

The mother of animation director Rebecca Blöcher didn’t want to live an ordinary life. She wanted “something more,” she explains in this stop-motion film. The people around her didn’t understand—in a letter written in 1968, a girlfriend criticizes her for going out on her own and making men jealous, while advising her to dress in a more “feminine” way and to join a cooking course. Blöcher’s mother brushed aside the advice. Years later still, she divorced her husband and stepped into the big wide world.


The mother of animation director Rebecca Blöcher didn’t want to live an ordinary life. She wanted “something more,” she explains in this stop-motion film. The people around her didn’t understand—in a letter written in 1968, a girlfriend criticizes her for going out on her own and making men jealous, while advising her to dress in a more “feminine” way and to join a cooking course. Blöcher’s mother brushed aside the advice. Years later still, she divorced her husband and stepped into the big wide world.
2024-11-15
0
7.0In the vestibule of a hospital room, a young boy waits to see his dying mother. The clamor and spiralling movements of bodies around him intensify, forming a grotesque circus—a cacophonous circle that pushes the child back, depriving him of one final touch of his mother's hand. Using rotoscoped drawings suggestive of charcoal sketches, as well as 3D and object animation techniques, The Circus compels viewing with its unsettling realism. Colour is employed metaphorically to subtly express the promise and the memory of maternal affection. Nicolas Brault's highly personal film, suffused with poetic modesty, casts a poignantly sincere gaze on the heartbreak of a child facing the fearful, mysterious experience of his mother's death.
6.6What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)
0.0A year after Thadd and Shannon gave birth to their son, A Conversation Between Parents highlights a climactic conversation in their lives -- as both young parents grasp at the last threads of their ideal family. On an afternoon off of work, the couple sits on their couch, while their son sleeps in his crib, and the family grapples with their limited options one last time. Dietrich’s camera ties the couple’s painful conversation together with flashbacks of both parents’ precious memories of their first year with Jasper, attempting to find a way to articulate their struggles in the last conversation they have together as a couple.
7.1An Oscar nominated documentary about a middle-class American family who is torn apart when the father Arnold and son Jesse are accused of sexually abusing numerous children. Director Jarecki interviews people from different sides of this tragic story and raises the question of whether they were rightfully tried when they claim they were innocent and there was never any evidence against them.
10.0IDFA and Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick had a close relationship for decades. He was a hard worker and often far from home, visiting festivals around the world. In 2013, he died after a short illness. His daughter Mira was left behind with a whole lot of questions, and a box full of videotapes that Wintonick shot for his Utopia project. She resolved to investigate what sort of film he envisaged, and to complete it for him.
0.0A nuanced portrait of a new generation, Dear Thirteen is a cinematic time capsule of coming of age in today’s world. Through the eyes of nine thirteen-year-olds, we see how pressing social, geographical and political challenges are shaping, and being shaped by, young people: rising anti-Semitism in Europe, guns in America, gender identity and racial divisions across Australia and Asia. With no adult commentary outside the filmmaker, Dear Thirteen offers an intimate view into the universal uncertainty inherent in growing up.
6.5When the sadness of her father's disappearance gets to Molly Hale, she unknowingly uses the Unown to create her own dream world along with Entei, who she believes to be her father. When Entei kidnaps Ash's mother, Ash — alongside Misty and Brock — invade the mansion looking for his mom and trying to stop the mysteries of Molly's Dream World and Entei!
0.0"My mother is spending all her time with her dying father. I’m spending all my time filming her. As the end is getting closer, my mother and I start doing the filming more and more together. It becomes our way of dealing with the time we have left." —Marius Dybwad Brandrud
6.3Some time after the Mousekewitz's have settled in America, they find that they are still having problems with the threat of cats. That makes them eager to try another home out in the west, where they are promised that mice and cats live in peace. Unfortunately, the one making this claim is an oily con artist named Cat R. Waul who is intent on his own sinister plan.
0.0A look at the trials and tribulations of school and childhood.
8.1Two sisters move to the country with their father in order to be closer to their hospitalized mother, and discover the surrounding trees are inhabited by Totoros, magical spirits of the forest. When the youngest runs away from home, the older sister seeks help from the spirits to find her.
6.4Arthur is a spirited ten-year old whose parents are away looking for work, whose eccentric grandfather has been missing for several years, and who lives with his grandmother in a country house that, in two days, will be repossessed, torn down, and turned into a block of flats unless Arthur's grandfather returns to sign some papers and pay off the family debt. Arthur discovers that the key to success lies in his own descent into the land of the Minimoys, creatures no larger than a tooth, whom his grandfather helped relocate to their garden. Somewhere among them is hidden a pile of rubies, too. Can Arthur be of stout heart and save the day? Romance beckons as well, and a villain lurks.
7.0Cinderella has faith her dreams of a better life will come true. With help from her loyal mice friends and a wave of her Fairy Godmother's wand, Cinderella's rags are magically turned into a glorious gown and off she goes to the Royal Ball. But when the clock strikes midnight, the spell is broken, leaving a single glass slipper... the only key to the ultimate fairy-tale ending!
0.0Born a conjoined twin due to the effects of Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War, Duc Nguyen, now a father and husband, seeks the truth about his past and contemplates the future.
6.2Into the world of the Emperor Penguins, who find their soul mates through song, a penguin is born who cannot sing. But he can tap dance something fierce!
5.9Otis is a mischievous, carefree Holstein cow who lives on a farm where, unbeknownst to humans, the animals are anthropomorphic. He prefers having fun with his best friends: Pip the mouse, Freddy the ferret, Peck the rooster, and Pig the pig - rather than following strict rules and accepting responsibility. This annoys his stern adoptive father Ben, the leader of the farm's community. One evening, Otis convinces Ben to cover his night watch so he can attend a massive party in the barn and impress Daisy, a pregnant cow who recently arrived at the farm with her best friend Bessy as a newcomer. As the animals party, Dag the coyote and his pack attempt to raid the chicken coop. Ben fends them off alone but is fatally wounded and killed. Otis must now learn the value of responsibility when he becomes the leader of his farm home's community.
6.5When The Man in the Yellow Hat befriends Curious George in the jungle, they set off on a non-stop, fun-filled journey through the wonders of the big city toward the warmth of true friendship.
8.3Young lion prince Simba, eager to one day become king of the Pride Lands, grows up under the watchful eye of his father Mufasa; all the while his villainous uncle Scar conspires to take the throne for himself. Amid betrayal and tragedy, Simba must confront his past and find his rightful place in the Circle of Life.