After a stylist is found dead at a hairdressing competition, the remaining competitors try to uncover the killer over the course of an evening, in this vivacious and absurdly comic ensemble drama. Rivalry and mistrust build as the remaining group of determined contestants suspect that someone may be trying to rig the competition, by gruesomely picking off it's entrants.
Shot in black and white with a skeleton six person crew, 'Shadows' offers a frank observation of the tensions and lives of there siblings in an African-American family in which two of the siblings, Ben (Ben Carruthers) and Leila (Lelia Goldoni), are light-skinned and able to 'pass' for white.
Adapted from the novella by Joseph Roth, the film tells the story of Andreas Kartack (Rutger Hauer), a homeless man living under the bridges of Paris. Lent 200 francs by an anonymous stranger, he is determined to pay back his debt but circumstances - and his alcoholism - forever intervene.
"Black Peter" is the debut feature from Oscar-winning director Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus). A wry comedy set in 1960's Czechoslovakia, the film explores the passions and confusions of teenage life. Peter is tentatively taking his first steps into the adult world; he has a new job and a new focus for his burgeoning erotic fantasies -provoking conflict with the older generation. With a cast of mainly non-professional actors, Forman conjures up a naturalistic and witty portrait of everyday life under totalitarianism. Full of charming performances, youthful spontaneity and a rock n roll soundtrack, 'Black Peter' helped launch the internationally acclaimed Czech New Wave.
A subtle and beautifully observed social satire that deftly balances hope and despair, 'A Blonde in Love' is widely celebrated as one of the great films of the 1960's. This bittersweet romance from Milos Forman, the multiple Oscar-winning director of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' and 'Amadeus', unfolds as a sweetly seductive tale of young love, but also provides a wry critique of life under totalitarianism. Aided by gorgeous cinematography and naturalistic performances, the film adeptly distils universal truths from the simplest of situations, presenting them with a sharp yet compassionate eye.
In their small-town meeting hall, a maladroit committee of volunteer fire-fighters holds a ball to celebrate the retirement of one of their own, but thanks to poor planning and lack of leadership, the evening quickly devolves into a catastrophe. Nobody can prevent the lottery prizes from being stolen out from under the very noses of those guarding them. A beauty contest turns into an embarrassing farce, and the brigade can't even respond properly to a real fire next door. The Firemen's Ball was Czechoslovakian director Milos Forman's final film in his home country; he was scouting locations in Paris when the Russians moved their tanks into Prague in 1968 causing Forman to decide to remain an expatriate.
When ex-con Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) says he has a plan to make a killing, everybody want to be in on the action. Especially when the plan is to steal $2 million in a racetrack robbery scheme in which "no one will get hurt". But despite all their careful plotting, Clay and his men have overlooked on thing: Sherry Peatty (Marie Windsor), a money-hungry, double-crossing dame who's planning to make a financial killing of her own...even if she has to wipe out Clay's entire gang to do it!
When a daydreaming but discontented young teacher is posted to a school in Lunana, a remote village high in the Himalayan mountains, he is disheartened to find a simple yak herding community lacking basic amenities such as electricity or even a blackboard in the classroom. But the enthusiasm of his young students and the unassuming warmth of the village folk buoy his spirits and he must decide whether to return to the city before the gruelling winter sets in or remain in this strange and captivating land. Beautifully photographed in extraordinary mountain locations, this poetic and enchanting drama earned Bhutan the country's first ever Oscar nomination and gives a fascinating insight into a region largely uncharted on screen.
Museum curator Minnie Moore's (Gena Rowlands) life has not turned out how she expected, she's a divorcee who's just turned 40, with a boyfriend Jim (John Cassavetes) who's married to someone else. A nasty break-up and a blind date that goes horribly wrong lead to a chance encounter with parking lot attendant Seymour Moskowitz (Seymour Cassel). Seymour falls in love at first sight with Minnie, "I'm so crazy about you I forget to go to the bathroom", he professes. Can he convince his seemingly polar opposite to fall in love with him?
This mindbending folk horror, set in 1973, unfolds atmospherically on an unpopulated island off the Cornish coast. There, a single volunteer (Mary Woodvine) recording data on an unfamiliar flower finds her lonely daily observations turning troublingly towards the strange and metaphysical, forcing her to question what is real and what is nightmare. Is the barren landscape not just alive...but also sentient?
"Brian and Charles" follows Brian (David Earl), a lonely inventor in rural Wales, who spends his days building quirky, unconventional contraptions that seldom work. Undeterred by his lack of success, Brian attempts his biggest project yet. Three days, a washing machine, and various spare parts later, he's invented Charles (Chris Hayward), an artificially intelligent robot who learns English from a dictionary and has an obsession with cabbages. What follows is a humorous and entirely heartwarming story about loneliness, friendship, family, finding love, and letting go.
Water Lilies is a beautifully observed, intelligent and provocative portrait of female adolescence. Set in the competitive world of synchronised swimming, three 15- year-old girls experience first love, friendship and rivalry in very different ways.
The American dream has rarely seemed so far away as in Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou's raw, verite 'Take Out', an immersion in the life of an undocumented Chinese immigrant struggling to get by on the margins of post-9/11 New York City. Facing violent retaliation from a loan shark, restaurant deliveryman Ming Ding (Charles Jang) has until nightfall to pay back the money he owes, and he encounters both crushing setbacks and moments of unexpected humanity as he races against time to earn enough in tips over the course of a frantic day. From this simple setup, Baker and Tsou fashion a kind of neorealist survival thriller of the everyday, shedding compassionate light on the too often overlooked lives and labor that keep New York running.
"No Bears" is the outstanding new film from acclaimed Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi. In the film Panahi plays himself, a filmmaker trying to direct a cast and crew in Turkey, who is forced to remain in an Iranian village close to the border. As his actors perform their own story of attempted escape to Europe, Panahi finds himself coming up against suspicion and local traditions in the village where he is staying. Panahi's latest film is a testimony to how artistry and protest can find inspiration in the very restrictions that he and other creative voices face.
Jean Servais is Tony le Stephanois, a master thief with a battered face and a tubercular cough, souvenirs of a recent stint in the pen. The ageing Tony is reluctant to return to a life of crime, but when he realizes his girlfriend has thrown him over for a rival gangster, he agrees to attempt one last job. Together with three collaborators – a young father, a boisterous Franco-Italian and a sentimental Milanese safecracker – Tony meticulously engineers his biggest heist yet: robbing the most heavily guarded jewelry store in Paris.
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