Claus Räfle’s “The Invisibles” tells the true story of four Jewish teenagers—Cioma Schönhaus (Max Mauff), Hanni Lévy (Alice Dwyer), Ruth Arndt-Gumpel (Ruby O. Fee), Eugen Friede (Aaron Altaras)—who chose to remain in Berlin during the Holocaust. We are provided a title card which states that 7,000 Jewish people chose to stay in the city. Only 1,500 survived. For the most part, the film is a compelling docudrama, smooth and confident in juggling reenactments, interviews of actual survivors, and black-and-white footages—occasionally in color—of Nazi occupied Berlin. And yet, appropriately, it is not a sentimental or melodramatic picture. Instead, it aspires to be a grave reminder of a horrible past beyond imagination and an admonition of a potential future should we fail to learn from our history.(Cinéologist , letterboxd)Read More »

Synopsis:
‘Isabelle dreams of becoming a great actress and so she is over the moon when she is accepted into the Conservatoire, France’s leading drama school. Her talents are immediately spotted by her drama instructor, Professor Lambertin, who is appalled to hear that Isabelle may have to abandon her studies so that she can earn her keep in her adopted parents’ laundrette. Isabelle’s guardians have a change of heart when Lambertin visits them in person and convinces them that his is a noble profession and that their ward has the makings of a fine actress. At the school, Isabelle falls in love with an older student, François, who has a reputation as a lady’s man. When François begins an affair with Isabelle, his former girlfriend Cécilia is consumed with anger and jealousy. She plans to use her theatrical training to inflict on her former lover a cruel and deadly revenge…’
– Films de FranceRead More »

As part of a sorority ritual, pledges and their male companions steal a trophy from a bowling alley; unbeknownst to them, it contains a devilish imp who makes their lives a living Hell.Read More »

A veteran hit man, Dekker is ready to call it quits and leave the profession. Dekker’s final job, however, proves to be trickier than expected when the sadistic Zidzyck recruits the assassin to kill his wife.Read More »

An intimate glimpse into the experiences of a young Tibetan family struggling to reconcile their traditional way of life with a rapidly modernizing world.Read More »

In the kingdom of the Moguls, Prince Roudghito-Sing, a young officer of the palace, falls in love with Zemgali, a captive princess held prisoner and coveted by the Grand Khan. Fleeing the country, he takes refuge in Paris and his presentability allows him to be hired as an actor by a French film company. The trouble is that Anna, the star of the movie, is attracted to him. Which displeases banker Morel, the producer and Anna’s lover…Read More »

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Nowak (Irons) leads a small team of Polish building contractors, hired by a wealthy Pole to illegally refurbish his London home. They slip into England under false pretenses and squat in the house as they work on it–but shortly after they arrive, the military take over Poland and declare martial law (this real event happened in December of 1981). Only Nowak speaks English, so only he knows this has happened; fearing that if the others find out, they’ll stop working, he decides not to tell them. As he starts stealing and scamming to stretch their rapidly vanishing money, Nowak grows increasingly paranoid and mentally fragile. Moonlighting is a political allegory and a psychological portrait, but thanks to Irons’ sympathetic performance, the movie is also rivetingly suspenseful.Read More »

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In Nerven, writer-director-producer Robert Reinert tried to capture the “nervous epidemic” caused by war and misery which “drives people mad”. This unique portrait of the life in 1919 Germany, filmed on location in Munich, describes the cases of different people from all levels of society: Factory owner Roloff who looses his mind in view of catastrophies and social disturbances, teacher John who is the hero of the masses and Marja who turns into a radical revolutionary. Using different fragments the Munich Film Museum could reconstruct this forgotten German classic which is a historic document and anticipates already elements of the Expressionist cinema of the 1920s.Read More »

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Countess Laure Maresco falls in love with a player, Jacques Prémont-Solène. He loses a large sum and dreams of suicide. Laure prevents her, before learning that her lover has squandered the recipe for a charity party that she attended. His family sends the young man to America to put an end to the scandal. Twenty years later, after a fortune, he returns.Read More »