Relationship is a Complicated EVIL! “Blood-Red Ox” reviewed! (Breaking Glass Pictures / DVD)

Purchase “Blood-Red Ox” on DVD home video! Writer Amir and his boyfriend Amat, whom have a hot-and-cold, off-and-on relationship, travel down to Bolivia on behalf of Amir’s friend seeking an expose on protecting the local endangered rainforest from land developers.  Upon arriving and settling into Amir’s friend’s childhood home set on the outskirts of town, Amat begins to experience reoccurring…

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Cinema Tropical Announces the Best Latin American and U.S. Latinx Films of 2022

        Cinema Tropical, the non-profit media arts organization that is leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the United States, is proud to announce its annual list of Best Latin American Films of the Year, comprised of 25 Latin American titles from twelve different countries, plus five U.S. Latinx productions—all of them by female directors—that the New York-based organization has selected as the best of the year.

     Featuring productions from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the United States, and Venezuela, the films selected in this list will compete for the 13th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards.

     The winners for Best Film, Best Director, Best First Film, and Best U.S. Latinx Film, will be announced in an in-person event on Thursday, January 12, 2023, at Film at Lincoln Center in New York City.

    A jury composed of programmer Cecilia Barrionuevo, former Artistic Director of the Mar del Plata Film Festival; Andrea Picard, Senior Curator at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF); José Rodriguez, Programmer at the Tribeca Film Festival; and filmmaker Dominga Sotomayor (Too Late to Die Young); will choose the winners of the 13th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards in the Latin American cinema category.

     Filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes (499, Sansón and Me); Ximena Amescua, Manager of Artist Programs at Firelight Media; and film programmer and producer Virginia Westover, will select the winner in the U.S. Latinx category.

         Please note that all the films under consideration had a minimum of 60 minutes in length and premiered between May 1, 2021, and April 30, 2022.        

Cinema Tropical’s List of Best Films of 2022:

(Listed alphabetically by title)

1.    About Everything There Is to Know / De todas las cosas que se han de saber by Sofía Velázquez, Peru 2.    Alis by Nicolas Van Hemelryck and Clare Weiskopf, Colombia/Chile/Romania 3.    Amparo by Simón Mesa Soto, Colombia/Sweden/Qatar 4.    The Box / La caja by Lorenzo Vigas, Venezuela/Mexico/USA 5.    Clara Sola by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén, Costa Rica/Sweden/Belgium/Germany/France 6.    Comala by Gian Cassini, Mexico 7.    The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future / La vaca que cantó una canción hacia el futuro by Francisca Alegría, Chile/France 8.    Dos Estaciones by Juan Pablo González, Mexico 9.    Dry Ground Burning / Mato Seco em Chamas by Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós, Brazil 10.    Eami by Paz Encina, Paraguay/Germany/Argentina/Netherlands/ France/USA 11.    El Gran Movimiento by Kiro Russo, Bolivia/France/Qatar/Switzerland 12.    For Your Peace of Mind, Make Your Own Museum / Para su tranquilidad, haga su propio museo by Ana Endara Mislov and Pilar Moreno, Panama 13.    Jesús López by Maximiliano Schonfeld, Argentina/France 14.    A Little Love Package by Gastón Solnicki, Argentina/Austria 15.    Mariner of the Mountains / Marinheiro das Montanhas by Karim Aïnouz, Brazil/France 16.    Mars One / Marte Um by Gabriel Martins, Brazil 17.    Me & the Beasts / Yo y las bestias by Nico Manzano, Venezuela 18.    Medusa by Anita Rocha da Silveira, Brazil 19.    The Middle Ages / La edad media by Alejo Moguillansky and Luciana Acuña, Argentina 20.    My Brothers Dream Awake / Mis hermanos sueñan despiertos by Claudia Huaiquimilla, Chile 21.    Prayers for the Stolen / Noche de fuego by Tatiana Huezo, Mexico/Germany/Brazil/Qatar 22.    Robe of Gems / Manto de gemas by Natalia López Gallardo, Mexico/Argentina 23.    The Silence of The Mole / El silencio del topo by Anaïs Taracena, Guatemala 24.    Three Tidy Tigers Tied a Tie Tighter / Três Tigres Tristes by Gustavo Vinagre, Brazil 25.    Utama by Alejandro Loayza Grisi, Bolivia/Uruguay/France       

For more information visit:

www.cinematropical.com/awards13

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Watch Matías Piñeiro, Alexander Koberidze, Kiro Russo & More Discuss Their Approach to Filmmaking in Masterclasses

http://dlvr.it/Sn9g64

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

El gran movimiento (Kiro Russo, 2021)

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Poster for Kiro Russo’s “El Gran Movimiento”

www.midnight-marauder.com

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Viejo calavera.

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Lista de Ganadores | FICUNAM 2022

Aquí te compartimos los ganadores de la décima segunda edición del FICUNAM.

Este jueves se llevó acabo la ceremonia de premiación de la décima segunda edición de el Festival Internacional de Cine UNAM, en el que se revelaron los ganadores de cada sección del festival. El evento que se realizó en en la sala Miguel Covarrubias del Centro Cultural Universitario fue conducido por los directores del festival, Abril Azalga y Maximiliano Cruz.  LABORATORIO CINEMATOGRÁFICO…

[mymoviemania-oscar-2022]

The Great Movement (El Gran Movimiento) (2021), directed by Kiro Russo. 94th Academy Awards for the Best International Feature Film, longlist of submissions, Bolivia (Not Nominated)

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Golden Kamuy Character Ages

A while ago on Twitter I tried to compile a calendarium of GK birthdays that included the years to visualise how old are all the Golden Kamuy characters. But since then I found tons of mistakes in the initial version, and Twt is the worst place when it comes to updating stuff, so I decided to move it to here.

It's based mostly on the updated relative age chart from @KamuyCentral

It of course also draws from the wonderful earlier work of @goldenkamuyhunting which I updated with the info from the recent chapters and most importantly all the available birthdays from the fanbook character profiles and Q&A translated by @piduai.

Based on all of this I tried to arrange everyone year-by-year. A lot of this is inevitably still guess-work and personal opinion, so I tried to mark the certainty of each guess, and include the full brackets and the reasoning behind it so that you can just use it as a quick look-up to make your own judgment. If you have different opinions and theories, I'd love to hear about them, since this post aims to be more of an eternal sketch-pad than a definitive source.

Certainty scale

Canon by history or by Noda

Almost sure about this

An educated guess but I have some doubts

Just my fancy or a shot in the dark

Let's go!

Deduced birthdays of GK characters

1835.05.31 Hijikata Toshizou

Historical

1835.??.?? Huci

Same age that Hijikata (age chart)

1839.05.23 Nagakura Shinpachi

Historical

1839.05.16 Ienaga Kano

Same age as Nagakura (age chart)

1850.10.06 Koito Heiji

Married in his early twenties as was the norm and had Heinojou soon after (1873)

1852.??.??  Hanazawa Koujirou

Same generation as Heiji, but looks a bit younger

1852.04.05 Arisaka Narizou

RL Arisaka Nariakira was born in 1852 and shares a birthday with Narizo so it's quite a safe bet

1852.??.?? Nihei Tetsuzou

Older than Ushiyama, younger than Ienaga (age chart)

Lost a son in the Sino-Japanese war, so that would make him Heiji generation?

1858.??.?? Ogata Tome

Maiko get promoted to Geisha at 21

Ogata was born after she was Geisha, so she had to be born before 1859

1860.??.?? Hanazawa Hiro

around Tome's age?

1860.07.07 Kadokura Yoshiyuki

"A bit older" than Ushiyama (Noda interview)

1864.03.20 Ushiyama Tatsuma

Older than Tsurumi and Kiroranke (age chart)

Still around Wilk-ish age?

1865.??.?? Wilk

Looked 6-ish when Karafuto was ceded to the Russians in 1875

Looked more or less the same when he was indeed 6-ish when he got his name

Looked older than 15-yo Kiroranke when they assassinated the Tzar in 1881 (is it just the mustache?)

Son of a Polish upriser (From 1863?)

Wilk's age is fucked up and I refuse to take part in it!

1865.??.?? Sofia

Doted on Kiro like on a younger brother

1866.08.02 Kiroranke

Was 15 in 1881 when assassinating Alexander II

Still got drafted for the Russo-Japanese war (men under 40)

1866.12.25 Tsurumi Tokushirou

Same age as Kiroranke (age chart)

1870.11.26  Kikuta Mokutarou

Joined the army sometime before the Sino-Japanese war

Was the older brother of Toujirou who also was eligible to join before the war (17+)

Younger than Tsurumi, older than Tsukishima (age chart)

1873.??.?? Koito Heinojou

13 years older than Otonoshin

Died on 1894.09.17

1874.04.01 Tsukishima Hajime

Enlisted in the army just before the Sino-Japanese war in 1894

Let's make him standard drafting age (20) at that time

1880.02.25 Usami Tokishige

A bit older than Ogata (interview)

Was in the same age group as 12-year-old Tomoharu in the spring of 1893

This would make him born +/-1881, but I pushed him to 1880 to fit in Yuusaku and the rest (let's say Tomoharu was from December or Usami simply enrolled later, because he had to help at home or smth)

Likely joined the 7th as soon as he was allowed to (17+), so in 1897

1880.03.03 Shiraishi Yoshitake

Same age that Inkarmat (age chart)

Older than Ogata, younger than Tsukishima (age chart)

1880.09.12 Inkarmat

Was thought of as a child, and friendzoned by Wilk around 1897 (looked 14-ish?)

Yet she's older than Ogata (age chart)

So something about her just doesn't quite fit yet 😠

1881.01.22 Ogata Hyakunosuke

Younger than Usami, older than Yuusaku (age chart)

Joined the 7th in mid-1901 (age 20)

1881.11.?? Vasily

~same age as Ogata (fanbook)

this is a personal opinion, but he gives off super strong Scorpio vibes

1881.??.?? Hanazawa Yuusaku

(full bracket 1881-1883)

Finished the academy after 1901, but before 1903 (this would be too late to be a commissioned second lieutenant for Port Arthur)

In 1901 already knew he had chances of being chosen for the flag bearer. Likely because he was just about to graduate with the best scores (the graduation ceremony was at the end of November)

His rank at the time was equivalent to Sargent, hence Kikuta's armband insignia are a matching fit. No info yet in which year does a cadet reach this rank, but I imagine it can't be long before graduation.

Pet-theory of how Tokyo Love Story took place in early February or late November 1901

If Yuusaku indeed finished the Academy in 1901, most of his peers were from 1881 or older (for example if they joined later, or had trouble with exams). Yuusaku, being a wonder boy, likely went the fastest possible lane.

He got appointed second lieutenant and flag bearer in June 1902 (possibly before Hakodate kidnapping so Ogata had a chance to meet him again in full regalia (ch. 103 revised) and have fresh issues when kidnapping Koito)

Next is a large group of characters who are about the same age. Not sure though whether they're really all from 1882, so treat this group as WIP:

1882.03.01 Sugimoto Saichi

(full bracket 1882-1884)

younger than Ogata (chart)

~same age that Tanigaki & Nikkaidous (chart)

Joined the army somewhere after 1901

Official timeline says he joined in 1903

Left home in 1899

visually similar to Yuusaku

1882.06.28 Tanigaki Genjirou

~same age that Sugi (chart)

Joined as Tondenhei a little before the Russo-Japanese war

1882.11.19 Nikkaidou Youhei & Kouhei

~same age that Sugi (chart)

Originally from Shizuoka, had a place to go back to.

How did they end up in Hokkaido then?

1882.09.04 Ariko Rikimatsu/Ipopte

~same age that Tanigaki (age chart)

Enlisted in Spring 1902 after going back from Hakkoda rescue operation (ended on 22 April)

1882.??.?? Kenkichi

Same platoon as Sugimoto

1882.??.?? Toraji

Old enough to get married in 1901

Was at least 20 in 1904 (mandatory conscription)

Got assigned to the same platoon as Sugimoto

1886.12.23 Koito Otonoshin

Was 16 in the kidnapping in 1902

Passed the exam to the Army Academy in the same year, but was too young to take part in the Russo-Japanese war

1886.??.?? Edogai Yasaku

around Koito's age (chart)

1889.08.01 Okuyama Kantarou

Between Koito and Asirpa (age chart)

Looks nearer to Koito though (let's say 18-ish in 1907?)

1896.01.01 Asirpa

(full bracket 1893-96)

Wilk crossed over to Hokkaido some time after 1891 (winter) and had time to learn about Japanese Ainu from Inkarmat before he met and wed Rirate, so 1893 would be the earliest possible fit for Asirpa's birth

She had a real name (given in her village at 6) before Wilk went away (1902), so 1896 is the latest.

Huci said she's nearly of age to get tattooed (12-13? This varries a lot village to village) in 1907

This guy assumes she's 12-13 but he's likely also basing it on the lack of tattoo.

In real life, François-Constant Girel made the Ainu dance film in October 1897, Asirpa looked less than 2, Wilk wasn't married yet. So that's why I opt for 1896.

This makes Inkarmat's age somewhat tricky...

1898.08.08 Cikapasi

Younger than Asirpa

Dunno, looks 8-9 ish?

No idea at all

????.02.04 Kirawus

Looks a bit like Kantarou, but if you look closer he has crows feet around his eyes (or is that just another kind weird lashes?)

He could be anywhere between 1884-1860

Possibly at least a little bit younger than Kadokura, though, since he enjoys calling him an old man

????.08.13 Boutarou

Is there any real pointers when it comes to him?

Looks a bit older than Shiraishi...

????.??.?? Toni Anji

I haven't researched him yet

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Nature is Healing. The EVILs of Industry are Destructive. "The Great Movement" reviewed! (Sovreign Films / Digital Screener)

Nature is Healing. The EVILs of Industry are Destructive. “The Great Movement” reviewed! (Sovreign Films / Digital Screener)

 A group of out of work Huanuni miners march into the capital of La Paz to protest forced labor shortages.  Young miners Gallo, Gato, and Elder roam around La Paz to rummage up piecemeal work to live.  When they find work as commodity runners at an outside market, the job is labor intensive, pays very little, and they must sleep outside with other runners and vendors with essentially everything…

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 269 “Wilk’s way of doing things”

So we’re finally dealing with a new chapter in which we can say...

...yeah, poor Wilk... as while yes, he was also responsible for his own downfall, what happened to him was surely terrible.

The first page is a quick summary of how the Ainu killed each over conveniently letting Wilk alive and not having him kill a single soul.

For start we can see Wilk is the only one who’s apparently without a rifle (his right hand looks empty at least). We can also see that the group split basically in two, a part is pro-Wilk (or, at least, let’s-not-kill-Wilk) and the other is let’s-murder-him-right-now.

So, Irenka (pro-Wilk) places himself in front of Wilk. He has a rifle but doesn’t seem to aim to shoot anyone, just to defend Wilk and calm things down.

Oskeporo (kill-Wilk) aims at them with his rifle and is knocked out by Mesira (pro-Wilk).

Ratci (kill-Wilk), who’s a friend of Oskeporo, aims his rifle at them.

Irenka gets shoot and, same as Tamai did, as he dies accidentally shoot and seems to hit Oskeporo who, fires as well.

At this point things are a bit hazy.

Siromakur, who seemed to be in the let’s- not-kill-Wilk team before (he was shown at Wilk’s side), is shown bleeding from a hole in his chest. Was he the one hit by Oskeporo. The guy is supported or used as a human shield by Sukuta. We see a knife in the image but that one is actually Siromaku’s if the  draws on the handle has to be believed. It’s clear Siromakur isn’t the one holding it as we can see both his arms so they probably took it from him.

The next image shows us Ratci firing, the knife in his belly.

The very last image shows Oskeporo and Sukuta on the ground, likely dead.

Yeah, there’s plenty of holes in this page who’s just meant to drive home Wilk didn’t kill anyone, the other Ainu just started shooting, some by purpose, some by accident, some in self defence.

Possibly Siromakur didn’t kill anyone either, I’m not sure.

The image is not really clear on what exactly happened because Noda wants to keep it secret some details for a little longer.

Anyway we see Ratci crawling away and, interesting enough, two more bullets being shoot behind him. He also hears something being said but we don’t get what it was.

The only Ainu of the rebels group that weren’t shown dying or being wounded to death was Mesira… but it’s hard to tell if he didn’t go shoot earlier since the images showed us so little.

We flash forward a little to Kikuta questioning a dying Ratci, asking him if Wilk was killed too and if others survived. Ratci dies before answering and the group then collects his body along with the heads of the other 6 Ainu, which were cut from their bodies. The total dead count is 7.

Usami wonders about who chopped their bodies since there should have been 7 Ainu and now their heads are all accounted for.

He tries to pick up Irenka’s head to see the head slip out of the skin which is something I expected. Usami figures out all the heads were skinned and the skins swapped around. He also notices the heads are missing eyes.

All this doesn’t faze Tsurumi in the slightest. He correctly figures one of those skinned head should have belonged to Kimuspu, which would mean that there were 8 Ainu.

We’ve a flashback in which Kimuspu is shown wounded and holding a rifle which means the group had keep him alive and he had taken part to the battle. That’s probably why we weren’t shown the full battle in the intro page, to hid he was involved as well.

Tsurumi, holding the head covered with Wilk’s skin in a Hamlet’s fashion, then easily sums up Wilk’s plan.

The Ainu were 8 and Wilk used Kimuspu (which nobody knew was among them) to fake his own death.

The eyes were then removed because Wilk’s eyes were distinctive.

He then seems to kiss Wilk’s skin… and I’m starting to think this might be where his affinity with Edogai was born.

We’re then shown the cover...

...and it’s an image we should be very familiar with as we saw it in chap 1 and used again when Inkarmat wanted to push fowward her Kiro culprit theory in chap 116.

The Ainu are on the ground and a man, Nopperabou, stand above them. Only this time we can see that the man standing above them is Wilk, not Kiro as Tsurumi told Inkarmat and, of course, despite surviving Wilk isn’t the one who did the killing.

Usami notices that people is coming, they’re the gold panners and the hunters who should have head the shoots during the night and are coming to check what happened.

Tsurumi split his forces, Usami is to go at the health resort facility at Noboribetsu (remember? The one in which Kikuta was) and call reinforcements while Kikuta remains there and secure the area. Tsurumi will instead pursue Wilk.

As Tsurumi leaves Usami notices Kikuta pensitive gaze. Kikuta is worried about Ariko. He wonders who will tell him the truth as he thinks Ariko will be upset to discover they were involved in his father’s death.

Usami says there’s no need to tell him as they merely told Ariko’s father about Wilk’s identity and it was the group of Ainu which tore itself apart.

Kikuta points out how their plan relied on sewing discord in the group...

...which yes, it’s true, although Tsurumi clearly didn’t want them to murder each other BEFORE confessing where the gold was. He was hoping to reach them before they all would die, this was a miscalculation on his part.

But this little scene traces a difference between Usami and Kikuta.

While Usami doesn’t really care about how this will affect others (namely Ariko) and doesn’t feel responsible for the consequences of their actions, Kikuta does.

Usami lives in denial of his own sins, where Kikuta looks straight at them, which matches with how he’s a man who told Sugimoto in hell they’ll be rolling the red carpet for him. Kikuta knows what he’s doing is wrong, Usami doesn’t even stop to think if it is, or if it can have consequences on the others.

The following scene shows Sugimoto and Shiraishi meeting up with Ariko (evidently they managed not to get discover despite their car crash… no idea how since they should have made noise worth checking… unless Nikaidou also has left his guard post?).

We also gets a panel of Kikuta looking down under the rain. No idea what he’s watching but he’s sure sad and, I bet, he’s thinking at Ariko.

The fact that he and Ariko are on the same page yet divided by the panel with Sugimoto and Shiraishi is meaningful.

There’s a tie between this two men… but there’s also something between them.

Meanwhile Tsurumi goes on in his narration.

He’s impressed by Wilk’s resolve to cut away his face. He figured Wilk, given the situation, expected to be labelled as the murderer and was worried of how this would affect Asirpa.

Thanks Tsurumi, after such a gruesome story, Asirpa really needed you to push on her the blame of her father’s actions. I get you want to manipulate her but this can also backfire because it proves Wilk’s actions were done out of love for her.

Anyway Tsurumi is just impressed by how Wilk not only came up with such plan but could also manage to carry it to execution quickly as cutting his own face off isn’t something a person would be able to do.

I agree and I would say it’s not just for the unbearable pain and the psychological trauma but also because it doesn’t seem that easy to do. I would expect a person to end up cutting a muscle or a blood vessel. But whatever, it’s a manga, and I’m not really an expert in skinned faces… and I like to remain as such, so let’s go on.

Tsurumi anyway thinks the plan was perfect if not for a detail, HE was the one chasing Wilk.

This isn’t said for a lack of modesty. Tsurumi just knew Wilk, he recognized his skinned face, he figured out his plan and, when he sees an Ainu with his face bandaged, he immediately recognizes him as Wilk due to the colour of his eyes. Another person, who had never met Wilk, might not have managed to do so.

Add to this that Wilk makes a mistake because he too recognizes Tsurumi (who back then looked a lot more like his younger self as he wasn’t disfigured yet), calling him ‘Hasegawa-san’ and giving away his identity.

Tsurumi doesn’t tell us what happened after.

There’s clearly a timeskip and then we’re shown Wilk escaping on the lake, Tsurumi shooting at him and causing Wilk to end in the water and the boat to sink.

Among the things that sank there was Kimuspu’s face, which Wilk has taken away. Tsurumi runs, trying to reach Wilk but Wilk, after discharging his Ainu clothes, is faster at reaching a prison lodge where convicts were kept illegally.

Wilk asks who’s the boss of the guards, who’s of course nothing else but ‘slave-convict-trader’ Inudou, who was of course abusing of his power to illegally use prisoners in that area as well.

Wilk tell them about the 7 dead Ainu and claims to be the one who know the location where those Ainu hid the gold.

As the 7th division couldn’t get around with the people ruling the prison the result is that the guards carry Wilk to the prison in secret and Wilk becomes Nopperabout.

Asirpa asks Sofia about Kiroranke and Sofia explains once he freed himself Kiro began to search for Kimuspu as well and, while doing so, he heard the commotion and ended up on the crime scene while the 7th division was carrying away the bodies of the Ainu. He saw Wilk’s head being carried away as well and crumbled on his knees, crying and mourning Wilk.

No matter how mad he was at Wilk for his own decision, back then Kiro was still his friend and cared for him. He even wondered if he would be able to understand him by starting his own family in Hokkaido.

However, once he was back from the Russo-Japanese war he hears the rumour that Kimuspu was among the Ainu corpses. An Ainu testified that due to him recognizing the tattoos on Kimuspu’s hands.

Due to this Kiro too starts piecing together things.

He believed the Ainu had let Kimuspu go once they gotten the location of the gold… but now that he knew they were 8 and only 7 bodies were found he believed one of them killed the other 7.

Hijikata coming to ask about Asirpa, the rumours about Nopperabou and the tattoo code… all lead Kiro to think that Wilk is Nopperabou… and, likely, that Wilk was the killer.

Kiro goes on saying despite having a family in Hokkaido he couldn’t arrive to the same conclusion as Wilk, he still believes that if the gold was used for the Far Eastern Federation this would protect the Hokkaido Ainu too.

Kiro thinks barricading themselves away was a pathetic way of thinking that would never allow them to win against Russia or Japan.

Tsurumi nods in agreement.

I’ll discuss my two cents in a while.

We’ve then a flashback in which Kiro gives the sign and Wilk is shoot and then we see Kiro’s expression.

His eyes… are void of light but not black, grey as he thinks that Wilk was a wolf within the pack who has grown weak and that therefore Kiro followed the “way of the wolves” Wilk admired and did Wilk the kindness of killing him. As he says so we see a flashback of Kiro, Wilk and Sofia drinking together and being happy, Kiro with his arm around Wilk and trying to get him to drink something and Wilk holding Kiro’s wrist.

Although Sofia is included so that they look a single unit, a single ‘body’, it’s clear the picture focuses more on Kiro and Wilk, in how they touch each other, in how their heads are close.

It’s not meant to be romantic, it’s meant to deliver how those two men were close, as close as two best friends could be in the past.

So okay, let’s go back.

I think I lost count of how many times I criticized Wilk’s plan, both the early one the ‘Far Eastern Federation’ and the new one the ‘Free Hokkaido only’ plan not because they’re wrong per se but because they’re horribly planned so this time I’ll spare you of them.

I’ll discuss a bit of the why Kiro, despite making a family in Hokkaido doesn’t just switches like Wilk.

The key is likely that Kiro, differently from Wilk, had no reason to switch.

Let’s go back a little. In the flashbacks located in Russia Wilk was presented like an idealist, his plan a beautiful utopia for which he was willing to bet his own life and the one of his teammates.

He has lost his village, likely his parents were already dead and he was on his own. Sure, he was friend with Kiro and later with Sofia but their attachment for them was, compared to his own goal, his own ideal, minor. He has devoted his life to that goal and that’s it.

And because no one is special in his eyes “All are equal” among the minorities.

That’s also what allows him to keep a cold, practical mind setting, that he doesn’t get deeply attached.

When he moved to Hokkaido he did a mistake.

Well, no, it’s not a real mistake, it’s just something that caused him to shift priorities.

He grew more attached to his wife and child than he was to his goal.

His priorities shifted and so he could sacrifice part of his goal for the benefit of his Hokkaido family, which he prioritized and, in sacrificing his goal, he accepted he could sacrifice all his Russian allies who had fought with him.

He wasn’t anymore ready to do everything he could to give ALL the minorities freedom.

He wanted to give freedom to his daughter’s minority, if the other minorities wanted to benefit of the freedom he planned to gain for the Hokkaido Ainu, they would have to come to compromise, give up their land, their customs. He would be still willing to help them but at his own conditions as they weren’t anymore part of his priorities.

It’s absolutely human… but it’s also a betrayal of the cause, of his ideal who used to held all the minorities as all EQUAL.

Now, “All are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

For Kiro instead the problem is different.

Kiro has built attachment for the Russian side, attachment that lies especially in Sofia but possibly he also had other companions he cared about. He couldn’t be as cold as Wilk, which means he was more emotionally involved in them.

In fact Kiro’s point as they argued was that “HOKKAIDO never had anything to do with them in the first place”, meaning deep down he prioritized the Russian minorities among whom he lived from childhood and fought together than Hokkaido in which he transferred only recently. He views Russia as his homeland, he views his people as the ones who live in Karafuto and in the Russian far east.

In a desperate attempt to understand Wilk he tries to build himself a home in Hokkaido… but it never worked. Contrary to what some part of the fandom thinks, Kiro NEVER sees himself as an Hokkaido Ainu, he sees his children as Hokkaido Ainu, he’s a Tartar with Karafuto blood from his grandmother side.

In short, marrying with an Ainu whom he loves and having children whom he loves helped him to INCLUDE Hokkaido in his priorities, not in demoting Russia from them.

Therefore, where Wilk started from an “All (minorities) are equal” and then moved to an “All (minorities) are equal, but some are more equal than others” Kiro did the opposite.

That’s why having an Hokkaido family doesn’t help him to embrace Wilk’s idea they should have prioritized Hokkaido but, if anything, pushes him to place Hokkaido and Russia on the same place.

He wants Sofia and Asirpa to join forces also because in this way they will become guarantors for both Russia and Hokkaido, they’ll protect the interests of both parties, of the countries he now both loves. And this too is a human view, same as Wilk’s was, even if it sits at the opposite extreme.

On a sidenote I wonder if the experience in which the Hokkaido Ainu slaughtered each other opened Wilk’s eyes and pushed him to realize that he’s an outsider, that he can’t hope he could just unite and lead them. But whatever, that’s just food for thoughts, it can be he escaped in that direction merely because it was the most convenient direction in which to escape for him and the speculations he was running in that way to bring the gold back to his Russian companions done by various cast members were just that, speculations.

Last but not least, Kiro’s reasoning as he killed Wilk.

We know that Kiro isn’t really that good at murdering people.

He can do it just fine in the heat of the battle or when he sees them as enemies (the Russian guards, the Russian soldiers) but not when he’s up close to them. He lacks Wilk’s coldness, which is what pushed him to hesitate when tossing the bomb to the emperor.

After all his weapon of choice, explosive, is a weapon that allows people to keep distance with their victims and it’s perfect for avoiding to get an empathic connection with them. Murdering people up close is a lot harder.

Although Inkarmat got in the way he didn’t mean to kill her and when she got stabbed by accident his first reaction was to try to help her, when Tanigaki let him know he was there to avenge Inkarmat he didn’t feel like finishing him off and he didn’t want Ogata to shoot Sugi.

Wilk though had betrayed them when he made clear he didn’t plan anymore to pursue their partisan group’s goal, circumstances paint him as the Ainu murderer and the fact he’s entrusting the gold to Hijikata, a Wajin, and Asirpa, Asirpa who has no idea about the other minorities, only worsen the picture.

Wilk, the NEW WILK who killed the OLD WILK and betrayed them, had to die.

It’s something Kiro likely knew Wilk had to die even before the Ainu incident, because partisans killed who betrayed them, yet he wasn’t ready to face, in fact, as soon as he believed Wilk died, he broke down and cried.

When it turned out Wilk instead survived, he could have been the one behind the Ainu murder and acted none the wiser by basically entrusting the gold to Hijikata, killing him for betrayal at that point was mandatory.

Yet the mental gimmick Kiro does to manage to condemn Wilk is interesting. Not only he has Ogata do the job but manages to persuade himself he’s doing Wilk a favour. The NEW WILK is a WEAK WILK and, according to Wilk’s ideas about ‘the way of the wolves’, the weak has to be killed.

Basically Kiro persuades himself he’s not hurting Wilk, he’s doing it an act of kindness according Wilk’s own mind setting (Kiro had no idea why Wilk was called as such but the volume version added a scene in which Wilk saw a lone wolf and talked with him and Hasegawa about ‘the way of the wolves’ so Kiro knew about it).

That’s probably why the image shows us a Kiro with no light in his eyes, a Kiro who’s blinding himself to the truth with a lie to cope with the guilt of killing his best friend otherwise he’ll probably break.

And this probably ties in with how, when their group was threatened by the Russian border guards, Kiro exposed himself to save the Orok and then called it ‘Kamuy Renkayne’, “thanks to the Gods”. What Kiro did is similar to what Sekiya was doing.

Before acting Kiro thought at how they murdered the Emperor, which is likely why they are held under fire but was also the moment in which Wilk, with an amazing coldness, grabbed the bomb and took care to correct Kiro’s mistake by placing the bomb in the royal coach. He likely gained Kiro’s loyalty with that act.

And by taking an amazing personal risk Kiro basically tested the will of the Gods to prove himself if he was right or wrong. If the Gods hadn’t spared him then his actions toward Wilk were wrong.

On a sidenote… it’s not a common occurrence for wolves to kill a weak wolf.

Normally they actually protect the weak in their pack by bringing them food and by defending them from larger predators because they’re like a big family, although they won’t hesitate to kill wolves that don’t belong to their pack, weak or not.

Wolves kill or drive out of the pack a silk or a weak or an old wolf only if they’re in conditions of great stress, for example if food is scarce.

Long story short, I’m more tempted to think the wolf Wilk saw as a child was killed not merely because he was weak but because he didn’t belong to the pack of wolves which found him.

Probably that wolf was kicked out by his own pack, trespassed into the area of another pack and was killed.

Anyway the irony is great and tragic.

We saw Wilk killing a member of his group due to ‘the way of the wolves’ mind setting and probably part of this mind setting is what made him cold when Hasegawa daughter and child were killed or when he left behind Sofia or now, that he decided only Hokkaido had to be saved… and yet this mind setting came back to bite him when his friend judged him through the same lens Wilk used to judge others.

His pack came back to him, only to get rid of him because he has grown weak in a perfect application of the contrappasso law.

Still, I’m sad for Asirpa. She didn’t deserve to see it.

But well, with this we likely have finished with the flashback for now… unless they’re going to include how the cat alliance formed, which I doubt as I expect Noda to save it for another time.

So, with the murder of the Ainu out of the way and all the tattooed convicts tracked down all that remains for the plot is to solve the code.

Oh well, we’ll see where this will lead us.

[postersdecinema]

Viejo Calavera

BLV,QA, 2016

Kiro Russo

3,5

[awardseasonblog]

La #Bolivia 🇧🇴 ha scelto come proprio rappresentante per gli #Oscar2023 per la categoria #BestInternationalFilm il vincitore del Gran Premio della Giuria nella sezione World Cinema Dramatic all'ultimo Sundance Film Festival #Utama diretto da #AlejandroLoayza Grisi TRAMA: Negli altopiani boliviani, un'anziana coppia Quechua vive da anni la stessa quotidianità. Durante una siccità insolitamente lunga, Virginio e sua moglie (Sisa) affrontano un dilemma: resistere o essere sconfitti dall'ambiente e dal tempo stesso. TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lox1P03EHVk FESTIVAL: Gran Premio della Giuria (Sundance Film Festival), miglior attore non protagonista (Beijing International Film Festival), Premio del pubblico (Cyprus Film Days International Festival), Hong Kong International Film Festival, Miglior film iberoamericano (Malaga Spanish Film Festival), Speciale Menzione (Uruguay International Film Festival) OSCAR 2022: Lo scorso anno fu scelto El Gran Movimiento scritta e diretta da Kiro Russo che però non ottenne la candidatura. Nella storia degli Oscar la Bolivia non è mai entrata nella cinquina finale. #OscarsSubmission #95rdOscars #95rdAcademyAwards #Oscars2023 #InternationalFeatureFilm https://www.instagram.com/p/CimQJDcM4eS/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[baudinski]

Viejo Calavera

Dirección: Kiro Russo Año: 2016 País: Bolivia Duración: 1hr 28min

Sinopsis:

El Padre de Elder Mamani ha muerto, y parece como si no le importara. Sigue chupando en los karaokes, en las calles y metiéndose en problemas. Pero ya nadie quiere hacerse cargo de él.

[sinapsinews]

Da Hong Kong e Bolivia i due vincitori del primo Festival di Film di Villa Medici

I film saranno proiettati in doppia visione domenica 19 settembre. Nel corso della giornata tanti incontri e sorprese, tra cui l’incontro in presenza del filosofo-sociologo centenario Edgar Morin. INSIDE THE RED BRICK WALL Hong Kong Documentary Filmmakers EL GRAN MOVIMIENTO Kiro Russo Grande affluenza di pubblico e consensi per il primo Festival di Film di Villa Medici che sabato 18…