Drama

Never released in America, Petri’s second feature displays the same evocative mix of realism and symbolism found in THE LADY KILLER OF ROME. Cowritten by the prominent scenarist Tonino Guerra (a favorite collaborator of Petri, Antonioni, Rosi, and other Italian luminaries), the film stars Salvo Randone as Cesare, a lonely Roman plumber in his early fifties. Traveling by tram one day, he witnesses the sudden death, by heart attack, of a man his own age. The event shocks him into the realization that his own days might be numbered, and he becomes determined to make the most of the time he has left. Quitting his job, he sets out with enthusiasm to enjoy the finer things in life, but the effort only leaves him dispirited and disillusioned.Read More »

A woman finds romance when she takes a job at an aircraft plant to help make ends meet after her husband goes off to war.

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Swing Shift is a 1984 American romantic drama war film directed by Jonathan Demme and produced by and starring Goldie Hawn with Kurt Russell. It also starred Christine Lahti, Fred Ward and Ed Harris. Lahti earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her tragic portrayal of heart-broken ex-singer and Hawn’s character’s close friend Hazel, losing to Peggy Ashcroft for A Passage to India. Singer Belinda Carlisle made a foray into acting and Holly Hunter can be seen in one of her first movie roles.Read More »

Jason Robards and Olivia DeHavilland star in this 1966 TV adaptation of a short novel by American author Katherine Anne Porter, written and directed by Sam Peckinpah.Read More »

Vincent Ward weaves drama with documentary to unravel the extraordinary story of Puhi, the Tuhoe woman who welcomed the young filmmaker into her home in 1978. Ward made the observational film In Spring One Plants Alone about Puhi’s day-to-day life in the remote Urewera Ranges. By then almost 80, she was obsessively caring for her schizophrenic adult son Niki, whose violent fits terrified her. In this new cinema feature Ward sets out to unravel the mystery that has haunted him for 30 years: Who was Puhi?

And why was she so obsessed with this last remaining son?Read More »

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Christmas Eve is a hot and suffocating night in Argentina. A Mitzvah entertainer, a novelist, his girlfriend, a doctor, a wheelchair bound man, a father out looking for a last-minute present – all are tied together without necessarily knowing it, both by circumstances that bring their lives to intersection, but more so by longing.
An acid vision about Christmas.Read More »

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THE KNIGHT (RYCERZ), 1980. Poland.
With Piotr Skarga, Daniel Olbrychski. A haunting, austere ballad about a knight’s quest for a gold-stringed harp whose sound is said to bring peace and harmony. The film’s imagery is inspired by medieval icons. 81 min.

New York Film Festival
London Film Festival
Los Angeles Film FestivalRead More »

Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Lena goes to Andrea, a filmmaker she used to know, to help her record her own deterioration in a documentary. The film becomes a trip down memory lane: her love for Henrik, for poetry, and becoming a widow.Read More »

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Miloud is a barber in Darb el-Soltane, an old proletarian neighborhood in Casablanca, who struggles to maintain a semblance of dignity. Life has dealt his friend Hmida hard knocks. A countryside boy who moved to the city after his father repudiated him, he turned to petty larceny to survive, for which he served a sentence in prison. Hmida is jobless yet boisterous, while Miloud is skittish and disheartened by his friend’s objectionable activities. When a wealthy entrepreneur who wields power in the neighborhood manages to evict the barber and his wife from the shop to build a centre for Koranic instruction, Hmida incites his friend to fight back. Deemed one of Moroccan cinema’s underrated masterpieces, Hallaq Darb al-Fuqara’ is infused with disarming realist grit. Adapted from a play by Youssef Fadel, a celebrated playwright, novelist and screenwriter who hailed from Darb el-Soltane and was imprisoned for his play “The War”, the film was Mohamed Reggab’s only narrative feature. He incurred so much debt to finance the production that he even spent time in prison.Read More »

A treasure hunter finds a sunken Spanish galleon off the coast of a Philippine island. What he doesn’t know is that the ship is guarded by the spirit of an ancient Moro princess.Read More »