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Jan is a young assistant professor in chemistry and a workaholic, whose entire life is dedicated to study and advancement to full professorship. Anna is an unsuccesful science writer who turns to Jan for advice and human compassion in a critical moment of mental confusion and nervous exhaustion. Jan, absorbed with his career, remains immune to Anna’s clumsy efforts to pierce his defences. Affrayed by her ultimate plea for an embrace, he escapes to his own quarters. In the end Anna makes an unsuccesful suicide attempt and he visits her in the hospital.Read More »
Drama
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Krzysztof Zanussi – Za sciana (1971)
1971-1980DramaKrzysztof ZanussiPolandTV -
Erdogan Tokatli – 72. kogus (1987)
1981-1990DramaErdogan TokatliTurkeyAdapted from a novel by Orhan Kemal, this movie depicts the hard life of prisoners in ward 72 during 1940s.Read More »
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Bernard Favre – La Trace AKA The Trail (1983)
1981-1990Bernard FavreDramaItalySynopsis
1859-60 in the Savoy Alps. Joseph (Richard Berry) is a young Savoyard peasant who has been established in a village with his wife and two children for some time, and like others before him, makes a living by crossing the Alps into Italy in the winter months and selling his wares to the villagers. This story traces a winter’s itinerary as the man encounters various adventures in his always-dangerous journey, but he seems oblivious to all the nuances and reverberations of social change going on around him. When he finally returns to his family after many months away, he discovers to his surprise that his village is now a part of France and it looks like a Savoyard would soon be sitting on the throne of a unified Italy…Read More » -
Philippe Garrel – La naissance de l’amour AKA The birth of love (1993)
1991-2000DramaFrancePhilippe GarrelA dispassionate and bedraggled middle-aged actor named Paul (Lou Castel) bids a polite farewell to the lady of the house, Hélène (Dominique Reymond) before setting out into the street, accompanied by his solemn and equally impassive host Markus (Jean-Pierre Léaud) to the local convenience store to purchase a pack of cigarettes before saying goodbye to his old friend for the evening. Seeking to break the pensive silence of their evening walk, Paul steers their idle conversation into a conduit for personal reflection on Markus’ seemingly life-altering moment when he first met Hélène, a question that Markus – perhaps betraying an insecurity over the tenuous state of his relationship with her – responds to the question with initial, guarded skepticism, before proceeding to tell the genial anecdote of Hélène’s forwardness in her suggestive, inviting remark that had serve to validate their coy, thinly veiled pursuit of mutual seduction during their second encounter. However, a succeeding conversation between the couple reveals Hélène’s increasing apathy towards the cultivation of their relationship as Markus attempts to elicit a validation of her love for him to no avail, disguising their failed, awkward intimacy through the mundane rituals of the kitchen and random comments about the war.Read More »
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Angela Schanelec – Orly (2010)
2001-2010Angela SchanelecDramaGermanySYNOPSIS
Amidst the impersonal hubbub of Paris’ Orly Airport, strangers meet, secrets are revealed, and sudden intimacies develop in this beautifully observed mosaic of lives in transit.REVIEW
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Loosely-linked scenes in the hall of Paris’ Orly airport. A man and a woman, both French but living abroad, meet each other by chance. He has just decided to move back to Paris and she longs to return there. A mother and her almost adult son are going to the funeral of her ex-husband, his father. A young couple is embarking on its first big trip. And a woman reads a letter from the man she has recently left. They are all waiting for their flight.Read More » -
Alejandro González Iñárritu – 21 Grams (2003)
Drama2001-2010Alejandro González IñárrituSpainSynopsis :
A freak accident brings together a critically ill mathematician, a grieving mother (Watts) and a born-again ex-con.Plot Summary :
This is the story of three gentle persons: Paul Rivers an ailing mathematician lovelessly married to an English émigré, Christina Peck, an upper-middle-class suburban housewife, happily married and mother of two little girls, and Jack Jordan, an ex-convict who has found in his Christian faith the strength to raise a family. They will be brought together by a terrible accident that will change their lives. By the final frame, none of them will be the same as they will learn harsh truths about love, faith, courage, desire and guilt, and how chance can change our worlds irretrievably, forever.(imdb)Read More » -
Claude Sautet – Les Choses de la vie aka The Things of Life (1970)
1961-1970Claude SautetDramaFranceRomancefrom AMG
After laboring in obscurity for several years, French filmmaker Claude Sautet finally struck a responsive chord with moviegoers in Les Choses de la Vie. The plot isn’t much: the hero, businessman Michel Piccoli, must choose between his wife and his mistress, two women whom he loves with equal fervor. It is what Sautet does with the material that lifts the film above the ordinary. The director puts the central character’s plight in context with his ongoing concerns over his job, his income, and his relationship with his family. In Choses de la Vie Sautet has nothing but the warmest feelings for his characters, which results in more three-dimensionality that might normally be expected in so banal a plotline.Read More » -
Alfred Hitchcock – Downhill (1927)
1921-1930Alfred HitchcockDramaSilentUSAQuote:
Roddy, first son of the rich Berwick family, is expelled from school when he takes the blame for his friend Tim’s theft. His family sends him away and all of his friends leave him alone. Roddy decides to go to Paris where he spends what little money he has and starts working as a dancer. He soon becames a victim of alcoholism. Roddy manages to move to England’s colonies but some sailors send him back to his rich family hoping for a reward.Read More » -
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi – Happî awâ AKA Happy Hour (2015)
2011-2020DramaJapanRyûsuke Hamaguchi

Four women. All in their 30s. Three married, one divorcee. They are able to tell each other anything. Or at least they thought. One day, after losing in divorce court, one of them gives up on a future with their partner and disappears. The three remaining women take a second look at their lives. The long night is full of questions. “Are you really the you you wanted to be?”Read More »






