lamb's - Unavailable films I would like to see List
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Made in 1962 (but not released until 1965), Bengali director Ritwik Ghatak’s film starts soon after the 1947 partition of Bengal. At a socialist refugee colony, Ishwar and his younger sister, Sita, adopt a low-caste boy, Abhiram, who has been separated from his mother. To keep the two children from poverty, Ishwar abandons the colony to take an administrative job at an iron mill. Years pass. During one school vacation, the now-grown Sita and Abhiram acknowledge their love for each other. Ishwar, turned grimly bourgeois, opposes their match, and his interference leads to disaster for all three. - Director:
- Ritwik Ghatak
- Cast:
- Madhabi Mukherjee, Bijon Bhattacharya, Abhi Bhattacharya
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The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short (1966)De man die zijn haar kort liet knippen
Received with a combination of bewilderment and outright derision upon its initial release, André Delvaux's first feature film has undergone a critical reevaluation over the years and is now regarded as one of the seminal works of Belgian cinema. Adapted from a novel by Flemish writer Johan Daisne, this is a story about Govert Miereveld (Senne Rouffaer), a lawyer from a small Flemish town who also teaches in a school for girls. He harbors a secret love for one of his young students, Fran (Beata Tyszkiewicz), whom he loses touch with after her graduation. Some time later, Miereveld has to attend an autopsy, and the shock of the experience deeply affects his mental balance. He finds out - or he believes so - that Fran has become a popular singer. He arranges to meet her to finally reveal his feelings. The film is decidedly ambiguous about the tragic denouement that follows, suggesting that it might be a figment of the protagonist's disturbed mind. - Director:
- André Delvaux
- Cast:
- Senne Rouffaer, Dora Van Der Groen, Beata Tyszkiewicz
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The Cow (1969)Gaav
'The Cow' has the beauty and simplicity associated with the great films of that movement. In a small village in Iran, Hassan cherishes his cow more than anything in the world. While he is away, the cow mysteriously dies, and the villagers protectively try to convince Hassan the cow has wandered off. Grief stricken, Hassan begins to believe he is his own beloved bovine. 'The Cow' won great acclaim at the Venice Film Festival after being smuggled out of Iran in 1971, and was twice voted the best Iranian film ever made by a survey of Iranian film critics... - Director:
- Dariush Mehrjui
- Cast:
- Ezzatolah Entezami, Mahin Shahabi, Ali Nassirian
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Deewaar (1975)The Wall / I'll Die for Mama
A story of conflict, and emotion. A mother (Nirupa Roy), and her two son Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) and Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) make it to Mumbai from a small town. While Vijay work alongside his mother and shares the burden, Ravi goes to school and on to college. Vijay is all anger and vengeance, while Ravi treads the path of dharma and the rule of law. This is the wall the separates them. This is not a wall built on the shaky foundations of anger, jealousy of envy. It is a wall built on the bedrock of principles of honesty, labour, dignity, and the rule of law. When of her sons breaks the code, the anguished mother, who loves both her sons, has to end does make the choice. - Director:
- Yash Chopra
- Cast:
- Shashi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan, Neetu Singh
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Too Early / Too Late (1982)Trop tôt/Trop tard / Zu früh/Zu spät
Inspired by a letter by Friedrich Engels and a 1974 account of two militant Marxist writers who had been imprisoned by the Nasser regime, Straub-Huillet filmed 'Too Early, Too Late' in France and Egypt during 1980. They reflect on Egypt’s history of peasant struggle and liberation from Western colonization, and link it to class tensions in France shortly before the Revolution of 1789, quoting texts by Engels as well as the pioneering nonfiction film Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895). - Director:
- Not Available
- Cast:
- Gamal Abdel Nasser
- Formats:
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A Question of Silence (1982)De stilte rond Christine M.
Housewife Christine M. tries to shoplift some merchandise from a boutique in a shopping mall but is caught by the male shopkeeper. Christine and two other customers, waitress Annie and secretary Anna, beat the man to death, witnessed by a large group of other female shoppers. They are tried with murder and deny the plea of insanity that the male prosecutor and judges assume they should plead. The female criminal psychiatrist assigned to ascertain their level of sanity comes to identify with the women's situations and concludes that they are not insane but have been driven to murder by the strain of living in a patriarchy. - Director:
- Marleen Gorris
- Cast:
- Edda Barends, Nelly Frijda, Henriëtte Tol
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El Norte (1983)The North
Brother and sister Enrique (David Villalpando) and Rosa (Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez) flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life. It's a story that happens every day, but until Gregory Nava's groundbreaking El Norte (The North), the personal travails of immigrants crossing the border to America had never been shown in the movies with such urgent humanism. A work of social realism imbued with dreamlike imagery, 'El Norte' is a lovingly rendered, heartbreaking story of hope and survival, which critic Roger Ebert called a 'Grapes of Wrath' for our time. - Director:
- Gregory Nava
- Cast:
- Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez, David Villalpando, Ernesto Gómez Cruz
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A Time to Live, and Time to Die (1985)Tóngnián wangshì
This depiction of childhood and adolescence draws heavily from the filmmaker's own boyhood. Like many of their compatriots, Hou's family moved from the mainland to Taiwan in 1948 and was unable ever to return. The film focuses on the widening generation gap in a family cut off from its cultural heritage. The film is a coming of age story of Ah-Ha, whom we meet as a boy of about seven, and whose life we follow until his late teen years. Ah-Ha's family fled China in 1947, and now live in Taiwan. At first, there was still talk about recapturing the mainland, although those discussions faded away as the reality became clear. Still, Ah-Ha's grandmother (Ru-Yun Tang) is convinced that she can walk back to the mainland, and frequently asks people to help her to get there. - Director:
- Hsiao-hsien Hou
- Cast:
- Chia-bao Chang, Neng Chang, Chih-Chen Chen
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Peking Opera Blues (1986)Do ma daan / Knife Horse Dawn
The film is set in 1913 Beijing, during Yuan Shikai's presidency of the country. It depicts the adventures of a team of unlikely heroines: Tsao Wan (Brigitte Lin), a patriotic rebel who dresses as a man; Sheung Hung (Cherie Chung), a woman in search of a missing box of jewels; and Bai Niu (Sally Yeh), the daughter of a Peking Opera impresario. - Director:
- Hark Tsui
- Cast:
- Brigitte Lin, Sally Yeh, Cherie Chung
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Brightness (1987)Yeelen
Nianankoro's father Soma is a part of the order of Komo, who practice magic, but he uses his powers for self-gain. He becomes determined to kill his son after receiving a vision that his son will cause his death. Aided by his mother, Nianankoro leaves his village to seek out his uncle for help. Soma pursues him with the aid of an enchanted pylon that tracks his son's location and breaks all barriers that deter it. As he travels, Nianankoro encounters a hyena who tells him his destiny is to be great. Passing through the territory of the Peul, he is thought to be a thief and captured. Their king Rouma Boli orders him killed, but Nianankoro creates magic that freezes his guards and declares they cannot kill him. Impressed, King Rouma offers Nianankoro his freedom in exchange for aid against a rival tribe. When the tribe attacks, Nianankoro summons a swarm of bees and a fire that drives their attackers away. The king thanks Nianankoro and asks him to cure his wife Attou's infertility. Nianankoro creates an enchantment, but he and Attou are overcome by lust and sleep together. That night they return to Rouma to confess their crime, and the king reluctantly orders them married and to leave... - Director:
- Souleymane Cissé
- Cast:
- Issiaka Kane, Aoua Sangare, Niamanto Sanogo
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A Tale of the Wind (1988)Une histoire de vent / A Wind Story
This film travels through fantasy and reality as Joris Ivens goes to China to capture the wind. The film reflects the filmmaker's journey from Pour le Mistral (1966), his first film on the wind, to this project, which is his final film. The essay film flows between fantasy and reality moving between the images the filmmaker has made, seen or dreamt about. Combining documentary with Chinese mythology and opera and even Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon (1902), Ivens melds culture, landscape and mindscape with breathtaking effect. The old director travels as a boy from his windmill home in erstwhile Holland in a glider made from clothes from a clothesline. We see his journey through life and into the mysticism of the orient in his old age. His memories take us into a humorous, sometimes pensive, magical journey while the film's crew struggles to capture the wind and his breath. - Director:
- Joris Ivens
- Cast:
- Joris Ivens, Henxiang Han, Zhuang Liu
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The Asthenic Syndrome (1989)Astenicheskiy sindrom
In the old days it was called hypochondria, or black melancholia. Now, apparently, it's termed the Asthenic Syndrome. Whatever it is, Nikolai (Sergei Popov), a teacher of epic indifferent pupils, has got it, and it's not much fun. Worse yet, quite a few other people, even an entire society, seem to be afflicted with the same problem writ extremely large...After a funeral, Natasha (Olga Antonova) is angry with everyone alive, quits her job and pisses off people in the street... - Director:
- Kira Muratova
- Cast:
- Olga Antonova, Sergei Popov, Galina Zakhurdaeva
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City of Sadness (1989)Beiqing Chengshi
The film tells the story of a family embroiled in the tragic "White Terror" that was wrought on the Taiwanese people by the Kuomintang government (KMT) after their arrival from mainland China in the late 1940s, during which thousands of Taiwanese were rounded up, shot, and/or sent to prison. The film was the first to deal openly with the KMT's authoritarian misdeeds after its 1945 turnover of Taiwan from Japan, and the first to depict the 228 Incident of 1947, in which thousands of people were massacred. - Director:
- Hsiao-hsien Hou
- Cast:
- Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Shufen Xin, Sung Young Chen
- Formats:
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No Fear, No Die (1990)S'en fout la mort
Two young men, Dah (Isaach De Bankolé) from Benin and Jocelyn (Alex Descas) from the Caribbean decide to work together as a team that organizes illegal cockfights in order to gain quick cash. Dah is responsible for the financial transactions while Jocelyn trains the animals. Jocelyn has a special attachment to one of the champion roosters he has named 'No Fear, No Die'. 'No Fear, No Die', like all roosters, is eventually defeated causing Jocelyn to begin to lose interest in cockfighting. Dah and Jocelyn have a third partner, Pierre (Jean Claude Brialy) who owns the space where the cockfights take place. Pierre has a pre-existing relationship with Jocelyn, having known both him and his mother before he immigrated to France. However he constantly haggles with the two men over money and insists that the cockfights become more violent urging the men to use razor blades and steel spurs instead of small horns on the roosters. After one particular fight Pierre also insinuates that he slept with Jocelyn's mother. Disgusted, Jocelyn takes to drinking and becomes more and more despondent, developing an obsession with Pierre's wife Toni (Solveig Dommartin) and naming one of the roosters after her. One night he gets drunk and releases the roosters from their cages. Afterwards Jocelyn and Dah learn that Pierre has begun locking them in and insists on using steel spurs on the roosters that night. Enraged, Jocelyn breaks out and flees to Paris where Dah manages to track him down and convinces him to return to the cockfighting ring for one final night. At the final fight Toni asks Jocelyn to take her with him after the fight when he and Dah leave, but he refuses. Meanwhile, Pierre organizes a fight between Toni's namesake rooster and one brought in by his gypsy business partners. Unable to watch his rooster die, Jocelyn jumps into the ring and rescues his bird, but is stabbed by Michel, Pierre's son and Toni's lover, before he can flee. Dah prepares and cleans his body before being arrested, along with Tony, Michel and other members of the cockfighting ring. After his release he quickly packs up his few possessions and finally leaves. - Director:
- Claire Denis
- Cast:
- Isaach De Bankolé, Alex Descas, Solveig Dommartin
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Rogers gives the performance of a lifetime as Sharon, a bored, beautiful telephone operator who seeks excitement in orgiastic sex with strangers. Later, tormented by feelings of emptiness, she attempts suicide. Comforted by members of a cult-like religion who are preparing for the second coming of Christ - "The rapture" - Sharon undergoes a religious conversion that is hallucinatory, frightening and ultimately tragic. Praised for its power and originality, The Rapture is "unnerving and outrageously uncompromising...you haven't seen anything like it." - Director:
- Michael Tolkin
- Cast:
- Mimi Rogers, David Duchovny, Darwyn Carson
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