Drama

Synopsis by Mark Deming
A man on the edge of collapse falls into a well of despair in this psychological drama from Australia. Tom White (Colin Friels) is an architect who is emotionally reaching the end of his rope. Edgy, confused, and losing touch with reality, White finds himself obsessively working on a project from which he was removed weeks before, and his hands shake so badly he can barely hold a pencil. Tom’s superiors suggest he should spend a few days away from the office to regain his bearing, but instead of returning home to his wife (Rachael Blake) and children, he goes on a bender. Read More »

Quote:
Dr. Matthew Clark is the head of a state institution for mentally retarded children. Jean Hansen, a former music teacher anxious to give her life some meaning, joins the staff of the hospital. Jean, who tries to shelter the children with her love, suspiciously regards Clark’s stern training methods. She becomes emotionally involved with 12-year-old Reuben Widdicombe, who has been abandoned by his divorced parents.Read More »

Engaged by an old lawyer, the young woman Anna receives in present of which it is quite soon relieved a jewel.
Feeling itself braccato, the pickpocket is forced to leave the precious one found by a hungry singer and recognised like gift of the provision.
The unfortunate event will take Anna away from the Prince of the Court, finding consolation between Andrew’s arms, which in the meantime it has entered into possession of the necklace…Read More »

W.C. Handy has been called “The Father of the Blues”, although he modestly said that he merely transcribed the music and made it available to a wide audience. Nevertheless, his music defined the blues, the best known being “St. Louis Blues”, which was used as the title of the film biography Paramount Studios made of his life in 1958. The cast of St. Louis Blues reads like a list of some of the best African-American talent of the mid 20th Century: Nat King Cole, Eartha Kitt, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia Jackson, Ruby Dee, Juano Hernandez, and Pearl Bailey. There is also a future star in the cast: the young boy who plays W.C. Handy as a child would grow up to make a name for himself ten years later when he played with The Beatles: Billy Preston.Read More »

Synopsis:
After inadvertently killing his girlfriend, a man (Asano) flees Macau for Thailand in an attempt to cope with his guilt, and avoid possible arrest. But the relocation doesn’t prevent his problems from following him, as his new friends could be potential enemies.Read More »

Marko has a poet’s sensibilities in Veles, a town in war-torn Macedonia. His sister is a bully, his mom’s a doormat, and his dad is a striking factory worker who drinks and plays bingo. At school, Marko is tormented by thuggish fellow students, led by the loutish Levi, the son of a police captain. Marko’s teacher of Macedonian, a Bosnian, sees promise in Marko’s writing and gives the lad hope that he can someday escape Veles. A chance friendship with a thief who’s passing through town furthers Marko’s education. Is hope a mirage? What sort of fatherland is Macedonia?Read More »

Synopsis
A young man takes drastic measures to rid his dysfunctional family of its various afflictions.Read More »

Barbara Wurm, Edition Filmmuseum wrote:
Po zakonu (also know as Dura Lex) was the cheapest film produced in Russia (perhaps even still today); at the same time an absolute masterpiece, the greatness of which stems from its very minimalism. The minimum effort required for the story-development (Kuleshov constantly claimed, he happened upon Jack London’s story “The Unexpected” quite by chance), the minimum number of characters (just three for most of the film), a minimum of inter-titles and lines of dialogue, a minimum of locations; a clearing not far from Moscow (posing as “Alaska”) and a cabin–the perfect setting for a stripped-to-basics chamber play. Even if the juggling of shot composition and length (Kuleshov’s notorious “Americanism”) is not as artistically ambitious as in his previous work, it is still apparent how close-ups dominate inside, whilst outside, in the snowy landscapes and riverscapes, long shots reign, seemingly to the point of halting all movement.Read More »

In Montreal, the teenagers Manon, Anne, Isa, Claudie and Sophie are friends since their childhood. While spending a couple of days in the cottage of Sophie’s parents nearby a lake, the girls decide to give a party, and Manon and Sophie hitch for a ride to the town in a jeep to buy some beers and supplies and they invite the driver to the party. On the return, the same driver stops the car and later Sophie is found stabbed, raped and covered of blood. Fifteen years later, Manon sees the guy in a car-wash and she invites her former friends to return to the house nearby the lake, where wounds of their traumatic loss are disclosed.Read More »