Drama

Plot
Hillary and Bonnie meet one morning by the side of the road. They become fast friends, share their secrets, and on a rising wave of frenzy later that afternoon, murder an old woman. They did it, they say later, for fun.Read More »

Quote:
Though the kinky characters and aberrant social behavior common to the works of Spanish director Pedro Almodovar are very evident in his Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the film is at heart a door-slamming farce in the grand tradition. The tiny apartment of pregnant actress Carmen Maura is the “Grand Central Station” setpiece for this dizzying tale. Distraught over her recent breakup with her lover, Carmen prepares to overdose on sleeping pills, which she blends into a gazpacho so they’ll go down easier. She is diverted from her suicide by her best friend Maria Barranco, a fugitive from justice (her boy friend is a Shi’Ite terrorist) who needs a place to stay. Later, when Carmen’s apartment is empty, her ex-lover’s grown son (Antonio Banderas) comes to the apartment with his fiance (Rossy de Palma) in answer to Carmen’s “room to let” newspaper ad. The wife inadvertently ingests Carmen’s “pill sauce,” and as she blissfully snoozes, the husband inaugurates an affair with Carmen’s friend Barranco.Read More »

With a strange illness, a mother and her daughter embark on a journey to the Spanish coast to find a cure, and along the way the daughter discovers another reality far from her controlling mother.Read More »

This tense story is set during World War II Italy. A mother and her daughter flee what once was the safety of Rome to seek refuge in the mountains. Their journey turns out to be one they could never have imagined.Read More »

After the death of her husband, a young woman travels to Japan where she finds solace in an old friend, but, when his comforting turns to affection, she realizes she must give herself permission before she can fall in love again.Read More »

Noted Iranian actress Susan Taslimi plays an impoverished single mother who agees to marry off her 13-year-old daughter to a middle-aged man in return for a mare, which will help her earn an income and provide for her younger children. Director Ali Zhekan paints a stark picture of poverty and patriarchy in rural Iran (the mother stores her rice in a container hidden in a tree; her brother, who brokered the wedding, mercilessly beats the recalcitrant child), but this 1986 film is distinguished mostly by Taslimi’s increasingly fiery performance as the mother decides to defend her daughter’s freedom.Read More »

“Ema a smrtihlav offers a unique perspective on the psychological costs of survival, avoiding melodrama for a more intimate and thought-provoking experience…”

Synopsis:
Marika, a widow with Hungarian roots, struggles after her dressmaking salon closes. Her life exists in a delicate balance until she encounters Šimon, a Jewish boy. By choosing to protect him during dangerous times, Marika transforms her vulnerable situation. Her choice introduces intense personal and political complexity to her world.Read More »

An absurdist triptych of seemingly unconnected stories finds a mysterious point of intersection in this tale set somewhere between Winnipeg and Tehran.Read More »

A bourgeois family, who is harassed and humiliated, ruins their young maids without pay for several years.Read More »