Arthouse

Today, Mel Divan is a successful American businessman with a terminal illness. But long ago he was an infamous criminal who escaped from a mental institution in Communist Armenia. With the rise of capitalism, Mel returns to Armenia to make good on a promise to deliver the bounty of his robbery to the widow of a fellow thief. Mel plans on spending only enough time in Armenia to locate the widow. But nostalgia and fate drive him, as the same mental institution from which he escaped is now on the auction block. Mel buys it and finds refuge in running the psychiatric hospital while living among its eclectic residents and helping each in a unique way. Mel will live his final days as a saint provided he can keep one step ahead of the Chief Psychiatrist and a local Mob Boss.Read More »

In a city of the too near future, a city designated for desolation, aggression, and political instability, Miguel Galvan (Hugo Soto) is shot accidentally during a demonstration. This time and space provides a back drop to an intriguing sequence of events where three characters try desperately to survive: the wounded Miguel, an antagonistic policeman (Juan Leyrado), and a foolish vigilante smartly acted by rock star Charly Garcia, who also composed the film’s score.Read More »

Quote:
Petty thug Michel panics and impulsively kills a policeman while driving a stolen car. On the lam, he turns to his aspiring journalist girlfriend Patricia, hiding out in her Paris apartment. When Patricia learns that Michel is being investigated for murder, she begins to question her loyalties.Read More »

A tragic story of a teen prostitute as seen through the eyes of her neighbor, a Buddhist monk.Read More »

PLOT: This movie is about a day in life of the settlement for people with mental problems. Located in a peaceful countryside, it conveys an image of a pure, happy place, where people live and work together, in complete harmony. But there is a growing unexplainable feeling of anxiety and hopelessness.Read More »

A 1985 French documentary film directed by Claude Lanzmann about the Holocaust (also known as the Shoah). The film primarily consists of his interviews with survivors and persons who had experience of the war, and visits to key Holocaust sites across Poland, including three extermination camps. He presents testimony from survivors, witnesses and bystanders, and perpetrators, including some rare interviews with German personnel.
As Claude Lanzmann does not speak Polish, Hebrew or Yiddish, he depended on translators to work with most of his interviewees. This process enlarged the scale of the documentary, which is nine hours and twenty-three minutes long.Read More »

In Jean Gentil, a man looks for a job in a cacophonous city that wouldn’t notice if he had never existed. He’s wearing a tie and the kind of sadness that removes from the face any immediately recognizable expression—the awkward and self-effacing sadness of the unwelcome immigrant. The man (Jean Gentil, playing a filmic version of himself) is an unemployed Haitian polyglot in Santo Domingo with a background in accounting and a tendency to question whether or not he’s even alive. While initially aiming for an office job in line with his experience and goals, he quickly has to settle for a construction job and a hard floor to sleep on after being evicted. He eventually makes his way to the countryside, where he retreats from the unforgiving madness of the big city and, ironically, away from “civilization” he can finally find a place to sleep, something to eat, and water to bathe.Read More »

Quote:
Ulrike Ottinger’s epic adventure traces a fantastic encounter between two different worlds. Seven western women travelers meet aboard the sumptuous, meticulously reconstructed Trans-Siberian Express, a rolling museum of European culture. Lady Windemere, an elegant ethnographer played by the incomparable Delphine Seyrig in her last screen role, regales a young companion with Mongol myths and lore while other passengers-a prim tourist (Irm Hermann), a brash Broadway chanteuse and an all-girl klezmer trio-revel in campy dining car cabaret. Suddenly ambushed by a band of Mongol horsewomen, the company is abducted to the plains of Inner Mongolia and embark on a fantastic camel ride across the magnificent countryside. Breathtaking vistas, the lavish costumes of Princess Ulun Iga and her retinue, and the rituals of Mongol life are stunningly rendered by Ottinger’s cinematography. Dubbed a female Lawrence of Arabia and just as sweepingly romantic, Johanna D’Arc of Mongolia is a grandly entertaining, unforgettable journey.Read More »

Synopsis:
A well-to-do, shut-in thirty-something faces city life, family secrets and his own quirks when he is finally thrown out by his parents.Read More »