Synopsis
The silent darkness of the bedroom is broken by a greetings message on the answering-machine. A sudden awakening for Chico on his thirtieth birthday. What a mess! Too late to meet his girlfriend, too late for the meeting at Expo ’98, and, even worse, an outsize hangover. But that’s not all. Lying next to him in bed is a young man with whom he has spent the night. He must now pick up the threads of his everyday life. Meanwhile his companion from the night before, with blue eyes and feline body, wanders around the house feeling both curious and amused, with the restless happiness of a twenty-year old with all the time in the world to spare. It is his hunger for life that, in an undeclared game, will transform what could otherwise have been a normal birthday morning for Chico…Read More »

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In Love Is the Beginning of All Terror the paradoxical politics of emotion are parodied when two liberated, though jealous, women vie for the same man and perform for his gaze. The film addresses the oppressive structures that shape interpersonal relations as well as collective histories commented on in a voice-over.Read More »

Synopsis
In the interior of Alagoas, the son of peasants Paulo Honório, is a peddler who wanders through the midlands negociating all sorts of things, from cow to religious artifacts. He grows an obsession: to take the São Bernardo farm from the hands of its inept owner, the indebted Luiz Padilha, making him his employee.Read More »

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Achternbuschs zweiter Film
Kurzbeschreibung
Zwei Münchner wollen, von Leben und Liebe ermattet, der quälenden Enge ihrer Heimat entfliehen, indem sie den Atlantik durchschwimmen. Achternbusch erzählt in hintersinnig-vertrackten Bildern und Dialogen von der Utopie eines anderen Lebens und von den Mühlsteinen des deutschen Alltags, die den Helden am Halse hängen – nachdem sprichwörtlich gewordenen Motto: “Du hast keine Chance, aber nutze sie!”Read More »

Synopsis
[In Hick’s Last Stand] we witness yet another incarnation of a Last Bavarian Mohican, incoherently staggering across the badlands of South Dakota and Wyoming in white cowboy boots, black leather jacket, and a feather on his hat. Without dialogue, without other players besides Herbert Achternbusch, and with the most minimal narrative progression, the film consists only of an image track over which we hear Hick’s extended monologue, a declaration of love to the absent Mary, occasionally interrupted by songs by Judy Garland, Native American chants, and classical music. Read More »

Synopsis
In Achternbusch’s first feature, an anxious teacher (played, as is the lead role in all his films, by the director) sits in a beer garden on the hill of the Andechs monastery. While flies drown in his mug of beer, he confronts a life of failure: the wife he ignored, the child he neglected, the teaching duties he has shirked, and his doomed efforts at winning tenure from school officials. Only a dream from the past – the memory of a former liaison with a film star with whom he shared “the Andechs feeling, a feeling that we are not alone”, provides sustenance. Despite an unexpected series of events, longing in Achternbusch’s world ultimately remains stronger than fulfillment and thirst better than beer.Read More »

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Colic is a syndrome found in infants, which causes infants to cry continuously for hours. The reason behind this illness is usually credited by medical expects to a number of factors. However, some people believe that it’s linked to something supernatural. “Colic” tells a story of a couple (Pongpob and Phraeploy) who have a shotgun wedding upon discovering that Praeploy has unexpectedly become pregnant. After the wedding, Pongpob brings Phraeploy to his mother’s suburban home. The night before Praeploy delivers the child, the house next to theirs catches on fire. When the baby is delivered, and is brought to their house, he screams and cries with no reason. The doctor considers the baby has colic, and tells the couple that the ailment will disappear when the baby turns 3 to 6 months old. Several months later, the baby still hasn’t stopped crying…while the family’s members encounter to mysterious and unexplained experiences.Read More »

Synopsis:
An English novelist is lured, with disconcerting and disorienting results, into purchasing a crumbling mansion by what he imagines are the deliberately ‘literary’ ploys of its housekeeper (Leslie Caron) and two mysterious, lurking women.Read More »

Plot Outline: Clara becomes a secretary who must cater to all the desires of the womanizing writer Jérôme, while he tries to write his memoirs.Read More »