Religulous
Larry Charles, USA, 2008, 101 min
Bill Maher’s take on the current state of world religion.
ROME : The Vatican bank’s top two officials are under investigation for suspected money laundering and police have frozen 23 million euros ($30.21 million) of its funds, Italian judicial sources said on Tuesday.
They said President Ettore Gotti Tedeschi and director-general Paolo Cipriani were being investigated by Rome magistrates Nello Rossi and Stefano Fava in a case involving alleged violations of European Union money-laundering rules.
The Vatican confirmed the Rome magistrates’ action in a statement that expressed « perplexity and amazement » at the move and “utmost faith” in the two men who head the bank, officially known as Institute for Religious Works (IOR) …
Gotti Tedeschi, 65, has been at the helm of the bank for a year and is a close adviser to Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti.
The sources said Italy’s financial police had preventively frozen 23 million euros of the IOR’s funds in an account in an Italian bank in Rome.
Two recent transfers from an IOR account in the Italian bank were deemed suspicious by financial police and blocked.
One was a transfer of 20 million euros to a German branch of a U.S. bank and another of 3 million euros to an Italian bank.
A statement from the Vatican’s Secretariat of State said the bank had committed no wrongdoing because it was transferring its own money between its own accounts.
Gotti Tedeschi, a devout Catholic who has taught financial ethics at the Catholic University of Milan, also heads an Italian unit of the Spanish Banco Santander (SAN.MC), according to its website.
He also serves on the board of several major Italian banks.
Mabon is upon us, sweet Autumn Equinox. A time of hope and balance, and of harvesting our crops …
Préparation de l’édition MMX de l’exposition ‘Sacrement, la grâce sacramentelle de la pénitence‘ à venir en novembre dans la ville de Québec.
Szél (‘Wind’)
Marcell Iványi, Hungary, 1996, 6 min 40
Cannes Film Festival 1996 Best Short Film
In every photo there exists a point, a detail that attracts the eye. A particular detail, strange, and prominent. This detail takes on an emotional tone, it determines the spectator’s state of being in relation to the photo. This heightened emotion directs the spectators gaze in to the photo as well as outside the photo. …The film is based on Lucien Hervé’s photograph, « The Three Women ».
LUCIEN HERVÉ ‘Three Women’ (1951)
Looking for mushrooms
Bruce Conner, USA, 1967, 13 min
Music by Terry Riley
Expecting a nuclear disaster, Conner moved down to Mexico in 1962, where he spent his time looking for mushrooms with Timothy Leary. Later, Conner added footage of similar hunts in Frisco and in 1997 he decided to set it against a 1968 Terry Riley soundtrack. The result is a strange combination of typical ’60s psychedelic editing with what might appear to be a road movie interested in exotic landscapes. A classic of American avant film.
