This film tells the story of one of the most incredible and, oddly enough, outside Russia relatively unknown events that took place in the Second World War: the blockade of Leningrad by the Germans. In september 1941, the three million inhabitants of the city were trapped like rats, without food or drinking water. In subzero temperatures people had to eat glue, leather soles, cats, and sometimes even their fellow human beings. When the city opened up again after almost three years, over a million people had died. The survivors were marked for life.Read More »

imdb wrote:
An extraordinary story of a young woman raised in Switzerland who travels back to Algeria, her birthplace, to meet and kill her natural mother, who abandoned her shortly after birth. Along the way, she is exposed to the brutality of desert life and, in particular, the abuses that men heap upon women in fundamentalist, third world countries. Birth, death and life in general, have little meaning as people struggle for survival. The scenery is stark but at the same time beautiful and the faces of the characters that she meet are marvelous. The film was made in Tunisia, as it does not cast a particularly good light on Algerian men and probably could not have gotten permission to be filmed in Algeria where Sharia is the law of the land.Read More »

Synopsis
For a whole summer, 17-year-old Florencia has to look after her brother, who is trapped in a persistent vegetative state. She washes him, changes his nappies, and cuddles up to him in bed. From time to time she reads to him from a comic called LAS PLANTAS, which is about plant souls that take control of human bodies at full moon. At night, Florencia makes contact with men on the internet. Images of her monotonous daily routine and a vibrant fantasy world merge to create a fascina- ting tale of a young woman as she self-determines her own sexual awakening. Dreamlike sequences and atmospheric, metallic music create the mood of a thriller.Read More »

Quote:
In the carefree days before World War I, introverted Austrian author Jules strikes up a friendship with the exuberant Frenchman Jim and both men fall for the impulsive and beautiful Catherine.Read More »

Based on the novel by Alexander Neverov.

Quote:
The Volga region, 1921. The civil war has recently broken out, but another disaster has come to replace it – a great drought which dries the land of the Volga region. The crop failure gives birth to a mass famine. In order to somehow help his mother and younger brothers, the peasant boy Misha Dodonov, along with his friend, Sergei, goes to Tashkent to find work.Read More »

In 1890’s Canada, everybody was off to the Klondike Gold Rush, and in Thomas Arslan’s Gold, seven German-American immigrants decide to get there the hard way, via hundreds of miles of uncharted wilderness.Read More »

During the Tang Dynasty’s era of “Zhen Guan” (era name during rule of Emperor Taizong), the young Xuan Zang monk, in his quest for the knowledge in Buddhism, embarked on a journey to India, that is fraught with perils and dangers, natural disasters, and sees the sufferings of the common people. Soldiers gets in his way, his disciples betrays him, he struggles through deserts, runs short of food and water, all in the quest for Buddha’s teachings. He finally arrives in India, and studies Buddhism in earnest. By the time he returns to China, he is already 50 years old.Read More »

Eight-year-old Matthias dreams that he will someday become a pilot and his divorced parents will get back together. He waits yearningly for his ninth birthday because his father has told him the story of Icarus, and promised to take him on a sightseeing flight. When Matthias’ father doesn’t come home, he is devastated. He runs throughout the city, talks to his friend about the relationships of adults, looks for his father at his desk, and gets himself into conflict with the police. As he sits alone on the roof of a house, he comes to the conclusion that Icarus didn’t plummet to the earth because he didn’t listen to his father, but rather because his father had forgotten him.Read More »

A young British woman is hired as a governess by a wealthy Argentine family. Through her position, she slowly sees how the upper class of society is slowly crumbling, and how a popular movement is preparing to install itself in power.Read More »