David Carr is a British Communist who is unemployed. In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War begins, he decides to fight for the Republican side, a coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists, so he joins the POUM militia and witnesses firsthand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by Stalin's followers and Moscow's orders.
Connor
Maggie has had four children, by four different fathers, removed by social services because of a previous violent relationship. When she meets Jorge, a gentle Latin American refugee, she gradually sees her chance for happiness, but her history still haunts her.
Corporal Muhsin is a sharp shooter who previously fought in the Balkan War. When mobilization is declared again, he joins the war alongside his brother Hasan. The two brothers support each other in the fight against the enemy.
A young woman, Janice, is living with her restrictive and conservative parents, who lead a dull working-class life and consider their daughter to be “misbehaving” whenever she’s trying to find her own way in life.
A Glasgow man visits war-torn Nicaragua with a refugee tormented by her memories.
An ambitious young accountant schemes to wed a wealthy factory owner's daughter, despite falling in love with a married older woman.
From Regina's personal and visual memories, a tribute to her uncle Thomas, who was an artistic inspiration and played a key role in her becoming a filmmaker. A moving tribute to a poet of the everyday.
Proud, though poor, Bob wants his little girl to have a beautiful (and costly) brand-new dress for her First Communion. His stubbornness and determination get him into trouble as he turns to more and more questionable measures, in his desperation to raise the needed money. This tragic flaw leads him to risk all that he loves and values, his beloved family, indeed even his immortal soul and salvation, in blind pursuit of that goal.
A group of friends have to survive a weekend in a hotel with a huge amount of virtual money to guard, putting their ingenuity to the test.
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Four tales, each centered on a woman, journey inward to explore the enigmatic reality of their lives, connecting through a single narrative thread.
An examination of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 through to the present day. A semi-biographic film, in four chapters, about a family spanning from 1948 until recent times. Combined with intimate memories of each member, the film attempts to portray the daily life of those Palestinians who remained in their land and were labelled "Israeli-Arabs," living as a minority in their own homeland.
Renowned filmmaker John Wilson travels to Africa to direct a new movie, but constantly leaves to hunt elephants and other game, to the dismay of his cast and crew. He eventually becomes obsessed with hunting down and killing one specific elephant.
In Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers peer deep into the cosmos in search for answers concerning the origins of life. Nearby, a group of women sift through the sand searching for body parts of loved ones, dumped unceremoniously by Pinochet's regime.
Lazy, uneducated students mostly coming from money, share a very close band. They live together in the dormitory of this private highschool, where they daily plan their latest pranks on teachers or the other classes. When a new and obviously strict headmaster arrives, the students naturally try to overthrow him. A comic war of nitwits follows.
When his young son is killed in a hit and run accident, Charles Thenier resolves to hunt down and murder the killer. By chance, Thenier makes the acquaintance of an actress, Helène Lanson, who was in the car at the time of the accident. He then meets Helène’s brother-in-law, Paul Decourt, a truly horrible individual.
During a year, a very content couple approaching retirement are visited by friends and family less happy with their lives.
World War II is raging, and an American general has been captured and is being held hostage in the Schloss Adler, a Bavarian castle that's nearly impossible to breach. It's up to a group of skilled Allied soldiers to liberate the general before it's too late.
A small village in Huelva, Andalusia, Spain, 1936. Higinio and Rosa have been married only for a few months when the Civil War breaks out. Higinio, being afraid of possible reprisals from the rebel faction, decides to use a hole dug in his own house as a temporary hideout.
When a sudden shortage of water threatens all life in the great valley, The gang of young dinosaur must cooperate with a group of bullies to make a risky journey outside the valley and find the cause.
Narrowly avoiding jail, new dad Robbie vows to turn over a new leaf. A visit to a whisky distillery inspires him and his mates to seek a way out of their hopeless lives.
1814. Van Diemen’s Land, the notorious British penal colony, has dissolved into chaos. Outlaws roaming the wilderness have pushed the colonial government to breaking point. Driven by a deep sense of loyalty and an unquenchable hatred towards those he once served, English convict Michael Howe and a young aboriginal girl turn a desperate band of convicts, deserters and bushmen into a fearsome guerrilla army and lead them in open rebellion against the brutal, corrupt establishment. As the British hunt the outlaws, Howe remains an elusive prize. In desperation, the Governor makes the capture of Howe’s pregnant girl his priority. An epic story of love and betrayal, The Outlaw Michael Howe chronicles the astonishing true story of the man who pushed Australia to the brink of civil war.
Director Carrie Cracknell makes her Met debut, reinvigorating the classic story with a staging that moves the action to the modern day, in a contemporary American industrial town.
A filmed 1970 performance of the China Central Ballet Troupe. Adapted from the film of the same title, The Red Detachment of Women was first staged in Beijing in 1964 and was one of the Eight Model Operas which dominated the national stage during the Cultural Revolution.
Austin, Texas, is an Eden for the young and unambitious, from the enthusiastically eccentric to the dangerously apathetic. Here, the nobly lazy can eschew responsibility in favor of nursing their esoteric obsessions. The locals include a backseat philosopher who passionately expounds on his dream theories to a seemingly comatose cabbie, a young woman who tries to hawk Madonna's Pap test to anyone who will listen and a kindly old anarchist looking for recruits.
Based on the journals of Che Guevara, leader of the Cuban Revolution. In his memoirs, Guevara recounts adventures he and best friend Alberto Granado had while crossing South America by motorcycle in the early 1950s.
What 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)
The surreal tale of an unassuming man who is accused of a never-specified crime and shambles through bizarre encounters to escape this nightmare.
In the midst of a climate of political repression, Ernesto is a student who believes that the "revolution" will only begin if there is a martyr for the cause; Isaac, his best friend and his student leader, seems like the ideal candidate.
Madrid, Spain, 1936. The young Miguel Gila lives happily with his grandparents in a humble attic; but the outbreak of the Civil War forces him to go to fight.
In 1940, in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, a young girl living on the Castilian plain is haunted after attending a screening of James Whale's 1931 film Frankenstein and hearing from her sister that the monster is not dead, instead existing as a spirit inhabiting a nearby barn.
An undertaker gets married to an old executioner's daughter and, although he doesn't like it, must continue the profession of his father-in-law after his retirement.
In southern France, a Franco-Arabic shipyard worker along with his partner's daughter pursues his dream of opening a restaurant.
A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.
When a impoverished widow’s family moves to the big city, two of her five sons become romantic rivals with deadly results.
During an historic counter-terrorism summit in Spain, the President of the United States is struck down by an assassin's bullet. Eight strangers have a perfect view of the kill, but what did they really see? As the minutes leading up to the fatal shot are replayed through the eyes of each eyewitness, the reality of the assassination takes shape.
A school teacher discusses types of government with his class. His students find it too boring to repeatedly go over national socialism and believe that dictatorship cannot be established in modern Germany. He starts an experiment to show how easily the masses can become manipulated.
In an Italian seaside town, young Titta gets into trouble with his friends and watches various local eccentrics as they engage in often absurd behavior. Frequently clashing with his stern father and defended by his doting mother, Titta witnesses the actions of a wide range of characters, from his extended family to Fascist loyalists to sensual women, with certain moments shifting into fantastical scenarios.
10 filmmakers provide 10 separate stories focusing on the 18 days of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Ten stories they have experienced, heard, or imagined.
Spanish photographer Francesc Boix, imprisoned in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, works in the SS Photographic Service. Between 1943 and 1945, he hides, with the help of other prisoners, thousands of negatives, with the purpose of showing the freed world the atrocities committed by the Nazis, exhaustively documented. He will be a key witness during the Nuremberg Trials.
Cuba, 1961: 250,000 volunteers taught 700,000 people to read and write in one year. 100,000 of the teachers were under 18 years old. Over half were women. MAESTRA explores this story through the personal testimonies of the young women who went out to teach literacy in rural communities across the island - and found themselves deeply transformed in the process.