Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque, The (Rohmer)

Director: Éric Rohmer
Stars: Pascal Greggory, Arielle Dombasle, Fabrice Luchini
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

In 1992, the socialist mayor of a little French town with the help of his contacts in Paris get the money to build a multimedia house. But the socialist party lose his majority in the election. But… But… Well everything would have been all right without those seven coincidences.

Stalin (Passer)

Director: Ivan Passer
Stars: Robert Duvall, Julia Ormond, Maximilian Schell
Genre: Biography, Crime, Drama
Country: Russia | Hungary | USA

The life and career of the brutal Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin.

Schtonk (Dietl)

Director: Helmut Dietl
Stars: Götz George, Uwe Ochsenknecht, Christiane Hörbiger
Genre: Comedy
Country: Germany

The slightly fictionalized story of an art forger, a journalist desperate for a big story, and the biggest press scandal in German history: the Hitler Diaries.

Léolo (Lauzon)

Director: Jean-Claude Lauzon
Stars: Maxime Collin, Ginette Reno, Gilbert Sicotte
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada | France

Young Leo Lauzon is torn between two worlds – the squalid Montreal tenement that he inhabits with his severely dysfunctional (and largely insane) family, and the imaginative world that he constructs for himself through his writings, where he’s Leolo Lozone, son of a Sicilian peasant (conceived in a bizarre act involving a tomato). And his experiences of growing up (especially his sexual development) affect his response to both these worlds…

Betty (Chabrol)

Director: Claude Chabrol
Stars: Marie Trintignant, Stéphane Audran, Jean-François Garreaud
Genre: Drama
Country: France

A drunken self-destructive woman called Betty wanders through bars and meets a man that drives her to a restaurant outside Paris called Le Trou (The Hole). She meets the middle-aged alcoholic Laure from Lyon, who is the lover of the Le Trou’s owner Mario. Laure decides to take care of Betty and brings her to the room next-door in her hotel. Along the days, Betty tells the story of her bourgeois life and her unhappy marriage to Laure and also recalls moments of her promiscuous life.

Daens (Coninx)

Director: Stijn Coninx
Stars: Jan Decleir, Gérard Desarthe, Antje de Boeck
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Belgium | France | Netherlands

In the 1890s, Father Adolf Daens goes to Aalst, a textile town where child labor is rife, pay and working conditions are horrible, the poor have no vote, and the Catholic church backs the petite bourgeoisie in oppressing workers. He writes a few columns for the Catholic paper, and soon workers are listening and the powerful are in an uproar. He’s expelled from the Catholic party, so he starts the Christian Democrats and is elected to Parliament. After Rome disciplines him, he must choose between two callings, as priest and as champion of workers. In subplots, a courageous young woman falls in love with a socialist and survives a shop foreman’s rape; children die; prelates play billiards.

La crise (Serreau)

Director: Coline Serreau
Stars: Vincent Lindon, Patrick Timsit, Zabou Breitman
Genre: Comedy, Music
Country: Italy | France

When Victor finds out one morning that his wife had left him and that she had forgotten to at least buy milk for the Kids, he finds that things can only get worse. Having also been fired from his job on the very same day, he ends up searching through a list of friends and family for someone who will listen to his grief and give some advice. The only person who does give him attention is a rather clumsy and not too intelligent street pauper called Michou. Victor finds Michou irritating and only finally comes to see him in a positive light when he starts to realise that his insensitivity to those closest to him has been major reason for all his troubles.

Damage (Malle)

Director: Louis Malle
Stars: Jeremy Irons, Juliette Binoche, Miranda Richardson
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: UK | France

A member of Parliament falls passionately in love with his son’s fiancée despite the dangers of discovery.

Oak, The (Pintilie)

Director: Lucian Pintilie
Stars: Maia Morgenstern, Razvan Vasilescu, Victor Rebengiuc
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: France | Romania

A description of Romania before Ceausescu’s downfall, through the story of Nela. Daughter of a former colonel of the Securitate, the romanian political police. She refused to become as her sister, an agent of this Securitate, and lives with her father. After he died, she leaves Bucarest, and ends up in a little town, where she meets Mitica, a surgeon, another herself, laughing of everything.

L.627 (Tavernier)

Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Stars: Didier Bezace, Jean-Paul Comart, Charlotte Kady
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: France

This gritty police drama shows us the underbelly of the Parisian drug trade. Lulu is a tough streetwise narcotics cop who, like a Frank Serpico or a Dirty Harry Callahan, doesn’t play by the rules or kowtow to his weak and/or corrupt superiors. Lulu thrives in this violent world, where sheer guts can overcome his squad’s deficiencies of money and equipment. Despite the ruthless environment that he lives and works in every day, he still manages somehow to maintain his humanity.

Sarafina! (Roodt)

Director: Darrell Roodt
Stars: Whoopi Goldberg, Leleti Khumalo, Miriam Makeba
Genre: Drama, Musical
Country: South Africa | UK | France | USA

South African teenagers fight against apartheid in the Soweto Uprising.

Passion Fish (Sayles)

Director: John Sayles
Stars: Mary McDonnell, Alfre Woodard, Angela Bassett
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

After an accident leaves her a paraplegic, a former soap opera star struggles to recover both emotionally and mentally, until she meets her newest nurse, who has struggles of her own.

Lover, The (Annaud)

Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Stars: Jane March, Tony Ka Fai Leung, Frédérique Meininger
Genre: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: France | UK | Vietnam

In 1929 French Indochina, a French teenage girl embarks on a reckless and forbidden romance with a wealthy, older Chinese man, each knowing that knowledge of their affair will bring drastic consequences to each other.

Hedd Wyn (Turner)

Director: Paul Turner
Stars: Huw Garmon, Catrin Fychan, Ceri Cunnington
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: UK

A young poet living in the North Wales countryside competes for the most coveted prize of all in Welsh Poetry – that of the chair of the National Eisteddfod, a tradition dating back a hundred years. Before the winner is announced Hedd Wyn gets sent to fight with the English in the trenches of the First World War.

Lorenzo’s Oil (Miller)

Director: George Miller
Stars: Nick Nolte, Susan Sarandon, Peter Ustinov
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

A boy develops a disease so rare that nobody is working on a cure, so his father decides to learn all about it and tackle the problem himself.

Talking Head (Oshii)

Director: Mamoru Oshii
Stars: Shigeru Chiba, Tomoko Ishimura, Fumihiko Tachiki
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Japan

A revered director with an obscure style, Rei Maruwa, has gone missing during the production of his latest animated feature, Talking Head. With the deadline approaching and next to no progress made, the producer calls in a “shadow director” with the ability to mimic any director’s style. Arriving at the studio, he begins meeting with the eccentric crew members in order to understand the project, but soon they begin dying in the same order that he met up with them.

Indochine (Wargnier)

Director: Régis Wargnier
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Vincent Perez, Linh Dan Pham
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: France

Eliane adopts Camille, whose Vietnamese parents were friends. In 1930, a French navy officer is interested in Eliane (owns 60km2 plantation) and later in Camille. There’s an uprising in Vietnam against French colonial power.

Guelwaar (Sembene)

Director: Ousmane Sembene
Stars: Abou Camara, Marie Augustine Diatta, Mame Ndoumbé Diop
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Germany | Senegal | USA

Burial of a Christian political activist in a Muslim cemetary forces a conflict imbued with religious fervor. A satiric portrayal of religion and politics, sometimes humorous, sometimes deadly serious.

Simple Men (Hartley)

Director: Hal Hartley
Stars: Robert John Burke, Bill Sage, Martin Donovan
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Italy | UK | USA

Bitter about being double-crossed by the women he loved, (and with the police after him to boot), Bill vows to seduce the next woman he sees, then throw her away. His brother Dennis, meanwhile, is equally determined to track down their long lost father, a revolutionary who has been in hiding for 20 years. For different reasons, both leave New York and head for Long Island, out of money, and short on ideas. D:”Long Island is a a terminal moraine.” B:”What’s that?” D:”It’s the material left behind when a glacier recedes.” D:”Gee, then what the hell are we waiting for?”

Belle Epoque (Trueba)

Director: Fernando Trueba
Stars: Fernando Fernán Gómez, Jorge Sanz, Penélope Cruz
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Spain | Portugal | France

A 1931 Spanish military deserter finds himself on a lonely farm until the farmer’s four daughters pay a visit and he falls for all of them.

Minbô no onna (Itami)

Director: Jûzô Itami
Stars: Nobuko Miyamoto, Yasuo Daichi, Takehiro Murata
Genre: Comedy
Country: Japan

A grand old Japanese hotel is trying to get a prestigious contract as the site of a summit meeting of important foreign officials. Unfortunately, this hotel is quite popular with the Yakuza (Japanese gangsters) and is a favorite target of theirs for extortion. They employ a variety of schemes to con the hotel out of ‘hush-money.’ The hotel needs to rid itself of the Yakuza and finally begins to fight back by hiring Mahiru Inoue, a lawyer who is an expert at dealing with these criminals on their own terms. This film by Juzo Itami combines action with farce, as an all-out war ensues.

Hyenas (Mambéty)

Director: Djibril Diop Mambéty
Stars: Mansour Diouf, Ami Diakhate, Faly Gueye
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Switzerland | France | Senegal | UK | Netherlands | Italy

Dramaan is the most popular man in Colobane, but when a woman from his past, now exorbitantly wealthy, returns to the town, things begin to change.

Divertimento (Rivette)

Director: Jacques Rivette
Stars: Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, Emmanuelle Béart
Genre: Drama
Country: France

More than just an abbreviated form of “La Belle Noiseuse”, Rivette re-cut his footage with some important differences in point of view – this one being more from Marianne’s point of view.

Into the West (Newell)

Director: Mike Newell
Stars: Gabriel Byrne, Ellen Barkin, Ciarán Fitzgerald
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Country: Ireland | UK

Grandpa Ward gives a horse he found to his grandchildren, who keep it in their tower-block flat in Dublin. The horse is stolen from them, and the two young boys set out to find it and flee on it.

Bob Roberts (Robbins)

Director: Tim Robbins
Stars: Tim Robbins, Giancarlo Esposito, Alan Rickman
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA | UK

A conservative folk singer turns his hand to politics, running for the US Senate. He is not above dirty tricks and smear campaigns to gain an advantage over his opponent.

Bitter Moon (Polanski)

Director: Roman Polanski
Stars: Hugh Grant, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner
Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Country: France | UK

After hearing stories of her, a passenger on a cruise ship develops an irresistible infatuation with an eccentric paraplegic’s wife.

Porco Rosso (Miyazaki)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Stars: Shûichirô Moriyama, Tokiko Katô, Bunshi Katsura Vi
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Country: Japan

In 1930s Italy, a veteran World War I pilot is cursed to look like an anthropomorphic pig.

Birthplace (Lozinski)

Director: Pawel Lozinski
Stars: Henryk Grynberg
Genre: Documentary
Country: Poland

After almost 50 years, Holocaust survivor Henryk Grynberg visits the village he grew up in. He was also hiding there during the Nazi occupation. Grynberg wants to know what happened to his father and younger brother during the war.

Le souper (Molinaro)

Director: Édouard Molinaro
Stars: Michel Piccoli, Claude Brasseur, Claude Rich
Genre: Drama, History
Country: France

France, 1815. After his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon heads for exile. Royalists occupy Paris and attempt to restore the monarchy. However, the battle doesn’t seem to be over. On July 6, Talleyrand, a shrewd politician of flexible convictions, invites chief of police and zealous revolutionary Fouché to supper and tries to convince him to serve the king. Over the meal they insult each other, accuse each other, and, at first sight, look like mortal enemies. But they definitely have one thing in common: they are both power-hungry.

Gô-hime (Teshigahara)

Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Stars: Rie Miyazawa, Tatsuya Nakadai, Toshiya Nagasawa
Genre: Drama, History
Country: Japan

Chronicles the trials and tribulations of Oribe, the successor to tea-master Rikyu, Usu, his gardener, and Princess Goh, who attempt to balance artistic expression and duty amid political intrigue in feudal Japan.

Dragon Inn (Lee, Ching, Hsui)

Director: Raymond Lee, Siu-Tung Ching, Hark Tsui
Stars: Tony Ka Fai Leung, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung
Genre: Action, Thriller
Country: Hong Kong

Set during the Ming Dynasty, this acclaimed production tells the story of a power hungry eunuch who employs an evil sect in his quest to rule China. An extravagant climax features dizzying acrobatics and masterful fight sequences.

Olivier, Olivier (Holland)

Director: Agnieszka Holland
Stars: Brigitte Roüan, François Cluzet, Jean-François Stévenin
Genre: Drama
Country: France

Olivier, the nine-year-old son of Elisabeth and Serge, a country veterinarian, vanishes one afternoon on the way to his grandmother’s house. The emotional aftermath of his disappearance sends his father packing from France to Africa and nearly destroys his mother, who clings to her remaining child, Nadine, and her devoted neighbor, Marcel. Several years later, having relocated to the city, the police investigator who handled the case meets a Paris rent boy whom he believes to be the missing Olivier.

Jar, The (Forouzesh)

Director: Ebrahim Forouzesh
Stars: Behzad Khodaveisi, Fatemeh Azrah, Abbas Khavaninzadeh
Genre: Drama, Family
Country: Iran

In the yard of an Iranian village school stands in the shade of a tree a large stoneware jar from which all the pupils drink fresh water. On an unfortunate day, the jar starts leaking. The schoolmaster tries hard to get a new one but in vain. The only solution is to have it fixed…

Belovy (Kossakovsky)

Director: Viktor Kosakovskiy
Stars: Anna Fyodorovna Belova, Mikhail Fyodorovich Belov, Vasiliy Fyodorovich Belov
Genre: Documentary
Country: Russia

“Belovy (the Belovs)” is a breathtaking portrait of a troubled peasant family. It’s poetry in the form of a documentary that won many prizes. Beautifully shot in vintage black and white, the film tells the story of two times widow Anna Belova who lives together with her brother Mikhail. Blending the two personalities, Kosakovsky characterizes the true Russian soul: she is the rational worker, honest and strong – he is the drunken poet, the idealist, his philosophy fades into radical nonsense time after time.

Cousin Bobby (Demme)

Director: Jonathan Demme
Stars: Robert W. Castle, Jane Castle Moulton, Kate Castle
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: USA | Spain

A documentary about Director Jonathan Demme’s cousin, an Episcopalian minister in Harlem.

Madame de Sade (Bergman)

Director: Ingmar Bergman
Stars: Stina Ekblad, Anita Björk, Marie Richardson
Genre: History
Country: Sweden

Ingmar Bergman’s staging at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm. While the Marquis De Sade is in prison on charges of crimes of gross perversion, his faithful wife Renee awaits him. Despite all the horrors her husband has committed, she believes that his evil is sacred. Her mother however does everything possible to ensure that the Marquis stays in prison.

Udzinarta mze (Babluani)

Director: Temur Babluani
Stars: Elguja Burduli, David Kazishvili, Lia Babluani
Genre: Drama, Crime
Country: Georgia

The Sun of the Sleepless. The film is about a doctor named Gela Bendeliani (Elgudzha Burduli) and his wealthless family in Tbilisi in Soviet Georgia. In the film Gela Bendeliani has an unlimited capacity for generosity and forgiveness.

In the Soup (Rockwell)

Director: Alexandre Rockwell
Stars: Steve Buscemi, Seymour Cassel, Jennifer Beals
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA | France | Germany | Japan | Italy | Spain

New Yorker Adolpho Rollo is your classic head-movie auteur. In his mind, he’s creating deathless classics of the screen. Back in the real world, he can’t pay the rent on the downtown grothole he calls home.

Strange Tale of Oyuki, The (Shindô)

Director: Kaneto Shindô
Stars: Masahiko Tsugawa, Yuki Sumida, Kazuyo Asari
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan

The film tells the story of Japanese writer Kafu Nagai (1879-1959), a man about sixty with a huge reputation of seducer who falls madly in love for a young geisha named Oyuki. Meticulous and smartly dressed, Nagai patiently wrote in his diary his thoughts during many years. A melancholy reflection on the passage of time and a brilliant interpretive exercise.

Chorus, The (Kiarostami)

Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Stars: Yoosef Moghaddam
Genre: Short, Drama
Country: Iran

A deaf old man wearing a hearing aid is walking in the streets of Rasht. When the surroundings get too noisy, he turns off his sound. Unfortunately, when he returns home, he can’t hear his granddaughter ringing the doorbell.

Accompanist, The (Miller)

Director: Claude Miller
Stars: Richard Bohringer, Elena Safonova, Romane Bohringer
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: France

In Nazi-occupied Paris, a young accompanist named Sophie Vasseur gets a job with famed singer Irene Brice. As Irene’s husband Charles, a businessman collaborating with the Nazis, wrestles with his conscience, Sophie becomes obsessed with Irene, taking on the role of maid as well as accompanist, living life vicariously through Irene’s triumphs and affairs.

Life According to Afga (Dayan)

Director: Assi Dayan
Stars: Gila Almagor, Akram Tillawi, Smadar Kilchinsky
Genre: Drama
Country: Israel

The film takes place in Tel Aviv, much of it in a fictitious local pub called Barbie, a satirical nickname for a famous Israeli mental health institution. The pub’s name hints at the characters and the events which occur in the pub and which befall its owner (Daliah), the employees and customers. The plot unfolds with a streak of violence which takes a surprising turn.

Panama Deception, The (Trent)

Director: Barbara Trent
Stars: Elizabeth Montgomery, Carlos Cantú, Diviana Ingravallo
Genre: Documentary, History, War
Country: USA | UK

A film about the true reasons for the 1989 US invasion of Panama and big media complicity in these activities.

Surviving Desire (Hartley)

Director: Hal Hartley
Stars: Martin Donovan, Matt Malloy, Rebecca Nelson
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Jude, a college literature professor, falls for one of his students. She is more interested in the empirical experience of a relationship with a man whose life is ruled by the themes of the Russian Lit. he extolls in class. Jude shows an interesting side of the stigmas associated with transgenerational relationships and how to deal with the inevitable pain of a love doomed to failure.

Stolen Children, The (Amelio)

Director: Gianni Amelio
Stars: Enrico Lo Verso, Valentina Scalici, Giuseppe Ieracitano
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy | France | Switzerland

Antonio, a policeman (carabiniere), has an order to take two children (Rosetta and her brother Luciano) from Milan to Sicily to an orphanage. Their mother has been arrested for forcing Rosetta (11 years old) to work as a prostitute. First the relation between Antonio and the children is tough, but it relaxes so they become temporary friends.

Benny’s Video (Haneke)

Director: Michael Haneke
Stars: Arno Frisch, Angela Winkler, Ulrich Mühe
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Austria | Switzerland

A 14-year-old video enthusiast is so caught up in film fantasy that he can no longer relate to the real world, to such an extent that he commits murder and records an on-camera confession for his parents.

Army of Darkness (Raimi)

Director: Sam Raimi
Stars: Bruce Campbell, Embeth Davidtz, Marcus Gilbert
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
Country: USA

A sardonic hardware store clerk is accidentally transported to 1300 A.D., where he must retrieve the Necronomicon and battle an army of the dead so he can return home.

Sunday’s Children (D. Bergman)

Director: Daniel Bergman
Stars: Henrik Linnros, Thommy Berggren, Lena Endre
Genre: Adventure, Biography, Drama
Country: Sweden | Denmark | Finland | Iceland | Norway | France

The film switches back and forth between the adventures of Pu on a summer holiday in Norrland in Sweden and and the adult Pu visiting his father who lives in an old people’s home. Little Pu spends a summer in Norrland in the 1920s with all his relatives. He and his brother get to hear the story about the watchmaker who hung himself, learns to shoot with a bow and follow his father on a bicycle trip.

Best Intentions, The (August)

Director: Bille August
Stars: Samuel Fröler, Pernilla August, Max von Sydow
Genre: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: Sweden | Denmark | Finland | France | Germany | UK | Italy | Norway | Iceland

In 1909, poor theology student Henrik falls in love with Anna, the intelligent daughter of a rich family in Uppsala. After marrying Henrik becomes a priest in northern Sweden. Urbane Anna hates living in the county, growing restless.

Are We Still Married? (Quay)

Director: Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay
Stars: n/a
Genre: Animation, Short
Country: UK

A tear falls from the eyes of a veiled face. A white ball whips around a heart-shaped paddle. A mournful voice sings, “Are we still married?” A child’s stuffed rabbit watches, sees someone’s legs hanging and shoes jiggling, and sees a girl holding a heart-shaped paddle. A hand seen through a door’s glass knocks incessantly; the lock jiggles, the child holds the heart-shaped object and leans against the wall, sometimes moving up and down on the toes of her shoes. The rabbit watches, plays with the ball, tries to keep the door shut. The child raises her face; we see a woman’s eyes.

I Am My Own Woman (von Praunheim)

Director: Rosa von Praunheim
Stars: Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, Jens Taschner, Ichgola Androgyn
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Drama
Country: Germany

The life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, born Lothar Berflede. Miss Charlotte survived the Nazi reign and the repression of the Communists as a transvestite and helped start the German gay liberation movement. Documentary with some dramatized scenes. Two actors play the young and middle aged Charlotte and she plays herself in the later years.

Dear Emma, Sweet Böbe (Szabó)

Director: István Szabó
Stars: Johanna ter Steege, Enikö Börcsök, Péter Andorai
Genre: Drama
Country: Hungary | Germany

The story shows Emma’s and Böbe’s fight for survival, for keeping their position in society which they achieved with hard work in the previous regime. They don’t want to lose their place and become village girls again.

Place in the World, A (Aristarain)

Director: Adolfo Aristarain
Stars: José Sacristán, Federico Luppi, Leonor Benedetto
Genre: Drama
Country: Argentina | Spain | Uruguay

Mario and Ana, in voluntary exile from Buenos Aires, live in a remote Argentine valley with their 12-year-old son Ernesto. Mario runs a school and a wool cooperative; Ana, a doctor, heads a clinic with Nelda, a progressive nun. Into this idealistic family comes Hans, a jaded Spanish geological engineer — surveying the land for the local patron, to see if it can be dammed for hydro-electric power, which would drive the peasants from the land into the cities.

Being at Home with Claude (Beaudin)

Director: Jean Beaudin
Stars: Roy Dupuis, Jacques Godin, Jean-François Pichette
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Canada

Depicts the crime of one member of a gay male relationship and the desperate struggle for the lead character to make those around him understand the reason for his crime.

Dark Side of the Heart, The (Subiela)

Director: Eliseo Subiela
Stars: Darío Grandinetti, Sandra Ballesteros, Nacha Guevara
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Drama
Country: Argentina | Canada

Oliveiro is a young poet living in Buenos Aires where sometimes he has to sell his ideas to an advertising agency to make a living or exchange his poems for a steak. In Montevideo, he meets a prostitute, Ana, with whom he falls in love. Back in Buenos Aires, he accepts a contract with a publicity agency to get the money for three days of love with her. Will he get what he’s searching for when his ideal of love’s pleasure is literally going in levitation while making love?

For a Lost Soldier (Kerbosch)

Director: Roeland Kerbosch
Stars: Maarten Smit, Andrew Kelley, Jeroen Krabbé
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Netherlands

Set in The Netherlands at the end of WW II, this touching story, told in flashbacks, explores the complex and romantic relationship between an adult soldier and a displaced, lonely adolescent boy.

In the Land of the Deaf (Philibert)

Director: Nicolas Philibert
Stars: Jean-Claude Poulain, Abou Bakar, Anh Tuan
Genre: Documentary
Country: France | Italy | UK | Switzerland

With unerring curiousity and sensitivity, director Philbert portrays the difficulties and joys of being deaf, offering vivid portraits of people of all ages coping with and surmounting their challenges.

1991: The Year Punk Broke (Markey)

Director: David Markey
Stars: Sonic Youth, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo
Genre: Documentary, History, Music
Country: USA

David Markey’s documentary of life on the road with Sonic Youth and Nirvana during their tour of Europe in late 1991. Also featuring live performances by Dinosaur Jr, Babes In Toyland, The Ramones and Gumball.

Lessons of Darkness (Herzog)

Director: Werner Herzog
Stars: Werner Herzog
Genre: Documentary, War
Country: France | UK | Germany

This film shows the disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames, with few interviews and no explanatory narration. Hell itself is presented in such beautiful sights and music that one has to be fascinated by it.

Occult History of the Third Reich, The (Atkinson, Baran, Flitton)

Director: Tracy Atkinson, Joan Baran, Dave Flitton
Stars: Patrick Allen, Madjid Blavatsky, Rudolf Gorsleben
Genre: Documentary, History
Country: USA

Four volume documentary set (“Adolf Hitler”, “The SS Blood and Soil”, “The Enigma of the Swastika”, and “Himmler The Mystic”) containing mainly B&W as well as some color archival footage, with narration explaining the influences of alternative belief systems (occult, paganism, mysticism, etc) on the Nazi ideology and Hitler’s personal philosophy. Also documents the history and development of the ideas and symbols that would be used along with eugenicist racial politics to perpetrate the murder and oppression of millions during World War II.

Dream of a Ridiculous Man, The (Petrov)

Director: Aleksandr Petrov
Stars: Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy
Genre: Animation, Short, Drama
Country: Russia

Dostoevsky’s “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” tells the story of a desperate man disenchanted with the world and at the verge of committing suicide. But when a little girl comes his way asking for help, he changes his mind. Back at his home, he falls asleep and dreams about strange revealing things that somehow put everything into a new perspective. And then comes the questioning: the visions were just another dream or something real?

Last Days of Chez Nous, The (Armstrong)

Director: Gillian Armstrong
Stars: Lisa Harrow, Bruno Ganz, Kerry Fox
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Australia

Vicki returns to her elder sister Beth’s house in Australia after an affair in Italy. Beth, with a teenage daughter, has become involved in something of a marriage of convenience with Frenchman J.P., and her rather prickly houseproud ways are causing frictions counterpointed by Vicki’s more laid-back and indolent air. When Beth goes off on vacation to the outback alone with her cantankerous father to see if they can finally get to know each other, relationships in the household start to shift.

Once Upon a Time in China II (Hark)

Director: Hark Tsui
Stars: Jet Li, Rosamund Kwan, Siu Chung Mok
Genre: Action, Adventure, Biography
Country: Hong Kong

In the sequel to the Tsui Hark classic, Wong Fei-Hung faces The White Lotus society, a fanatical cult seeking to drive the Europeans out of China through violence, even attacking Chinese who follow Western ways. Wong must also defend Dr. Sun Yat Sen, a revolutionary, from the military. With his friends, loved ones, and the future of China itself at stake, Wong must once again use his martial arts skills to defend the innocent.

Map of the Human Heart (Ward)

Director: Vincent Ward
Stars: Jason Scott Lee, Anne Parillaud, Patrick Bergin
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Romance
Country: Australia | UK | Canada | France

Arctic, 1965: Avik tells his story starting 1931. A mapmaker flies Avik, then a preteen Eskimo boy with TB, to a hospital in Montreal, where he meets Albertine. They meet again when Avik joins WWII in UK.

Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives (Fernie, Weissman)

Director: Lynne Fernie, Aerlyn Weissman
Stars: Keely Moll, Stephanie Ozard, Ann Bannon
Genre: Documentary
Country: Canada

Ten women, most of them in Vancouver or Toronto, talk about being lesbian in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s: discovering the pulp fiction of the day about women in love, their own first affairs, the pain of breaking up, frequenting gay bars, facing police raids, men’s responses, and the etiquette of butch and femme roles. Interspersed among the interviews and archival footage are four dramatized chapters from a pulp novel, “Forbidden Love”: Laura leaves her hick town and heads for the city, where she meets Mitch in a bar. Sparks fly, and so do laughter and joy. Ann Bannon, one of the writers of those paperback novels about forbidden love, talks about the genre.

Northerners, The (van Warmerdam)

Director: Alex van Warmerdam
Stars: Jack Wouterse, Annet Malherbe, Rudolf Lucieer
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Netherlands

During the summer of 1960, the idiosyncratic residents of a one-street Dutch suburb collide in intertwining stories of desire and frustration.

Visions of Light (Glassman, McCarthy, Samuels)

Director: Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy, Stuart Samuels
Stars: Conrad L. Hall, John Bailey, Vilmos Zsigmond
Genre: Documentary, History
Country: Japan | USA

Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the “DP” (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.

Riff-Raff (Loach)

Director: Ken Loach
Stars: Robert Carlyle, Emer McCourt, Jim R. Coleman
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK

The story of Stevie, a construction worker, and his girlfriend, an unemployed pop singer, serves to show the living conditions of the British poor class.

Jungle Fever (Lee)

Director: Spike Lee
Stars: Wesley Snipes, Annabella Sciorra, Spike Lee
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Friends and family of a married black architect react in different ways to his affair with an Italian secretary.

Dogfight (Savoca)

Director: Nancy Savoca
Stars: River Phoenix, Lili Taylor, Richard Panebianco
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Before leaving to fight in Vietnam, a group of teenagers play a game where they try to seduce the ugliest girl they can find.

Europa (von Trier)

Director: Lars von Trier
Stars: Barbara Sukowa, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: Denmark | Sweden | France | Germany | Switzerland | Poland

Just after W.W.II, an American takes a railway job in Germany, but finds his position politically sensitive with various people trying to use him.

Yumeji (Suzuki)

Director: Seijun Suzuki
Stars: Kenji Sawada, Tomoko Mariya, Masumi Miyazaki
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan

Painter and poet Yumeji Takehisa (1884-1934) gets involved with a beautiful widow, becoming a rival of her dead husband’s ghost and the jealous lover who murdered him.

Proof (Moorhouse)

Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse
Stars: Hugo Weaving, Geneviève Picot, Russell Crowe
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Australia

The life of a blind photographer who is looked after by a housekeeper is disrupted by the arrival of an agreeable restaurant worker.

Miracle, The (Jordan)

Director: Neil Jordan
Stars: Beverly D’Angelo, Donal McCann, Niall Byrne
Genre: Drama
Country: UK | Ireland

The two teenagers Jimmy and Rose spend their vacation at the small Irish sea-resort Bray. Out of boredom they observe other people and imagine wild stories about them. One day they observe the blonde Renee, and Jimmy is immediately fascinated by her and even follows her home. She, too, seems to like him, but for a mysterious reason keeps him at a distance.

Oxen (Nykvist)

Director: Sven Nykvist
Stars: Stellan Skarsgård, Ewa Fröling, Erland Josephson
Genre: Drama
Country: Sweden | Norway | Denmark

Swedish pauper’s family is starving. In desperation, he steals his lord’s ox. He hopes that the crime will not be revealed, but it happens.

City of Hope (Sayles)

Director: John Sayles
Stars: Vincent Spano, Tony Lo Bianco, Stephen Mendillo
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: USA

City of Hope is a portrait of a typical middle-sized American city of the present day. The crux of the story is an old apartment block which stands in the way of a major commercial development.

Impromptu (Lapine)

Director: James Lapine
Stars: Judy Davis, Hugh Grant, Mandy Patinkin
Genre: Biography, Comedy, Music
Country: UK | France

In 1830s France, pianist/composer Frédéric Chopin is pursued romantically by the determined, individualistic woman who uses the name George Sand.

Danzón (Novaro)

Director: María Novaro
Stars: María Rojo, Carmen Salinas, Tito Vasconcelos
Genre: Drama
Country: Mexico | Spain

Set in ’50s Spain, a young man (Sanz) leaves the army and looks for a job so he and his fiancée (Verdu) can get married. He rents a room from a widow (Abril), and shortly begins a torrid affair with her. The fiancée figures it out and decides to win him back by offering herself to him and taking him to meet her family. Ultimately he has to make a decision. Based on a true story.

Lovers: A True Story (Aranda)

Director: Vicente Aranda
Stars: Victoria Abril, Jorge Sanz, Maribel Verdú
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Spain

Set in ’50s Spain, a young man (Sanz) leaves the army and looks for a job so he and his fiancée (Verdu) can get married. He rents a room from a widow (Abril), and shortly begins a torrid affair with her. The fiancée figures it out and decides to win him back by offering herself to him and taking him to meet her family. Ultimately he has to make a decision. Based on a true story.

Stranger, The (S. Ray)

Director: Satyajit Ray
Stars: Utpal Dutt, Dipankar Dey, Mamata Shankar
Genre: Drama
Country: India | France

A well-off family is paid an unexpected, and rather unwanted, visit by a man claiming to be the woman’s long-lost uncle. The initial suspicion with which they greet the man slowly dissolves as he regales them with stories of his travels, tales that are at odds with their conventional middle-class perspective on the world.

Black Robe (Beresford)

Director: Bruce Beresford
Stars: Lothaire Bluteau, Aden Young, Sandrine Holt
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: Canada | Australia

In the 17th century, a Jesuit missionary nicknamed Black Robe by the natives and his small party of companions try reaching the Huron tribe in Canada all while facing mistrust, Iroquois warring parties and harsh winter conditions.

Salmonberries (Adlon)

Director: Percy Adlon
Stars: Rosel Zech, k.d. lang, Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley
Genre: Drama
Country: Germany

A woman who grew up in a small town in Alaska goes to the public library to try and find out who her parents were. She was brought to town as a baby in a cardboard box with “Kotzebue” on it, which is the name of the town and also the name of the family that founded the town. She eventually befriends the librarian, an East German immigrant who lost her husband while escaping from behind the Iron Curtain. They help each other try to find closure to the events in their past.

High Heels (Almodovar)

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Stars: Victoria Abril, Marisa Paredes, Miguel Bosé
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Spain | France

A girl’s mother returns after 15 years to find her daughter has married one of her (the mother’s) old boyfriends. They try to mend their broken mother/daughter relationship and deal with their common lover.

Fisher King, The (Gilliam)

Director: Terry Gilliam
Stars: Jeff Bridges, Robin Williams, Adam Bryant
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA

A former radio DJ, suicidally despondent because of a terrible mistake he made, finds redemption in helping a deranged homeless man who was an unwitting victim of that mistake.

Comb, The (Quay)

Director: Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay
Stars: Joy Constaninides, Witold Schejbal
Genre: Short, Animation
Country: UK | France

A porcelain doll and a sleeping woman. How will they interact through her dreams?

Lyubov (Todorovsky)

Director: Valeriy Todorovskiy
Stars: Evgeniy Mironov, Natalya Petrova, Dmitriy Maryanov
Genre: Romance
Country: Soviet Union

Two Moscow students are mostly concerned with scoring with women but their lives change radically when one of them falls for a Jewish girl whose family is being persecuted by anonymous anti-Semites and is preparing to emigrate to Israel.

Close to Eden (Mikhalkov)

Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Stars: Badema, Bayaertu, Vladimir Gostyukhin
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Soviet Union

A curious friendship develops between Gombo, a young Mongolian shepherd living with his wife and family in a hut, deep in the wilderness of the steppes, and Sergei, a Russian worker whose truck breaks down not far from Gombo’s hut.

Enchanted April (Newell)

Director: Mike Newell
Stars: Alfred Molina, Joan Plowright, Miranda Richardson
Genre: Drama
Country: UK

Four English women, after World War I, who are unhappy with their lives, and their time away on vacation in a beautiful Italian villa.

Jacquot de Nantes (Varda)

Director: Agnès Varda
Stars: Philippe Maron, Edouard Joubeaud, Laurent Monnier
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: France

Jacquot Demy is a little boy at the end of the thirties. His father owns a garage and his mother is a hairdresser. The whole family lives happily and likes to sing and to go to the movies. Jacquot is fascinated by every kind of show (theatre, cinema, puppets). He buys a camera to shoot his first amateur film… An evocation of French cineast Jacques Demy’s childhood and vocation for the cinema and the musicals.

Only Yesterday (Takahata)

Director: Isao Takahata
Stars: Miki Imai, Toshirô Yanagiba, Yoko Honna
Genre: Animation, Drama, Romance
Country: Japan

A twenty-seven-year-old office worker travels to the countryside while reminiscing about her childhood in Tokyo.

Mediterraneo (Salvatores)

Director: Gabriele Salvatores
Stars: Diego Abatantuono, Claudio Bigagli, Giuseppe Cederna
Genre: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: Italy

In WW2, an Italian Army unit of misfits occupies an isolated non-strategic Greek island for the duration of the war.

Sólo con Tu Pareja (Cuaron)

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Stars: Marie-Laure Dougnac, Dominique Pinon, Pascal Benezech
Genre: Comedy, Crime
Country: France

Post-apocalyptic surrealist black comedy about the landlord of an apartment building who occasionally prepares a delicacy for his odd tenants.

Delicatessen (Caro, Jeunet)

Director: Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Stars: Marie-Laure Dougnac, Dominique Pinon, Pascal Benezech
Genre: Comedy, Crime
Country: France

Post-apocalyptic surrealist black comedy about the landlord of an apartment building who occasionally prepares a delicacy for his odd tenants.

12:01 PM (Heap)

Director: Jonathan Heap
Stars: Jane Alden, Don Amendolia, John Bachelder
Genre: Short, Sci-Fi
Country: USA

A man is stuck living his life in the same 59 minute time frame. He tries various methods of finding out why, eventually consulting a physicist.

Woman’s Tale, A (Cox)

Director: Paul Cox
Stars: Sheila Florance, Gosia Dobrowolska, Norman Kaye
Genre: Drama
Country: Australia

Uplifting and intimate look at the last days of an elderly cancer victim. The film is even more relevant as it was written specifically for the lead actress, Sheila Florance, who was in fact dying of cancer as she created what is essentially a self-portrait.

Kayoko’s Diary (Arihara)

Director: Seiji Arihara
Stars: Masako Ikeda, Katsue Miwa, Masako Nozawa
Genre: Animation, Drama, War
Country: Japan

Kayoko is a young girl in 1940, just starting first grade. She’s a bit of a crybaby, which is no secret to those around her. She loves playing with friends and singing cute schoolyard chants, and occasionally having fun with her three older brothers. Her mother is pregnant, and so she looks forward to being a big sister, only partially understanding the responsibility that might bring. Meanwhile, the war effort is growing, and it’s only the natural thing to do to be patriotic and support the country…

Paris Awakens (Assayas)

Director: Olivier Assayas
Stars: Judith Godrèche, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Thomas Langmann
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Italy

Adrien is 19 years old. He has not met his father, Clément for 4 years. Adrien returns home and the two try to better understand each other. Clément lives together with Louis, a twenty-something girl who wants to be an actress. The boy starts a flirt with Louise which pushes the father-son relationship back to a crisis…

J’entends plus la guitare (Garrel)

Director: Philippe Garrel
Stars: Benoît Régent, Johanna ter Steege, Yann Collette
Genre: Drama
Country: France

For those who were young, living under the delusions of love and soft drugs in Paris, May 1968 – even if the guitar is still playing, they can’t hear it any longer.

Toto the Hero (Van Dormael)

Director: Jaco Van Dormael
Stars: Michel Bouquet, Mireille Perrier, Jo De Backer
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Belgium | France | Germany

Thomas and Alfred were born around the same time; a fire in the nursery had nurses scrambling to save the newborns. Because he felt that he deserved Alfred’s good fortune at being born into a wealthy family, Thomas conceives the idea that he and Alfred were switched at birth, and he can’t help seeing that his unhappiness should be Alfred’s, from the loss of his sister to his inability to have a relationship with the woman Evelyne. So, as his life is ending, he formulates a plan of revenge against his bitter enemy, his lifetime adversary, the man who stole his existence.

Madame Bovary (Chabrol)

Director: Claude Chabrol
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Jean-François Balmer, Christophe Malavoy
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: USA | Germany

In nineteenth-century France, the romantic daughter of a country squire marries a dull country doctor. To escape boredom, she throws herself into love affairs with a suave local landowner and a law student, and runs up ruinous debts.

Daughters of the Dust (Dash)

Director: Julie Dash
Stars: Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbarao
Genre: Drama, History, Romance
Country: USA | Germany

Languid look at the Gullah culture of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia where African folk-ways were maintained well into the 20th Century and was one of the last bastions of these mores in America. Set in 1902.

Night and Day (Akerman)

Director: Chantal Akerman
Stars: Guilaine Londez, Thomas Langmann, François Négret
Genre: Drama
Country: Belgium | France | Switzerland

Jack and Julie live in a bare flat in Paris. At night, Jack drives a taxi while Julie wanders around the city, and in the day they make love. One day Julie meets Joseph, the daytime driver of the taxi, and soon Julie is spending her nights with Joseph and her days with Jack.

Assassin of the Tsar (Shakhnazarov)

Director: Karen Shakhnazarov
Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Oleg Yankovskiy, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan
Genre: Drama, History
Country: Soviet Union | UK

A patient in a modern day mental institution believes that he is the man who assassinated Tsar Alexander in 1881 and Tsar Nicolas II in 1918. He and his doctor soon slip out of reality and are forced to relive the events of 1918 in order to break the spell.

One Against the Wind (Elikann)

Director: Larry Elikann
Stars: Judy Davis, Sam Neill, Anthony Higgins
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Luxembourg | USA

Mary Lindell works for the French Red Cross in Occupied France during World War II and helps allied soldiers who have been shot down to escape to the unoccupied side. Her activities are complicated by her high profile and her daughter’s love affair with a German officer. Based on the true story.

Until the End of the World (Wenders)

Director: Wim Wenders
Stars: William Hurt, Solveig Dommartin, Pietro Falcone
Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Germany | France | Australia

In 1999, Claire’s life is forever changed after she survives a car crash. She rescues Sam and starts traveling around the world with him. Writer Eugene follows them and writes their story, as a way of recording dreams is being invented.

Boyz n the Hood (Singleton)

Director: John Singleton
Stars: Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishburne, Hudhail Al-Amir
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: USA

Follows the lives of three young males living in the Crenshaw ghetto of Los Angeles, dissecting questions of race, relationships, violence, and future prospects.

Death of Stalinism in Bohemia, The (Svankmajer)

Director: Jan Svankmajer
Stars: n/a
Genre: Animation, Short
Country: UK

A bust of Stalin is cut open on an operating table, leading to an elaborate animated depiction of Czech history from 1948 (the Communist takeover) to 1989 (the Velvet Revolution). Some knowledge of the subject is essential in order to understand the film, which is entirely visual.

Zombie and the Ghost Train (M. Kaurismäki)

Director: Mika Kaurismäki
Stars: Silu Seppälä, Marjo Leinonen, Matti Pellonpää
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: Finland

Antti “Zombie” Autiomaa does two things well: play the bass guitar and drink. After several months’ sleeping on the streets of Istanbul, he returns to Helsinki where he’s called into the army but discharged on mental health grounds after adding turpentine to the officers’ soup. Zombie lives bleary-eyed in an apartment off his parents’ house where his lonely, unemployed father suffers from heart disease. His girl-friend Marjo has taken up with a hairdresser but comes back to Zombie. His friend Harri hires him as a roadie for his band “Harry and the Mulefukkers” then gives him a chance as a bass player. He has his girl and he has a gig, but can Zombie put the bottle down?

Germany Year 90 Nine Zero (Godard)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Stars: Eddie Constantine, Hanns Zischler, Claudia Michelsen
Genre: Drama
Country: France

Characterized by deconstructivism and philosophical references and by briefly exposing the good, bad, and ugly periods of the country’s history, this post-modern film portrays the abstract need for guidance of Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Black Velvet Gown, The (Stone)

Director: Norman Stone
Stars: Bob Peck, Janet McTeer, Geraldine Somerville
Genre: Drama
Country: UK

In the 1830’s in northern England, Riah Millican, a widow with three children, takes a job as housekeeper to a reclusive former teacher, Percival Miller. Miller makes Riah the gift of a black velvet gown, and even educates her children. But when Riah discovers the reason behind Miller’s gifts, she vows to leave his house, but Miller has a hold on her, even after his death, when he leaves his house to her on the condition that she never marry. Riah’s daughter, Biddy, grows up and becomes a laundress in a large house where her education keeps her from fitting in and makes her a target. But it also catches the eye of a son of the house, and with Miller’s legacies, Biddy may yet find her way to happiness.

Tous les matins du monde (Corneau)

Director: Alain Corneau
Stars: Gérard Depardieu, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Anne Brochet
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: France

The story of Monsieur de Sainte Colombe, fierce and somber man, grand master of the viola da gamba and professor of Marin Marais, prestigious musician in the court of Louis XIV.

Once Upon a Time in China (Hark)

Director: Hark Tsui
Stars: Jet Li, Rosamund Kwan, Biao Yuen
Genre: Action, Adventure, History
Country: Hong Kong

Late 1800s Foshan, Guangdong: Wong Fei Hung/Jet Li trains men in martial arts to help defend against foreign powers already holding Hong Kong and Macau. He looks after cute 13th Aunt, who’s just returned from England. Lots of fight scenes.

Q & A (Lumet)

Director: Sidney Lumet
Stars: Nick Nolte, Timothy Hutton, Armand Assante
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA | UK

When dirty cop Mike shoots a man and plants a gun on him, rookie assistant DA Al gets the case. Something in the Q&A of Mike isn’t right. Bodies pile up as Al tries to solve the case.

Trust (Hartley)

Director: Hal Hartley
Stars: Adrienne Shelly, Martin Donovan, Rebecca Nelson
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK | USA

After being thrown out of her house, Maria encounters a married woman who complains of not having children. Maria ends up in an abandoned house, where she meets Matthew. When a baby is kidnapped Maria sets out to find the woman.

Avalon (Levinson)

Director: Barry Levinson
Stars: Aidan Quinn, Elizabeth Perkins, Leo Fuchs
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

A Polish-Jewish family comes to the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century. There, the family and their children try to make themselves a better future in the so-called promised land.

May Fools (Malle)

Director: Louis Malle
Stars: Miou-Miou, Michel Piccoli, Michel Duchaussoy
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Country: France | Italy

During the events of May 1968 in France, different worldviews of conflicting relatives are collide in their family estate.

Hamoun (Mehrjui)

Director: Dariush Mehrjui
Stars: Pantea Bahram, Ezzatolah Entezami, Bita Farahi
Genre: Drama
Country: Iran

Hamoon’s wife is leaving him. He is also unsuccessfully trying to finish his Ph.D. thesis. He is forced to reexamine his life. In a series of flashbacks and dreams, Hamoon tries to figure out what he did wrong.

Korczak (Wajda)

Director: Andrzej Wajda
Stars: Wojciech Pszoniak, Ewa Dalkowska, Teresa Budzisz-Krzyzanowska
Genre: Biography, Drama, War
Country: Poland | Germany | UK

Account of the last days of life of the legendary Polish pedagogue Janusz Korczak and his heroic dedication to protecting Jewish orphans during the war.

Taxi Blues (Lungin)

Director: Pavel Lungin
Stars: Pyotr Mamonov, Pyotr Zaychenko, Vladimir Kashpur
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Soviet Union | France

A comedic love/hate relationship develops between a dour taxi driver and a hapless aspiring musician after the latter stiffs his cab fare.

Witches, The (Roeg)

Director: Nicolas Roeg
Stars: Anjelica Huston, Mai Zetterling, Jasen Fisher
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Family
Country: UK | USA

A young boy stumbles onto a witch convention and must stop them, even after he has been turned into a mouse.

Mother (Hatami)

Director: Ali Hatami
Stars: Rogheyeh Chehreh-Azad, Mohamad Ali Keshavarz, Farimah Farjami
Genre: Drama
Country: Iran

How a mother acts in the hardest parts of her, and her children’s lives.

Night Sun (Taviani)

Director: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani
Stars: Julian Sands, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Massimo Bonetti
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy | France | Germany

Young nobleman Baron Sergio Giuramondo, after discovering that his bride-to-be was the king’s mistress, leaves Naples in disgust to become a monk. But his quest for perfect solitude is constantly interrupted by visitors hearing rumours that Sergio possesses miraculous powers, and by women who bet each other that they can successfully seduce him…

Field, The (Sheridan)

Director: Jim Sheridan
Stars: Richard Harris, John Hurt, Sean Bean
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: Ireland

When a field (which has been farmed by the McCabe family for generations) goes up for auction, the patriarch of the McCabe family will stop at nothing to prevent a rich American from buying it.

Law, The (Ouedraogo)

Director: Idrissa Ouedraogo
Stars: Rasmané Ouédraogo, Ina Cissé, Roukietou Barry
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Switzerland | UK | France | Burkina Faso | Germany

Set in a pre-colonial African past, Tilai is about an illicit love affair and its consequences. Saga returns to his village after an extended absence to discover that his father has taken Nogma, Saga’s promised bride, for himself. Still in love with each other, the two begin an affair, although it would be considered incestuous. When the liaison is discovered, Saga’s brother, Koudri, pretends to kill Saga for the honor of the family and village. Saga and Nogma flee to another village, but when Nogma’s birth mother dies, he returns home. Having brought ruin on the family, Saga is shot by Koudri, who walks off into exile and probable death.

¡Ay, Carmela! (Saura)

Director: Carlos Saura
Stars: Carmen Maura, Andrés Pajares, Gabino Diego
Genre: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: Spain | Italy

During the Spanish Civil War, a group of comics lightens the days of the Republican troops. Tired of life in the front lines, they make their way to Valencia, accidentally entering enemy land and falling prisoner.

Ju Dou (Zhang, Yang)

Director: Yimou Zhang, Fengliang Yang
Stars: Li Gong, Wei Li, Baotian Li
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: China | Japan

A woman married to the brutal and infertile owner of a dye mill in rural China conceives a boy with her husband’s nephew but is forced to raise her son as her husband’s heir without revealing his parentage in this circular tragedy.

La discrète (Vincent)

Director: Christian Vincent
Stars: Fabrice Luchini, Judith Henry, Maurice Garrel
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

There is an author who has been dumped by his girlfriend and has no inspiration for a next novel. In an attempt to find a solution to both crises, he, along with his publisher friend, decides to seduce a young woman with the singular purpose of keeping a diary of the seduction and then dump her before publishing the book about it. Unfortunately he falls in love with her.

Larks on a String (Menzel)

Director: Jirí Menzel
Stars: Rudolf Hrusínský, Vlastimil Brodský, Václav Neckár
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Czechoslovakia

Set in the late 1940s, the film concerns the treatment of suspect “bourgeois elements”, a professor, a saxophonist, and a milkman, who are put to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation.

Juniper Tree (Keene)

Director: Nietzchka Keene
Stars: Björk, Bryndis Petra Bragadóttir, Valdimar Örn Flygenring
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Iceland

Margit and her older sister, Katla, flee their homeland after their mother is killed for practicing witchcraft. Needing a place to stay, Katla casts a spell over a young farmer named Jóhann which makes him fall in love with her.

Hidden Agenda (Loach)

Director: Ken Loach
Stars: Frances McDormand, Brian Cox, Brad Dourif
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK

When an American human rights lawyer is assassinated in Belfast, it remains for the man’s girlfriend, as well as a tough, no nonsense, police detective to find the truth.

Station, The (Rubini)

Director: Sergio Rubini
Stars: Sergio Rubini, Margherita Buy, Ennio Fantastichini
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy

It starts as a studio theatre: a good-natured, bit pedantic stationmaster performs his job at a railway station in the middle of nowhere. Eventually a beautiful, obviously very rich young woman enters the station and wants to buy a ticket. She has to wait, they start talking, get closer – high-society meets petty bourgeois. Then suddenly the mood turns around: the woman’s fiance appears and tries to prevent the girl from leaving with increasing violence. The stationmaster interferes and the film becomes a thriller about a fight to the death.

Sink or Swim (Friedrich)

Director: Su Friedrich
Stars: Jessica Meyerson
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Through a series of twenty six short stories, a girl describes the childhood events that shaped her ideas about fatherhood, family relations, work and play. As the stories unfold, a dual portrait emerges: that of a father who cared more for his career than for his family, and of a daughter who was deeply affected by his behavior. Working in counterpoint to the forceful text are sensual black and white images that depict both the extraordinary and ordinary events of daily life. Together, they create a formally complex and emotionally intense film.

Tatie Danielle (Chatiliez)

Director: Étienne Chatiliez
Stars: Tsilla Chelton, Catherine Jacob, Isabelle Nanty
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: France

Auntie Danielle, supposedly in ailing health but in reality just a nasty old bitch, lives with a paid housekeeper who she regularly abuses. When the housekeeper dies falling off a ladder, Danielle moves in with her great-nephew and his family. She continues using her nastiness to manipulate everyone into doing things her way until the family goes on vacation to Greece. The young housekeeper they hire to watch after her knows what Auntie is doing, and deals with her accordingly, and they begin forming respect for each other.

Paris Is Burning (Livingston)

Director: Jennie Livingston
Stars: Brooke Xtravaganza, André Christian, Dorian Corey
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

A chronicle of New York’s drag scene in the 1980s, focusing on balls, voguing and the ambitions and dreams of those who gave the era its warmth and vitality.

Little Gangster, The (Doillon)

Director: Jacques Doillon
Stars: Richard Anconina, Gérald Thomassin, Clotilde Courau
Genre: Drama
Country: France

Marc and Nathalie are brother and sister living separately since their parents’ separation. Marc decides to visit Nathalie but in order to finance his trip he robs a shop bringing him to the attention of the police.

After Dark, My Sweet (Foley)

Director: James Foley
Stars: Jason Patric, Rachel Ward, Bruce Dern
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: USA

An ex-boxer is drifting around after escaping from the mental hospital. He meets a widow who convinces him to help fix up the neglected estate her ex-husband left. Her Uncle talks them both into helping kidnap a rich boy for ransom money, and the ex-fighter must make decisions about his loyalties and what is right.

Louvre City (Phillibert)

Director: Nicolas Philibert
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: France

A voyage into the museum’s reserves, and part of the extra work involved to mount the expositions after the renovation of the Louvre in the 1980s, when the glass pyramid was added to the classic buildings. From the preservation rooms through the frame and painting retouches by experts, to the personnel instruction on how to be efficient in protecting the collections, and look nice to the visitors.

My Private War (Edere, Kufus)

Director: Harriet Eder, Thomas Kufus
Stars: Erich von Manstein
Genre: Documentary, War
Country: Germany

Late in the 1980s, two documentary film makers found six German men, all in their 60s and 70s, who had been soldiers in the German invasion of the USSR in 1942. Each carried an 8mm camera into battle and they still had their film. “Mein Kreig” alternates between interviews with these older men, now apologetic, philosophical, or defiant about their participation, and the footage they shot. It’s chronological: basic training, the train trip East, roof-top vistas of war-torn Warsaw, peasants in Belarus, the downing with carbine volleys of a Russian plane, winter, a holiday at the Black Sea, mud, impassable roads, death, destruction and retreat. “Home, that was the front,” one says.

Daddy Nostalgia (Tavernier)

Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Stars: Dirk Bogarde, Jane Birkin, Odette Laure
Genre: Drama
Country: France

The setting is the Riviera in autumn. A retired English businessman (Sir Dirk Bogarde) has just been through heart surgery, but it has, apparently, done little to relieve his constant pain or improve his long-term survival prospects. During his recuperation, Caroline (Jane Birkin), his adult daughter, comes from Paris to be with him and her mother, Miche (Odette Laure), and she and her father begin to communicate as adults for the first time.

I, the Worst of All (Bemberg)

Director: María Luisa Bemberg
Stars: Assumpta Serna, Dominique Sanda, Héctor Alterio
Genre: Drama
Country: Argentina

A viceroy and an archbishop take their posts in Mexico. A local nun, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695), intrigues them. The viceroy and his wife find her brilliant and fascinating. The prelate finds her a symbol of European laxity. He engineers the election of a new abbess, severe and ascetic. The virreina visits Sor Juana often and inspires her to write passionate poetry that the archbishop finds scandalous. The viceroy protects her. After he is replaced and returns to Spain with his wife, Sor Juana faces envy and retribution. A bishop betrays her, her confessor humbles her. Plague, a tribunal, and her confession as “the worst of all” end the great poet’s life.

My Mother’s Castle (Robert)

Director: Yves Robert
Stars: Julien Ciamaca, Philippe Caubère, Nathalie Roussel
Genre: Adventure, Biography, Comedy
Country: France

Every holiday Marcel and his family go to their cottage in the Provence (France). He likes the hills in this region. Before they arrive at the cottage they have to walk about 5 miles. With the co-operation of an ex-pupil of Marcel’s father, who’s a teacher, they only have to walk 1 mile, since they can take a shortcut along a canal, through the backyards of some eccentric people. During one of these holidays he meets Isabelle, a pretty but conceited girl…

Long Walk Home, The (Pearce)

Director: Richard Pearce
Stars: Sissy Spacek, Whoopi Goldberg, Dwight Schultz
Genre: Drama, History
Country: USA

Two women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott lead by Martin Luther King.

Sheltering Sky, The (Bertolucci)

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Stars: Debra Winger, John Malkovich, Campbell Scott
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Country: UK | Italy

An American couple travel abroad to revitalize their relationship. But as the trip drags on, their attempt at recovering what they once had seems futile.

I Hired a Contract Killer (Kaurismäki)

Director: Aki Kaurismäki
Stars: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Margi Clarke, Kenneth Colley
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Finland | Sweden | Germany | France | UK

After fifteen years’ service, Henri Boulanger is made redundant from his job. Shocked, he attempts suicide, but can’t go through with it, so he hires a contract killer in a seedy bar to murder him at some unspecified time in the future. But almost immediately he meets and falls in love with Margaret, a flower-seller, which makes Henri realise that his life has some meaning after all. But when he goes back to the bar to cancel the contract, he finds it has been demolished – and there’s no way he can get in touch with the killer…

Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (Workman)

Director: Chuck Workman
Stars: John Warhola, Viva, Dennis Hopper
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: USA

A look at the life, work, and impact of Andy Warhol (1928-1987), pop icon and artist, from his childhood in Pittsburgh to his death after a botched surgery. Warhol coined the word “superstar,” became one, and changed the way the culture looks at and understands celebrity. After studying at Carnegie Tech, he goes to New York to be a commercial artist. By 1960, Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Rosenquist are inventing pop art. Warhol starts “The Factory,” his workshop where he paints and makes movies. His is a cafe society of late nights and parties. His family, friends, an agent, a curator, gallery owners, actors, the co-founder of “Interview,” and others tell stories and assess his art.

Freeze Die Come to Life (Kanevsky)

Director: Vitali Kanevsky
Stars: Dinara Drukarova, Pavel Nazarov, Elena Popova
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union

Two children living in a remote mining town in the distant wastes of Siberia in 1947, survive poverty and hardship through the warmth of their friendship and a shared sense of humour.

American Dream (Kopple and others)

Director: Barbara Kopple, Cathy Caplan, Thomas Haneke, Lawrence Silk
Stars: Jesse Jackson, Juan Munoz, Ray Rogers
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA | UK

Chronicles the six-month strike at Hormel in Austin, Minnesota, in 1985-86. The local union, P-9 of the Food and Commercial Workers, overwhelmingly rejects a contract offer with a $2/hour wage cut. They strike and hire a New York consultant to manage a national media campaign against Hormel. Despite support from P-9’s rank and file, FCWU’s international disagrees with the strategy. In addition to union-company tension, there’s union-union in-fighting. Hormel holds firm; scabs, replacement workers, brothers on opposite sides, a union coup d’état, and a new contract materialize. The film asks, was it worth it, or was the strike a long-term disaster for organized labor?

Come See the Paradise (Parker)

Director: Alan Parker
Stars: Dennis Quaid, Tamlyn Tomita, Sab Shimono
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA

The passionate romance between an Irish-American man and a Japanese-American woman is threatened when the Pearl Harbor attacks happen and the woman is forced into a prison camp because of her ethnicity.

Shock to the System, A (Egleston)

Director: Jan Egleson
Stars: Michael Caine, Elizabeth McGovern, Peter Riegert
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Thriller
Country: USA

When you think you’re at the top of the corporate ladder and then discover they have managed to pull that ladder away, sometimes you have to take it upon yourself to “level” the playing field, both professionally and personally. Sir Michael Caine delivers an electrifying performance as Graham Marshall, who quickly catches onto the possibilities as he clears all the hurdles to occupy the corner office.

Mountains of the Moon (Rafelson)

Director: Bob Rafelson
Stars: Patrick Bergin, Iain Glen, Richard E. Grant
Genre: Adventure, Drama, History
Country: USA

The legendary true-story of Capt. Richard Francis Burton and Lt. John Hanning Speke’s tumultuous expedition to find the source of the Nile river.

Cyrano de Bergerac (Rappeneau)

Director: Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Stars: Gérard Depardieu, Anne Brochet, Vincent Perez
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Country: France

Famed swordsman and poet Cyrano de Bergerac is in love with his cousin Roxane. He has never expressed his love for her as he his large nose undermines his self-confidence. Then he finds a way to express his love to her, indirectly.

Europa Europa (Holland)

Director: Agnieszka Holland
Stars: Solomon Perel, Marco Hofschneider, René Hofschneider
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: Germany | France | Poland

A boy in Nazi Germany, trying to conceal that he is Jewish, joins the Hitler Youth.

City Life (World Directors Anthology)

Director: Alejandro Agresti, Gábor Altorjay, José Luis Guerín, Clemens Klopfenstein, Tato Kotetishvili, William Mbaye Ousmane, Eagle Pennell, Dirk Rijneke, Mrinal Sen, Mildred Van Leeuwaarden, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Carlos Reichenbach, Béla Tarr
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Country: Argentina | Netherlands

A kaleidoscopic panorama of the world. A visual anthology of twelve short stories by twelve innovative directors from all over the world.

Glory (Zwick)

Director: Edward Zwick
Stars: Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: USA

Robert Gould Shaw leads the U.S. Civil War’s first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices from both his own Union Army, and the Confederates.

Blood (Costa)

Director: Pedro Costa
Stars: Pedro Hestnes, Nuno Ferreira, Inês de Medeiros
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Country: Portugal

Vicente, seventeen, lives with brother Nino, ten-years-old, and his ailing father in a derelict house on the outskirts of the capital. They don’t seem to remember their mother, and are very much attached to their father, despite his temper, and his frequent absences from home. One day, the father leaves for good, and Vicente and Nino swear to cover it up. It’s their secret. Clara, the primary school assistant, is fascinatingly beautiful, and secretive, and (may be) she knows it aswel. There are other secrets, though: the origin of the money that appears at Vicente’s house; the relationship between Vicente’s well-to-do uncle and his girlfriend; the relationship between the four people who once played the cards together, and now can’t stand each other.

Splendor (Scola)

Director: Ettore Scola
Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Massimo Troisi, Marina Vlady
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy | France

Jordan, forced to close his movie theater due to financial problems, recalls the events, the characters and the films that marked his life.

Red Dawn (Fons)

Director: Jorge Fons
Stars: Héctor Bonilla, María Rojo, Jorge Fegán
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: Mexico

A Claustrophobic experience which involves a Mexican middle class family into the atrocities made by wild and heartless army forces whose main objective seems to be students who do not permit the 1968’s Olimpic games’ to develop normally.

Romero (Duigan)

Director: John Duigan
Stars: Raul Julia, Richard Jordan, Ana Alicia
Genre: Biography, Crime, Drama
Country: USA | Mexico

The life and work of Archbishop Oscar Romero who opposed, at great personal risk, the tyrannical repression in El Salvador.

Rikyu (Teshigahara)

Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Stars: Rentarô Mikuni, Yoshiko Mita, Tsutomu Yamazaki
Genre: Drama, History
Country: Japan

Legendary tea master Sen no Rikyu is faced with his warmongering lord’s unrealistic pretensions.

Sidewalk Stories (Lane)

Director: Charles Lane
Stars: Charles Lane, Nicole Alysia, Tom Alpern
Genre: Comedy
Country: USA

Nearly silent comedy filmed in black and white follows a street artist (Charles Lane), who rescues a baby after her father was murdered. The artist then sets off to find the mother, but has to first learn how to care for the child. Ultimately he ends up in a horse drawn chase of the murderers.

Forever Mary (Risi)

Director: Marco Risi
Stars: Michele Placido, Claudio Amendola, Francesco Benigno
Genre: Drama, Crime
Country: Italy

A teacher discovers his calling. Marco relocates to Palermo from Milan and takes a job teaching in a reform school while he waits for a high school position. He tries to understand and motivate his handful of students, reading them colloquial poetry, encouraging them to stand up for their rights, finding out about their histories. Natale, in for murder, enamored of the Mafia, the King Rat within the group; Mery, a drag queen, arrested for assault when defending himself, in love with Mario and, in daylight, rejected by all; Pietro, illiterate, muscular, believing his destiny is set; the callow Claudio, vulnerable, learning to harden himself. What can Mario learn and do in such a short time?

Bye Bye Blues (Wheeler)

Director: Anne Wheeler
Stars: Rebecca Jenkins, Luke Reilly, Michael Ontkean
Genre: Drama, Romance, Music
Country: Canada

Story about a WWII wife & mother who joins a local dance band to provide for family while husband at war. Romantic involvement with one of the band members make her decisions difficult when husband returns from war. Story watches the progression of the band as it grows into a popular, successful recording and touring group. Excellent music and soundtrack.

What Time Is It? (Scola)

Director: Ettore Scola
Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Massimo Troisi, Anne Parillaud
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy | France

The visit of a lawer to his military son is an opportunity to recall the past, discuss the future and find a meeting point between two diametrically opposite personalities.

Isle of Flowers (Furtado)

Director: Jorge Furtado
Stars: Paulo José, Ciça Reckziegel, Douglas Trainini
Genre: Documentary, Short
Country: Brazil

The ironic, heartbreaking and acid “saga” of a spoiled tomato: from the plantation of a “Nisei” (Brazilian with Japanese origins); to a supermarket; to a consumer’s kitchen to become sauce of a pork meat; to the garbage can since it is spoiled for the consumption; to a garbage truck to be dumped in a garbage dump in “Ilha das Flores”; to the selection of nutriment for pigs by the employees of a pigs breeder; to become food for poor Brazilian people.

Interrogation (Bugajski)

Director: Ryszard Bugajski
Stars: Krystyna Janda, Adam Ferency, Janusz Gajos
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Poland

Tonia goes out drinking. She wakes up in prison, not having a clue why she’s there. She is tortured to encourage her to confess to a crime she is not aware of.

Homework (Kiarostami)

Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Stars: Babak Ahmadpoor, Farhang Akhavan, Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Country: Iran

In this documentary, Kiarostami asks a number of students about their school homework. The answers of some children shows the darker side of this method of education.

Near Death (Wiseman)

Director: Frederick Wiseman
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Renowned documentarian Frederick Wiseman profiles the doctors, nurses, physicians, and patients at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, as he watches medical staff work around the clock trying to provide care and comfort for patients possibly experiencing the last moments of their lives and console family members of the patients in addition.

Glory! Glory! (Anderson)

Director: Lindsay Anderson
Stars: Ellen Greene, Richard Thomas, James Whitmore
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada | UK

A radio preacher’s operation is controlled by his honest but colorless son. When the preacher is promoted into a media superstar by a savvy huckster, the son is left behind.

Chameleon Street (Harris)

Director: Wendell B. Harris Jr.
Stars: Wendell B. Harris Jr., Timothy Alvaro, Dave Barber
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

William Douglas Street is bored with his life. Working for his father is getting to him, his wife wants more money, and he’s had enough. His solution is to re-invent himself. He becomes a chameleon, taking on whatever role suits the situation. From reporter to doctor to lawyer, he impersonates anyone he sees a need for and he can earn money being. The movie is based on the real people, William Douglas Street, Jr., and Erik Dupin.

Winter War, The (Parikka)

Director: Pekka Parikka
Stars: Taneli Mäkelä, Vesa Vierikko, Timo Torikka
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: Finland

In 1939, two Finnish brothers are conscripted in the army to fight in the war between Finland and the Soviet Union.

Last Exit to Brooklyn (Edel)

Director: Uli Edel
Stars: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stephen Lang, Burt Young
Genre: Drama
Country: UK | West Germany | USA

Set in Brooklyn during the 1950s against a backdrop of union corruption and violence. A prostitute falls in love with one of her customers. Also a disturbed man discovers that he is homosexual.

Icicle Thief, The (Nichetti)

Director: Maurizio Nichetti
Stars: Maurizio Nichetti, Caterina Sylos Labini, Federico Rizzo
Genre: Comedy
Country: Italy

A movie resembling Bicycle Thieves (1948) is shown on TV, but the real-life world gets muddled with the film and the TV commercials.

Pièce touchée (Arnold)

Director: Martin Arnold
Stars: n/a
Genre: Short
Country: Austria

Arnold’s original material is a piece of found-footage from the 50s. 18 seconds long and very typical for the period. A quiet take: a living room, a woman in an arm-chair. Her husband opens the door, kisses her, then moves out of the picture accompanied by a disturbing pan, his wife follows him. In Arnold’s film the sequence takes 16 minutes. Cadre by cadre, it becomes an exiting tango of movements. But pièce touchée is more than just a matter of forms. The reflections, distortions and delays it displays challenge Hollywood’s stable system of space and time.

Secret Wedding (Agresti)

Director: Alejandro Agresti
Stars: Tito Haas, Mirta Busnelli, Sergio Poves Campos
Genre: Drama
Country: Argentina | Canada | Netherlands

As an anonymous man, Fermin leaves his underground hideout in the subway. The dictatorship in the country is followed by democracy, but the bright light of it blinds Fermin: he is displaced. At the police station, his anonymity is complete and he doesn’t remember his own name. He is fitted with a past of 13 years of illegal political opposition from the police archives. When he keeps silent about the crimes of the dictator regime, he will be a free man. The woman he promised to marry, doesn’t recognize him anymore, and thinks he is dead.

Margarit i Margarita (Volev)

Director: Nikolay Volev
Stars: Irini Jambonas, Hristo Shopov, Rashko Mladenov
Genre: Drama
Country: Bulgaria

Margarit and Margarita are high school senior students. They are madly in love. And so proud and independent that they are often in trouble with their parents and teachers. They quit school to live life their own way, only to face a world or corruption and brutality. Margarit would make no compromise and would not get involved in a game with shady rules. Margarita is more willing to do so in the name of their future together. A big manager takes her under his wing and shows himself to be a corrupt womanizer. Margarit cannot stand the debauchery of their ‘protector’ and kills him. After his sentence he puts an end to his life and unable to live her life this way, so does Margarita.

Gang of Four, The (Rivette)

Director: Jacques Rivette
Stars: Bulle Ogier, Benoît Régent, Fejria Deliba
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Country: France | Switzerland

A drama following 4 women at stage school. Considered by some to be the summation of director Jacques Rivette’s work as a whole.

Dry White Season, A (Palcy)

Director: Euzhan Palcy
Stars: Donald Sutherland, Janet Suzman, Zakes Mokae
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA

A white middle class South African suburbanite with no interest in politics agrees to help his black gardener find his jailed son. His investigation opens his eyes to the horrors committed by the secret police and turns him into a target.

Santa Sangre (Jodorowsky)

Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Stars: Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, Guy Stockwell
Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: Mexico

A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his armless mother – the leader of a strange religious cult – and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name as he becomes “her arms”.

Club of the Laid Off, The (Barta)

Director: Jirí Barta
Stars: n/a
Genre: Animation, Short
Country: Czechoslovakia

Laid-off old mannequins spend their cracked and broken lives in an old, abandoned warehouse. New mannequins are brought to the warehouse. They are old as well, but from a younger generation. The two groups must live together, but it’s not easy at all.

Emergency Kisses (Garrel)

Director: Philippe Garrel
Stars: Brigitte Sy, Philippe Garrel, Louis Garrel
Genre: Drama
Country: France

The familiar conflicts of a film director planning to make a movie about his life and the confrontation he has with his wife, an actress who was turned down for such project in which she wanted to play herself.

Enemy of the People, An (S. Ray)

Director: Satyajit Ray
Stars: Soumitra Chatterjee, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Dipankar Dey
Genre: Drama
Country: India

In this adaption of the Ibsen stage play, an idealistic physician discovers that the town’s temple waters are dangerously contaminated. But with the community relying on the holy attraction for tourist dollars, his warnings go unheeded.

Plot Against Harry, The (Roemer)

Director: Michael Roemer
Stars: Martin Priest, Ben Lang, Maxine Woods
Genre: Comedy
Country: USA

A small-time Jewish racketeer, just out of prison, finds himself in a quandary. Returning to his old neighborhood, he finds that the streets that he and his friends once controlled have now been taken over by blacks and Hispanics. On top of that, he must try to get back with his family, who want nothing to do with him.

Rose Garden, The (Rademakers)

Director: Fons Rademakers
Stars: Liv Ullmann, Maximilian Schell, Peter Fonda
Genre: Drama, War
Country: USA | West Germany | Austria

In Germany, an old man attacks another old man and is arrested. The attacker refuses to speak. A female lawyer is appointed to him. She discovers that the attacker has numbers tattooed on his arm and the attacked man was a German officer.

Too Beautiful for You (Blier)

Director: Bertrand Blier
Stars: Gérard Depardieu, Josiane Balasko, Carole Bouquet
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France

A car dealer, well-to-do and with a beautiful wife, finds himself attracted to his rather plain new temporary secretary. Despite her own commitments she feels the same and the two soon embark on an affair. Though it would seem it has happened before his wife finds this particular entanglement of her husband’s very difficult to accept.

Herdsmen of the Sun (Herzog)

Director: Werner Herzog
Stars: Werner Herzog
Genre: Documentary
Country: France | West Germany

Herzog’s documentary of the Wodaabe people of the Sahara/Sahel region. Particular attention is given to the tribe’s spectacular courtship rituals and ‘beauty pageants’, where eligible young men strive to outshine each other and attract mates by means of lavish makeup, posturing and facial movements.

Meeting Point, The (Markovic)

Director: Goran Markovic
Stars: Rade Markovic, Bogdan Diklic, Dragan Nikolic
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Yugoslavia

During the excavation of ancient Roman ruins, an old archaeology professor accidentally opens the gate between our world and the world of the dead.

North Korea: The Parade (Fidyk)

Director: Andrzej Fidyk
Stars: Andrzej Fidyk
Genre: Documentary
Country: Poland

North Korea, late 1980s. The communist authorities hold enormous parades celebrating the 40th anniversary of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and worshipping its leader, Kim Ir Sen. But all this splendor, pomp and incredible lavishness is also to eclipse sports olympics taking part in South Korea.

Last Images of the Shipwreck (Subiela)

Director: Eliseo Subiela
Stars: Lorenzo Quinteros, Noemí Frenkel, Hugo Soto
Genre: Drama
Country: Argentina | Spain

Roberto is an insurance salesman who dreams of writing his own novel. When he meets Estela, a young woman about to commit suicide, it serves him as material to make this work.

And Then There Was Light (Iosselliani)

Director: Otar Iosseliani
Stars: Sigalon Sagna, Saly Badji, Binta Cissé
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: France | West Germany | Italy

The film depicts daily life in an Senegalian village. The people sleep, eat, make love, pray for rain, et cetera, while civilization, by way of timber trucks and tree fellers, is slowly encroaching.

Darkness Light Darkness (Svankmajer)

Director: Jan Svankmajer
Stars: n/a
Genre: Animation, Short, Comedy
Country: Czechoslovakia

A human body gradually reconstructs itself as its various component parts crowd themselves into a small room and eventually, after much experimentation, sort out which part goes where.

Rosalie Goes Shopping (Adlon)

Director: Percy Adlon
Stars: Marianne Sägebrecht, Brad Davis, Judge Reinhold
Genre: Comedy
Country: USA | West Germany

A kindly but thieving shopaholic tries to turn her mistakes around, but does so by becoming a skilled computer hacker, something that could only get her into more trouble despite her goal to impress her beloved family.

Seventh Continent, The (Haneke)

Director: Michael Haneke
Stars: Birgit Doll, Dieter Berner, Leni Tanzer
Genre: Drama
Country: Austria

A European family who plan on escaping to Australia, seem caught up in their daily routine, only troubled by minor incidents. However, behind their apparent calm and repetitive existence, they are actually planning something sinister.

Visitor of a Museum (Lopushanskiy)

Director: Konstantin Lopushanskiy
Stars: Viktor Mikhaylov, Vera Mayorova, Vadim Lobanov
Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union | West Germany | Switzerland

In a post-apocalyptic world, in which a large part of the population consists of demented and deformed mutants being kept in reservations, a man embarks upon visiting the ruins of a museum buried under the sea which can only be accessed during low tide.

How Hitler Lost the War (Denny, Hoffman)

Director: Robert Denny, David Hoffman
Stars: Norman Rose, Adolf Galland, Hans Adolf Jakobson
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Through interviews with former World War II fighter aces, “How Hitler Lost the War” examines the theory that the German Armed Forces substantially won and then lost the war in Europe before 1942. That had it not been for the political and military mistakes of Adolf Hitler, the United States would have had to stand alone against a Nazi Europe allied with an even more powerful Japan, and face a future that is barely imaginable.

Sitting on a Branch, Enjoying Myself (Jakubisko)

Director: Juraj Jakubisko
Stars: Bolek Polívka, Borek Dlouhý, Ivan Drozdy
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Czechoslovakia | West Germany

Pepe and Prengel, returning from war, meet Ester and both fall in love with the girl and live together in a deserted house. Fanatic communist, Zelmira, wants to turn their world upside-down.

Helmut Newton: Frames from the Edge (Maben)

Director: Adrian Maben
Stars: Adrian Maben, Candice Bergen, Tina Brown
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: West Germany

A camera crew follows Helmut Newton, the fashion and ad photographer whose images of tall, blond, big-breasted women are part of the iconography of twentieth-century erotic fantasy. He’s on the go from L.A., to Paris, to Monte-Carlo, to Berlin, where he was a youth until he escaped from the Nazis in 1936. We see him on shoots, interviewing models, and discussing his work. It’s not art and it’s not good taste, he tells students. We meet June, his Australian-born wife, whom he married in 1948. Three actresses talk about working with Newton and how posing is different from acting. A heart attack in 1973 helps Newton re-focus, resulting in more personal photographic projects.

Mama, There’s a Man in Your Bed (Serreau)

Director: Coline Serreau
Stars: Daniel Auteuil, Firmine Richard, Pierre Vernier
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Country: France

A company president gets framed with a food-poisoning scandal and the only person who can help him is the evening cleaning-woman, who always seems to be at the right place at the right time.

Don’t Let Them Shoot the Kite (Basaran)

Director: Tunç Basaran
Stars: Ozan Bilen, Nur Sürer, Füsun Demirel
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Turkey

Baris, a 5 year-old little boy, has to stay in a prison with her mother during her detention period. Baris develops a special relationship with Inci, a young woman who also stays in prison. She promises him that the kite will fly someday.

La révolution française (Enrico, Heffron)

Director: Robert Enrico, Richard T. Heffron
Stars: Klaus Maria Brandauer, Jane Seymour, François Cluzet
Genre: Drama, History, Thriller
Country: France | Italy | West Germany | Canada | UK

When Louis XVI summoned the Etats-Generaux, he unleashes a revolution that would change his country and cost his life. This is the story of one of the crucial points in the history of France, and Europe, divided into two parts.

Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story (Gibson)

Director: Brian Gibson
Stars: Ben Kingsley, Renée Soutendijk, Craig T. Nelson
Genre: Biography, Drama, War
Country: UK | West Germany | Hungary | USA

A biographical portrayal of Simon Wiesenthal, famous Nazi Hunter. From his imprisonment in a Nazi Concentration Camp, the film follows his liberation and his rise to become one of the leading Nazi hunters in the world, bringing such criminals to justice as Adolf Eichmann and Klaus Barbie.

Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story (Gibson)

Director: Brian Gibson
Stars: Ben Kingsley, Renée Soutendijk, Craig T. Nelson
Genre: Biography, Drama, War
Country: UK | West Germany | Hungary | USA

A biographical portrayal of Simon Wiesenthal, famous Nazi Hunter. From his imprisonment in a Nazi Concentration Camp, the film follows his liberation and his rise to become one of the leading Nazi hunters in the world, bringing such criminals to justice as Adolf Eichmann and Klaus Barbie.

Histoire(s) du Cinéma (Godard)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Stars: Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Cuny, Sabine Azéma
Genre: Documentary
Country: France

An 8-part documentary chronicling the history of cinema, examining the history of the concept of cinema and how both relates to the 20th century.

Big Time (Blum)

Director: Chris Blum
Stars: Tom Waits, Michael L. Blair, Ralph Carney
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: USA

Bringing his unique sense of humor to this bizarre and original piece of moviemaking, Tom Waits takes the audience through a musical journey with his jazzy, quirky, bluesy tunes presented as you would never, ever, ever expect.

Chocolat (Denis)

Director: Claire Denis
Stars: Isaach De Bankolé, Giulia Boschi, François Cluzet
Genre: Drama
Country: France | West Germany | Cameroon

A French woman returns to her childhood home in Cameroon – formerly a colonial outpost – where she’s flooded by memories, particularly of Protée, her servant.
EN

Ariel (Kaurismaki)

Director: Aki Kaurismäki
Stars: Turo Pajala, Susanna Haavisto, Matti Pellonpää
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Romance
Country: Finland

A Finnish man goes to the city to find a job after the mine where he worked is closed and his father commits suicide.

Hanussen (Szabo)

Director: István Szabó
Stars: Klaus Maria Brandauer, Erland Josephson, Ildikó Bánsági
Genre: Drama, History
Country: Hungary | West Germany | Austria

A man’s story parallels Hitler’s rise. Austrian Klaus Schneider, wounded in World War I, recovers in the care of Dr. Emil Bettleheim. Bettleheim discovers that Schneider possesses powers of empathy and of clairvoyance, such that could aid suicidal patients. After the war, with one friend as his manager and another as his lover, Schneider changes his name to Eric Jan Hanussen and goes to Berlin, as a hypnotist and clairvoyant performing in halls and theaters. He always speaks the truth, which brings him to the attention of powerful Nazis. He predicts their rise (good propaganda for them) and their violence (not so good). He’s in pain and at risk. What is Hanussen’s future?

Medea (Von Trier)

Director: Lars von Trier
Stars: Udo Kier, Kirsten Olesen, Henning Jensen
Genre: Drama
Country: Denmark

Medea is in Corinth with Jason and their two young sons. King Kreon wants to reward Jason for his exploits: he gives the hand of his daughter, Glauce, to Jason as well as the promise of the throne. In exchange, Medea and the boys are to be banished. Jason explains that his actions ensure a rich future for Medea and her sons. She asks that she be allowed to stay; Kreon refuses. She asks for one more day, and begs Jason to seek the king’s permission to allow their sons to stay in Corinth. Jason agrees and Medea prepares a gift for her sons to give to Glauce. Will Medea leave peacefully?

Night Journey (Kavur)

Director: Ömer Kavur
Stars: Osman Alyanak, Aytaç Arman, Orhan Basaran
Genre: Drama
Country: Turkey

A confused script writer takes refuge in the ruins of a Byzantine church at a remote village while looking for locations for his next film.

Stradivari (Batiatto)

Director: Giacomo Battiato
Stars: Anthony Quinn, Stefania Sandrelli, Valérie Kaprisky
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Italy | France

As a boy the orphan Antonio Stradivari heard for the first time in his life the sound of a violin and he was fascinated by its voice. He tried to construct a violin and attracted the attention of Niccolò Amati, a famous lutist of Cremona. Antonio became apprentice in his bottega (workshop). Grown up, he fell in love for Francesca and he succeeded in marrying her. Afterwards he became more and more famous for his violins and he was granted a diploma from the king of Spain. After the death of his wife he was almost forced to marry again. He was chosen by Antonia Maria and it will be a happy marriage. In the background we have a look at the history of Northern Italy during the seventeenth century.

Days of Eclipse (Sokurov)

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov
Stars: Aleksei Ananishnov, Eskender Umarov, Irina Sokolova
Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union

Days of Eclipse is filmed in a psychedelic manner close to stream of consciousness using unusual cinematographic techniques. The action is set in Middle Asia.

À corps perdu (Pool)

Director: Léa Pool
Stars: Matthias Habich, Johanne-Marie Tremblay, Michel Voïta
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Canada | Switzerland

A war photographer returns home to Montréal to discover that his two partners have left him to be together. Alone in the city, he photographs what he sees, trying to heal both his war memories and a broken heart.

Rarg (Collingwood)

Director: Tony Collingwood
Stars: Nigel Hawthorne, Michael Gough, Ronnie Stevens
Genre: Animation, Short, Fantasy
Country: UK

The inhabitants of the strange and wonderful land of Rarg discover their world is no more than just the dream of a man.

Sound and Fury (Brisseau)

Director: Jean-Claude Brisseau
Stars: Vincent Gasperitsch, María Luisa García, François Négret
Genre: Drama
Country: France

This drama depicts the misery of neglected children in big cities. 13 years old Bruno is of a good family, but since the death of his grandmother he spends most of his time alone, in a phantasy world, while his mother is away at work. But then he befriends the violent Jean-Roger, who’s from a severely disturbed family, where nobody cares what he’s doing. In school Jean-Roger drives their teacher into despair just for fun. To separate the two boys, she starts to stimulate Bruno’s interests by giving him extra lessons. When Jean-Roger fears loosing his one and only friend, he becomes even more aggressive.

Les possédés (Wajda)

Director: Andrzej Wajda
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Jutta Lampe, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu
Genre: Drama
Country: France

In 1870 Russia, a group of young and idealistic anarchists plots to overthrow the established order through violent means.

Little Vera (Pichul)

Director: Vasili Pichul
Stars: Natalya Negoda, Andrey Sokolov, Yuriy Nazarov
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Soviet Union

A teenage girl, who has just finished school feels trapped and aimless in her ordinary Russian family, supported by an alcoholic father, in a dull industrial town.

Sagolandet (Troell)

Director: Jan Troell
Stars: Ingvar Carlsson, Tage Erlander, Rollo May
Genre: Documentary
Country: Sweden | West Germany

When the daughter Johanna is born in 1983, Jan Troell tells the story about his childhood Sweden and how things were when he grow-up in the land of fairy tales and potential prosperity.

Congress, The (Burns)

Director: Ken Burns
Stars: David McCullough, Charles McDowell, Barbara Fields
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

The U. S. Congress is one of the country’s most important and misunderstood institutions. Ken Burns tells the story behind this branch of government.

Cannibal Tours (O’Rourke)

Director: Dennis O’Rourke
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: Australia

When tourists journey to the furthermost reaches of the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea, is it the indigenous tribespeople or the white visitors who are the cultural oddity? This film explores the difference (and the surprising similarities) that emerge when “civilized” and “primitive” people meet. With dry humor and acute observation CANNIBAL TOURS explodes cultural assumptions as it provides a pointed look at a fabulous phenomenon.

Let’s Get Lost (Weber)

Director: Bruce Weber
Stars: Chet Baker, Carol Baker, Vera Baker
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Music
Country: USA

Documentary on the life of jazz trumpeter and drug addict Chet Baker. Fascinating series of interviews with friends, family, associates and lovers, interspersed with film from Baker’s earlier life and some modern-day performances.

Path, The (Tarasov)

Director: Vladimir Tarasov
Stars: Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Vasiliy Livanov, Aleksandr Pashutin
Genre: Animation, Short, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union

A starship crashed on an uninhabitate planet and its crew had to abandon it. Years later the survivors and their children try to return to the ship and send a distress signal. But for that they must go through a very dangerous mountain passage.

Veronico Cruz (Periera)

Director: Miguel Pereira
Stars: Leopoldo Aban, Juan José Camero, Guillermo Delgado
Genre: Drama, War
Country: UK | Argentina

A rural teacher in Jujuy, establishes a friendly relationship with the inhabitants of Chorcán, a small Andean village. Circumstances in EEE Outbreak of War of the Malvinas and one of his students, Verónico Cruz, is called for a Fight, running a Join the crew of the ARA General Belgrano, sunk on May 2, 1982.

Manly Games (Svankmajer)

Director: Jan Svankmajer
Stars: Miroslav Kuchar
Genre: Animation, Short, Comedy
Country: Czechoslovakia

The film stars the same actor in every role. He plays a guy at home watching a soccer game, the players on the field AND the referee. However, this game ain’t normal in any sense!

Manifesto (Makavejev)

Director: Dusan Makavejev
Stars: Camilla Søeberg, Alfred Molina, Simon Callow
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

In a small European country, the king is scheduled to visit a small, quiet and “safe” village. It turns out that while the village may indeed be small, it’s neither as quiet nor as safe as it’s expected to be.

Bear, The (Annaud)

Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Stars: Tchéky Karyo, Bart the Bear, Youk the Bear
Genre: Adventure, Family, Drama
Country: France | USA

An orphan bear cub hooks up with an adult male as they try to dodge human hunters.

Story of Women (Chabrol)

Director: Claude Chabrol
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, François Cluzet, Marie Trintignant
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

A housewife in Nazi-occupied France struggles to make ends meet when her husband returns home after being wounded in the war.

Urgences (Depardon)

Director: Raymond Depardon
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: France

Documentary filmed in the psychiatric ward of the Hôtel-Dieu, a large hospital in Paris. The patients arrive on their own, or with considerable help from the police, but all of them are in need of medical attention.

Zivot sa stricem (Papic)

Director: Krsto Papic
Stars: Davor Janjic, Alma Prica, Miodrag Krivokapic
Genre: Drama
Country: Yugoslavia

It’s the end of the 1980s, and Martin is being asked from his dying uncle Stipan to bury him with the presence of priest. Martin remembers the way they lost the contact in 1951 – Stipan informed on him when he wrote a composition in the school, expressing doubts about the land reform. He had got a bullet in the groin by accident; his pregnant wife fled to Trieste and then to Australia where she gave a birth to their son John.

Thomas Hart Benton (Burns)

Director: Ken Burns
Stars: Henry Adams, Matthew Baigell, Earl Bennett
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: USA | Canada

Thomas Hart Benton’s paintings were energetic and uncompromising. Today his works are in museums, but Benton hung them in saloons for ordinary people to appreciate.

I… Dreaming (Brakhage)

Director: Stan Brakhage
Stars: Bearthm Brakhage, Neowyn Brakhage, Rarc Brakhage
Genre: Short
Country: USA

Phrases of Stephen Foster, set to music by Joel Heartling, are set to film in this autobiographical piece: a solitary female voice, occasionally joined by a chorus, sings phrases of sorrow as we watch a solitary man in shadows in an unadorned house: he stretches out, he picks his feet, he walks across a room, he rocks in a chair. Occasionally he watches two young children at play; the film sometimes speeds up. Handwritten words, like “dark void” and “waiting longing,” cross the screen. Film and phrases often come in short bursts. Outdoor it looks gray and cold.

Few Days with Me, A (Sautet)

Director: Claude Sautet
Stars: Daniel Auteuil, Sandrine Bonnaire, Jean-Pierre Marielle
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Country: France

Martial’s mother owns a chain of supermarkets. He had spent some years in a mental hospital because of pervasive indolence. Hoping that an active task may improve his condition, he is sent to inspect one of the supermarkets. The manager had taken a large loan of money belonging to the firm. When exposed he expects to lose his job. Instead friendship develops between him and Martial who remitted the debt.

Summer of Aviya, The (Cohen)

Director: Eli Cohen
Stars: Gila Almagor, Kaipu Cohen, Eli Cohen
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Israel

A ten year old girl spends her summer with her overly protective mother, a mentally scarred holocaust survivor, while hopefully trying to find her real father in the newly established state of Israel.

Time of Violence (Staikov)

Director: Ludmil Staikov
Stars: Max Freeman, Rousy Chanev, Ivan Krystev
Genre: Drama
Country: Bulgaria

In the 17th century, a Bulgarian Christian region is selected by the Ottoman rulers to serve as an example of conversion to Islam. A Janissary who was kidnapped from the village as a boy is sent to force the reluctant inhabitants to convert. The Turkish governor seeks a peaceful solution, but ultimately torture, violence, and rebellion break out.

On the Silver Globe (Zulawski)

Director: Andrzej Zulawski
Stars: Andrzej Seweryn, Jerzy Trela, Grazyna Dylag
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Poland

A team of astronauts land on an inhabitable planet and form a society. Many years later, a single astronaut is sent to the planet and becomes a messiah.

Short Film About Love, A (Kieslowski)

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Stars: Grazyna Szapolowska, Olaf Lubaszenko, Stefania Iwinska
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Poland

An innocent virgin spies on his frontal neighbor and falls in love with her, thus starts using tricks on her which he hopes will lead to them meeting.

Stille Nacht: Dramolet (Quay)

Director: Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay, Weiser Quay
Stars: n/a
Genre: Animation, Short
Country: UK | Canada | USA

A magnet moves on a floor. A moth beats against a window. A doll child watches the magnet; threads of metal filings gather around the magnet. The doll, who’s sitting at a table, looks in a bowl that’s on the table. In it are more threads, looking like breakfast cereal. He needs a spoon; spoons appear. The fixed smile on the doll’s face is rewarded.

Turning Table (Grimault, Demy)

Director: Paul Grimault, Jacques Demy
Stars: Paul Grimault, Anouk Aimée, Mathieu Demy
Genre: Animation, Biography, Comedy
Country: France

While working at his editing table cartoon maker Paul Grimault is visited by a little clown, the star of his movie “Le Roi et l’Oiseau”. Paul, who is delighted, shows his guest several clips of his other films. Later on, they are joined by other animated characters created by Grimault until Anouk Aimée finally appears, in the flesh this time.

Cold Summer of 1953, The (Proshkin)

Director: Aleksandr Proshkin
Stars: Valeriy Priyomykhov, Anatoliy Papanov, Viktor Stepanov
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Soviet Union

Former political inmates Sergei and Nikolai live as exiles in a remote Siberian village. After the general Soviet gulag amnesty of 1953 8 pardoned common criminals terrorize the inhabitants.

Itinéraire d’un enfant gâté (Lelouch)

Director: Claude Lelouch
Stars: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Richard Anconina, Lio
Genre: Drama, Adventure, Comedy
Country: France | West Germany

A successful entrepreneur in his fifties decides to abandon his loved ones and the empire he has built to find the liberty he yearns for, unaware that the itinerary of one’s life often changes in the funniest of ways.

Pascali’s Island (Dearden)

Director: James Dearden
Stars: Ben Kingsley, Charles Dance, Kevork Malikyan
Genre: Drama
Country: UK

1908: Basil Pascali (Sir Ben Kingsley), a spy for the Sultan, sends reports to Istanbul that nobody reads. His suspicions are roused when a British archeologist appears, who may not be quite what he seems.

Salaam Bombay! (Nair)

Director: Mira Nair
Stars: Shafiq Syed, Hansa Vithal, Chanda Sharma
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: UK | India | France

The boy Krishna is abandoned by his mother at the Apollo Circus and she tells him that he can only return home when he can afford 500 rupees to pay for the bicycle of his brother that he had trashed. Krishna is left behind by the circus and he takes a train to Bombay. Krishna is called Chaipau by the street children of Bombay and he works delivering and selling tea for Chacha, who owns a street bar. Krishna befriends the heroin addicted Chillum that sells drugs for the drug dealer and caftan Baba Golub, and the girl Manju Golub, who is the daughter of Baba with the prostitute Rekha Golub.

Monkey Shines (Romero)

Director: George A. Romero
Stars: Jason Beghe, John Pankow, Kate McNeil
Genre: Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Country: USA

A quadriplegic man has a trained monkey help him with his paralysis, until the little monkey begins to develop feelings, and rage, against its new master.

Jane B. for Agnes V. (Varda)

Director: Agnès Varda
Stars: Jane Birkin, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Philippe Léotard
Genre: Biography, Fantasy
Country: France

“I’ll look at you, but not at the camera. It could be a trap,” whispers Jane Birkin shyly into Agnès Varda’s ear at the start of JANE B. PAR AGNES V. The director of CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 and VAGABOND once again paints a portrait of a woman, this time in a marvelously Expressionistic way. “It’s like an imaginary bio-pic,” says Varda. Jane, of course, is the famed singer (“Je t’aime … Moi non plus”), actress (BLOW UP), fashion icon (the Hermes Birkin bag) and longtime muse to Serge Gainsbourg.

Puissance de la parole (Godard)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Stars: Jean Bouise, Laurence Côte, Lydia Andrei
Genre: Drama, Short, Romance
Country: France

Godard blends elements of literature, cinema and other artistic medias from different historical periods in order to make a stance on how words can be subverted and manipulated to many different contexts, sometimes bearing a similar significance to the original material or even creating an alternate context. That’s “The Power of Speech”.

Taxing Woman’s Return, A (Itami)

Director: Jûzô Itami
Stars: Nobuko Miyamoto, Rentarô Mikuni, Masahiko Tsugawa
Genre: Comedy, Crime
Country: Japan

Ryoko Itakura returns as the government tax agent willing to tackle the toughest cases. This time she takes on a fanatical but lucrative religious cult run by a vile lecher.

Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (Zwerin)

Director: Charlotte Zwerin
Stars: Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Jimmy Cleveland
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Music
Country: USA

A documentary film about the life of pianist and jazz great Thelonious Sphere Monk. Features live performances by Monk and his band, and interviews with friends and family about the offbeat genius.

Tales from the Gimli Hospital (Maddin)

Director: Guy Maddin
Stars: Kyle McCulloch, Michael Gottli, Angela Heck
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Canada

While their mother is dying in the modern Gimli, Manitoba hospital, two young children are told a tale by their Icelandic grandmother about Einar the Lonely, his friend Gunnar, and the angelic Snjofridur in a Gimli of old.

It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (Linklater)

Director: Richard Linklater
Stars: Richard Linklater, James Goodwin, Dan Kratochvil
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

A nameless young character goes into travels to the country, meeting some acquaintances and strangers as well, having banal conversations, dedicating his existence into daily mundane activities. Richard Linklater presents an unconventional narrative, barely composed of dialogue and consisting in observing life and actions.

Walker (Cox)

Director: Alex Cox
Stars: Ed Harris, Richard Masur, Rene Auberjonois
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: USA | Mexico

An unconventional retelling of the life of William Walker, a 19th century American mercenary leader who became the president of Nicaragua.

Maurice (Ivory)

Director: James Ivory
Stars: James Wilby, Rupert Graves, Hugh Grant
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: UK

After his lover rejects him, a young man trapped by the oppressiveness of Edwardian society tries to come to terms with and accept his sexuality.

Intervista (Fellini)

Director: Federico Fellini
Stars: Sergio Rubini, Antonella Ponziani, Maurizio Mein
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: Italy

Federico Fellini accepts the request of a television crew to be interviewed about his career, narrating memories, dreams, realities and fantasies.

Family, The (Scola)

Director: Ettore Scola
Stars: Vittorio Gassman, Fanny Ardant, Stefania Sandrelli
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy | France

With the background of the XX century Italian history, Carlo, a retired teacher, traces the vicissitudes of his family.

Rouge (Kwan)

Director: Stanley Kwan
Stars: Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui, Alex Man
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Music
Country: Hong Kong

Fleur is the blue angel in one of Hong Kong’s “flower houses” – bordellos and night clubs of the 1930’s. A detached and beautiful performer, she falls in love with Twelfth Master Chan, heir to a chain of pharmacies. They agree to a suicide pact. Jump ahead 50 years to modern Hong Kong: Fleur’s ghost appears in Yuen’s newspaper office, wanting to place an ad to find Chan, who never arrived in the afterlife. Yuen, and his equally bewildered girl friend, An Chor, are captivated by Fleur and her story.

King Lear (Godard)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Stars: Woody Allen, Freddy Buache, Leos Carax
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: USA | Bahamas | France | Switzerland

Everything returns to normal after Chernobyl. That is, everything but art. Most of the great works are lost, and it is up to people like William Shakespear Junior the Fifth to restore the lost artwork of the human race. He finds strange goings-on at a resort enough to remind him of all the lines of the play, dealing with mob boss Don Learo and his daughter Cordelia, a strange professor named Jean Luc-Godard (sic), who repeatedly xeroxes his hand for no particular reason. He is followed by four humanoid goblins that keep tormenting Cordelia. There is also the gentleman whose girlfriend, Valerie, isn’t always visible. Then the film is sent off to New York for Mr. Alien to edit.

Tandem (Leconte)

Director: Patrice Leconte
Stars: Gérard Jugnot, Jean Rochefort, Sylvie Granotier
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: France

Michel Mortez is going to and fro France to compere a radio game he created 25 years ago. He is famous among the average Frenchmen. But he is also a poker. Rivetot, his assistant and technician, always goes with him. He is the only one to know what really lies under Mortez’s appearance of playful don Juan. When the programme is condemned by the managers, Rivetot delays as long as possible the moment he will have to announce it to Mortez… Both malicious and tender, this bitter comedy also shows nostalgia.

Little Dorrit (Edzard)

Director: Christine Edzard
Stars: Derek Jacobi, Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: UK

Arthur returns to London after working abroad for many years with his now deceased father. Almost at once he becomes involved in the problems of his mother’s seamstress Amy and of her father residing in the Marshalsea debtors’ prison.

Masques (Chabrol)

Director: Claude Chabrol
Stars: Philippe Noiret, Robin Renucci, Bernadette Lafont
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: France

Hired to write a biography of a television personality, a reporter spends a few days at the man’s country estate with the eccentric extended family.

Epidemic (von Trier)

Director: Lars von Trier
Stars: Allan De Waal, Ole Ernst, Michael Gelting
Genre: Drama, Horror
Country: Denmark

A director and screenwriter pen a script and, in the process, blur the line between fiction and reality.

Vlci bouda (Chytilová)

Director: Vera Chytilová
Stars: Miroslav Machácek, Tomás Palatý, Stepánka Cervenková
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Horror
Country: Czechoslovakia

A group of teenagers are mysteriously invited to a skiing workshop in the mountains. There are eleven of them, but the camp supervisors insist that there should be only ten, and that one of them is an intruder.

Straight to Hell (Cox)

Director: Alex Cox
Stars: Sy Richardson, Joe Strummer, Dick Rude
Genre: Action, Comedy, Western
Country: UK

A gang of bank robbers with a suitcase full of money go to the desert to hide out. After burying the loot, they find their way to a surreal town full of cowboys who drink an awful lot of coffee. The townspeople are hostile to the outsiders at first, but seem to accept them once they’ve killed a couple of people. After a while, a mysterious man named Dade arrives, who seems to have unpleasant business to settle with the robbers. A free-for-all shoot-em-up ensues.

Testimony (Palmer)

Director: Tony Palmer
Stars: Ben Kingsley, Sherry Baines, Magdalen Asquith
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Netherlands | UK | Denmark | West Germany | Sweden

The story of the great Soviet Composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and his life and career during the rule of Stalin.

Reflections (Markovic)

Director: Goran Markovic
Stars: Mustafa Nadarevic, Anica Dobra, Milorad Mandic-Manda
Genre: Drama, Horror, Romance
Country: Yugoslavia | UK

Piano teacher is deeply traumatised by the events of his childhood, as well as by political oppression in his youth. Decades later, all those traumas lead to carnage.

Kobieta samotna (Holland)

Director: Agnieszka Holland
Stars: Maria Chwalibóg, Boguslaw Linda, Pawel Witczak
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland

A story of a middle-aged woman, Irena, living alone on the outskirts of Wroclaw with her 8-year old son. They live in a drab apartment. She is a mail carrier and her son is her only pride and joy. She hardly communicates with anybody else in a humanly open and natural way. She also cares for a sick relative. One day when delivering a monthly pension to a crippled young miner Jacek, she faints at his doorsteps. Even though she is determined to live alone after divorcing her drunken first husband, she also knows that her boy needs a male figure to correct his bad habits. She also needs a man badly. The love affair between Jacek and Irena begins however their first physical encounter shatters them both.

Family Viewing (Egoyan)

Director: Atom Egoyan
Stars: David Hemblen, Aidan Tierney, Gabrielle Rose
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada

Van’s father, Stan, is fond of video, always taping scenes of daily family life. But he does not take care of Van’s grandmother, Armen. Although he could afford having her at home, she is spending her days watching TV in an old people’s home. Van often visits her. He meets Aline, whose mother is in the next bed. Van wants to get his grandma out of the old people’s home. Aline will help. Actually, Van, whose mother left, years ago, is looking for a real family life.

Housekeeping (Forsyth)

Director: Bill Forsyth
Stars: Christine Lahti, Sara Walker, Andrea Burchill
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

After their mother commits suicide, two sisters end up living with their kind but peculiar aunt in their grandmother’s old house in a small 1950s town.

Ironweed (Babenco)

Director: Hector Babenco
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Carroll Baker
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his home town of Albany, New York after returning there for the first time in decades.

Landscape Suicide (Benning)

Director: James Benning
Stars: Rhonda Bell, Elion Sucher
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: USA

In “Landscape Suicide” Benning continues his examination of Americana through the stories of two murderers. Ed Gein was a Wisconsin farmer and multiple murderer who taxidermied his victims in the 1950s. Bernadette Prott was a California teenager who stabbed a friend to death over an insult in 1984. Benning’s distanced approach to such grisly material is as far removed as possible from sensationalism, however. Although the acts of murder are both bizarre and violent, Benning dwells on them only minimally, emphasizing instead the details of psychological motivation, which in both cases seem frighteningly mundane.

Daughter of the Nile (Hou)

Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou
Stars: Lin Yang, Fan Yang, Shu-Fen Hsin
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Taiwan

The eldest daughter of a broken and troubled family works to keep the family together and look after her younger siblings, who are slipping into a life of crime.

Bagdad Cafe (Adlon)

Director: Percy Adlon
Stars: Marianne Sägebrecht, CCH Pounder, Jack Palance
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: West Germany

A lonely German woman ends up in the most desolate motel on Earth and decides to make it brighter.

Angel Heart (Parker)

Director: Alan Parker
Stars: Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK | Canada | USA

A private investigator is hired by a man who calls himself Louis Cyphre to track down a singer named Johnny Favorite. But the investigation takes an unexpected and somber turn.

Matka Królów (Zaorski)

Director: Janusz Zaorski
Stars: Magda Teresa Wójcik, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Franciszek Pieczka
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: Poland

Made in 1982, shelved for five years. Story opens with Lucja Krol’s husband under the tram. She gives birth to her fourth son on the floor of their new apartment. Neighbor Wiktor, a communist intellectual, befriends the poverty-stricken family but is soon arrested and sent to jail. During the war Lucja narrowly escapes a Nazi roundup at the black market. Her sons hold ardent Communist meetings in their apartment, with her blessing. Lucja works hard, but without complaint. After the war, Klemens is inexplicably arrested, accused by the new regime of being a collaborator.

Taxing Woman, A (Itami)

Director: Jûzô Itami
Stars: Nobuko Miyamoto, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Masahiko Tsugawa
Genre: Comedy, Crime
Country: Japan

If tax evasion is an art, wheeler-dealer Hideki Gondo is Rembrandt. And so, a determined taxing woman gets the tough assignment of trying to catch him.

Blind Chance (Kieslowski)

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Stars: Boguslaw Linda, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland

Witek runs after a train. Three variations follow on how such a seemingly banal incident could influence the rest of Witek’s life.

Escape from Sobibor (Gold)

Director: Jack Gold
Stars: Alan Arkin, Joanna Pacula, Rutger Hauer
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: UK | Yugoslavia

German death camp in Sobibor, Poland, killed two hundred fifty thousand Jews. It had the most successful prisoner escape in World War II on October 14, 1943.

Cobra Verde (Herzog)

Director: Werner Herzog
Stars: Klaus Kinski, King Ampaw, José Lewgoy
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Country: West Germany | Ghana

During the 1800s, paroled Brazilian bandit Cobra Verde is sent to West Africa with a few troops to man an old Portuguese fort and to convince the local African ruler to resume the slave trade with Brazil.

Fourteen Days in May (Hamann)

Director: Paul Hamann
Stars: Bobby Butler, Donald Cabana, Melanie Christopher
Genre: Documentary
Country: UK

Fourteen Days in May is a documentary film directed by Paul Hamann and originally shown on television by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1987. The programme recounts the final days before the execution of Edward Earl Johnson, an American prisoner convicted of rape and murder and imprisoned in the Mississippi State Penitentiary. Johnson protested his innocence and claimed that his confession had been made under duress. He was executed in Mississippi’s gas chamber on 20 May 1987

Surrogate Woman, The (Im)

Director: Kwon-taek Im
Stars: Soo-youn Kang, Gu-sun Lee, Yang-ha Yun
Genre: Drama
Country: South Korea

Shin, a nobleman, had been trying to conceive a male heir to pass his family name. Unable to provide a male heir, Shin’s wife gives her husband permission to search for a surrogate wife to bear a male heir. On the way to finding a surrogate wife, Shin runs into a 17 year old girl, Ok-nyo (Kang Soo-yeon). She was a poor feisty girl who stated she would do anything for money.

Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (Frears)

Director: Stephen Frears
Stars: Shashi Kapoor, Claire Bloom, Frances Barber
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK

Sammy and Rosie are an unconventional couple. They live in the midst chaos, surround themselves with intellectual street people and sleep with everybody except each other. Things become interesting when Sammy’s father comes to visit.

Pelle the Conqueror (August)

Director: Bille August
Stars: Pelle Hvenegaard, Max von Sydow, Erik Paaske
Genre: Drama
Country: Denmark | Sweden

When his wife dies, Lassefar (Max von Sydow) takes his 12-year-old son, Pelle (Pelle Hvenegaard), from their home in Sweden to Denmark in search of a better life. Signing on as laborers at a large farm, father and son undergo numerous trials, including prejudice against immigrants and run-ins with those more powerful than themselves in both the physical and the social sense. Over the course of a year, young Pelle learns what it takes to survive in a harsh and unforgiving world.

High Tide (Armstrong)

Director: Gillian Armstrong
Stars: Judy Davis, Jan Adele, Claudia Karvan
Genre: Drama
Country: Australia

Story about a backup singer for an Elvis impersonator who re-enters her past when she leaves a tour in a small town and finds her daughter in a mobile home park.

Kindering (Brakhage)

Director: Stan Brakhage
Stars: Iona Bartek, Quay Bartek
Genre: Short
Country: USA

Refracted images, not unlike those in a funhouse mirror, display two children playing in a backyard, a boy and a girl. There’s a dog, a swing, a picket fence, a Big Wheels trike. The grass is green and lush. A soundtrack mixes a chorus, swelling strings, and a child vocalizing. The effect is to idealize the images.

Moskovskaya elegiya (Sokurov)

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov
Stars: Andrei Tarkovsky, Tonino Guerra, Aleksandr Sokurov
Genre: Documentary
Country: Soviet Union

A film in homage to Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. It concentrates on his absence from the Soviet Union and what he left behind. There are episodes of his funeral and places he lived in Moscow.

Autumn’s Tale, An (Cheung)

Director: Mabel Cheung
Stars: Yun-Fat Chow, Cherie Chung, Danny Bak-Keung Chan
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Hong Kong

Filmed in New York, story of naive young woman from Hong Kong who goes to New York to study. Street-wise cabbie cousin takes care of her in the big city

Hollywood Shuffle (Townsend)

Director: Robert Townsend
Stars: Robert Townsend, Craigus R. Johnson, Helen Martin
Genre: Comedy
Country: USA

An actor limited to stereotypical roles because of his ethnicity, dreams of making it big as a highly respected performer. As he makes his rounds, the film takes a satiric look at African American actors in Hollywood.

Last Theft, The (Barta)

Director: Jirí Barta
Stars: Frantisek Husák, Zdenek Martínek, Ivan Vojtek
Genre: Animation, Short, Crime
Country: Czechoslovakia

A sarcastic story about a thief who becomes the victim of his own victims. His victims come from the other world and take his most precious possession – his blood. The phantasmal atmosphere of the film is achieved through artificial animation coloring in a motion picture.

Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 (Kagan)

Director: Jeremy Kagan
Stars: Peter Boyle, Elliott Gould, James Avery
Genre: Documentary, Drama, History
Country: USA

A made-for-cable-TV docudrama about the trial of the men accused of conspiring to cause protesters to riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Combines in an innovative manner dramatic recreations (largely faithful to the actual trial transcripts) with documentary footage and interviews with the actual defendants.

Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent Van Gogh (Cox)

Director: Paul Cox
Stars: John Hurt, Marika Rivera, Gabriella Trsek
Genre: Animation, Biography, Drama
Country: Australia | Belgium

This documentary, on the life of artist Vincent Van Gogh, is told through his letters to his brother Theo, from 1872 until his tragic death. We gain first hand insight into the man, his motivations, and his humanity.

Good Morning Babylon (Taviani)

Director: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani
Stars: Vincent Spano, Joaquim de Almeida, Greta Scacchi
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Italy | France | USA

After the bankruptcy of their father’s stonemasonry firm, Nicola and Andrea emigrate to America to restore their fortunes. After many adventures and near-disasters, they end up in Hollywood designing sets for D.W. Griffith and marry beautiful actresses, but tragedy strikes with the arrival of World War I, which finds the brothers fighting on opposite sides…

Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam (Couturié)

Director: Bill Couturié
Stars: Tom Berenger, Ellen Burstyn, J. Kenneth Campbell
Genre: Documentary, History, War
Country: USA

A documentary featuring letters written by U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines during the Vietnam War to their families and friends back home. Archive footage of the war and news coverage thereof, augment the first-person “narrative” by men and women who were in the war, some of whom did not survive it.

Month in the Country, A (O’Connor)

Director: Pat O’Connor
Stars: Colin Firth, Kenneth Branagh, John Atkinson
Genre: Drama
Country: UK

Five centuries ago, a mural was created in a country church in the north of England, and then hidden under layers of white paint. Looking at it again will be a distraction, the Reverend Mr. Keach tells World War I veteran Tom Birken, who will spend a month in the country restoring the mural. Another veteran, James Moon, is looking for the grave of an ancestor of the patroness of the church who fought in the Crusades. The rector’s wife, Alice, comes to see the mural and later visits Birken’s bell tower abode, bringing a basket of apples. Will she open the book in which he has pressed the yellow rose she gave him earlier?

Ménage (Blier)

Director: Bertrand Blier
Stars: Gérard Depardieu, Michel Blanc, Miou-Miou
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: France

A bisexual petty criminal named Bob encounters a married couple arguing in a bar. Bob breaks up the fight and proceeds to seduce first the wife and then the husband. Then Bob teaches the couple how to be burglars and they join him in his criminal exploits.

Lady Jane (Nunn)

Director: Trevor Nunn
Stars: Helena Bonham Carter, Cary Elwes, John Wood
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: UK

The death of King Henry VIII throws his kingdom into chaos because of succession disputes. His weak son King Edward VI is on his deathbed. Anxious to keep England true to the Reformation, a scheming minister John Dudley marries off his son, Guilford, to Lady Jane Grey, whom he places on the throne after Edward dies. At first hostile to each other, Guilford and Jane fall in love. But they cannot withstand the course of power which will lead to their ultimate downfall.

Labyrinth (Henson)

Director: Jim Henson
Stars: David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly, Toby Froud
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Country: UK | USA

Sixteen-year-old Sarah is given thirteen hours to solve a labyrinth and rescue her baby brother Toby when her wish for him to be taken away is granted by the Goblin King Jareth.

Caravaggio (Jarman)

Director: Derek Jarman
Stars: Noam Almaz, Dexter Fletcher, Nigel Terry
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: UK

A retelling of the life of the celebrated 17th-century painter through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld.

2 Friends (Campion)

Director: Jane Campion
Stars: Kris Bidenko, Emma Coles, Kris McQuade
Genre: Drama
Country: Australia

Two girls, at 15; Louise, in a prestigious girls’ high school, and Kelly, who was admitted but forbidden by her father to attend. This is the end of their friendship, and from here the film progresses in a backwards time line to a final freeze frame of the girls at the peak of their closeness.

Mauvais Sang (Carax)

Director: Leos Carax
Stars: Michel Piccoli, Juliette Binoche, Denis Lavant
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: Switzerland | France

As a deadly virus which infects people who have loveless sex sweeps Paris, a lonely pariah attempts to steal a potent antidote, only to fall for the mistress of his partner-in-crime. Is the infectious young love the cure to the bad blood?

Comrades (Douglas)

Director: Bill Douglas
Stars: Keith Allen, Dave Atkins, Stephen Bateman
Genre: Drama, History
Country: UK

The story of “The Tolpuddle Martyrs”. A group of nineteenth century English farm laborers who formed one of the first trade unions and started a campaign to receive fair wages.

Kin-dza-dza! (Daneliya)

Director: Georgiy Daneliya
Stars: Stanislav Lyubshin, Evgeniy Leonov, Yuriy Yakovlev
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union

Two Russians push the wrong button on a strange device and end up on the telepathic planet Pluke with its strange societal norms.

Matador (Almodóvar)

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Stars: Assumpta Serna, Antonio Banderas, Nacho Martínez
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: Spain

A matador is wounded by a bull and can no longer kill in the arena. It just a one flaw besides many others from several characters whom unsuspected collide.

Lunatics, The (Yee)

Director: Tung-Shing Yee
Stars: Stanley Sui-Fan Fung, Deannie Ip, Paul Chun
Genre: Drama
Country: Hong Kong

A psychiatrist donates his time to help the mentally ill street people of Hong Kong. A reporter who hears about his activities accompanies him on his rounds.

El amor brujo (Saura)

Director: Carlos Saura
Stars: Antonio Gades, Cristina Hoyos, Laura del Sol
Genre: Music, Drama
Country: Spain

In a Gypsy village, the fathers of Candela and José promise their children to each other. Years later, the unfaithful José marries Candela but while defending his lover Lucía in a brawl, he is stabbed to death. Carmelo, who secretly loves Candela since he was a boy, is arrested while helping José and unfairly sent to prison. Four years later he is released and declares his love for Candela. However, the woman is cursed by a bewitched love and every night she goes to the place where José died to dance with his ghost.

Professor, The (Tornatore)

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Stars: Ben Gazzara, Laura del Sol, Leo Gullotta
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy

Vaguely inspired to the real story of boss of the Camorra’s bosses Raffaele Cutolo, this is the story of the criminal career of “Il professore” (the professor). He is in prison, and by there he is able to build, step by step, an empire founded on murders and drugs. He starts a war to destroy all the old Camorra bosses and becoming the new “boss of the bosses”. With his sister’s help he manages to evade from prison and escape in New York. Here he starts immediately a new relationship with “Cosa Nostra” (Italian American Mafia). He is going to seat on the peak of the most powerful criminal organization, and the Italian authorities are almost impotent.

Beauty of Vice, The (Nikolic)

Director: Zivko Nikolic
Stars: Mira Furlan, Milutin ‘Mima’ Karadzic, Petar Bozovic
Genre: Drama
Country: Yugoslavia

A conservative couple decides to leave their rural community and the wife reluctantly takes up job at a naturist resort. Soon their traditional lifestyle starts colliding with the unconventional one.

Promise, A (Yoshida)

Director: Yoshishige Yoshida
Stars: Rentarô Mikuni, Chôichirô Kawarasaki, Orie Satô
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan

An old woman has died and her widower with dementia confesses to killing her. After this, the story goes back in time to show the events leading up to her death.

Street of Crocodiles (Quay)

Director: Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay, Weiser Quay
Stars: Feliks Stawinski
Genre: Animation, Short
Country: UK

Inside a box full of curio, a puppet who is recently freed from his strings explores a dusty and forlorn commercial area. The explorer becomes ensnared into miniature tailor shop by baby-faced dolls.

Assault, The (Rademakers)

Director: Fons Rademakers
Stars: Derek de Lint, Marc van Uchelen, Monique van de Ven
Genre: Drama, History, Romance
Country: Netherlands

A Dutch doctor, haunted by grueling childhood memories of World War II, struggles to find peace as he spends his life looking for answers about the tragic night that shaped him.

Terrorizers, The (Yang)

Director: Edward Yang
Stars: Cora Miao, Li-Chun Lee, Shih-Chieh King
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Taiwan

A metaphysical mystery about the lives of three couples in Taipei that continually intersect over a span of several weeks.

Night of the Pencils (Olivera)

Director: Héctor Olivera
Stars: Alejo García Pintos, Vita Escardó, Pablo Novak
Genre: Crime, Drama, History
Country: Argentina

This films tells the true story of seven teenagers who agitated for reduced student bus fares under two different regimes in Argentina, with tragic results.

Courier (Shakhnazarov)

Director: Karen Shakhnazarov
Stars: Fyodor Dunayevsky, Anastasiya Nemolyaeva, Oleg Basilashvili
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Soviet Union

The story of a teenager boy in times of the comunism fall in the Soviet Union.

Girl’s Own Story, A (Campion)

Director: Jane Campion
Stars: Gabrielle Shornegg, Geraldine Haywood, Marina Knight
Genre: Short
Country: Australia

A look at three girls, young teens, in the era of the Beatles. Pam lives with parents who haven’t spoken directly to each other in two years, using their daughters to talk across the table to each other. Gloria wants to play games with her boyfriend Graeme and ends up pregnant after a kissless, passionless introduction to sex. Stella becomes popular and puts her friendship with Pam on hold. Meanwhile, Pam’s father and other predatory men lurk in the shadows around the girls.

…And the Pursuit of Happiness (Malle)

Director: Louis Malle
Stars: Franklin Chang-Diaz, Louis Malle, Anastasio Samosa Portocarrero
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

After acknowledging his own immigrant background, Malle, tries to present the range of immigrant experiences in the US during the 1980’s. In an attempt to be comprehensive, the film includes interviews with migrant workers and illegal entrants along the Mexican border, conversations with an enterprising Indian motel owner, coverage of industrious African and Asian families in the cities, an extensive interview with the first Costa Rican astronaut, visits with Cuban exiles in Miami, several conversations with West Indian poet Derek Walcott, an extended portrait of the deposed Nicaraguan General Samoza (the surviving brother of Anastasio Somoza Debayle) and his extended family. The film finishes with a brief visit to the Russian Jewish community in Brooklyn, NY to tie in with the centenary of the Statue of Liberty.

Anne Trister (Pool)

Director: Léa Pool
Stars: Albane Guilhe, Louise Marleau, Lucie Laurier
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada

A Swiss Jewish artist who is grieving her father, moves to Montreal and forms a friendship with a child psychiatrist. While creating an installation in an abandoned warehouse, she confronts her past and is increasingly drawn to her friend.

Jean de Florette (Berri)

Director: Claude Berri
Stars: Yves Montand, Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Switzerland | France | Italy

A greedy landowner and his backward nephew conspire to block the only water source for an adjoining property in order to bankrupt the owner and force him to sell.

Ginger and Fred (Fellini)

Director: Federico Fellini
Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Giulietta Masina, Franco Fabrizi
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy | France | West Germany

Amelia and Pippo are reunited after several decades to perform their old music-hall act on a TV variety show.

Manon of the Spring (Berri)

Director: Claude Berri
Stars: Yves Montand, Emmanuelle Béart, Daniel Auteuil
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Switzerland | Italy | France

A beautiful but shy shepherdess plots vengeance on the men whose greedy conspiracy to acquire her father’s land caused his death years earlier.

Home of the Brave: A Film by Laurie Anderson (Anderson)

Director: Laurie Anderson
Stars: Laurie Anderson, Joy Askew, Adrian Belew
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: USA | Canada

Concert film of Laurie Anderson performing songs from her first three albums, selections from her four-night epic “United States Live,” and several new songs, which incorporate a unique blend of film, animation, dance, and electronics.

Mala Noche (Van Sant)

Director: Gus Van Sant
Stars: Tim Streeter, Doug Cooeyate, Ray Monge
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

A story of amour fou. Walt is madly in love/lust with a young illegal Mexican immigrant. However, the object of his unrequited affection doesn’t even speak any English and finds Walt really strange and undesirable.

Dust in the Wind (Hou)

Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou
Stars: Grace Chen, Shu-Fang Chen, Shu-Fen Hsin
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Taiwan

A young couple leave their mining town home for Taipei where they struggle to eke out a living in an industrial wasteland.

Castle in the Sky (Miyazaki)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Stars: Mayumi Tanaka, Keiko Yokozawa, Kotoe Hatsui
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Drama
Country: Japan

A young boy and a girl with a magic crystal must race against pirates and foreign agents in a search for a legendary floating castle.

Meeting Woody Allen (Godard)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Stars: Woody Allen, Jean-Luc Godard, Annette Insdorf
Genre: Documentary, Short
Country: France

Revolutionary French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard conducts a twenty-five minute interview with influential and acclaimed American director Woody Allen on the cultural radiation, the ubiquity and significance of Television, and how Television compares with cinema as a medium and form of expression.

Exercise in Discipline: Peel, An (Campion)

Director: Jane Campion
Stars: Tim Pye, Katie Pye, Ben Martin
Genre: Short
Country: Australia

A father along with his son and sister is driving back home in his car. The son continiously is throwing orange peels onto the road when suddenly the father stops the car and tells his son to pick the peels. His son disagrees on that and the sister is getting nervous, because she will be going to miss her favourite TV series. Finally everyone is getting pretty angry.

Dead Man’s Letters (Lopushanskiy)

Director: Konstantin Lopushanskiy
Stars: Rolan Bykov, Iosif Ryklin, Viktor Mikhaylov
Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: Soviet Union

The world after the nuclear apocalypse. Pale light lits the scenery of total destruction. The surviving humans vegetate in wet cellars under the nuclear winter. But somehow human spirit still sees somewhere the dim light of a new and better future. The next generation starts the walk towards a new life.

Rosa Luxemburg (von Trotta)

Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Stars: Barbara Sukowa, Daniel Olbrychski, Otto Sander
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: West Germany | Czechoslovakia

After years of political agitation, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and Leo Jogiches form a revolutionary German party, the Spartacists.

Peril (Deville)

Director: Michel Deville
Stars: Anémone, Richard Bohringer, Nicole Garcia
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: France

A magnate and his younger wife hire David to teach guitar to their teenage daughter. The wife quickly seduces David, and simultaneously he strikes up an acquaintance with the family’s inquisitive neighbor. One night, David is mugged but rescued from injury by a stranger, Daniel, who also becomes David’s friend and admits to being a hit man. Video tapes of their activities appear in the lovers’ mail; David thinks they’re from the neighbor, Daniel is sure the husband is onto the affair and hired the mugger.

Bliss (Lawrence)

Director: Ray Lawrence
Stars: Barry Otto, Lynette Curran, Helen Jones
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Australia

After a near-death experience, a man wonders if he actually did die and is now in Hell.

Chronos (Fricke)

Director: Ron Fricke
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary, Short
Country: USA | France

Carefully picked scenes of nature and civilization are viewed at high speed using time-lapse cinematography in an effort to demonstrate the history of various regions.

Wetherby (Hare)

Director: David Hare
Stars: Vanessa Redgrave, Ian Holm, Judi Dench
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Country: UK

The mysterious death of an enigmatic young man newly arrived in the suburb of Wetherby releases the long-repressed, dark passions of some of its residents.

Tampopo (Itami)

Director: Jûzô Itami
Stars: Ken Watanabe, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto
Genre: Comedy
Country: Japan

A truck driver stops at a small family-run noodle shop and decides to help its fledgling business. The story is intertwined with various vignettes about the relationship of love and food.

Turtle Diary (Irvin)

Director: John Irvin
Stars: Glenda Jackson, Ben Kingsley, Richard Johnson
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: UK | USA

Two separate people, a man and a woman, find something very stirring about the sea turtles in their tank at the London Zoo. They meet and form an odd, but sympathetic camaraderie as they plan to steal two of the turtles and free them into the ocean.

Alamo Bay (Malle)

Director: Louis Malle
Stars: Amy Madigan, Ed Harris, Ho Nguyen
Genre: Action, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

A despondent Vietnam veteran in danger of losing his livelihood is pushed to the edge when he sees Vietnamese immigrants moving into the fishing industry in a Texas bay town.

Détective (Godard)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Stars: Laurent Terzieff, Aurelle Doazan, Jean-Pierre Léaud
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: Switzerland | France

In a palace of Paris. Two detectives are investigating a two-year-old murder. Emile and Francoise Chenal are putting pressure on Jim Fox Warner, a boxing manager, who owes them a huge amount of money. But Jim also owes money to the Mafia, and it seems the boxing match he is counting on to bail out will not be sufficient.

Louie Bluie (Zwigoff)

Director: Terry Zwigoff
Stars: Howard Armstrong, Ted Bogan, Jay Lynch
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: USA

About the obscure country-blues musician and idiosyncratic visual artist Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong, member of the last known black string band in America.

Alpine Fire (Murer)

Director: Fredi M. Murer
Stars: Thomas Nock, Johanna Lier, Dorothea Moritz
Genre: Drama
Country: Switzerland

A year on an Alpine farm: an older couple have two children, Belli, who wanted to be a teacher, and the younger Franzi, deaf, and although he works like a man, child-like. Belli teaches him. In his work, he can become frustrated, so when he throws an expensive mower over a cliff in a fit of pique, his father banishes him to the outskirts of the farm, where he uses pubescent energy to break rocks and build walls and cairns. (It’s the tradition of the father’s family, called “The Irascibles” by neighbors, to spend puberty doing this.) Belli visits him and they begin sleeping together. By winter, the boy is back in the house and Belli is pregnant. Soon her parents must know.

Hey Babu Riba (Acin)

Director: Jovan Acin
Stars: Gala Videnovic, Relja Basic, Nebojsa Bakocevic
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Yugoslavia

In 1985, four middle-aged Yugoslav emigres return to Belgrade for the funeral of Mariana, their beautiful compatriot. They called her Esther, for Esther Williams, she was the coxswain for their four-man rowing team, and they each loved her. They’d last seen her in 1953, when they rowed her across the Adriatic, pregnant, to join her exiled father in Italy. In flashbacks we learn the story of their youthful baptism into sex, smoking, rock and roll (Hey Ba-ba-re-bop), Hollywood and Swedish films, blue jeans on the black market, and their rivalry with Ristic, the Communist Party youth leader for whom they had instant antipathy.

Impudent Girl, An (Miller)

Director: Claude Miller
Stars: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Clothilde Baudon, Julie Glenn
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: France

Charlotte (Gainsbourg) is being raised without a mother. She is only 13 but ready to be an adult. She meets an older boy and begins a relationship while teaching a young friend about life and learning the ropes herself.

Mass is Ended, The (Moretti)

Director: Nanni Moretti
Stars: Nanni Moretti, Ferruccio De Ceresa, Marco Messeri
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy

The young priest Father Giulio returns to Rome, his hometown, after a long pilgrimage. Don Giulio hopes to live peacefully with his family and his friends, but discovers that many of them are depressed or frustrated, and some suicidal. Father Giulio determines to leave again, but his stopped parents convince him to perform the wedding ceremony for his friend Caesar and his fiancee. Don Giulio rushes through the ceremony and then away from Rome. Once away from the city, he immediately regains happiness.

Hail Mary (Godard)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Stars: Myriem Roussel, Thierry Rode, Philippe Lacoste
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Switzerland | UK

A college student gets pregnant without having intercourse, affecting people close and unrelated to her in different ways.

Ladyhawke (Donner)

Director: Richard Donner
Stars: Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer, Michelle Pfeiffer
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Country: USA | Italy

The thief Gaston escapes the dungeon of medieval Aquila through the latrine. Soldiers are about to kill him when Navarre saves him. Navarre, traveling with his spirited hawk, plans to kill the bishop of Aquila with help from Gaston.

A.K. (Marker)

Director: Chris Marker
Stars: Shigehiko Hasumi, Chris Marker, Akira Kurosawa
Genre: Documentary, Biography, History
Country: France | Japan

A documentary that shows the production of Ran and discusses the film techniques of Kurosawa himself.

God’s Country (Malle)

Director: Louis Malle
Stars: Louis Malle, Lowell Barnum, Arnold Beneke
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Original footage of the prosperous farming community of Glencoe Minnesota, 60 miles west of Minneapolis, was filmed in 1979 for a PBS documentary. But for the next six years Malle was too busy with other projects to finish this work. He returned in 1985 for a follow-up and found the community reacting to the mid eighties crisis of overproduction in farm country. with weekly foreclosures on family farms, and many families moving to the south, Malle documented a sense of frustration and apprehension from the same participants he had befriended in better times half a decade earlier.

Zuckerbaby (Adlon)

Director: Percy Adlon
Stars: Marianne Sägebrecht, Eisi Gulp, Toni Berger
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: West Germany

An asocial, obese German woman lives in a large city. Unfortunately despite her kind and intelligent personality, she has had a lot of trouble making a connection with people, until she gets a crush on a handsome subway conductor.

No End (Kieslowski)

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Stars: Grazyna Szapolowska, Maria Pakulnis, Aleksander Bardini
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Poland

It’s 1982: Poland is under martial law, and Solidarity is banned. Ulla, a translator working on Orwell, suddenly loses her husband, Antek, an attorney. She is possessed by her grief, and Antek continues to appear to her. She seeks to free herself in her work, in her relationship with her son, in sex, and in hypnosis. In a subplot, Ulla refers the wife of one of her husband’s clients – Darek, a jailed Solidarity strike organizer – to Labrador, a world-weary, aging attorney, who works to free Darek by various political manipulations and psychological ploys.

Into Thin Air (Young)

Director: Roger Young
Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Robert Prosky, Sam Robards
Genre: Drama
Country: USA | UK

Ellen Burstyn stars as the Canadian mother of a college student who vanishes mysteriously while driving back to school in the states. After having no luck from the police, she hires a private detective (Robert Prosky) to help her. Their tenacious pursuit of clues uncovers the grim details of her son’s fate, leading to a shocking climax.

Pas în doi (Pita)

Director: Dan Pita
Stars: Claudiu Bleont, Petre Nicolae, Ecaterina Nazare
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Romania

Two friends, closer than brothers, working together, staying in the same room, playing together.

Scorpio Nights (Gallaga)

Director: Peque Gallaga
Stars: Daniel Fernando, Anna Marie Gutierrez, Orestes Ojeda
Genre: Drama
Country: Philippines

Young Danny resides above the room of a security guard and his wife in a shabby apartment. Every day, the husband goes home, eats his dinner, washes the dishes, goes straight to bed and makes love to his wife. Danny plays Peeping Tom and every night observes through a hole in his floorboard. One night unable to control his urges, he enters the room and does the same things of husband and he has sex with her with no resistance, her eyes closed. The two perform the act repeatedly until they fall in love with each other. The husband finds out that his wife is cheating on him, when one day he walks in on them while they are having sex, and shoots them both. He then shoots himself while having sex with his dead wife.

Poulet au vinaigre (Chabrol)

Director: Claude Chabrol
Stars: Jean Poiret, Stéphane Audran, Michel Bouquet
Genre: Crime, Mystery
Country: France

When a small town of Normandy begins losing its citizenry in a series of strange deaths, out-of-town police inspector Jean Lavardin (Jean Poiret) is sent to investigate. Could the killers be a bullied son (Lucas Belvaux) and his possessive and manipulative mother (Stephane Audran) ? Or a pushy trio of local public figures and land developers wanna-be?

Colonel Redl (Szabó)

Director: István Szabó
Stars: Klaus Maria Brandauer, Hans Christian Blech, Armin Mueller-Stahl
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Yugoslavia | Hungary | Austria | West Germany

Set during the fading glory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the film tells of the rise and fall of Alfred Redl (Brandauer), an ambitious young officer who proceeds up the ladder to become head of the Secret Police only to become ensnared in political deception.

Tokyo-Ga (Wenders)

Director: Wim Wenders
Stars: Chishû Ryû, Werner Herzog, Yûharu Atsuta
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA | West Germany

Moved by the work of director Yasujirô Ozu, Wim Wenders travels to Japan in search of the Tokyo seen in Ozu’s films.

Insignificance (Roeg)

Director: Nicolas Roeg
Stars: Gary Busey, Tony Curtis, Theresa Russell
Genre: Comedy
Country: UK

Four 1950s icons meet in the same hotel room and two of them discover more in common between them than they ever anticipated.

Sweet Dreams (Reisz)

Director: Karel Reisz
Stars: Jessica Lange, Ed Harris, Ann Wedgeworth
Genre: Biography, Drama, Music
Country: USA

The story of Patsy Cline, the velvet-voiced country music singer who died in a tragic plane crash at the height of her fame.

Fright Night (Holland)

Director: Tom Holland
Stars: Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
Country: USA

A teenager discovers that the newcomer in his neighborhood is a vampire, so he turns to an actor in a television horror show for help dealing with the undead.

Himatsuri (Yanagimachi)

Director: Mitsuo Yanagimachi
Stars: Kin’ya Kitaôji, Kiwako Taichi, Norihei Miki
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan

The villagers in a beautiful remote area of Japan are divided into the woodsmen, who worship the mountain goddess, and the fishermen, who worship the goddess of the sea. These traditions are threatened by a planned marine park. Tatsuo is a macho lumberjack who hunts boars and monkeys with the young Ryota. Tatsuo is married with two children, has four elder sisters, and is under pressure to sell the family land to the developers. When the fish pens are deliberately contaminated by oil, the fishermen suspect Tatsuo. Kimiko, an old girlfriend of Tatsuo, returns to the village to find money to pay off her debts. During the annual fire festival, Tatsuo becomes angry when the old traditions are not preserved.

Hour of the Star (Amaral)

Director: Suzana Amaral
Stars: Marcelia Cartaxo, José Dumont, Tamara Taxman
Genre: Drama
Country: Brazil

Macabea has just moved to the big city after her aunt, who raised her, died. She gets a job as a typist and moves into a boarding house with three other women. In her spare time she listens to time Radio Station; on Sundays she likes to ride the subways. She describes herself saying, “I am a typist and a virgin, and I like Coca-Cola.” Then she meets Olimpico, a north-easterner like herself, who has dreams of becoming a Congressman.

Wuthering Heights (Rivette)

Director: Jacques Rivette
Stars: Fabienne Babe, Lucas Belvaux, Sandra Montaigu
Genre: Drama, Romance, Mystery
Country: France

Mistreated foundling Heathcliff and his stepsister Catherine fall in love, but when she marries a wealthy man, he becomes obsessed with getting revenge, even well into the next generation.

Typhoon Club (Sômai)

Director: Shinji Sômai
Stars: Yuichi Mikami, Yûki Kudô, Tomokazu Miura
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Japan

The movie takes place in the five-day period before, during and after a ferocious, seemingly liberating typhoon, which several students endure while marooned in their school gymnasium.

Early Frost, An (Erman)

Director: John Erman
Stars: Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, Sylvia Sidney
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

A young lawyer hasn’t told his parents about his homosexuality. Now he must tell them–at a time when the diagnosis was still a death sentence–that he has AIDS.

Book of Mary, The (Miéville)

Director: Anne-Marie Miéville
Stars: Bruno Cremer, Aurore Clément, Rebecca Hampton
Genre: Short, Drama
Country: France | Switzerland

Marie, eleven years old, is experiencing difficult times. Her parents will separate. The perception of her universe is profoundly disturbed. This exacting portrait of a child immerses in her books, her music, and her dancing casts a dispassionate yet ultimately touching eye on the girl’s reaction to the new upheaval in her life.

Statue of Liberty, The (Burns)

Director: Ken Burns
Stars: David McCullough, Jeremy Irons, Derek Jacobi
Genre: Documentary, History
Country: USA

Documentary showing the history of the world-famous Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, the impact it still has on people and the state of liberty as a personal and political concept in America in 1985.

City and the Dogs, The (Lombardi)

Director: Francisco J. Lombardi
Stars: Pablo Serra, Gustavo Bueno, Luis Álvarez
Genre: Drama
Country: Peru

Four angry cadets have formed an inner circle in an attempt to beat the system and ward off the boredom and stifling confinement of the military academy, set off a chain of events that starts with a theft and leads to murder.

Angry Harvest (Holland)

Director: Agnieszka Holland
Stars: Armin Mueller-Stahl, Elisabeth Trissenaar, Wojciech Pszoniak
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: West Germany

In the winter of 1942-43, a Jewish family leaps from a train going through Silesia. They are separated in the woods, and Leon, a local peasant who’s now a farmer of some wealth, discovers the woman, Rosa, and hides her in his cellar. Leon’s a middle-aged Catholic bachelor, tormented by his sexual drive. He doesn’t tell Rosa he’s seen signs her husband is alive, and he begs her to love him. Rosa offers herself to Leon if he’ll help a local Jew in hiding who needs money. Leon pays, and love between Rosa and him does develop, but then Leon’s peasant subservience and his limited empathy lead to tragedy. At the war’s end, a ray of sunshine comes from an unexpected place.

Rendez-vous (Téchiné)

Director: André Téchiné
Stars: Lambert Wilson, Juliette Binoche, Wadeck Stanczak
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

Dreaming of an actress future, a young girl arrives in Paris. Her personality awakens a glowing passion of several different men.

Dance with a Stranger (Newell)

Director: Mike Newell
Stars: Miranda Richardson, Rupert Everett, Ian Holm
Genre: Biography, Crime, Drama
Country: UK

A stormy relationship, complicated by the strictures of 1950s social class and gender roles, ends in death. Based on the life of Ruth Ellis, the last woman hanged in Britain.

Official Story, The (Puenzo)

Director: Luis Puenzo
Stars: Norma Aleandro, Héctor Alterio, Chunchuna Villafañe
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: Argentina

During the final months of Argentinian Military Dictatorship in 1983, a high school teacher sets out to find out who the mother of her adopted daughter is.

Ornette: Made in America (Clarke)

Director: Shirley Clarke
Stars: Ornette Coleman, John Giordano, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: USA

It captures Ornette’s evolution over three decades. Returning home to Fort Worth, Texas in 1983, it chronicles his boyhood in segregated Texas and his subsequent emergence as an American cultural pioneer and world-class icon.

Last Assault, The (Nicolaescu)

Director: Sergiu Nicolaescu
Stars: George Alexandru, Anda Onesa, Valentin Uritescu
Genre: War
Country: Romania

The Last Assault is a 1986 Romanian drama film directed by Sergiu Nicolaescu. It is set during World War II, during the period when Romania joined the Allies against the Axis.

Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart (Wang)

Director: Wayne Wang
Stars: Laureen Chew, Kim Chew, Victor Wong
Genre: Comedy
Country: USA

In San Francisco, an immigrant widow welcomes the new year with some unhappiness: she’s sixty-two now, she wants to make a trip to China to pay last respects to her ancestors, a fortune teller has told her this is the year she’ll die, and a daughter, Geraldine, remains unmarried. Geraldine does have a boyfriend, but she’s not sure she’s ready for marriage, and, anyway, he lives in Los Angeles and Geraldine doesn’t want to leave her mother alone in her declining years. Mrs. Tan’s cheerful brother-in-law tries to help out. Is there any solution that will enable Mrs. Tan to hold onto her culturally influenced and deep-seated hopes, yet keep those hopes from suffocating Geraldine?

Dark Glow of the Mountains, The (Herzog)

Director: Werner Herzog
Stars: Reinhold Messner, Hans Kammerlander, Werner Herzog
Genre: Documentary
Country: West Germany

Werner Herzog follows mountaineers Hans Kammerlander and Reinhold Messner during their expedition into climbing the Gasherbrum mountains, which has some of the most difficult peaks to be conquered, and they’ll do it without the use of oxygen tanks. Herzog also takes some time to hear about their past experiences with other mountains, their personal tragedies and the reasons why they are so involved with such activity.

My Sweet Little Village (Menzel)

Director: Jirí Menzel
Stars: János Bán, Marián Labuda, Rudolf Hrusínský
Genre: Comedy
Country: Czechoslovakia

Comedy about the people who inhabit a small town. For years the overbearing Pavek has endured Otik, the “town idiot,” sharing his meals and the front seat of their dump truck. But Otik is such a sweet-natured fool that Pavek, exasperated as he becomes, always relents on his threats to find another partner. This Laurel and Hardy-like pair are at the heart of a comedy which finds humor in an abundance of everyday situations. The town doctor regularly wrecks his car because he’s admiring the scenery, a romantic teenager develops a hopeless crush on his sister’s schoolteacher, and an adulterous housewife and her boyfriend are just one step ahead of her suspicious, hot-headed husband.

Poison for the Fairies (Taboada)

Director: Carlos Enrique Taboada
Stars: Ana Patricia Rojo, Elsa María Gutiérrez, Leonor Llausás
Genre: Fantasy, Horror
Country: Mexico

A 10 year old girl convinces a lonely classmate that she is a witch, forcing the child to become her assistant. Though their games are initially rather naive, they gradually take a nasty and violent turn.

Vampire Hunter D (Ashida)

Director: Toyoo Ashida
Stars: Kaneto Shiozawa, Michie Tomizawa, Seizô Katô
Genre: Animation, Action, Fantasy
Country: Japan

A young girl requests the help of a vampire hunter to kill the vampire who has bitten her, and thus prevent her from becoming a vampire herself.

Room with a View, A (Ivory)

Director: James Ivory
Stars: Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter, Denholm Elliott
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: UK

Lucy meets George in a Florence pensione and the two share a brief romance before Lucy returns home, where she becomes engaged to Cecil. However, it isn’t long before George unexpectedly enters her life again.

This Unnameable Little Broom (Quay, Griffith)

Director: Keith Griffiths, Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay, Weiser Quay
Stars: n/a
Genre: Animation, Short, Fantasy
Country: UK

Loosely based on the Mesopotamian “Epic of Gilgamesh”, here Gilgamesh is portrayed as a grotesque, Picasso-esque being who uses a tricycle to patrol his box-shaped kingdom that hovers above a dark abyss.

O-Bi, O-Ba – The End of Civilization (Szulkin)

Director: Piotr Szulkin
Stars: Jerzy Stuhr, Krystyna Janda, Kalina Jedrusik
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Country: Poland

Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.

Private Practices: The Story of a Sex Surrogate (Dick)

Director: Kirby Dick
Stars: Maureen Sullivan, Warren Robert Jason, Noreen Hennesey
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

In this cult doc from 1985, director Kirby Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated) weaves a fascinating study of the curious role of a sex surrogate in the then-new discipline of sexual therapy. Maureen Sullivan and two of her clients agreed to have the entire progression of their therapy taped, and what emerges is a disarming and compassionate look at the struggles people face in connecting with one another.

Hitler’s S.S.: Portrait in Evil (Goddard)

Director: Jim Goddard
Stars: John Shea, Bill Nighy, Lucy Gutteridge
Genre: Drama, War
Country: USA

The story of Helmut and Karl Hoffmann. Both come of age at the start of Hitler’s power in Germany. Helmut joins the SS and eventually becomes a successful flag rank officer. Karl joins the SA and experiences the darker side of Nazism after the SA is disbanded and Karl is thrown into prison and later conscripted into the German army. Brother is pitted against brother until their relationship, and the Third Reich, stands in ruins.

Emerald Forest, The (Boorman)

Director: John Boorman
Stars: Powers Boothe, Meg Foster, Yara Vaneau
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama
Country: USA

After the son of engineer Bill Markham is abducted by an aboriginal tribe on the edge of the rain forest, the engineer spends the next 10 years searching for him.

Ran (Kurosawa)

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu
Genre: Action, Drama, War
Country: Japan | France

In Medieval Japan, an elderly warlord retires, handing over his empire to his three sons. However, he vastly underestimates how the new-found power will corrupt them and cause them to turn on each other…and him.

My Friend Ivan Lapshin (German)

Director: Aleksey German
Stars: Andrei Boltnev, Nina Ruslanova, Andrey Mironov
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union

Russian provincial town in the middle of the 1930s Stalin’s Great Purge. Ivan Lapshin, the head of the local police, does what he has to do. And he does it well.

Carmen (Rosi)

Director: Francesco Rosi
Stars: Julia Migenes, Plácido Domingo, Ruggero Raimondi
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: France | Italy

A film version of the famous Bizet opera, where a soldier (Don Jose) falls in love with a beautiful factory worker (Carmen), but she does not reciprocate his feelings.

Kaos (Taviani)

Director: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani
Stars: Margarita Lozano, Orazio Torrisi, Carlo Cartier
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Italy

Five stories by Luigi Pirandello set in turn-of-the-century Italy.

Bianca (Moretti)

Director: Nanni Moretti
Stars: Nanni Moretti, Laura Morante, Roberto Vezzosi
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy

Michele is a mathematics professor who just started a new job in a school with some peculiar teaching methods. After a woman in his neighborhood is murdered, Michele meets beautiful colleague Bianca, and a relationship begins between the two. Where is this relationship heading, and will Michele be able to help the police catch the murderer?

Repo Man (Cox)

Director: Alex Cox
Stars: Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Estevez, Tracey Walter
Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime
Country: USA

A young punk recruited by a car repossession agency finds himself in pursuit of a Chevrolet Malibu that is wanted for a $20,000 bounty – and has something otherworldly stashed in its trunk.

Chain, The (Gold)

Director: Jack Gold
Stars: Denis Lawson, Rita Wolf, Phyllis Logan
Genre: Comedy
Country: UK

Comedy featuring interweaving stories of seven households caught up in a property chain on moving day, each one dependent on the other.

Una (Radivojevic)

Director: Milos ‘Misa’ Radivojevic
Stars: Sonja Savic, Rade Serbedzija, Milena Dravic
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Yugoslavia

A romantic thoughtful interview intended student list entirely changed the lives of two people, professors and eminent students.

Camila (Bemberg)

Director: María Luisa Bemberg
Stars: Susú Pecoraro, Imanol Arias, Héctor Alterio
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Argentina | Spain

In 1840’s Buenos Aires, Argentina, a beautiful young socialite named Camila falls in love with Ladislao, a Jesuit priest. After several failed attempts at fighting his own feelings, he ultimately succumbs to her. The two later escape to a far off, secluded village where they assume new identities as husband and wife and begin running a children’s school. After several months of relative happiness, the couple’s identity is discovered by a local priest. Under moralistic pressure from both Camila’s family and the Catholic church the authorities apprehend the lovers, and imprison them for sacrilege.

Sonatine (Lanctôt)

Director: Micheline Lanctôt
Stars: Pascale Bussières, Marcia Pilote, Pierre F. Fauteux
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada

Two teenaged friends have separate difficult experiences that make the girls seriously consider suicide.

Funeral, The (Itami)

Director: Jûzô Itami
Stars: Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto, Kin Sugai
Genre: Comedy
Country: Japan

At the beginning of the film the father-in-law of the protagonist dies unexpectedly of a heart attack. The remainder of the film is episodic, moving from one incident to another over the course of the three-day funeral, which is held (as is customary) in the home. These incidents contrast old ways and new ways, young and old, ritual ceremony and true feelings, often comically, but sometimes with real poignancy.

Next of Kin (Egoyan)

Director: Atom Egoyan
Stars: Patrick Tierney, Berj Fazlian, Sirvart Fazlian
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada

Unhappy living with his loveless parents, a young man convinces a family of Armenian immigrants that he’s their long-lost son and moves in with them, improving all of their lives in the process.

Sexmission (Machulski)

Director: Juliusz Machulski
Stars: Wieslaw Michnikowski, Jerzy Stuhr, Olgierd Lukaszewicz
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi
Country: Poland | Czechoslovakia

Two scientists are placed in hibernation and should be awaken after three years. But when they wake up, it turns out that it has been fifty years, and they are the only two males in a new, underground society composed exclusively of women.

Secret Honor (Altman)

Director: Robert Altman
Stars: Philip Baker Hall
Genre: Biography, Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

A fictionalized former President Richard M. Nixon offers a solitary, stream-of-consciousness reflection on his life and political career – and the “true” reasons for the Watergate scandal and his resignation.

Mrs. Soffel (Armstrong)

Director: Gillian Armstrong
Stars: Diane Keaton, Mel Gibson, Matthew Modine
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Peter Soffel is the stuffy warden of a remote American prison around the turn of the century. His wife, Kate, finds herself attracted to prisoner Ed Biddle. She abandons her husband and children to help Ed and his brother Jack escape and accompanies them into the wintery wasteland.

Test of Love, A (Brealey)

Director: Ingmar Bergman
Stars: Angela Punch McGregor, Drew Forsythe, Liddy Clark
Genre: Drama
Country: Australia

In the 1970s, Jessica Hathaway (Angela Punch McGregor) joins the staff of Brentwood Hospital, a government facility for handicapped children in Melbourne, Australia. One of her patients is Annie O’Farrell (Tina Arhondis), whose cerebral palsy has kept her institutionalized since the age of 3. Convinced the girl, now 13, has been misdiagnosed as legally retarded, Jessica teaches her to communicate through a Ouija board in this true story about the fight to free Annie from institutional care.

In the Jaws of Life (Grlik)

Director: Rajko Grlic
Stars: Gorica Popovic, Vitomira Loncar, Bogdan Diklic
Genre: Comedy
Country: Yugoslavia

This movie, based in part on the popular novel, tells two tales about modern women. One is Stefica Cvek, average and lonely girl who is desperately trying to find the man of her dreams. The other story is about a woman director who is making the movie abozt Stefica and has the same problem.

Almanac of Fall (Tarr)

Director: Béla Tarr
Stars: Hédi Temessy, Erika Bodnár, Miklós Székely B.
Genre: Drama
Country: Hungary

A large, claustrophobic apartment is the setting for this intense chamber drama. In this dense setting, the inhabitants of the apartment reveal their darkest secrets, fears, obsessions and hostilities.

Repentance (Abuladze)

Director: Tengiz Abuladze
Stars: Avtandil Makharadze, Zeinab Botsvadze, Ia Ninidze
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union

Varlam, the despotic mayor of a small town, dies. After his funeral, his body is repeatedly unearthed and buried again. Through flashbacks and dreamlike scenes, we witness his rise, power and ambiguities.

Ghost (Ito)

Director: Takashi Ito
Stars: Bin Shimada
Genre: Short, Horror
Country: Japan

Haunting light and haunted spaces, otherworldly movement and abstracted time. A ghost visits an apartment complex.

Becoming Aware (Doria)

Director: Alejandro Doria
Stars: Luis Brandoni, Dora Baret, Luisina Brando
Genre: Drama
Country: Argentina

The film centers on a unsuccessful doctor and his patient, whom everyone believes has no hope of ever recovering from a recent accident, and the daily events of a public hospital in Argentina.

Berta’s Motives (Guerín)

Director: José Luis Guerín
Stars: Sílvia Gracia, Iñaki Aierra, Rafael Díaz
Genre: Drama
Country: Spain

The life of a young girl who plays with little animals and insects is suddenly changed with the arrival of a film crew and a strange man.

Love Unto Death (Resnais)

Director: Alain Resnais
Stars: Sabine Azéma, Fanny Ardant, Pierre Arditi
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

Elisabeth and Simon have been deeply in love for two months when Simon momentarily dies, but comes back to life. Simon does not want any further medical tests, but the couple are forced to grapple with the possibility of his death. They eventually tell their close friends Jérôme and Judith Martignac about the event. The Martignacs are both clerics, and Judith has just been giving a funeral service for a villager who committed suicide, though Jérôme would have nothing to do with suicide.

One Night Stand (Duigan)

Director: John Duigan
Stars: Tyler Coppin, Cassandra Delaney, Jay Hackett
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: Australia | Canada

In Australia, four teenagers in a Sydney theater are astounded to hear the news that a nuclear war has broken out in Eastern Europe. They try to figure out the best way they can survive the coming conflagration.

Dollmaker, The (Petrie)

Director: Daniel Petrie
Stars: Jane Fonda, Levon Helm, Amanda Plummer
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

Jane Fonda gives an Emmy-winning performance as Gertie Nevels, a pioneer woman and the mother of five from the Kentucky hills who is forced to uproot her children to follow her husband Clovis (Levon Helm) to Detroit when he finds work during World War II. One setback follows another and shattering tragedy strikes the family. It’s all up to Gertie to find new strength, courage and determination to keep her family together and strong.

Full Moon in Paris (Rohmer)

Director: Éric Rohmer
Stars: Pascale Ogier, Tchéky Karyo, Fabrice Luchini
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France

Louise, a young woman, who recently finished her studies in arts, is working as a interior decorator trainee. Playing the game of seduction, her life becomes more and more complicated.

Jango (Tendler)

Director: Silvio Tendler
Stars: Leonel Brizola, João Goulart, Juscelino Kubitschek
Genre: Documentary, Biography, History
Country: Brazil

The story of João “Jango” Goulart, the Brazilian left-wing president deposed by the military.

Three Veterans, The (Lipský)

Director: Oldrich Lipský
Stars: Rudolf Hrusínský, Petr Cepek, Josef Somr
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Family
Country: USA

Three veterans are given magic artifacts by elves that can magically create gold, servants and any other object. They encounter greedy characters and one of them falls in love with a princess.

Quest (Bass)

Director: Elaine Bass, Saul Bass
Stars: John Abbott, Noah Hathaway, David Comfort
Genre: Short, Sci-Fi
Country: USA

On a distant planet, descendants of a crashed spaceship are subjected to mysterious forces that cause them to age and die in just eight days. They must also live in caves to escape the bitter cold of night and the killing heat of day. One young boy is determined to find his way back to the ship that brought them there. But how will accomplish this in the short time left to him?

Formula of Love (Zakharov)

Director: Mark Zakharov
Stars: Elena Valyushkina, Aleksandr Mikhaylov, Aleksandr Abdulov
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Country: Soviet Union

A young aristocrat, Aleksei Fedyashev, is languishing in his family’s country estate, spending his days reading poetry and confessing his love… to a statue. Upon hearing that famous Count Cagliostro is touring Russia and has created quite a buzz in high society with his “magic”, he decides to ask the Count to bring the statue to life.

Cotton Club, The (Coppola)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Stars: Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane
Genre: Crime, Drama, Music
Country: USA

Meet the jazz musicians, dancers, owner and guests (e.g. gangster Dutch Schultz) of The Cotton Club in 1928-30s Harlem.

Secret of Bacchus, The (Saizescu)

Director: Geo Saizescu
Stars: Emil Hossu, Stefan Mihailescu-Braila, Dem Radulescu
Genre: Comedy, Action
Country: Romania

During the communist era in Romania, a reporter finds an incredibly well organized network of a local winery. The whole movie is a satire of the communist regimes’ absurd economical and social rules.

Love on the Ground (Rivette)

Director: Jacques Rivette
Stars: Jane Birkin, Geraldine Chaplin, André Dussollier
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: France

A play within a play within a play within a play. Actors perform a play in a house, an audience member invites them to work in his own home improvising a play around his own life. The line between fiction and reality blur.

SAntonio Gaudí (Teshigahara)

Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Stars: Isidro Puig Boada, Antoni Gaudí, Seiji Miyaguchi
Genre: Documentary
Country: Japan

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s camera takes us over, under, around, and into buildings and a park designed by Antonio Gaudí (1852 – 1926), Catalan architect, ceramist, and sculptor.

Strangler vs. Strangler (Sijan)

Director: Slobodan Sijan
Stars: Tasko Nacic, Nikola Simic, Srdjan Saper
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Horror
Country: Yugoslavia

A mentally disturbed flower seller starts killing young girls on the streets of Belgrade. While the frustrated police inspector is trying to stop him, an aspiring musician finds his life and work deeply intertwined with that of a killer.

Home and the World, The (S. Ray)

Director: Satyajit Ray
Stars: Soumitra Chatterjee, Victor Banerjee, Swatilekha Sengupta
Genre: Drama
Country: India

When the movie opens, a woman is recalling the events that molded her perspective on the world. Years ago, her husband, a wealthy Western-educated landowner, challenged tradition by providing her with schooling, and inviting her out of the seclusion in which married women were kept, to the consternation of more conservative relatives. Meeting her husband’s visiting friend from college, a leader of an economic rebellion against the British, she takes up his political cause, despite her husbands warnings. As the story progresses, the relationship between the woman and the visitor becomes more than platonic, and the political battles, pitting rich against poor and Hindu against Moslem, turn out not to be quite as simple as she had first thought.

Under the Volcano (Huston)

Director: John Huston
Stars: Albert Finney, Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Andrews
Genre: Drama
Country: Mexico | USA

The last 24 hours in the life of Geoffrey Firmin, a lonely, depressed English consul who retreats to alcohol for solace.

Dr. Fischer of Geneva (Lindsay-Hogg)

Director: Michael Lindsay-Hogg
Stars: James Mason, Alan Bates, Greta Scacchi
Genre: Drama
Country: UK

Dr. Fischer has an unusual hobby, to expose human greed. How much humiliation will his fellow man endure enticed by valuable presents? Dignity for money. Death for money?

Favorites of the Moon (Iosseliani)

Director: Otar Iosseliani
Stars: Katja Rupé, Alix de Montaigu, François Michel
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: France | Italy | Soviet Union

Awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 41st Venice International Film Festival, this absurdist comedy, with its sprawling cast of crooks, thieves, anarchists, prostitutes, chief inspectors, art dealers, and inventors, calls to mind the bustling tapestries of Robert Altman. The story revolves around two objects, a rare set of 18th-century Limoges china, and a 19th century aristocratic portrait. As these items are passed, sold, or stolen from one character to another, a giddy round dance of excess begins to take shape, one which suggests that if history doesn’t repeat itself, it certainly rhymes.

Class Relations (Huillet, Straub)

Director: Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub
Stars: Christian Heinisch, Nazzareno Bianconi, Mario Adorf
Genre: Drama
Country: West Germany | France

After making the domestic servant pregnant, a woman who doubles his age, a young man of only seventeen years from the German bourgeoisie is sent by his family to the United States in order to avoid a huge scandal.

Andrei Tarkovsky: A Poet in the Cinema (Baglivo)

Director: Donatella Baglivo
Stars: Donatella Baglivo, Andrei Tarkovsky
Genre: Documentary
Country: Italy

Tarkovsky expounds on his life and work, the essential importance of fighting, the conceptual nonexistence of happiness, what childhood determines about us, wartime’s impact on fantasies, and the salutary effects of a year laboring in Siberia.

In Heaven There Is No Beer? (Blank)

Director: Les Blank
Stars: Dick Pillar, Walter Szczypula, Jimmy Sturr & His Orchestra
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: USA

A portrait of the life, culture and food surrounding the lovers of Polka music. The title is taken from an old Polka standard. Stars of the Polka world are highlighted.

Year of the Quiet Sun, A (Zanussi)

Director: Krzysztof Zanussi
Stars: Maja Komorowska, Scott Wilson, Hanna Skarzanka
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Poland | Italy | West Germany

Shortly after World War II an American soldier (Norman) and a Polish refugee (Emilia) fall in deep love. Eventually he will return to the U.S. and both expect that she will soon follow him. Emilia’s mother is sick, but would recover by available medicine. Somehow the mother, but not Emilia, knows that there will only be one ticket. Realizing that Emilia would never abandon her, the mother secretly throws away the daily doses given her by Emilia, and dies. Somehow Emilia discovers her mother’s sacrifice and refuses to benefit from it. She gives the ticket to a female friend and retreats to a cloister, living like the nuns except not wearing their dress and not having given a promise to stay forever.

Voyage to Cythera (Angelopoulos)

Director: Theodoros Angelopoulos
Stars: Manos Katrakis, Mairi Hronopoulou, Dionysis Papagiannopoulos
Genre: Drama
Country: Greece | West Germany | Italy | UK

An old communist returns to Greece after 32 years in the Soviet Union. However, things aren’t the way he had hoped for.

Company of Wolves, The (Jordan)

Director: Neil Jordan
Stars: Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury, David Warner
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Country: UK

A teenage girl in a country manor falls asleep while reading a magazine, and has a disturbing dream involving wolves prowling the woods below her bedroom window.

Parade of the Planets (Abdrashitov)

Director: Vadim Abdrashitov
Stars: Oleg Borisov, Sergey Shakurov, Sergey Nikonenko
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Country: Soviet Union

In a surreal puzzler, this story of a fantasy lived by a disparate group of men captures the visual imagination with its images and leaves a large question mark in the meantime. A rare astronomical phenomenon – the parade of planets – has a peculiar effect on several of the men.

Diary for My Children (Mészáros)

Director: Márta Mészáros
Stars: Zsuzsa Czinkóczi, Teri Földi, Anna Polony
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Hungary

From one of the foremost woman directors comes a personal story of how history and the individual impact each other. A young woman (Juli) returns to her homeland only to find the horrors she escaped have infected it also.

Countdown to Looking Glass (Barzyk)

Director: Fred Barzyk
Stars: Scott Glenn, Michael Murphy, Helen Shaver
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

Dramatic doomsday scenario in which the Cold War fully escalates. The story is told through a live news report that follows the apocalyptic world-ending nuclear exchange between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.

Conan the Future Boy: The Big Giant Robot’s Resurrection (Miyazaki)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Stars: Noriko Ohara, Mieko Nobusawa, Kazuyo Aoki
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Family
Country: Japan

In the future, some humans build a spaceship to abandon earth. The spaceship crashed in an island isolated from the rest of the world. The story takes place when there are only 2 survivors in the island: Conan a boy born in the island and his grandfather. Then the world discover them.

Maria’s Lovers (Konchalovskiy)

Director: Andrey Konchalovskiy
Stars: Nastassja Kinski, John Savage, Keith Carradine
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: USA | Israel

Ivan Bibic returns to his Pittsburgh PA suburb after surviving a Japanse POW camp, causing regular nightmares. All the time he remained faithfully devoted to his childhood love, fellow ethnic Yugoslavian virgin Maria Bosic. She dates him again, thus ruining a virtual engagement to captain Al Griselli. Against Ivan’s dad’s advice, they get married. But Ivan became psychologically impotent, feels unworthy of her and starts wondering, even looking for another girl. Meanwhile slick guitar-and-song-busker Clarence Butts moves in to South-Western PA, and seduces Maria.

1984 (Radford)

Director: Michael Radford
Stars: John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton
Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: UK

In a totalitarian future society, a man, whose daily work is re-writing history, tries to rebel by falling in love.

After the Rehearsal (Bergman)

Director: Ingmar Bergman
Stars: Erland Josephson, Ingrid Thulin, Lena Olin
Genre: Drama
Country: Sweden | West Germany

Rational, exacting, and self-controlled theater director, Henrik Vogler, often stays after rehearsal to think and plan. On this day, Anna comes back, ostensibly looking for a bracelet. She is the lead in his new production of Stindberg’s “A Dream Play.” She talks of her hatred for her mother, now dead, an alcoholic actress, who was Vogler’s star and lover. Vogler falls into a reverie, remembering a day Anna’s mother, Rakel, late in life, came after rehearsal to beg him to come to her apartment. He awakes and Anna reveals the reason she has returned: she jolts him into an emotional response, rare for him, and the feelings of a young woman and an older man play out.

Twenty Years Later (Coutinho)

Director: Eduardo Coutinho
Stars: Eduardo Coutinho, Tite de Lemos, Ferreira Gullar
Genre: Documentary
Country: Brazil

Eduardo Coutinho was filming a movie with the same name in the Northeast of Brazil, in 1964, when there came the military coup. He had to interrupt the project, and came back to it in 1981, looking for the same places and people, showing what had ocurred since then, and trying to gather a family whose patriarch, a political leader fighting for rights of country people, had been murdered.

Le Bal (Scola)

Director: Ettore Scola
Stars: Étienne Guichard, Régis Bouquet, Francesco De Rosa
Genre: History, Musical
Country: France | Italy | Algeria

Dance moves, music and fashion mark the passage of time inside a Paris dance hall, throughout fifty years of history.

Angst (Kargl)

Director: Gerald Kargl
Stars: Erwin Leder, Robert Hunger-Bühler, Silvia Ryder
Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: Austria

A troubled man gets released from prison and starts taking out his sadistic fantasies on an unsuspecting family living in a secluded house.

Daniel (Lumet)

Director: Sidney Lumet
Stars: Timothy Hutton, Mandy Patinkin, Lindsay Crouse
Genre: Drama
Country: UK | USA

Daniel Isaacson attempts to determine the true complicity of his parents Paul and Rochelle Isaacson, who were executed for espionage in the 1950s.

El Norte (Nava)

Director: Gregory Nava
Stars: Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez, David Villalpando, Ernesto Gómez Cruz
Genre: Drama
Country: UK | USA

Peasants escaping mindless labor and a murderous Guatemalan government head to America in hopes for something better.

Zappa (August)

Director: Bille August
Stars: Adam Tønsberg, Peter Reichhardt, Morten Hoff
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Denmark

In the early ’60s, 3 Danish classmates join a “den”/tree house. Steen likes his pet fish Zappa because it eats the weaker fish. Bjørn attracts girls and Mulle is a talkative, strong boy. Steen gets them into burglary and later escalates.

Carmen (Saura)

Director: Carlos Saura
Stars: Antonio Gades, Laura del Sol, Paco de Lucía
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: Spain

A group of flamenco dancers are rehearsing a very spanish version of the Prosper Merimee’s drama. Antonio (the choreographer) falls in love with Carmen (the main dancer). Their story then turns similar to the play.