During the Hungarian war of independence 1848-49 the widow of Kazmer Baradlay – who himself was a supporter of the Austrian Emperor resists the last wish of her late husband wishing his sons to become faithful Hungarians. She asks her eldest Odon to return from St. Petersburg and the others – Richard and Jeno from Vienna. The revolution of 1848 begins. Supported by their mother the sons join the revolutionary cause despite their father’s will.Read More »
Biopic of the life of the jewish artist Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943) who fled Berlin after the Kristallnacht in 1939 to live with her grandparents in the south of France. Salomon had a diary/comic style of painting and drawing and left a biographical body of nearly 1000 works, to which she collectively referred as “Life? or Theater?”. It depicts her youth in Berlin and her romance with a the mysterious Daberlohn against the backdrop of rising national socialism.Read More »
Starring Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Joan Plowright, Cher, Lily Tomlin, Paolo Seganti.
From IMDB:
Semi-autobiographical tale from the early life of director Franco Zeffirelli looks at the illegitimate son (Charlie Lucas as a child, Baird Wallace as the teen) of an Italian businessman. The boy’s mother has died, and he is raised by an Englishwoman (Joan Plowright) in pre-WWII Fascist Italy. Living to each other in Florence, and presided over by an ambassador’s widow (Maggie Smith), a group of Englishwomen live a sheltered existence which they believe is guaranteed personal protection in a tea reception given by Il Duce. However, as war breaks out, the women are interned. Occasionally in this English colony is a wealthy American (Cher), who visits among her travels and marriages to wealthy older men.Read More »
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, finds out that his uncle Claudius killed his father to obtain the throne, and plans revenge.Read More »
“Rarely has an adaptation of a vibrant literary text been able to create such energy…” ~Berlinale
Synopsis:
A farm on the German-German border that recently stopped being a border, in the summer of 1990. Family members from the West visit and everyone is feeling their way through these uncertain new times as everyday life goes on in the summer heat. Son Johannes has turned the farmhouse’s attic into a refuge for his girlfriend Maria and himself. Maria is reading Dostoevsky and wanders through meadows, engaged in a search for the meaning of life. Her encounter with Henner, a much older neighbour, becomes her testing ground, drawing her in, like fate.Read More »
Against the tumultuous backdrop of Iran’s 1953 CIA-backed coup d’état, the destinies of four women converge in a beautiful orchard garden, where they find independence, solace and companionship.Read More »
Quote:
This visually stunning Kazakh movie tells a tragic tale of absent and misplaced compassion. A young orphan rescues an orphaned wolf cub and lavishes considerable affection on it. His uncle, believing that this “softness” will result in the boy’s being unable to endure the rigors of life on the Kazakh steppes, savagely beats the cub in front of the boy. By the time the grown wolf is released into the wild, it has grown extremely ferocious and it returns and attacks the boy, perhaps because it perceives him as being weak, just as the boy’s uncle did.Read More »
This is the story of Miguelito, his estranged mother Auring and the quest for justice against a powerful politician. After ten years of suffering in jail for a crime she did not commit, Auring cries out for two things – justice and her son back in her arms. Bravely she faces her powerful oppressors led by the formidable town mayor who also happens to be the father of her son. Being the first film Brocka directed since his highly publicized arrest and detention, Miguelito is one’s typical soap opera set in a political backdrop that portrays the social condition of the time (Letterboxd)Read More »
At 17 LeighAnne Williams has a six month old baby to look after, with only the help of three teenage squatters who flog stolen gear to make ends meet. A neighbour (actually from Turkey) across the street becomes target to her growing paranoia that Social Services are going to take her daughter, Rebecca, away from her. Her behavior becoming increasingly desperate as her delusions over her neighbor grow. She convinces Steven, Gavin, and Robbie he needs a lesson.Read More »