Drama

  • Abderrahmane Sissako – Oktyabr AKA October (1993)

    1991-2000Abderrahmane SissakoAfrican CinemaDramaFranceShort Film

    Quote:
    Idrissa left Moscow and Ira, who came to this last appointment of lovers to say goodbye. Again, lovers unloved are endless farewell to this house lost in the depths of Moscow. Neighbors who rejected them are also waiting for you outside their door on the night of October.

    Ira pregnant. She is worried, doubt and wanders the streets of Moscow. Her lover, Idrissa, an African student, will leave Russia. He finds Ira in his apartment for their last appointment. One last October night that never stops being that of impossible love …Read More »

  • D.W. Griffith – A Romance of Happy Valley (1919)

    1911-1920D.W. GriffithDramaSilentUSA

    Since much of this film takes place in rural Kentucky, where director D.W. Griffith grew up, it no doubt has many autobiographical touches. Since the setting was so close to his heart, that may be why this simple and winsome picture is one of Griffith’s most charming creations. With complete lack of pretension, it tells the story of John Logan Jr. (Robert Harron), an ambitious young inventor who is determined to be a success. So he heads for the big city to achieve his dream of making a toy frog that actually swims. Not that he hasn’t had opposition — his sweetheart, Jennie Timberlake (Lillian Gish, in a rare showing of her comic ability) and his parents (George Fawcett and Kate Bruce) have done everything they could to make him stay. Although he promises to return in a year’s time, John gets caught up in the temptations of the city, including a flirtation with a spirited young lady (Carol Dempster in her first credited role). Read More »

  • María Luisa Bemberg – Señora de nadie AKA Nobody’s Wife (1982)

    1981-1990DramaMaría Luisa BembergSpain

    After finding out her husband cheated on her, Leonor decides to leave him to find her true identity.Read More »

  • Jessica Hausner – Little Joe (2019)

    2011-2020DramaJessica HausnerSci-FiUnited Kingdom

    Little Joe follows Alice (Emily Beecham), a single mother and dedicated senior plant breeder at a corporation engaged in developing new species. She has engineered a special crimson flower, remarkable not only for its beauty but also for its therapeutic value: if kept at the ideal temperature, fed properly and spoken to regularly, this plant makes its owner happy. Against company policy, Alice takes one home as a gift for her teenage son, Joe. They christen it ‘Little Joe.’ But as their plant grows, so too does Alice’s suspicion that her new creation may not be as harmless as its nickname suggests.Read More »

  • Nana Dzhordzhadze – Shekvarebuli kulinaris ataserti retsepti aka A Chef in Love aka 1001 retsept iz menyu vlyublyonnogo povara aka Les mille et une recettes du cuisinier amoureux (1996)

    Drama1991-2000ComedyGeorgiaNana Dzhordzhadze

    A comically accented historical drama with culinary appeal, this film introduces us to Pascal Ichac (Pierre Richard), a French chef with a nose so sensitive that he can decipher the ingredients in a sauce with a single sniff. A true renaissance man, Pascal is a genius in the kitchen and a trained operatic vocalist and former gigolo. When he decides that he’s beginning to tire of his surroundings in France, he heads for Russia to find new challenges and tastes in Georgia. En route to the Georgian capitol of Tbilisi, Pascal meets Cecilia Abachidze (Micheline Presle), a princess who is charmed by the suave chef; although he is in his 50s and she in her 20s, love is soon in the air. Read More »

  • Hirokazu Koreeda – Distance (2001)

    2001-2010ArthouseDramaHirokazu KoreedaJapan

    Quote:
    With its focus on the emotional aftermath of a religious cult’s terrorist attack on Tokyo, “Distance” was always going to invite comparisons with the Aum cult’s nerve gas attack on the city’s subway system in 1995.

    Yet, rather than simply recreating that tragedy, “Distance” takes us into a far more complex, and decidedly more unsettling, drama about loss and bereavement.Three years after the fictional Ark of Truth group has contaminated Tokyo’s water supply with a genetically-engineered virus, leaving 128 people dead and 8,000 injured, four of the dead cult members’ relatives meet to pay their respects to their loved ones at the lake where their ashes were scattered.Read More »

  • Mike Leigh – Another Year (2010)

    2001-2010ComedyDramaMike LeighUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    Mike Leigh is often accused of talking down to his characters. With Another Year, this fan of the British auteur can see why. Leigh’s latest is a lovingly told but insufficiently nuanced story of four seasons, a year in the lives of a happy couple and their miserably single friends. It begins in spring with a close-up of a face locked in abject misery: Asked by a counselor how happy she is on a scale from one to 10, Janet (Imelda Staunton) says one, in effect setting the tone for much of the film. The only happiness here belongs to Gerri (Ruth Sheen) and her husband, Tom (Jim Broadbent), whose relationship is as organic as the vegetables they grow in their backyard, but what’s their secret? No one’s asking, including Leigh.Read More »

  • Peter Lilienthal – David (1979)

    Drama1971-1980GermanyPeter Lilienthal

    David is a 1979 West German film by director Peter Lilienthal. It tells the story of a rabbi’s son in Germany during the Holocaust, who tries to raise money to escape to Mandate Palestine.

    David follows an adolescent Jewish boy, David Singer, who comes of age in Nazi Berlin. The film reveals the struggles for identity and survival that often overlapped among the Jews of war-torn Europe, particularly the young.Read More »

  • Michael Armstrong & Adrian Hoven – Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält AKA Mark of the Devil (1970)

    1961-1970Adrian HovenDramaGermanyHorrorMichael Armstrong

    Synopsis:
    Udo Kier is a witch hunter apprentice to Herbert Lom. He believes strongly in his mentor and the ways of the church but loses faith when he catches Lom committing a crime. Kier slowly begins to see for himself that the witch trials are nothing but a scam of the church to rob people of their land, money, and other personal belongings of value and seduce beautiful women.Read More »

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