Snails’ Senator, The (Daneliuc)

Director: Mircea Daneliuc
Stars: Dorel Visan, Cecilia Bârbora, Clara Voda
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Romania

In a small Romanian village, a senator goes through hilarious events as he takes advantage of the people’s hospitality while also ignoring their major issues.

Single Spark, A (Park)

Director: Kwang-su Park
Stars: Kyoung-In Hong, In-gi Jeong, Bo-kyeong Kim
Genre: Drama
Country: South Korea

The film intercuts two stories, one in black and white, one in color. From 1965 to 1970, we follow Jeon Tae-Il, a poor young man who quits street vending to work in a garment factory. Amid appalling work conditions, he buys a law book, seeks government help, forms an association, talks to reporters. When conditions don’t change, he takes a dire step. Five years later, a young couple follow Tae-Il’s path: pregnant Shin Jung-Soon tries to organize a union in her garment factory. She’s harassed, then beaten. Her husband, Kim Yong-Su, an intellectual in hiding from Park Chung Hee’s repressive regime, is writing Tae-Il’s story. Can he elude capture to complete the book?

Grass Harp, The (Matthau)

Director: Charles Matthau
Stars: Piper Laurie, Sissy Spacek, Walter Matthau
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

After his mother’s death, Collin Fenwick goes to live with his father’s cousins, the wealthy, avaricious, and controlling Verena Talbo, and her compliant, earthy sister Dolly. When a city slicker comes to town and convinces Verena to market Dolly’s locally-famous tonic, Dolly finally gets some backbone, refuses to divulge the formula, and heads for a tree house with Collin and Catherine, the loyal maid. Verena, who has most of the town in her pocket, sics the law on the renegades. Dolly, Catherine, and Collin find a supporter in a retired judge, Charlie Cool, who’s attracted to Dolly. Will Verena’s venom win out? And what about that city slicker?

Richard III (Loncraine)

Director: Richard Loncraine
Stars: Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Christopher Bowen
Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi, War
Country: UK

The classic Shakespearean play about the murderously scheming 15th-century king is reimagined in an alternative setting of 1930s England as clouds of fascism gather.

Mongolian Tale, A (Xie)

Director: Fei Xie
Stars: Dalarsurong, Aojirdai, Bayirtcya
Genre: Drama
Country: Hong Kong | China

Bayinbulag and Somiya are brought up, from a young age, as brother and sister by their adoptive grandmother. The three live happily in a yurt on the Mongolian steppes. Just before Bayinbulag is to leave for the city, to be trained as a vet, the grandmother suggests that Bayinbulag and Somiya should eventually marry. Bayinbulag, now training to be a musician, stays away for long periods of time without communicating with Somiya. He finally comes back expecting to marry her.

L’enfant d’eau (Ménard)

Director: Robert Ménard
Stars: David La Haye, Marie-France Monette, Gilbert Sicotte
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada

A small plane crashes in the Caribbean, leaving only two survivors: a precocious teenage girl and a simple-minded grown-up. They end up on a desert island, with no inhabitants and no rescue in sight, and split. Then, a friendship bond develops between the two. The teenager, realizing she may not live long enough to see this experience, and the grown-up, never faced with this reality, soon fall in love.

Chinese Feast (Tsui)

Director: Hark Tsui
Stars: Kenny Bee, Leslie Cheung, Anita Yuen
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Country: Hong Kong

Kit is a gangster looking to start a new life as a chef in Canada, so he can be closer to his girlfriend. But in his struggle to learn the fine art of cuisine, he runs across a red-headed beauty who will change his plans, and soon finds himself off in search of the retired master who can teach him how to win in the ultimate cooking challenge.

Brother of Sleep (Vilsmaier)

Director: Joseph Vilsmaier
Stars: André Eisermann, Dana Vávrová, Ben Becker
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: Germany

In the beginning of the 19th century, Johannes Elias Alder is born in a small village in the Austrian mountains. While growing up he is considered strange by the other villagers and discovers his love of music, especially rebuilding and playing the organ at the village church. After experiencing an “acoustic wonder”, his eye color changes and he can hear even the most subtle sounds. Elias falls in platonic love with Elsbeth, the sister of Peter, a neighbor’s son, who has longstanding homosexual feelings towards Elias.

Penitentiary Angel (Xie)

Director: Jin Xie
Stars: Wei Zhao, La-La Chiu, Tsui-Wan Lee
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: China

This is a story about seven female prisoners each with different backgrounds, living within the one prison. At the beginning of the story, a new inmate Ding Qing Er arrives with tears streaming down her face, but told that it’s too late to cry. The story continues to slowly reveal the lives of the female prisoners, and each of their struggles to have ended up where they are today.

Love in the Time of Twilight (Tsui)

Director: Hark Tsui
Stars: Nicky Wu, Charlie Yeung, Eric Kot
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Country: Hong Kong

Like many young people of the 1920s, Kong and Yan are infected with the “happily ever after” syndrome waiting for their perfect match. Unlike other love stories, this couple journeys through murder, ghostly spirits and true sacrifice all in the name of love.

Premeditated Murder (Stojanovik)

Director: Gorcin Stojanovic
Stars: Branka Katic, Nebojsa Glogovac, Ana Sofrenovic
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Men, women, and war. Jelena Panic is a young woman in Belgrade in the early 1990s, during Serbia’s war with Croatia; she’s making a book of her grandmother’s diaries from the end of World War II. She takes up with Bogden, a young soldier recovering from war wounds. He helps her with her grandmother’s story, a tragic triangle involving her effete and well-educated husband and an uneducated major, a Chekist who has, perhaps, the power to save a political prisoner who is the grandmother’s friend. As Jelena wonders which man was her grandfather (the Chekist or the husband), Bogden recovers from his wounds and must decide whether to return to the front. Jelena pleads; duty calls.

One Hundred and One Nights (Varda)

Director: Agnès Varda
Stars: Michel Piccoli, Marcello Mastroianni, Henri Garcin
Genre: Comedy, History, Romance
Country: UK | France

Monsieur Cinema, a hundred years old, lives alone in a large villa. His memories fade away, so he engages a young woman to tell him stories about all the movies ever made.

Get Shorty (Sonnenfeld)

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Stars: Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Thriller
Country: USA

A mobster travels to Hollywood to collect a debt, and discovers that the movie business is much the same as his current job.

Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky (Wenders)

Director: Wim Wenders
Stars: Stefan Barber, Wiebke Bayer, Nadine Büttner
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Germany

A rare gem of cinematic storytelling that weaves docudrama, fictional reenactment, and experimental photography into a powerful, reflective work on the early days of German cinema. The film tells the story of the Skladanowsky Brothers, the German-born duo responsible for inventing the “bioskop”, an early version of the film projector.

Margaret’s Museum (Ransen)

Director: Mort Ransen
Stars: Helena Bonham Carter, Kate Nelligan, Clive Russell
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada | UK

Margaret MacNiel, a girl living in a Cape Breton coal mining town, finds her life changing when she meets Neil Currie, a cheerful bagpipe-playing dishwasher. Unfortunately, neither of them are able to escape the industry around them.

Hearts & Minds (Ziman)

Director: Ralph Ziman
Stars: Danny Keogh, Patrick Shai, Seputla Sebogodi
Genre: Drama, History, Thriller
Country: South Africa

Set when the apartheid government was still in control, this powerful South African thriller is based on the true story of a policeman belonging to an elite government squad who was assigned to masquerade as a supporter and infiltrate the African National Congress so he could assassinate their leaders. Fourie is the cop, and his squadron is the most notoriously racist unit of the S.A. police force; they were infamous for donning street clothes, putting on blackface make up, and driving around in unmarked cars to kill people and cause trouble to encourage fighting amongst rival groups. Although the ANC members are initially suspicious of Fourie, eventually they accept him and send him to be trained in Lusaka, Zambia and other places. They even send him to Moscow where he learns about Marxist philosophies. By the time Fourie completes all that training the conflict has ended, Mandela is released, and his squadron has split up and melted into the general populace.

Concert of Requests (Kieslowski)

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Stars: Ryszard Dembinski, Jerzy Fedorowicz, Ewa Konarska
Genre: Short, Drama
Country: Poland

A young couple leave a lake campsite on motorbike at the same time as a bus full of youths. The boy accidently loses a tent along the road which is picked up by those in the bus who offer a trade of the tent for his girl.

From the Journals of Jean Seberg (Rappaport)

Director: Mark Rappaport
Stars: Mary Beth Hurt, Jean Seberg
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: USA

Mark Rappaport’s creative bio-pic about actress Jean Seberg is presented in a first-person, autobiographical format (with Seberg played by Mary Beth Hurt). He seamlessly interweaves cinema, politics, American society and culture, and film theory to inform, entertain, and move the viewer. Seberg’s many marriages, as well as her film roles, are discussed extensively. Her involvement with the Black Panther Movement and subsequent investigation by the FBI is covered. Notably, details of French New Wave cinema, Russian Expressionist (silent) films, and the careers of Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, and Clint Eastwood are also intensively examined. Much of the film is based on conjecture, but Rappaport encourages viewers to re-examine their ideas about women in film with this thought-provoking picture.

Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business (Solberg)

Director: Helena Solberg
Stars: Helena Solberg, Eric Barreto, Cynthia Adler
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Music
Country: UK | Brazil

A biography of the Portuguese-Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda, whose most distinctive feature was her tutti frutti hat. She came to the US as the “Brazilian Bombshell” and was a Broadway and Hollywood star in the 1940s.

Like Grains of Sand (Hashiguchi)

Director: Ryosuke Hashiguchi
Stars: Yoshinori Okada, Ayumi Hamasaki, Kouji Yamaguchi
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Japan

The movie is built around the very complex relationships between Yoshida, leaving Shimizu for Aihara (or at least he tries to), and his friend Ito, whose love for Yoshida seems to have little chance for success. In the end we have a coalition of Ito and Aihara – who may or may not be in love with Ito – teaching Yoshida a lesson.

Chinese Odyssey: Part One – Pandora’s Box, A (Lau)

Director: Jeffrey Lau
Stars: Stephen Chow, Man-Tat Ng, Kar-Ying Law
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy
Country: Hong Kong | China

Fantasy adventure about the arrival of Buddhism in China. When the Goddess of Happiness tosses the Longevity Monk and his disciples out of heaven (because the Monkey King tried to attain immortality), the Monkey King is reincarnated as the Joker. He now spends his time chasing two jealous women. When one of them is dying, the Joker goes back in time in an attempt to save her.

Fun (Zielinski)

Director: Rafal Zielinski
Stars: Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Marilyn Ghigliotti
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Canada

Hillary and Bonnie meet one morning by the side of the road. They become fast friends, share their secrets, and on a rising wave of frenzy later that afternoon, murder an old woman. They did it, they say later, for fun.

Clerks (Smith)

Director: Kevin Smith
Stars: Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Marilyn Ghigliotti
Genre: Comedy
Country: USA

A day in the lives of two convenience clerks named Dante and Randal as they annoy customers, discuss movies, and play hockey on the store roof.

Lovers, The (Tsui)

Director: Hark Tsui
Stars: Nicky Wu, Charlie Yeung, Carrie Ng
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Country: Hong Kong

During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, parents dress a pretty girl like a boy, so she may be educated in a local boarding school. There, she falls in love with a poor, but industrious young man. However, their short love affair ends in disaster.

Killer Kid (de Maistre)

Director: Gilles de Maistre
Stars: Tewfik Jallab, Younesse Boudache, Salah Teskouk
Genre: Drama, War
Country: France

A Lebanese kid is sent to France on a terrorist mission for “Allah’s Army”. An Arab French kid becomes involved unwittingly. A bond develops between the two, while they become alienated from and independent of the adults in their lives.

Hail the Judge (Wong)

Director: Jing Wong
Stars: Stephen Chow, Man Cheung, Man-Tat Ng
Genre: Comedy
Country: Hong Kong

Pao Lung-Sing, a descendant of the famous Judge Pao Ching Tient, is a 9th degree corrupt judge (lowest degree) who changes his tune when he tries to champion a woman Chi Siu-Lin, who was framed for killing her husband. As a result, Pao is forced to flee and through a series of events (often hilarious) becomes a 1st degree judge and comes back to wreak havoc and justice on the guilty.

Barcelona (Stillman)

Director: Whit Stillman
Stars: Taylor Nichols, Chris Eigeman, Tushka Bergen
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Ted, a stuffy white guy from Illinois working in sales for the Barcelona office of a US corporation, is paid an unexpected visit by his somewhat less stuffy cousin Fred, who is an officer in the US Navy. Over the next few months, both their lives are irrevocably altered by the events which follow Fred’s arrival, events which are the trivial stuff of a comedy of manners at first but which gradually grow increasingly dramatic.

In Custody (Merchant)

Director: Ismail Merchant
Stars: Shashi Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Om Puri
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: UK | India

An editor asks Deven, a teacher who loves Urdu poetry, to interview poet Nur Shahjehanabadi, an aging whale of a man. Deven goes to Bhopal from Mirpur to meet Nur, of whom he is in awe. He finds him living with feuding wives, visited by sycophants who drink his whisky and eat his food. Deven wants to record Nur for posterity and seeks funds to buy an aged tape recorder, to bribe Safiya, the elder wife, to get Nur into a room at a brothel for a week for the recording, and to feed Nur’s pals who show up. Nur’s beautiful second wife, Imtiaz, wants to be taken seriously as a poetess. Dever dismisses her and ignores his own wife and child much as Nur does. In the end, what is preserved?

Giorgino (Boutonnat)

Director: Laurent Boutonnat
Stars: Jeff Dahlgren, Mylène Farmer, Joss Ackland
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Horror
Country: France

October 1918: After returning to the civil life, the young Doctor Giorgio Volli searches for a group of children, which he had been the care-taker of before the first world war began. However, soon the searching becomes a part of hide-and-seek with death. Giorgio finds a village bordered with a treacherous marsh and rumours of wolves. There he also meets the mysterious Catherine.

Crow, The (Proyas)

Director: Alex Proyas
Stars: Brandon Lee, Michael Wincott, Rochelle Davis
Genre: Action, Drama, Fantasy
Country: USA

A man brutally murdered comes back to life as an undead avenger of his and his fiancée’s murder.

Octobre (Falardeau)

Director: Pierre Falardeau
Stars: Hugo Dubé, Luc Picard, Pierre Rivard
Genre: Drama
Country: Canada

A dramatization of the infamous Canadian terrorist abduction & murder of a government minister by a cell of The Quebec Liberation Front.

Crows (Kedzierzawska)

Director: Dorota Kedzierzawska
Stars: Karolina Ostrozna, Katarzyna Szczepanik, Malgorzata Hajewska
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland

A thin child of about 10, nicknamed “Crow” because she mimics the bird, has no friends and rejects a teacher’s hug. At home, she is left on her own, her mom locks her out while entertaining a lover or is asleep. One morning, Crow sees a chubby, cherubic child hugged by both parents as the father leaves for work. When the toddler is left alone, Crow lifts her through the fence and kidnaps her. That day, Crow tries to mother the child, alternately playing with and scolding her, taking her to the beach, leaving shore in a boat, pushing her into the sea in a pique, and eventually carrying the sleeping child back home. Crow returns to her own mother and asks for affection.

La séparation (Vincent)

Director: Christian Vincent
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Daniel Auteuil, Jérôme Deschamps
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

One night at the cinema, Pierre reaches for out to take Anne’s hand. She is annoyed and rebuffs him. He feels rejected. This moment begins the story of the disintegration of a couple… Pierre and Anne live in Paris with their two-year-old child Louis. After the night in the cinema it is clear that Anne is distracted and the small gulf between them seems to widen as time goes on. Lunches, evenings out with friends, there’s obvoiusly something wrong. One night after a party, Anne tells Pierre that she is in love with another man. Although her confession is not surprising, Pierre’s reaction is. He seems to accept it as a fact of life and refrains from asking the most burning questions. However, as Anne continues to see the other man, Pierre’s feelings become more violent and it begins to dawn on them that some thing intangible has happened that can’t be put right.

Second Best (Menges)

Director: Chris Menges
Stars: William Hurt, Nathan Yapp, Keith Allen
Genre: Drama
Country: UK | USA

Graham, a lonely Welsh postal worker, adopts James, a troubled ten-year-old boy. Graham always wanted a son, but James loves his biological father too much to give Graham a chance. Will the two be able to accept each other as family?

Oglinda (Nicolaescu)

Director: Sergiu Nicolaescu
Stars: Ion Siminie, Adrian Vâlcu, Gheorghe Dinica
Genre: Drama, History
Country: Romania

Focused around the August 23rd 1944 coup against Marshal Antonescu, the movie also tackles other topics from the same era such as the Iron Guard rebellion and the execution of political leaders by communists.

Crucea de piatra (Blaier)

Director: Andrei Blaier
Stars: Gheorghe Dinica, Florina Cercel, Coca Bloos
Genre: Comedy
Country: Romania

Andrei Blaier’s film catches the last days of The Stone Cross a low class brothels area that became some kind of an institution in the landscape of Bucharest before the Communist period, doomed to destruction under the new rules of proletarian morals that the Communists were trying to impose. The idea could be the start of a great film, with the prostitution being seen not so much from its destructive and exploitation perspective, but rather as a form of freedom in a time when the whole society was falling under the rule of propaganda, hypocrisy, and repression. In a world due to fall under tyranny for the coming decades prostitution becomes a metaphor of the old more free way of life.

Otaku (Bastide, Beineix)

Director: Jackie Bastide, Jean-Jacques Beineix
Stars: Akitoshi Ashida, Hiroki Hashimoto, Noriko Kato
Genre: Documentary
Country: France

A documentary that explores the life styles of various otakus in Japan. Various interviews are given to selected otakus who express how interesting it is to be an otaku as oppose to not being one at all. Along with various shots of various Japanese city landscapes and the inside of an average otaku home from rooms filled with videos, models, and the latest in technology.

Patriots, The (Rochant)

Director: Eric Rochant
Stars: Yvan Attal, Richard Masur, Allen Garfield
Genre: Thriller
Country: France

At 18, Ariel Brenner leaves Paris and his family to live in Israel. He secretly joins the Mossad, the Isreali secret service. After years of training, his first mission is in Paris to steal secrets from Remy Prieur, a French atomic scientist… We will assist to the methods, the manipulations, the abuses, the machiavellism, the doubts of secret agents.

Whispering Pages (Sokurov)

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov
Stars: Aleksandr Cherednik, Sergey Barkovskiy, Elizaveta Koroleva
Genre: Drama
Country: Russia | Germany

A hungry, homeless, socially isolated and socially alienated young man living on the streets of an anonymous Russian big city in the 19th Century is looking for answers about himself.

Two Brothers, My Sister (Villaverde)

Director: Teresa Villaverde
Stars: Maria de Medeiros, Marcello Urgeghe, Evgeniy Sidikhin
Genre: Drama
Country: Portugal | France | Germany

Lisboa, Portugal, mid-1990s. Three brothers, a young woman and two young men, are living together, careless of the future, or even the present. They love each other, but one day they go separate ways. When Maria does need help, the three brothers will join again – but a trifle too late.

Quality of Mercy, The (Gruber)

Director: Andreas Gruber
Stars: Elfriede Irrall, Rainer Egger, Oliver Broumis
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Austria | Germany

It is the beginning of 1945 during WW2 in former Austria. 500 Russian prisoners of war who have refused to fight on the side of the Germans against their country were moved to the concentration camp in Mauthausen awaiting execution. They decide to break out. One winter night the Russian prisoners make an escape. During the following shooting a great number of them gets killed. Some, however, succeed to hide in nearby villages. But the German Nazis convince the inhabitants of the villages to hunt the prisoners “like rabbits”.

Red Rose White Rose (Kwan)

Director: Stanley Kwan
Stars: Joan Chen, Veronica Yip, Winston Chao
Genre: Drama
Country: Hong Kong | Taiwan

Chronicles the love life of a man, Zhenbao. He has a steamy fling with the wife of a friend, the saucy and exciting Red Rose. Even though he feels happy with her, he knows he will not end up with her. To maintain his reputation, he marries an antiseptic, frigid but classy lady of a prim and proper background (White rose). Dissonance abound when he finds his bride irritating.

Endless Summer 2, The (Brown)

Director: Bruce Brown
Stars: Patrick O’Connell, Robert ‘Wingnut’ Weaver, Robert August
Genre: Documentary, Adventure, Sport
Country: USA

Bruce Brown, king of surfing documentaries, returns after nearly thirty years to trace the steps of two young surfers to top surfing spots around the world. Along the way we see many of the people and locales Bruce visited during the filming of Endless Summer (1966).

Lisbon Story (Wenders)

Director: Wim Wenders
Stars: Rüdiger Vogler, Patrick Bauchau, Vasco Sequeira
Genre: Drama, Music
Country: Germany | Portugal

The director Friedrich Monroe has trouble with finishing a silent b&w movie about Lisbon. He calls his friend, the sound engineer Phillip Winter, for help. As Winter arrives Lisbon weeks later, Monroe is disappeared but has left the unfinished film. Winter decides to stay, because he is fascinated of the city and the Portuguese singer Teresa, and he starts to record the sound of the film. At the same time Monroe cruises through the city with a camcorder and tries to catch unseen pictures. Later they meet and Winter convinces Monroe of finishing the film.

Nightwatch (Bornedal)

Director: Ole Bornedal
Stars: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Sofie Gråbøl, Kim Bodnia
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Country: Denmark

In order to finance his law studies, Martin starts as a night watchman in a mortuary. When the victims of a serial killer of prostitutes are deposited there, scary things begin to happen. Therefore and because of a strange bet with his fellow student Jens, the police begins to think he is the murderer. Police detective Wormer wants to help him but Martin is more and more suspected.

Metal and Melancholy (Honigmann)

Director: Heddy Honigmann
Stars: Víctor Talledo, Señor English, Mercedes Aguilar
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Country: Netherlands

In 1992, Peru was just emerging from one of its darkest moments in its entire republican history (1821- onwards). A cataclysmic economic meltdown and over 10 years of death and conflict brought upon by the Sendero Luminoso guerrilla had left deep scars in the Peruvian population. Furthermore, Alberto Fujimori had just dissolved the congress and senate in order to obtain extraordinary faculties and implement harsh economic measures. It is amidst this critical moment in the history of Perú that filmmaker Heddy Honigmann chronicles the views and lives of 14 real life taxi drivers in Lima.

Mina Tannenbaum (Dugowson)

Director: Martine Dugowson
Stars: Romane Bohringer, Elsa Zylberstein, Florence Thomassin
Genre: Drama
Country: Netherlands | France | Belgium

The film tells the story of two girls who are of totally different character. They know each other since their childhood and were friends until they became teenagers. But growing up and becoming adults they go different ways.

Anna ot 6 do 18 (Mikhalkov)

Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Stars: Nikita Mikhalkov, Anna Mikhalkova, Nadezhda Mikhalkova
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: Russia | France

Director Nikita Mikhalkov documents the history of Russia from 1980 to 1991 by annually asking his daughter Anna questions.

Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker (He)

Director: Ping He
Stars: Jing Ning, Gang Wu, Xiaorui Zhao
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: China | Hong Kong

A woman inherits her father’s fireworks factory, as he had no son. The business does well and everything works in an orderly fashion until one day, an itinerant painter is hired to decorate the doors and vases at the factory. The woman, forbidden to marry and thereby involve outsiders in the factory ownership, finds herself drawn to the headstrong painter. When they fall in love, the situation throws her entire life into disarray.

High Lonesome: The Story of Bluegrass Music (Liebling)

Director: Jianxin Huang, Yazhou Yang
Stars: Zhenhua Niu, Kesheng Lei, Qiang Li
Genre: Drama
Country: China | Hong Kong

Wang Shuangli is Deputy Director of the local Cultural Centre, and hopes to be appointed Director. However Old Ma is brought in from the country and installed as Director. This starts a long train of events with Wang’s cronies using the bureaucracy to try to oust the new director. At home, Wang has problems because his father wants Wang to have a son to carry on the family name. However, because of the one-child policy, Wang cannot have any more children unless his young daughter is certified infirm.

Nobody Loves Me (Dörrie)

Director: Doris Dörrie
Stars: Maria Schrader, Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss, Michael von Au
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Germany

On the brink of her 30th birthday, Fanny feels the door to marital happiness closing up on her. She is obsessed with death, even visits evening classes on dying and so it seems fitting, that she encounters a skeleton in the malfunctioning elevator of her apartment building. The skeleton is her neighbour Orfeo, a black, gay self-declared psychic, who convinces her that she is about to meet “him”. But is it really Lothar, the new yuppie apartment manager …?

Unforgettable Summer, An (Pintile)

Director: Lucian Pintilie
Stars: Kristin Scott Thomas, Claudiu Bleont, Olga Tudorache
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Romania | France

Romania in the 1920s. Marie-Thérèse Von Debretsy (Dame Kristin Scott Thomas) refuses the advances of her husband’s commanding officer. As a result, the cosmopolitan family is reassigned to a dark and dangerous outpost on the frontier between Bulgaria and Romania where their relationship and humanity are severely tested.

Dance Me Outside (McDonald)

Director: Bruce McDonald
Stars: Ryan Rajendra Black, Adam Beach, Jennifer Podemski
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Canada

A story of life on a First Nations reserve in Ontario: Silas and Frank are trying to get into college to train to be mechanics but they find themselves having to deal with girls, family … and murder.

Fearless (Weir)

Director: Peter Weir
Stars: Jeff Bridges, Isabella Rossellini, Rosie Perez
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA

A man’s personality is dramatically changed after surviving a major airline crash.

Tango (Leconte)

Director: Patrice Leconte
Stars: Philippe Noiret, Richard Bohringer, Thierry Lhermitte
Genre: Comedy
Country: France

Vincent, a stunt pilot, is acquitted of murdering his wife and her lover. However, a few years later, L’Elegant, the Judge in the case, comes to blackmail him. The Judge’s nephew, Paul, is having trouble with his wife and they demand that Vincent kill her. The Judge, a confirmed bachelor, takes Paul and Vincent on the road to search for Paul’s wife Marie. The three men get on well together, and spend their time discussing their relationship with women.

Germinal (Berry)

Director: Claude Berri
Stars: Renaud, Gérard Depardieu, Miou-Miou
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France | Belgium | Italy

In mid-nineteenth-century northern France, a coal mining town’s workers are exploited by the mine’s owner. One day, they decide to go on strike, and the authorities repress them.

Fugitive, The (Davis)

Director: Andrew Davis
Stars: Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: USA

Dr. Richard Kimble, unjustly accused of murdering his wife, must find the real killer while being the target of a nationwide manhunt led by a seasoned U.S. Marshal.

Food (Svankmajer)

Director: Jan Svankmajer
Stars: Ludvík Sváb, Bedrich Glaser, Jan Kraus
Genre: Animation, Short, Comedy
Country: UK | Czech Republic

BREAKFAST: After eating breakfast, a man is transformed into an elaborate dumb-waiter-style breakfast dispenser – and the same fate befalls the man who obtains breakfast from him. LUNCH: After failing to catch the waiter’s eye, two would-be diners end up eating everything within reach. DINNER: Portraits of various meals made up of human organs.

Sparrow (Zefferelli)

Director: Franco Zeffirelli
Stars: Angela Bettis, Johnathon Schaech, Eva Alexander
Genre: Drama
Country: Italy | Japan

Catania, Sicily, 1854. An epidemic of cholera is hitting the region. 16-year old novice Maria leaves her convent and returns home to avoid the plague. Her stepmother and her half-sisters prevent her to live the normal life of a young girl. In their minds, Maria is the promised “bride of God” and a regular life is inappropriate for her. Nevertheless, she falls in love with a neighbor, Nino. Her freedom ends abruptly when she is forced to return to the convent.

Die Rebellion (Haneke)

Director: Michael Haneke
Stars: Branko Samarovski, Judit Pogány, Thierry van Werveke
Genre: Drama, War
Country: Austria

The disabled ex-soldier Andreas Pum lost a leg for emperor and father land. After leaving the army he receives a license and a drehorgel. One day he gets into a controversy with a welldressed gentleman, disturbs the public order, and hits a policeman. Andreas Pum goes to jail, loses his license and becomes toilet guard in the Cafe Halali after his release. Only at the moment of death he recognizes that he was always too decent and too obedient.

New Life, A (Assayas)

Director: Olivier Assayas
Stars: Sophie Aubry, Judith Godrèche, Bernard Giraudeau
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Switzerland

Tina is a young warehousewoman in a supermarket. She is in love with Fred but still lives at her mother Nadine’s. When Nadine dies, Tina looks for meeting her father Ludovic, who she never knew. But she first meets her half-sister Lise, and Constantin, the unusual Ludovic’s lawyer.

Bullshit (Ün)

Director: Memduh Ün
Stars: Emre Akyildiz, Asuman Arsan, Meriç Basaran
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: Turkey

Adana, a big city in Southern Turkey, 1949. Muzo, a young man, is experiencing a terrible heartache. He is in love but his love is baffled. He will finish his studies in five or six years and wanted to marry the girl he loves only then, when he was a “big man”, worthy of her. But the young lady’s father did not agree. He preferred any son-in-law rather than a well-read one like Muzo much later. And now that the wedding procession of the girl who will never be his passes him, Muzo remembers his childhood.

Vent d’est (Enrico)

Director: Robert Enrico
Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Pierre Vaneck, Jean-François Balmer
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Switzerland

The true story of General Smyslovsky and the anti-Communist 1st Russian National Army receiving shelter in Liechtenstein in 1945 and successfully resisting Soviet pressure to be returned for execution in the USSR.

Bad Boy Bubby (de Heer)

Director: Rolf de Heer
Stars: Nicholas Hope, Claire Benito, Ralph Cotterill
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: Australia | Italy

Bubby has spent thirty years trapped in the same small room, tricked by his mother. One day, he manages to escape, and, deranged and naive in equal measures, his adventure into the modern and nihilistic life begins.

Birth of Love, The (Garrel)

Director: Philippe Garrel
Stars: Lou Castel, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Johanna ter Steege
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Switzerland

Middle-aged artistes provide the focus of this drama filmed in black and white. The story is set in Paris around the time of the Gulf War. Paul is an actor leading a drab directionless existence. He has an affair with Ulrika, a woman half his age. His wife, with whom he constantly argues, is pregnant with their second child. He does not interact much with his teenage son. Much of the film centers around the emptiness of his life.

Oh, Woe Is Me (Godard)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Stars: Gérard Depardieu, Laurence Masliah, Bernard Verley
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Country: France | Switzerland

Romance about Simon Donnadieu and his decision to leave his ever-loving wife Rachel.

M. Butterfly (Cronenberg)

Director: David Cronenberg
Stars: Jeremy Irons, John Lone, Barbara Sukowa
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: USA | Canada

In 1960s China, French diplomat Rene Gallimard falls in love with an opera singer, Song Liling – but Song is not at all who Gallimard thinks.

Frameup (Jost)

Director: Jon Jost
Stars: Howard Swain, Nancy Carlin, Kate Sannella
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Ricky, a dim-witted ex-con, meets Beth, a dim-witted waitress, in an Idaho diner. They take off in his car to Washington and begin an affair. Beth, a lonely romance-novel addict, is hopelessly enamored; Ricky is just in it for the (constant) sex. Beth’s longing to visit California and Ricky’s longing for quick cash leads them into a desperate situation. Director Jost uses a variety of avant-garde visual and narrative techniques, such as montage, collages, split screens and lengthy, tongue-in-cheek monologues to tell the tragicomic story of two complete losers in love.

Son of the Shark, The (Merlet)

Director: Agnès Merlet
Stars: Ludovic Vandendaele, Eric da Silva, Sandrine Blancke
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Belgium | France | Luxembourg

Brothers Martin and Simon, not yet teens, are incorrigible vandals; Martin runs away from reform school, Simon from foster homes, and they always find each other in a seacoast town of Lignan, where their destructive behavior is infamous. (It may date to their mother’s leaving the family.) Martin is philosophical, romantic, and poetic: he dreams of being the son of a shark; he holds tight to a book about goldfish his mother gave him. In both halting and wild ways, he tries to court Marie, a neighbor girl. Simon, with a pocketknife and an intractable will, seems more dangerous to others. What, on earth, is there for these children-becoming-men?

Wall of Silence, A (Stantic)

Director: Lita Stantic
Stars: Vanessa Redgrave, Ofelia Medina, Lautaro Murúa
Genre: Drama
Country: Argentina | Mexico | UK

A film director decides to make a movie about Silvia, a woman who lost her husband during a particularly violent war. But will making a movie about it force Silvia to remember her traumatic past?

Les enfants jouent à la Russie (Godard)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Stars: László Szabó, Jean-Luc Godard, Bernard Eisenschitz
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Switzerland

A famous French filmmaker is hired by a major Hollywood producer to make a documentary on the state of post-Cold War Russia. The filmmaker, though, subverts the project by stubbornly remaining in France and casting himself as the title character of Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot,” offering up a series of typically Godardian musings on art, politics, the nature of images and the future of cinema.

Bed You Sleep In, The (Jost)

Director: Jon Jost
Stars: Tom Blair, Marshall Gaddis, Ellen McLaughlin
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

Times are hard for Northwestern lumber-mill operators like Ray and his wife Jean. Ray and Jean’s lives are thrown into chaos when their daughter writes home from college, saying she has uncovered her repressed memories of sexual abuse, and naming Ray as her abuser.

Music of Chance, The (Haas)

Director: Philip Haas
Stars: James Spader, Mandy Patinkin, M. Emmet Walsh
Genre: Drama
Country: USA

A thrill seeker agrees to help a shady professional gambler win a high stakes poker game. However, they lose and become captives of two eccentric rich men who decide to forcibly keep them on their remote gated ranch as indentured servants.

Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land (Lai)

Director: Stan Lai
Stars: Brigitte Lin, Shih-Chieh King, Pao-Ming Ku
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Country: Taiwan

Two drama companies happened to share one auditorium for rehearsal. Friction was inevitable. One of them played ‘Peach Blossom’, a comedy in medieval costume. Another played ‘Secret Love’, a sad story with contemporary setting. Though unreconciled in all aspects, they find themselves telling the same story: the story of Chinese people forced to leave home.

My Favorite Season (Techine)

Director: André Téchiné
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Daniel Auteuil, Marthe Villalonga
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

Old woman Berthe leaves her house to live in her daugter Emilie’s one. Emilie and her brother Antoine have fallen out three years ago and have not seen each other since, but Emilie invites him for Christmas. Memories will come up, and will be depicted both Berthe’s destiny and the strange relationship between Emilie and Antoine.

En compagnie d’Antonin Artaud (Mordillat)

Director: Gérard Mordillat
Stars: Sami Frey, Marc Barbé, Julie Jézéquel
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: France

May, 1946, in Paris young poet Jacques Prevel meets Antonin Artaud, the actor, artist and writer just released from a mental asylum. Over ten months, we follow the mad Artaud from his cruel coaching of an actress in his “theatre of cruelty” to his semi-friendship with Prevel who buys him drugs and hangs on his every word. Meanwhile, Prevel divides his time between Jany, his blond, young, drug-hazed mistress and Rolande, his dark-haired, long-suffering wife, who has a child during this time. Cruelty, neglect, poverty, egoism, madness and the pursuit of art mix on the Left Bank.

Yellow Mercedes, The (Okan)

Director: Bay Okan
Stars: Ilyas Salman, Valérie Lemoine, Micky Sébastian
Genre: Action, Comedy, Drama
Country: Turkey | France | Germany | Switzerland

The film is based on ‘Fikrimin Ince Gulu’, a novel by Adalet Agaoglu, which depicts a first generation gurbetci/guest-worker returning home. It covers his land journey in short bursts from Germany to the Turkey’s west border – and extensively from thereon to his village close to Ankara – capital of Turkey. He begins his journey purchasing a second hand yellow Mercedes – possibly his first car – using his meager savings working as a laborer. Offering deep insight into the mind of a manual laborer Bayram (Ilyas Salman) making his first trip back home, resorting to flashbacks in highlighting Bayram’s motivation and experiences from his childhood right up to the events leading to his first departure from Turkey to Germany.

Ivan & Abraham (Zauberman)

Director: Yolande Zauberman
Stars: Roma Alexandrovitch, Aleksandr Yakovlev, Vladimir Mashkov
Genre: Drama
Country: France | Belarus

In 1930s Poland, it was traditional for some Christian boys to live for a time with Jewish families in order to learn a trade from Jewish craftsmen. For this reason, Ivan has gone to live on a large estate with Abraham and his family, has learned Yiddish, and has become Abraham’s best friend. But the anti-Semitism born of poverty, ignorance, and superstition is fierce in this community of and the two boys run away into the countryside to flee an imminent conflict. Journeying together in a menacing environment, they reveal their innocence and inseparability.

House of the Spirits, The (August)

Director: Bille August
Stars: Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Maria Conchita Alonso
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Portugal | Germany | Denmark | USA | France

A rancher, his clairvoyant wife and their family face turbulent years in South America in this adaptation of Isabel Allende’s best-seller.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?”

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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

…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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Betrayal (Jones)

Director: David Hugh Jones
Stars: Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley, Patricia Hodge
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK

An affair between a literary agent and his best friend’s wife. The story unfolds in reverse-chronological order.

Adam (Tuchner)

Director: Michael Tuchner
Stars: Daniel J. Travanti, JoBeth Williams, Martha Scott
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: USA

After their child is abducted, John and Reve Walsh are trying to find him. But, shortly after that, Adam is found dead.

Heat and Dust (Ivory)

Director: James Ivory
Stars: Julie Christie, Greta Scacchi, Christopher Cazenove
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: UK

Anne is investigating the life of her grand-aunt Olivia, whose destiny has always been shrouded with scandal. As Anne delves into the history of her grand-aunt, she is led to reconsider her own life.

Antarctica (Kurahara)

Director: Koreyoshi Kurahara
Stars: Ken Takakura, Tsunehiko Watase, Eiji Okada
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Country: Japan

Two Japanese scientists, Ushioda and Ochi, develop a bond with their sled dogs while on an expedition in Antarctica. Ushioda and Ochi eventually leave Antarctica, only to return to search for the dogs inadvertently marooned there.

Cross Creek (Ritt)

Director: Martin Ritt
Stars: Mary Steenburgen, Rip Torn, Peter Coyote
Genre: Biography, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

In 1930’s Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings moves to Florida’s backwaters to write in peace. She feels bothered by affectionate men, editor and confused neighbors, but soon she connects and writes The Yearling, a classic of American literature.

So Long, Stooge (Berri)

Director: Claude Berri
Stars: Coluche, Richard Anconina, Agnès Soral
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: France

Lambert, a burned-out case, works the night shift at a gas station, rarely speaking, living alone, drinking. Bensoussan, raised in foster homes, now a small-time pusher for a bar owner named Rashid, comes to the station needing a spark plug for a stolen Moped. He and Lambert connect somehow, and a few days later, they go for a drink. The young man is too cavalier, and when he swipes Rashid’s fancy motorcycle a couple of times, he’s expendable. Lambert decides to avenge the young man and seeks information from Lola, a punk who knew Bensoussan. With surprising perseverance, she pierces Lambert’s shell; he starts to feel again, tells Lola his story, and finds new enthusiasm for life.

Hanna K. (Costa-Gavras)

Director: Costa-Gavras
Stars: Jill Clayburgh, Jean Yanne, Gabriel Byrne
Genre: Drama
Country: Israel | France

An Israeli lawyer is defending a Palestinian charged by The Military Court System in the Israeli-Occupied Territories. It’s a tough case because of a strong political background.

Born in Flames (Borden)

Director: Lizzie Borden
Stars: Honey, Adele Bertei, Jean Satterfield
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
Country: USA

Set ten years after the most peaceful revolution in United States history, it presents a dystopia in which the issues of many groups – minorities, liberals, gay rights organizations, feminists – are dealt with by the government.

Keep Walking (Olmi)

Director: Ermanno Olmi
Stars: Alberto Fumagalli, Antonio Cucciarrè, Eligio Martellucci
Genre: Drama, History
Country: Italy

The assuming of responsibility by individuals, the use of science for man and not against him, the duty of truth to increase the stature of people, all together: these are the important themes this movie debates in allegorical form. Roles are performed by non professional actors and actresses.

Illusionist, The (Stelling)

Director: Jos Stelling
Stars: Freek de Jonge, Jim van der Woude, Catrien Wolthuizen
Genre: Comedy
Country: Netherlands

At the center of this extremely visualized narrative are the illusionist and his brother, who is lazy on the basis of either great love, or exorbitant envy of the brother. Having spoiled the sick son in a psychiatric hospital, the mother blesses the illusionist on a long journey with one suitcase. The ensuing whirlwind of events drags the heroes deeper into his turbulent whirlpool.

Reuben, Reuben (Miller)

Director: Robert Ellis Miller
Stars: Tom Conti, Kelly McGillis, Roberts Blossom
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

A drunken Scottish poet, who has not written a word in years, feels compelled to regain control of his life and work after meeting a beautiful young woman.

Do pivnice (Svankmajer)

Director: Jan Svankmajer
Stars: Monika Belo-Cabanová, Olga Vronská, Aleksandr Letko
Genre: Animation, Short, Fantasy
Country: Czechoslovakia

A little girl goes down to the basement cellar to fetch some potatoes, and finds all her hidden fears about the cellar depicted in animated form.

Love in Germany, A (Wajda)

Director: Andrzej Wajda
Stars: Hanna Schygulla, Piotr Lysak, Armin Mueller-Stahl
Genre: Drama
Country: West Germany | France

In May of 1983, a man turns 49 and, with his 17-year old son, journeys to the village in Baden that he left 40 years before. He wants to discover what happened then, the truth about an affair his mother had with a young Polish prisoner of war, how the authorities came to learn of it, the lovers’ arrest, and the aftermath.

Seventeen (DeMott, Kreines)

Director: Joel DeMott, Jeff Kreines
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

In their final year at Muncie’s Southside High School, a group of seniors hurtles toward maturity with a combination of joy, despair, and an aggravated sense of urgency. They are also learning a great deal about life, both in and out of school, and not what school officials think they are teaching.

Hansel and Gretel (Burton)

Director: Tim Burton
Stars: Michael Yama, Andy Lee, Alison Hong
Genre: Fantasy
Country: USA

This is Tim Burton’s Disney Channel Halloween film short that only aired once. It combines live action and stop-motion, making for a creepy adventure into the woods.

Yellowbeard (Damski)

Director: Mel Damski
Stars: Graham Chapman, Peter Boyle, Cheech Marin
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy
Country: UK | Mexico

After serving two decades in prison, Yellowbeard (Graham Chapman) breaks out determined to recover the treasure that he buried so long ago, alongside his son, old crew, and the British Navy.

Konflikt (Bardin)

Director: Garri Bardin
Stars: n/a
Genre: Animation, Short, War
Country: Soviet Union

Film characters are ordinary matches. Quarrel that flared up over a trifle turns into a real battle, in which both hostile parties perished.

Les années 80 (Akerman)

Director: Chantal Akerman
Stars: Aischa Bentebouche, Katherine Best, François Beukelaers
Genre: Documentary, Musical
Country: Belgium | France

This is a making of a musical, with Chantal Ackerman behind and in front of the camera.It is mostly a collection of clips, talks, directions, lectures….. with the camera capturing the whole adventure.

Seeing Red (Klein, Reichert)

Director: Jim Klein, Julia Reichert
Stars: Oscar Hunter, Rose Podmaka, Sylvia Woods
Genre: Documentary, History
Country: USA

A unique documentary that looks at the political activities of the American Communist Party in the early to mid-twentieth century.

Funny Dirty Little War (Olivera)

Director: Héctor Olivera
Stars: Federico Luppi, Víctor Laplace, Héctor Bidonde
Genre: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: Argentina

A small revolution breaks out in a small Argentine town, as one group of Peronists calls they newly elected peronist a communist. The newly elected official enlists the aid of allies ranging from the town drunk to young peronists to help hold his post. What follows is a slapstick war with a serious message.

Wounded Man, The (Chéreau)

Director: Patrice Chéreau
Stars: Jean-Hugues Anglade, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, Roland Bertin
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Country: France

A young man discovers his homosexuality and begins a relationship with a manipulative huster/petty criminal that he meets at a train station.

Under Fire (Spottiswoode)

Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Stars: Nick Nolte, Ed Harris, Gene Hackman
Genre: Drama, War
Country: USA | Mexico

Three journalists in a romantic triangle are involved in political intrigue during the last days of the corrupt Somozoa regime in Nicaragua before it falls to a popular revolution in 1979.

Ballad of the Green Wood, The (Barta)

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

Cycles of life, with fantasy elements. An ax splits wood. Bits of split wood move in stop-motion; one piece has a woman’s face near the top. Water streams in torrents; patches of snow give way to spring. A large black bird flies into the frame. It attacks and splinters the wood with the woman’s face. The piece of wood, whole again, becomes the bird’s body. It flies about, and it’s celebrated by other bits of wood. Then, a man leaves a house carrying an empty pail. He gathers bits of wood. A chimney smokes.

Voyage in Time (Tarkovsky, Guerra)

Director: Tonino Guerra, Andrei Tarkovsky
Stars: Tonino Guerra, Lora Jabloskina, Andrei Tarkovsky
Genre: Documentary
Country: Italy

Like the Russian poet of ‘Nostalghia’, who, accompanied by his Italian guide and translator, traveled through Italy researching the life of an 18th-century Russian composer, Andrei Tarkovsky, accompanied by his Italian script-writer, Tonino Guerra, travels through Italy in order to find the locations for their common filmed effort. During this journey, Guerra constantly induces Tarkovsky to reflect on his work and on his past as a film-maker and a poet. The result will be the masterpiece ‘Nostalghia’.

Never Cry Wolf (Ballard)

Director: Carroll Ballard
Stars: Charles Martin Smith, Brian Dennehy, Zachary Ittimangnaq
Genre: Action, Drama
Country: USA

A government researcher, sent to research the “menace” of wolves in the north, learns about the true beneficial and positive nature of the species.

Railway Station for Two, A (Ryazanov)

Director: Eldar Ryazanov
Stars: Lyudmila Gurchenko, Oleg Basilashvili, Nikita Mikhalkov
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Soviet Union

A waitress from the provincial railway station falls in love with an accidental passenger. Before this passenger lies the menace of distant prison for the crime he didn’t commit.

Careful, He Might Hear You (Schultz)

Director: Carl Schultz
Stars: Wendy Hughes, Robyn Nevin, Nicholas Gledhill
Genre: Drama
Country: Australia

His mother dead, PS lives in Sydney with working-class Aunt Lila and Uncle George. When he’s six or eight, his posh Aunt Vanessa descends from England. Named a co-guardian by PS’s feckless, absent father, she asserts her rights and convinces Lila to have PS live with her weekdays. PS is happy at Lila’s, playing with children, running about, speaking up. At Vanessa’s, there’s a regimen of private school, round vowels, piano and riding lessons, and lonely indoor play with fancy toys. He’s miserable and when he objects, she sues for complete custody. Will anyone listen to him?

Concurs (Pita)

Director: Dan Pita
Stars: Claudiu Bleont, Theodor Danetti, Gheorghe Dinica
Genre: Drama
Country: Romania

An outdoors orientation contest turns into a journey to the participants’ self and conscience.

Miracle (Bernal)

Director: Ishmael Bernal
Stars: Nora Aunor, Veronica Palileo, Spanky Manikan
Genre: Drama
Country: Philippines

Elsa saw the blessed Virgin Mary who had changed her life and caused a hysteria in a poor isolated village.

Parsifal (Syberberg)

Director: Hans-Jürgen Syberberg
Stars: Edith Clever, Martin Sperr, Robert Lloyd
Genre: Drama, Music
Country: West Germany | France

Richard Wagner’s last opera has remained controversial since its first performance for its unique, and, for some, unsavory blending of religious and erotic themes and imagery. Based on one of the medieval epic romances of King Arthur and the search for the holy grail (the chalice touched by the lips of Christ at the last supper), it recounts over three long acts how a “wild child” unwittingly invades the sacred precincts of the grail, fulfilling a prophecy that only such a one can save the grail’s protectors from a curse fallen upon them.

Night Shift (Howard)

Director: Ron Howard
Stars: Henry Winkler, Michael Keaton, Shelley Long
Genre: Comedy
Country: USA

A morgue attendant is talked into running a brothel at his workplace after a deceased pimp is sent there. However, the pimp’s killers don’t look too kindly on this new ‘business’, nor does the morgue’s owner.

Karnaval (Lioznova)

Director: Tatyana Lioznova
Stars: Irina Muravyova, Yuriy Yakovlev, Klara Luchko
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Country: Soviet Union

A coming-of-age story about a small town girl’s struggle to become an actress in Soviet Moscow.

L’ange (Bokanowski)

Director: Patrick Bokanowski
Stars: Maurice Baquet, Jean-Marie Bon, Martine Couture
Genre: Animation, Fantasy
Country: France

The climbing of an immense staircase made up of the most varied stairs. Symbolic scenes occur on different levels where characters seem to be prisoners of their deeds and of their own folly. Attacks, explosions, maniacal and despairing searching, objects which independently move, walls, floors and ceilings which form and disperse. The steep staircase leads little by little towards the zones of great light where human beings and nonhuman beings meet.

La traviata (Zeffirelli)

Director: Franco Zeffirelli
Stars: Teresa Stratas, Plácido Domingo, Cornell MacNeil
Genre: Drama, Music
Country: Netherlands | Italy

Violetta meets Alfredo and quickly falls for him. After the lovers run away together, they live in bliss for a short time. However, Alfredo’s father, Giorgio, starts to interfere, concerned that Violetta’s bad reputation will affect the marriage prospects of Alfredo’s sister. Violetta reluctantly leaves Alfredo, but his love is so strong that it leads him to actions that have tragic consequences.

Personal Best (Towne)

Director: Robert Towne
Stars: Mariel Hemingway, Scott Glenn, Patrice Donnelly
Genre: Drama, Sport
Country: USA

The intertwined lives and loves of three highly-ranked athletes striving for the national team; Chris bounces between the beds of male coach Terry and her female friend, competitor, and role model Tory.

Liquid Sky (Tsukerman)

Director: Slava Tsukerman
Stars: Anne Carlisle, Paula E. Sheppard, Susan Doukas
Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA

A small, heroin seeking UFO lands on a Manhattan roof, observes a bizarre, drug addicted fashion model and sucks endorphin from her sexual encounters’ brains.

Hammett (Wenders)

Director: Wim Wenders
Stars: Frederic Forrest, Peter Boyle, Marilu Henner
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: USA

Fictional account of real-life mystery writer Dashiell Hammett, and his involvement in the investigation of a beautiful Chinese cabaret actress’ mysterious disappearance in San Francisco.

Tight Spot, A (Milosevic)

Director: Mica Milosevic
Stars: Nikola Simic, Milan ‘Lane’ Gutovic, Rahela Ferari
Genre: Comedy
Country: Yugoslavia

In this light, fluffy comedy, a low-level clerk cannot make ends meet because his brood is in no way economically cooperative: his daughter is a lawyer looking for work, unsuccessfully; his son is a would-be astronomer who wants to spend his life studying without working; and his other son wants his own wheels. It is enough to send a father to the lottery, or to the soccer pool.

Konopielka (Leszczynski)

Director: Witold Leszczynski
Stars: Krzysztof Majchrzak, Anna Seniuk, Joanna Sienkiewicz
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Poland

Kaziuk, a stubborn peasant and his pregnant wife live in a backwood village, unaffected by the civilization. The village is once visited by a couple of wanderers, and strange things start to happen afterward. A new schoolteacher is sent to the area. She stirs erotic fantasies in Kaziuk. In a stir of frustration Kaziuk cuts down a family tree – a sacrilegious act in the eyes of his family. Going a step further and using a scythe for cutting the rye instead of a sickle brings the whole village against him.

Another Way (Makk)

Director: Károly Makk
Stars: Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieslak, Ildikó Bánsági, Grazyna Szapolowska
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Hungary

Political and sexual repression in Hungary, just after the revolution of 1956. In 1958, the body of Eva Szalanczky, a political journalist, is discovered near the border. Her friend Livia is in hospital with a broken neck; Livia’s husband, Donci, is under arrest. In a flashback to the year before, we see what leads up to the tragedy.

Victor Victoria (Edwards)

Director: Blake Edwards
Stars: Julie Andrews, James Garner, Robert Preston
Genre: Comedy, Music, Musical
Country: UK | USA

A struggling female soprano finds work playing a male female impersonator, but it complicates her personal life.

Moonlighting (Skolimowki)

Director: Jerzy Skolimowski
Stars: Jeremy Irons, Eugene Lipinski, Jirí Stanislav
Genre: Drama
Country: UK

A Polish contractor, Nowak, leads a group of workmen to London so they can provide cheap labor for a government official based there. Nowak (Irons) has to manage the project and the men as they encounter the tempations of the West and loneliness and separation from their families. Nowak is the only one of the group who speaks English, and he uses this as a tool over his team. When the unrest in Poland leads to a military takeover, Nowak is faced with a much more difficult situation than he expected.

Carnival Scenes (Pintilie)

Director: Lucian Pintilie
Stars: Victor Rebengiuc, Mariana Mihut, Petrica Gheorghiu
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Romania

A small world of bourgeois intrigues and frivolities lived with intensity by its own protagonists: Pampon’s lover, Didina is in love with the barber Nae, who is Mitza’s lover, while she is Cracanel’s lover. One letter starts the ball rolling and ugly characters start revealing themselves in a burlesque-like fashion.

Border, The (Richardson)

Director: Tony Richardson
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Harvey Keitel, Valerie Perrine
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: USA

A corrupt border Agent decides to clean up his act when an impoverished woman’s baby is put up for sale on the black market.

Herdsman, The (Xie, Huang)

Director: Jin Xie, Shuqin Huang
Stars: Shimao Zhu, Shan Cong, Qiong Liu
Genre: Drama
Country: China

This movie is adapted from the novel Heroes in Tongbai. Xiao Hua, a sister of Zhao Yongsheng, is deserted by her poor family. He Xiangdong, a woodworker, adopts her and rename her He Cuigu. To steer clear of arrest by the enemy, Dong Hongguo, offspring of a revolutionary family, is renamed Xiao Hua so as to be adopted by her adopter. Later, Zhao Yongsheng’s parents are killed by the enemy.

Land of Look Behind (Greenberg)

Director: Alan Greenberg
Stars: Micalon Stevenson, Jammy Galloway, Louie Lepkie
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: USA

In May 1981, Alan Greenberg went to Jamaica to cover Bob Marley’s funeral. He ended up making a documentary showcasing the island’s culture. His “Land of Look Behind” features interviews with various Rastafari who talk about their philosophies.

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.

Genocide (Schwartzman)

Director: Arnold Schwartzman
Stars: Elizabeth Taylor, Orson Welles, Simon Wiesenthal
Genre: Documentary, Drama, History
Country: USA

Orson Welles and Elizabeth Taylor compassionately narrate this harrowing documentary about Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany, which soon turned into a notoriously industrious plan to wipe them from existence.

Basket Case (Henenlotter)

Director: Frank Henenlotter
Stars: Kevin Van Hentenryck, Terri Susan Smith, Beverly Bonner
Genre: Comedy, Horror
Country: USA

A young man carrying a big basket that contains his extremely deformed Siamese-twin brother seeks vengeance on the doctors who separated them against their will.

Woman Called Golda, (Gibson)

Director: Alan Gibson
Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Ned Beatty, Franklin Cover
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: USA

The story of the Russian-born, Wisconsin-raised woman who rose to become Israel’s prime minister in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Walter (Frears)

Director: Stephen Frears
Stars: Ian McKellen, Barbara Jefford, Arthur Whybrow
Genre: Drama
Country: UK

A man with learning difficulties suffers neglect and ill-treatment, and this is only exasperated when his parents die and nobody seems to know what to do with him.

Last Unicorn, The (Bass, Rankin)

Director: Jules Bass, Arthur Rankin Jr.
Stars: Jeff Bridges, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Drama
Country: USA

A brave unicorn (Mia Farrow) and a magician (Alan Arkin) fight an evil King (Sir Christopher Lee), who is obsessed with attempting to capture the world’s unicorns.

Labyrinth of Passion (Almodóvar)

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Stars: Cecilia Roth, Imanol Arias, Helga Liné
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Spain

A camp melodrama/comedy about Sexilia (a nymphomaniac), Sadec (a gay Islamic terrorist), Riza Niro (the son of the emperor of Tiran), and Queti (the daughter of a dry-cleaner). When Riza Niro discovers that Sadec and his colleagues are after him, he disguises himself as a punk rocker, and falls in love with the stunning Sexilia, his first straight relationship. Meanwhile Queti, Sexilia’s “biggest fan”, helps Sexilia come to terms with her new life-style.

Flight of the Eagle, The (Troell)

Director: Jan Troell
Stars: Max von Sydow, Sverre Anker Ousdal, Göran Stangertz
Genre: Adventure, Biography, Drama
Country: Sweden | West Germany | Norway

The Swedish 19th century engineer S. A. Andrée sets out to become the first man on the north pole. His idea is to launch a polar expedition using a hydrogen balloon, together with two friends. The balloon, “The Eagle”, takes off from Svalbard in 1897, but the three men are not heard of again.

En rachâchant (Huillet, Straub)

Director: Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub
Stars: Olivier Straub, Nadette Thinus, Bernard Thinus
Genre: Short
Country: France

The child Ernesto doesn’t want to go to school any more because, as he says, all he is taught there is things he doesn’t know.

State of Things, The (Wenders)

Director: Wim Wenders
Stars: Allen Garfield, Samuel Fuller, Isabelle Weingarten
Genre: Drama
Country: Netherlands | UK | West Germany | France | Spain | Portugal | USA

On location in Portugal, a film crew runs out of film while making their own version of Roger Corman’s Day the World Ended (1955). The producer is nowhere to be found and director Friedrich Munro attempts to find him in hopes of being able to finish the film.

Vincent (Burton)

Director: Tim Burton
Stars: n/a
Genre: Animation, Short, Family
Country: USA

Young Vincent Malloy dreams of being just like Vincent Price and loses himself in macabre daydreams which annoys his mother.

Secret of NIMH, The (Bluth)

Director: Don Bluth
Stars: Elizabeth Hartman, Derek Jacobi, Dom DeLuise
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Drama
Country: USA

To save her ill son, a field mouse must seek the aid of a colony of rats, with whom she has a deeper link than she ever suspected.

I Are You, You Am Me (Ôbayashi )

Director: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
Stars: Satomi Kobayashi, Toshinori Omi, Makoto Satô
Genre: Comedy
Country: Japan

9th-graders Kazuo (boy) and Kazumi (girl) take a tumble at a temple in a small seacoast town in Japan. Through supernatural intervention, their minds and bodies are switched, and the result is a touching and hilarious coming-of-age comedy as they attempt to survive the pressures of junior high school life.

Family Relations (Mikhalkov)

Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Stars: Nonna Mordyukova, Svetlana Kryuchkova, Yuriy Bogatyryov
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Soviet Union

A woman from the countryside comes to the city to visit her only daughter and granddaughter. She is hopelessly lost in this world she does not understand.

Malice in Wonderland (Collins)

Director: Vince Collins
Stars: n/a
Genre: Animation, Short, Horror
Country: USA

A jet-propelled white rabbit flies through the vulva of a supine woman into a wonderland where people and objects turn inside out, changing shapes and identities at warp speed. Events roughly follow Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland.” The caterpillar and the queen make appearances, as does Alice. Images and symbols are often sexual. At the end, Alice asks, “Who has had such a curious dream?”

Le confort et l’indifférence (Arcand)

Director: Denys Arcand
Stars: Jean-Pierre Ronfard, Raymond Barre, Pierre Brodeur
Genre: Documentary
Country: Canada

Made shortly after the referendum on Quebec’s independence was held, this documentary illustrates what the politicians’ promises were and how the population did not really care nor truly understand what was really at stake, even though just about everyone had an opinion on the subject.

Identification of a Woman (Antonioni)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Stars: Tomas Milian, Daniela Silverio, Christine Boisson
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy | France

The movie director Niccolo has just been left by his wife. This gives him the idea of making a movie about women’s relationships. He starts to search for a woman who can play the leading part in the movie – but also in his own life.

First Contact (Anderson, Connolly)

Director: Robin Anderson, Bob Connolly
Stars: Richard Oxenburgh, Daniel Leahy, Mick Leahy
Genre: Documentary
Country: Australia | Canada | USA

This documentary presents footage of the first contact between the highland tribes of Papua New Guinea, and European explorers. In the 1930s three Australian’s, Michael, Daniel and James Leahy were the first white people to venture into the vast New Guinean interior. They searched for gold and found 1 million highland tribespeople who had previously had no contact with the outside world. Amazingly, they took a film camera with them.

Alalum (Apostolidis, Smaragdis, Typaldos)

Director: Yorgos Apostolidis, Yannis Smaragdis, Yiannis Typaldos
Stars: Harry Klynn, Dimitris Piatas, Joly Garbi
Genre: Comedy
Country: Greece

Peppered with unblushing advertisements against the backdrop of a new era in early-1980s Greece, Harry Klynn’s enthusiastic triptych unfolds, depicting an entire nation’s aspirations, desires, and fears before a brave new world.

Quack, The (Hoffman)

Director: Jerzy Hoffman
Stars: Jerzy Binczycki, Anna Dymna, Tomasz Stockinger
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Poland

Abandoned by his wife and daughter, a famous surgeon starts drinking, hurts his head and loses his memory. His medical knowledge gradually resurfaces and he becomes a village healer, not remembering who he is.

Une Chambre en Ville (Demy)

Director: Jacques Demy
Stars: Dominique Sanda, Danielle Darrieux, Richard Berry
Genre: Drama, Musical, Romance
Country: France

A film musical in which every line is sung. The frame is about workers during a strike. They also prepare and perform a demonstration. Two personal relations develop against this background.

P’tang, Yang, Kipperbang (Apted)

Director: Michael Apted
Stars: John Albasiny, Alison Steadman, Abigail Cruttenden
Genre: Comedy
Country: UK

Alan Duckworth (known as ‘Quack Quack’ to his friends) is a socially awkward fourteen-year-old who is obsessed with cricket and Ann Lawton, a girl in his class. Alan daydreams throughout his day, showing up late for school and making little academic progress. He becomes friends with the groundsman Tommy, whom he sees as some sort of war hero. Alan often follows Tommy around, telling him how Tommy helped to win the war, while making predictions about what the post-war world will be like.

Something in Between (Karanovic)

Director: Srdjan Karanovic
Stars: Caris Corfman, Predrag ‘Miki’ Manojlovic, Dragan Nikolic
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Yugoslavia

An American woman comes to Belgrade to visit an old friend. There, on the exotic boundary between West and East, she becomes entangled in a love triangle.

Mille milliards de dollars (Verneuil)

Director: Henri Verneuil
Stars: Patrick Dewaere, Mel Ferrer, Michel Auclair
Genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller
Country: France

A young journalist stumbles across something much more sinister than a simple suicide in the death of a politician – the death seems to be an assassination contrived by an American multinational company intent on taking over several French industries. The journalist’s objective is to garner enough evidence to expose the American corporation for what it really is, before French companies start disappearing – and before any more corpses accumulate, including his own.

Diva (Beineix)

Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix
Stars: Wilhelmenia Fernandez, Frédéric Andréi, Richard Bohringer
Genre: Thriller
Country: France

Two tapes, two Parisian mob killers, one corrupt policeman, an opera fan, a teenage thief, and the coolest philosopher ever filmed all twist their way through an intricate and stylish French-language thriller.

 

Quartet (Ivory)

Director: James Ivory
Stars: Isabelle Adjani, Suzanne Flon, Sébastien Floche
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: UK | France

Marya Zelli finds herself penniless after her art dealer husband, Stephan, is convicted of theft. Marya accepts the hospitality of a strange couple, H.J. and Lois Heidler, who lets her live in their house.

 

Bolero (Lelouch)

Director: Claude Lelouch
Stars: Robert Hossein, Nicole Garcia, Geraldine Chaplin
Genre: Drama, Music
Country: France

Trough fabulous music, this movie tracks three generations of musicians and dancers from Russia, Germany, France and the U.S., from before World War II through the war and the Holocaust, to the 1980s. Their lives become intertwined through the historical circumstances, and the culmination is the presence of several, including a former Nazi pianist and a French Jewish Holocaust survivor at an anti-famine concert.

 

Rasputin (Klimov)

Director: Elem Klimov
Stars: Aleksey Petrenko, Anatoliy Romashin, Velta Line
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Soviet Union

Details the life of the Russian monk Rasputin. The film shows his rise to power and how it corrupted him. His sexual perversions and madness ultimately leads to his gruesome assassination.

 

La Chevre (Veber)

Director: Francis Veber
Stars: Pierre Richard, Gérard Depardieu, Pedro Armendáriz Jr.
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Crime
Country: France | Mexico | Malta

A daughter of a millionaire, distinguish by incredible bad luck, goes missing. The idea how to find her is either insane or brilliant – to send after her an equally unlucky person.

 

El crack (Garci)

Director: José Luis Garci
Stars: Alfredo Landa, María Casanova, Manuel Tejada
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: Spain

Private detective Germán Areta gets a terminally ill client who wishes to see his long lost, runaway daughter before he dies. But when Areta starts looking into case, it leads him to the dark underbelly of Madrid where he finds that he is not only one looking for the girl. Someone else is also interested in her, someone powerful and dangerous who will stop at nothing to prevent Areta from discovering the truth.

 

Shortcuts (Menzel)

Director: Jirí Menzel
Stars: Magda Vásáryová, Jirí Schmitzer, Jaromír Hanzlík
Genre: Comedy
Country: Czechoslovakia

An evocation of the childhood memories of Bohumil Hrabal in his provincial town of Nymburk, dominated by the local brewery.

 

Love and Lies (Frez)

Director: Ilya Frez
Stars: Tatyana Aksyuta, Nikita Mikhaylovsky, Elena Solovey
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Soviet Union

A movie about two high school kids who meet in class and fall madly in love with each other. Unfortunately, His father and her mother had a history of their own between them which creates uneasiness in both of them. Also because of that, the boy’s mother is very jealous and tries to separate them. The only person that tries to help them is their teacher who has relationship problems of her own.

 

Kagero-za (Suzuki)

Director: Seijun Suzuki
Stars: Yûsaku Matsuda, Michiyo Yasuda, Mariko Kaga
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Thriller
Country: Japan

A 1920s playwright meets a beautiful woman who may be the ghost of his patron’s deceased wife.

 

Four Friends (Penn)

Director: Arthur Penn
Stars: Craig Wasson, Jodi Thelen, Michael Huddleston
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA

This story of four working-class kids in a small industrial town–who go their separate ways after high school in the innocence of 1961 and come together again at the end of the turbulent Sixties–is as much about the coming of age of America as it is about the changes the characters go through.

 

Why Not? (Imamura)

Director: Shôhei Imamura
Stars: Shigeru Izumiya, Kaori Momoi, Masao Kusakari
Genre: Drama
Country: Japan

Near the turbulent end of the Edo era, a man returning to Japan after exile in America searches for his wife and becomes swept up in the current of revolution in this incisive period drama from the great Shohei Imamura.

 

Fantasma d’amore (Risi)

Director: Dino Risi
Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Romy Schneider, Eva Maria Meineke
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery
Country: Italy | West Germany | France

Over two decades after their affair ended, a married man is haunted by the presence of his former lover.

 

Elephant Parts (Dear)

Director: William Dear
Stars: Michael Nesmith, Bill Martin, Lark Geib
Genre: Comedy, Music
Country: USA

A collection of comedy skits and music videos, such as a game-show spoof called “Name That Drug”, a visit to the office of the Clandestine Typing Service, and a man providing a skewed translation of a Mexican serenade for his girlfriend.

 

Allons z’enfants (Boisset)

Director: Yves Boisset
Stars: Lucas Belvaux, Jean Carmet, Jean-Pierre Aumont
Genre: War, Drama
Country: France

This is a coming of age drama adapted from the 1952 Yves Gibeau novel of the same title. A young anti-militarist is forcibly sent to military school by his father. He’s a bookish pacifist who endures being bullied by his superiors all throughout school, not out of weakness rather out of strength to deny violence it’s coveted reciprocity. On the eve of his much anticipated graduation day, Word War II ensues and swaps out the freedom he earned for the brutality of its first front lines.

 

Looks and Smiles (Loach)

Director: Ken Loach
Stars: Graham Green, Carolyn Nicholson, Tony Pitts
Genre: Drama
Country: UK

Thatcherism and the Irish troubles provide the backdrop for this study of Mick, a well-meaning youth in Sheffield, who has, unlike Dickens’ Pip, no expectations. Mick lives with his parents, works on his motorbike, looks for work, and every two weeks gets his check from the dole. There are no jobs. His best mate Alan joins the army to fix tanks and is sent to Belfast to quell Catholics. At a disco, Mick meets Karen, who works at a shoe shop and lives with her recently-separated mom.

 

Montenegro (Makavejev)

Director: Dusan Makavejev
Stars: Susan Anspach, Erland Josephson, Per Oscarsson
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Country: USA

A bored wealthy housewife on the verge of insanity cuts loose with some lively Yugoslavian immigrants who delight in their bohemian lifestyle.

 

Cutter’s Way (Passer)

Director: Ivan Passer
Stars: Jeff Bridges, John Heard, Lisa Eichhorn
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: USA

Richard spots a man dumping a body, and decides to expose the man he thinks is the culprit with his friend Alex Cutter.

 

Short Working Day (Kieslowski)

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Stars: Waclaw Ulewicz, Lech Grzmocinski, Tadeusz Bartosik
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland

A local party secretary (this is still the time when Poland was behind the iron curtain) has to face a mob of strikers protesting hefty increases in food prices by the central government. The embattled secretary decides at first to stick it out at the party’s office instead of making the recommended hasty escape. Most of the footage is from the point of view of the party secretary.

 

Rhythm of a Crime (Tadic)

Director: Zoran Tadic
Stars: Ivica Vidovic, Fabijan Sovagovic, Bozidarka Frajt
Genre: Crime, Drama, Horror
Country: Yugoslavia

A single teacher allows a stranger to share his home with him before it is to be torn down by developers. The stranger has a fascination with statistics, and claims he can predict crimes based on statistical analyses. Intrigued by this talent, the teacher tells a married, female friend that the man seems to have done what he claims. Then the numbers show that there is a slip-up and a murder that was supposed to have occurred, did not. The stranger is adamant that a balance has to be achieved or the whole town will suffer – and he leaves.

 

Day After Trinity, The (Else)

Director: Jon Else
Stars: Hans Bethe, Holm Bursom, Haakon Chevalier
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Country: USA

Scientists and witnesses involved in the creation and testing of the first ever atomic bomb reflect on the Manhattan project and its fascinating leader, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who upon completion of his wonderful and horrible invention became a powerful spokesperson against the nuclear arms race.

 

Deep Water (Deville)

Director: Michel Deville
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Sandrine Kljajic
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: France

Melanie enjoys flirting and having little affairs. Her husband Victor seems to bear her antics with utmost calm and nonchalance. This impression turns out to be wrong, very wrong indeed.

 

Passion of Love (Scola)

Director: Ettore Scola
Stars: Valeria D’Obici, Bernard Giraudeau, Jean-Louis Trintignant
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy | France

In the 1860s, Giorgio (Giraudeau), a young Italian soldier, is sent to a remote post, far away from his lover, Clara (Antonelli). He is lodged in the house of the colonel (Girotti). He becames friends with the colonel and the local doctor (Trintignant). Among the inhabitants of the house there is a strange young woman: Fosca (d’Obici) who is both unattractive and mad. However, she has a passion that Giorgio will have to cope with.

 

Beyond Reasonable Doubt (Laing)

Director: John Laing
Stars: David Hemmings, John Hargreaves, Tony Barry
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: New Zealand

A docu-drama covering one of the most famous murder cases in New Zealand history. Did Arthur Thomas kill Jeannette and Harvey Crewe at their Pukekawa farm house? Arthur was sure that trusting the police and co-operating fully would prove his innocence. The police held a very different view of this simple farmer.

 

Le Pont du Nord (Rivette)

Director: Jacques Rivette
Stars: Bulle Ogier, Pascale Ogier, Pierre Clémenti
Genre: Adventure, Crime, Drama
Country: France

Young unhinged female ex-con with a motorcycle helps a sickly young homeless woman in red discover what the map of Paris she took from her gangster boyfriend leads to.

 

Stations of the Elevated (Kirchheimer)

Director: Manfred Kirchheimer
Stars: n/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

Stations of the Elevated (1981) is a 45-minute city symphony directed, produced and edited by Manfred Kirchheimer. Shot on lush 16mm color reversal stock, the film weaves together vivid images of graffiti- covered elevated subway trains crisscrossing the gritty urban landscape of 1970s New York, to a commentary-free soundtrack that combines ambient city noise with jazz and gospel by Charles Mingus and Aretha Franklin.

 

Circle of Deceit (Schlöndorff)

Director: Volker Schlöndorff
Stars: Bruno Ganz, Hanna Schygulla, Jean Carmet
Genre: Drama, War
Country: West Germany | France

Laschen, a German journalist, travels to the city of Beirut during the fights between Christians and Palestinians to produce an essay about the situation. Together with his photographer, he meets some important people and discovers the everyday face of the war. He also has to figure out about his home life, where his marriage is in a big crisis.

 

Run, Waiter, Run! (Smoljak)

Director: Ladislav Smoljak
Stars: Josef Abrhám, Libuse Safránková, Daniela Bakerová
Genre: Comedy
Country: Czechoslovakia

A comedy concerning a down on his luck bookshop owner with a penchant for women who decides to make some money by pretending to be a waiter and collecting cash from unsuspecting diners.

 

Aviator’s Wife, The (Rohmer)

Director: Éric Rohmer
Stars: Philippe Marlaud, Marie Rivière, Anne-Laure Meury
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: France

A young student is devastated when he finds that his girlfriend is cheating on him. In order to find out why she did it, he decides to spy on her and her lover.

 

They Don’t Wear Black Tie (Hirszman)

Director: Leon Hirszman
Stars: Gianfrancesco Guarnieri, Fernanda Montenegro, Carlos Alberto Riccelli
Genre: Drama
Country: Brazil

Union leader’s son doesn’t want to engage in a strike, because his wife is pregnant, thus disregarding his father’s tradition of political activism.

 

War of the Worlds: Next Century, The (Szulkin)

Director: Piotr Szulkin
Stars: Roman Wilhelmi, Krystyna Janda, Mariusz Dmochowski
Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: Poland

Film opens on December 28, 1999, three days before the dawn of the new century. A local reporter, Iron Idem, announces that the Martians have landed. Shortly after that his program loses its independence: he is given the script telling the crowds how to welcome the invaders. Then the chaos breaks out: the Martians and police mistreat the populace; things become violent.

 

Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians, The (Lipský)

Director: Oldrich Lipský
Stars: Michal Docolomanský, Evelyna Steimarová, Vlastimil Brodský
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Country: Czechoslovakia

In 1897, in a castle near the town of Werewolfville in the Carpathians, a slightly deranged Professor Orfanik experiments with his new inventions which include, even at this early date, television and a film camera.

 

Lady of the Camelias (Bolognini)

Director: Mauro Bolognini
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Gian Maria Volontè, Bruno Ganz
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: Italy | France

A young girl from the provinces, comes to Paris with one goal: to become a part of the rich bourgeoisie. To achieve this she will use her unique beauty and charm.

 

Loulou (Pialat)

Director: Maurice Pialat
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Gérard Depardieu, Guy Marchand
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: France

A bored wife leaves her husband for an unemployed, petty criminal.

 

Céleste (Adlon)

Director: Percy Adlon
Stars: Eva Mattes, Jürgen Arndt, Norbert Wartha
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: West Germany

In 1914, with men gone to war, Marcel Proust hired Céleste Albaret as his attendant. More than eight years later, she was at his side when he died. During this entire time, she only entered his room when he rang for her, sleeping from 9 AM to 3 PM to wait during the night while he wrote. Marcel uses her as more than a servant: she is his muse, telling stories of her childhood to stir his remembrance of things past; she’s in cahoots with him as he manipulates those he wants to draw on for his writing; she listens appalled to his descriptions of the underside of Paris. Hers is a life of love and sweet devotion as he races time to finish his work before death.

 

La terrazza (Scola)

Director: Ettore Scola
Stars: Vittorio Gassman, Ugo Tognazzi, Jean-Louis Trintignant
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: Italy | France

During a dinner in a Roman terrace, the lives and experiences of multiple characters intertwine.

 

Parangelia! (Tasios)

Director: Pavlos Tasios
Stars: Antonis Antoniou, Antonis Kafetzopoulos, Katerina Gogou
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Greece

The real story of Nikos Koemtzis, who one night knifed a company of men in a tavern, just because they wanted to dance on the song he had “ordered” from the musicians.

 

Enemy, The (Ökten)

Director: Zeki Ökten
Stars: Aytaç Arman, Güngör Bayrak, Coskun Aktemel
Genre: Drama
Country: Turkey

Ismail is out of work despite am obvious willingness to do almost anything to earn enough to provide for his family. He is too well educated for the jobs he hopes to find, but not well enough connected to find the work he is capable of doing. He joins the labour market (much like the colonial slave markets of the 18th century) daily, only to return to his beloved and beautiful wife demoralized and without money. His wife, her mother, and their baby are totally dependent on him, so he submits to two humiliating tasks: poisoning the local stray dogs and begging his father for part of his inheritance.

 

Nocturne (von Trier)

Director: Lars von Trier
Stars: Yvette, Solbjørg Højfeldt, Anne-Lise Gabold
Genre: Short, Drama
Country: Denmark

A troubled and solitary woman who suffers from an acute light sensitivity summons the strength to escape her persistent trials; however, the fateful morning which is only hours away, still seems so distant and pale. Can she take the step?

 

Oblomov (Mikhalkov)

Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Stars: Oleg Tabakov, Yuriy Bogatyryov, Elena Solovey
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Country: Soviet Union

St. Petersburg, mid 19th century: the indolent, middle-aged Oblomov lives in a flat with his older servant, Zakhar. He sleeps much of the day, dreaming of his childhood on his parents’ estate. His boyhood companion, Stoltz, now an energetic and successful businessman, adds Oblomov to his circle whenever he’s in the city, and Oblomov’s life changes when Stoltz introduces him to Olga, lovely and cultured. When Stoltz leaves for several months, Oblomov takes a country house near Olga’s, and she determines to change him: to turn him into a man of society, action, and culture. Soon, Olga and Oblomov are in love; but where, in the triangle, does that leave Stoltz?

 

Larisa (Klimov)

Director: Elem Klimov
Stars: Elem Klimov, Valentin Rasputin, Stefaniya Stanyuta
Genre: Short, Biography
Country: Soviet Union

A loving film tribute to Russian filmmaker Larisa Shepitko, who died tragically in a car accident in 1979 at the age of 40. This documentary by her husband, Elem Klimov, includes excerpts from all of Shepitko’s films, and her own voice is heard talking about her life and art.

 

Ekipazh (Mitta)

Director: Aleksandr Mitta
Stars: Georgi Zhzhyonov, Anatoliy Vasilev, Leonid Filatov
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller
Country: Soviet Union

Story of the lives of three Soviet pilots who are united by disaster in a small town in the mountains.

 

Calm, The (Kieslowski)

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Stars: Jerzy Stuhr, Izabella Olszewska, Jerzy Trela
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland

A young man in his twenties leaves prison after a three-year sentence. He wants to start a new life in a place where he is not known and dreams only of a job, a wife and a family. He succeeds partially in fulfilling these dreams, but then runs into a conflict on a construction job between the corrupt boss and fellow workers secretly planning a strike. He becomes a pawn in one camp while remaining true to his ideals in the other.

 

Falls, The (Greenaway)

Director: Peter Greenaway
Stars: Peter Westley, Aad Wirtz, Michael Murray
Genre: Comedy, Sci-Fi
Country: UK

92 BBC documentary-style shorts that record the lives of 92 victims of the VUE (Violent Unexplained Event), each with last names beginning with “Fall.”

 

Rockshow (McCartney)

Director: Jack Priestley
Stars: Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Denny Laine
Genre: Documentary, Music
Country: UK

In 1975 and 1976 Paul McCartney and Wings undertook the epic Wings over the World tour, the largest scale tour they would ever undertake as a band. From this tour came both the legendary “Wings over America” triple live album and the concert film “Rockshow”.

 

All That Jack’s (Markovic)

Director: Goran Markovic
Stars: Semka Sokolovic-Bertok, Bogdan Diklic, Snezana Niksic
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Country: Yugoslavia

The staff of elementary school prepare the retirement party for their cleaning woman. The complicated relations within the school will emerge to the surface on the same night.

 

City After Dark (Bernal)

Director: Ishmael Bernal
Stars: Charito Solis, Alma Moreno, Lorna Tolentino
Genre: Drama
Country: Philippines

The hidden nightlife of ordinary people living in Manila unveils. Lovers and families’ conflicts are radically pitted against each other as they live in the night streets rampant with drugs and prostitution. The outstanding narrative explicitly unravels the various characters and episodes. This landmark film of Ishmael Bernal depicts the darkness of city life so vividly that it was once prohibited to use the word ‘Manila’ on its title.

 

Conductor, The (Wajda)

Director: Andrzej Wajda
Stars: John Gielgud, Krystyna Janda, Andrzej Seweryn
Genre: Drama, Music
Country: Poland

A violinist in a provincial Polish orchestra, whose husband is the director of the ensemble, on a visit to the U.S., ties up with the world-renowned symphony conductor. As it turns out, he was once in love with the violinist’s mother. The conductor, a slightly unstable hypochondriac, returns to Poland to lead the provincial orchestra. He also tries to revive an old love affair using the violinist as a surrogate of her mother. Her husband is resentful of the conductor for personal and professional reasons.

 

Inside Moves (Donner)

Director: Richard Donner
Stars: John Savage, David Morse, Diana Scarwid
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

After a failed suicide attempt leaves him partially crippled, Roary begins spending a lot of time at a neighborhood bar full of interesting misfits. When Jerry the bartender suddenly finds himself playing basketball for the Golden State Warriors, Roary and the rest of the bar regulars hope his success will provide a lift to their sagging spirits.

 

Earthling, The (Collinson)

Director: Peter Collinson
Stars: William Holden, Ricky Schroder, Jack Thompson
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Country: Australia | USA

Patrick Foley has been on the move all his life. Tired of drifting, he wants to spend his last days in an isolated Australian valley where he grew up. On his difficult journey he meets Shawn, a little desperate city-boy whose parents were killed in an accident in this remote inhospitable territory. Being unable to accompany the boy back to the civilized world he reluctantly takes him with him on his trip to that valley and teaches him in a rugged way how to survive …

 

Lion of the Desert (Akkad)

Director: Moustapha Akkad
Stars: Anthony Quinn, Oliver Reed, Rod Steiger
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Country: Libya | USA

In 1929, Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini appoints General Rodolfo Graziani as colonial governor to Italian Libya with orders to stamp-out all resistance from Libyan nationalists led by rebel guerrilla leader Omar Mukhtar.

 

La petite sirène (Andrieux)

Director: Roger Andrieux
Stars: Philippe Léotard, Laura Alexis, Evelyne Dress
Genre: Drama
Country: France

A 40-year-old mechanic whistles at a passing teenager; she stops and upbraids him. In embarrassment, he claims he was whistling at her companion, her 14-year-old cousin, Isabelle. This changes Isabelle’s outlook on life: her favorite story is Anderson’s “Little Mermaid,” and she thinks that in Georges she’s found her prince. She follows him, engages him in conversation, and turns up at his flat. At first, he pushes her away and tells her she’s nuts, but slowly he finds that she brings out of him a playful self, and he likes her devotion. The attraction builds, threatening Georges’ adult relationships, including that with Nelly, his sweetheart. Where on earth can this affair lead?

 

Breaker Morant (Beresford)

Director: Bruce Beresford
Stars: Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson, John Waters
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: Australia

Three Australian lieutenants are court martialed for executing prisoners as a way of deflecting attention from war crimes committed by their superior officers.

 

Poto and Cabengo (Gorin)

Director: Jean-Pierre Gorin
Stars: Jean-Pierre Gorin
Genre: Documentary
Country: Yugoslavia

Identical young twin girls in the USA have invented their own shared language. Scientists are wanting to study the language but social workers are trying to get the twins to leave their secret language world and enter the mainstream. This means forcing them to speak normal English and lose their secret language. The filmmaker’s own questions about this process run across as text at the bottom of the screen, a first use of that technique in documentary.

 

Vavilon XX (Mykolaichuk)

Director: Ivan Mikolaychuk
Stars: Lyubov Polishchuk, Ivan Mikolaychuk, Les Serdyuk
Genre: Drama
Country: Soviet Union

The small town of Vavilon hears of the recent Russian Revolution, but attempts to communize it are met with resistance from the rich people living in the town. The Red Army finally puts down the resistance.

 

History Without Importance, A (Duron)

Director: Jacques Duron
Stars: Philippe Bories, Bernard Flamain, Jeanne Barthélémy
Genre: Drama, Short
Country: France

A coming of age story about two great friends during the school years whose friendship is truly tested when one of the boys start to develop different feelings for the other. At first, it seems Philippe and Claude are just experimenting new sensations, everything is pure curiosity to them. But total reciprocity isn’t the name of the game and Philippe is clearly infatuated with his friend.

 

Petria’s Wreath (Karanovic)

Director: Srdjan Karanovic
Stars: Mirjana Karanovic, Dragan Maksimovic, Pavle Vuisic
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Yugoslavia

This film takes place in a small mining town in Serbia, within a time span covering the prewar, war, and postwar period. “Petria’s wreath” is a story about the tragic life of an illiterate woman from village, about her life with three men she loved. Her life, torn between dreams and reality, is a life of suffering, loneliness, disappointment, hope and love.

 

Lightning Over Water (Ray, Wenders)

Director: Nicholas Ray, Wim Wenders
Stars: Gerry Bamman, Ronee Blakley, Pierre Cottrell
Genre: Documentary
Country: Sweden | West Germany

Director Nicholas Ray is eager to complete a final film before his imminent death from cancer. Wim Wenders is working on his own film Hammett (1982) in Hollywood, but flies to New York to help Ray realize his final wish. Ray’s original intent is to make a fiction film about a dying painter who sails to China to find a cure for his disease. He and Wenders discuss this idea, but it is obviously unrealistic given Ray’s state of health.

 

Germany Pale Mother (Sanders-Brahms)

Director: Helma Sanders-Brahms
Stars: Eva Mattes, Ernst Jacobi, Elisabeth Stepanek
Genre: Drama, History, War
Country: West Germany

Germany 1939. Hans and Lene marry the day before the war breaks out, and Hans is sent to the Eastern front. During a bombing raid their daughter Anna is born. The house is destroyed and Lene and Anna moves in with relatives in Berlin. Hans survives the war but he is not the same person as in 1939, and he and Lene find it difficult to live together again.

 

Who’s Singin’ Over There? (Sijan)

Director: Slobodan Sijan
Stars: Pavle Vuisic, Dragan Nikolic, Danilo ‘Bata’ Stojkovic
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Country: Yugoslavia

It’s April 5, 1941, somewhere in Serbia. A group of people go on a bus to Belgrade, on a journey that will change their lives forever.

 

Muhammad and Larry (Maysles)

Director: Albert Maysles, David Maysles
Stars: Muhammad Ali, Drew Bundini Brown, Angelo Dundee
Genre: Documentary, Short, Sport
Country: USA

An American documentary film about the 1980 heavyweight title fight between the aging Muhammad Ali and his former sparring partner Larry Holmes for an unprecedented fourth title.

 

Love Between the Raindrops (Kachyna)

Director: Karel Kachyna
Stars: Eduard Cupák, Vladimír Mensík, Lukás Vaculík
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: Czechoslovakia

Karel Bursík (Lukás Vaculík), as a child called Kajda, recalls his childhood spent in Prague – Zizkov. His father (Vladimír Mensík), a shoe-maker, moved there his wife and three children hoping they would escape a country poverty.

 

Constant Factor, The (Zanussi)

Director: Krzysztof Zanussi
Stars: Tadeusz Bradecki, Zofia Mrozowska, Malgorzata Zajaczkowska
Genre: Drama
Country: Poland

A young man is facing death of his mother. A petty corruption at his job leads to him being framed and robbed of his only desire to climb mountains in Himalayas, as his father did and where he died.

 

Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (Whyte)

Director: William H. Whyte
Stars: William H. Whyte
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA

This highly influential film in architecture and planning circles by William H. Whyte analyzes the success and failures of urban spaces. Observing the natural order of spaces and the way people move through them, Whyte provides an intuitive critique of urban spaces and ways these spaces can be improved.