Drama

Synopsis:
In 1976, a young woman in Krakow is making her diploma film, looking behind the scenes at the life of a 1950s bricklayer, Birkut, who was briefly a proletariat hero, at how that heroism was created, and what became of him. She gets hold of outtakes and censored footage and interviews the man’s friends, ex-wife, and the filmmaker who made him a hero. A portrait of Birkut emerges: he believed in the workers’ revolution, in building housing for all, and his very virtues were his undoing. Her hard-driving style and the content of the film unnerve her supervisor, who kills the project with the excuse she’s over budget. Is there any way she can push the film to completion?Read More »

Titus returns victorious from war, only to plant the seeds of future turmoil for himself and his family.Read More »

Quote:
Sombre, as Grandrieux’s first feature film, establishes some of the important characteristics of his art: An insistence on vision, with characters beyond psychologies, driven by biology or metaphysical forces.

Love (a mix of brotherly and sexual Love, a true awareness of the other, a communion) mostly overrules all, and its discovery by Jean creates waves that emanate in every shot, every cut and every sound in the rest of Sombre.Read More »

Quote:
The film narrates the struggle of Tahir and Zühre, two lovers trying to reunite. Zühre is a princess while Tahir is the son of a vizier. Growing up together in the palace, the two are deeply in love with each other. However, Bekir, one of the heirs to the dynasty, opposes their marriage. Bekir spreads rumors about Tahir in order to prevent their marriage. So, Tahir falls out of favor with the Sultan due to the rumors about him. Tahir and Zühre will have to make sacrifices to be together. (Yiğitalp Ertem)Read More »

Father Greg Pilkington (Linus Roache) is torn between his call as a conservative Catholic
priest and his secret life as a homosexual with a gay lover, frowned upon by the Church.
Upon hearing the confession of a young girl of her incestuous father, Greg enters an
intensely emotional spiritual struggle deciding between choosing morals over religion and one
life over another.Read More »

Quote:
A woman whose husband has been killed in WWII lives with her father-in-law in the desert. She cannot leave and go back to her family, because that would mean the end of hope that her husband, a heroic pilot, might return one day.

This film from Turkmenistan belongs to an edition of ten films from Central Asia that were shot both during the Soviet times and during the independence epoch. This collection contains 2 films of each country.

This collection was edited in 2006. It was released by the Center of Central Asian Cinematography with the financial support of “Arts and Culture” Network Program of Open Society Institute of Budapest. You will have english subtitles for each film.Read More »

A young video camera-wielding Japanese tourist traveling alone in Hong Kong pursues a tentative relationship with a Chinese teenager planning to join her family in Canada. Wai invites the young man to join her for a spectacular home-cooked meal made by her 80-year old grandmother. As their platonic friendship develops, the subtle relationships between generations, upheavals in traditional Hong Kong society and the clash between Asian cultural identities are explored with considerable warmth, charm and humor.Read More »

Quote:
Katie and Hubbell are students in the same college but with very different lives. She is a communist compromised against the civil war in Spain and the rise of Hitler in Europe, and has to work to pay her studies. He is more interested in sports a and sceptic about politics. However, Katie is impressed by his charm and she still is when they meet some years after.Read More »

A count and a tightrope dancer fall madly in love, so much so that he deserts the army and his family to run away with her. Set to a Mozart concerto, this film was released in 1967 to rapturous critical acclaim and went on to win Best Actress Award at Cannes for its then 17-year old star, Pia Degermark.Read More »