1991-2000

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This unusual Iranian documentary/drama is based on the true story of a poor and religious 65-year-old father who kept his two 12-year-old daughters locked in their small house from the day that they were born. Their blind mother agreed with the arrangement since she was unable to supervise them in any other way. Thanks to the concern of neighbors over the plight of Massoumeh and Zahra, a social worker looked into the matter and found the girls unable to talk or walk properly. They were given the first baths in their lives and then returned to their home. The father, believing that he has been publicly shamed by his neighbors, promises not to keep them imprisoned anymore.Read More »

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After a violent dispute with her mother, sixteen-years old Chloé ends up in the streets with nowhere to go. Then she finds Jean-Michel, a charming young man who will lead her to prostitution.Read More »

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Lonely residents of a tornado-stricken Ohio town wander the deserted landscape trying to fulfill their boring, nihilistic lives.Read More »

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Two weeks before the end of his national service, Alexander Birgukov shot and killed his two commanding officers. He was sentenced to death. But when it was alleged that one of his victims had sexually harassed him, President Boris Yeltsin commuted his death sentence to a lifetime in prison. Tenderly revealing two lives lived in limbo, this film bears witness to the first and final visit of his mother, Lubyov. Incarcerated in an isolated monastery prison entirely surrounded by water, an uncertain past is recalled and contrasted to a future of unending certainty.Read More »

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During the summer of 1960, the idiosyncratic residents of a one-street Dutch suburb collide in intertwining stories of desire and frustration.Read More »

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Foul-mouthed, fast-talking and very funny, this is Parker’s best to date. It’s an intentionally ‘small’ movie that treats a familiar subject (kids forming a rock band) with a deft intimacy. But as the young hopefuls from Dublin’s working-class Northside go through the round of auditions, rehearsals and gigs, it becomes clear that the film is big in heart. For Parker and his excellent, mostly non-professional cast are indeed committed to characters, milieu and music: classics from Otis, Wilson Pickett, Aretha et al. For one thing, the script precisely captures both the witty banter and the modest dreams of the streetwise kids. For another, Parker never over-emphasises the unemployment and poverty, nor does he glamorise the band. The result is a gritty, naturalistic comedy blessed with a wry, affectionate eye for the absurdities of the band’s various rivalries and ambitions; and the songs are matchless.Read More »

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A sharp-edged look at people who live outside the constraints of Islamic law. In her fourth feature, director Rakhshan Bani-Etemad tells the tragic story of a love triangle. Afagh, an aging thief who has lost her beauty, is on the verge of losing her young lover, Adel. When Adel meets the beautiful Nargess, he decides to go straight, but honest work does not come easily, and he decides to go back to the old life for one last job. “Bani-Etemad pushes the Iranian censorship code to the limit, managing to make her outsider characters believable and moving” (Deborah Young, Variety).Read More »

The title refers to Madrid’s central square (from which all distances within Spain are measured). Zero may also describe the state of the lives of 14 strangers. The stories of these fourteen collide at this meeting point on a sultry August afternoon. Mistaken identities and second chances are among the results of this comedy of errors featuring, among other characters, a horny & gay university student, an internet-love seeker flamenco dancer, a macho but lovelorn gigolo, an actress, and a businessman starved for new sexual experiences.Read More »

This arresting European documentary chronicles the exploits of a radical journalist who joined Germany’s most notorious terrorist group in the 1970s. Through a combination of newsreel clips, television reports, and interviews with friends and colleagues, a complex portrait of the journalist, Ulrike Marie Meinhof emerges. While the media portrays the woman, who committed suicide in prison in 1976, as courageous and tremendously self-confident, her friends remember her much differently. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie GuideRead More »