The Soong family was a political dynasty in China that reached the highest levels of power. This film follows the lives of the three Soong daughters, who were educated in America and returned to China. Ai-ling married a wealthy and powerful businessman. Ching-ling married Sun Yat-sen, the revolutionary founder of modern China. Mei-ling married Chiang Kai-shek, China's leader during World War II. The sisters captured the world's fascination for their brilliant marriages and their strong influence on their nation.
The Soong family was a political dynasty in China that reached the highest levels of power. This film follows the lives of the three Soong daughters, who were educated in America and returned to China. Ai-ling married a wealthy and powerful businessman. Ching-ling married Sun Yat-sen, the revolutionary founder of modern China. Mei-ling married Chiang Kai-shek, China's leader during World War II. The sisters captured the world's fascination for their brilliant marriages and their strong influence on their nation.
1997-05-01
6.7
One loved money. One loved power. And one loved China.
An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.
In 1968, Shirley Chisholm becomes the first black woman elected to Congress. In 1972, she becomes the first black woman to run for president. Shunned by the political establishment, she's supported by a motley crew of blacks, feminists, and young voters. Their campaign-trail adventures are frenzied, fierce and fundamentally right on!
The film tells of the attempts made by a Beijing van driver to obtain his wage arrears from travel agency boss even to the point of kidnapping the latter's Singaporean girlfriend (Jacklyn Wu).
An aspiring starlet arrives in the Fragrant Harbor with dreams of becoming a star, whilst striking up a friendship with a wannabe cabbie who lives in the same apartment building.
After a wonderful time in Hungary Sissi falls extremely ill and must retreat to a Mediterranean climate to rest. The young empress’ mother takes her from Austria to recover in Madeira.
Middle-aged suburban husband Richard abruptly tells his wife, Maria, that he wants a divorce. As Richard takes up with a younger woman, Maria enjoys a night on the town with her friends and meets a younger man. As the couple and those around them confront a seemingly futile search for what they've lost -- love, excitement, passion -- this classic American independent film explores themes of aging and alienation.
Holden and Banky are comic book artists. Everything is going good for them until they meet Alyssa, also a comic book artist. Holden falls for her, but his hopes are crushed when he finds out she's a lesbian.
Monika from Stockholm falls in love with Harry, a young man on holiday. When she becomes pregnant they are forced into a marriage, which begins to fall apart soon after they take up residence in a cramped little flat.
Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.
A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.
As Agnes slowly dies of cancer, her sisters are so immersed in their own psychic pains that they are unable to offer her the support she needs.
Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.
Newlyweds receive a build-it-yourself house as a wedding gift—and the house can, supposedly, be built in "one week". A rejected suitor secretly re-numbers packing crates, and the husband struggles to assemble the house according to this new 'arrangement' of its parts.
A psychologist is sent to a space station orbiting a planet called Solaris to investigate the death of a doctor and the mental problems of cosmonauts on the station. He soon discovers that the water on the planet is a type of brain which brings out repressed memories and obsessions.
A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.
The Grand Budapest Hotel tells of a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars and his friendship with a young employee who becomes his trusted protégé. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting, the battle for an enormous family fortune and the slow and then sudden upheavals that transformed Europe during the first half of the 20th century.
During World War II, a man falls for a woman in Naples, leading to a two-decade affair. When she learns he plans to marry someone else, she schemes to make him marry her, having secretly borne his children.
After a seven-year absence, Charlotte Andergast travels to Sweden to reunite with her daughter Eva. The pair have a troubled relationship: Charlotte sacrificed the responsibilities of motherhood for a career as a classical pianist. Over an emotional night, the pair reopen the wounds of the past. Charlotte gets another shock when she finds out that her mentally impaired daughter, Helena, is out of the asylum and living with Eva.
An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon.
Cecilia is a waitress in New Jersey, living a dreary life during the Great Depression. Her only escape from her mundane reality is the movie theatre. After losing her job, Cecilia goes to see 'The Purple Rose of Cairo' in hopes of raising her spirits, where she watches dashing archaeologist Tom Baxter time and again.
A mute Scottish woman arrives in colonial New Zealand for an arranged marriage. Her husband refuses to move her beloved piano, giving it to neighbor George Baines, who agrees to return the piano in exchange for lessons. As desire swirls around the duo, the wilderness consumes the European enclave.
A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.
A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.
Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.
Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.
A touching story of a deaf girl who is sent to an oil rig to take care of a man who has been blinded in a terrible accident. The girl has a special ability to communicate with the men on board and especially with her patient as they share intimate moments together that will change their lives forever.
A young man meets a girl in a village overlooking a desert area. They get to know each other and meet frequently. After a while, the young man, the girl's fiancé, meets another girl from a foreign country and proposes to her after the foreign girl succeeds in keeping the young man away from his first love. The people of the village learn that the girl is pregnant from her fiancé, so they expel her from the village.
Luise, called Pünktchen, and Anton are closest of friends. Being the daughter of a wealthy surgeon, young Pünktchen lives in a great house. Her mother, who always travels through the world more for public relation reasons than for the social tasks she pretends to fulfill, is never available to her as a mother. Anton, son of a single and sick mother in financial trouble, does his best to help her out of it by working late. Pünktchen decides to help her only friend (as nobody else would anyway) and starts singing in public places. Trouble arises when Anton can't resist stealing a golden lighter and Pünktchen's secret life is discovered by her parents. Two troubled families finally can see the need for actions to be taken.
Documents an Indian-English family's attempt to give their Briticized daughter a traditional Indian arranged marriage, with as much photography as possible.
The young wife of an upper-class academic disappears while her husband is on holiday. In his search for her, the husband learns that there was much he did not know both about her past and about their relationship.
After the death of his mother, a young boy calls a radio station in an attempt to set his father up on a date. Talking about his father’s loneliness soon leads to a meeting with a young female journalist, who has flown to Seattle to write a story about the boy and his father.
A short 1982 film that offers a thought-provoking look at stereotypes about physical handicaps as seen in the story of a teenager with cerebral palsy who decides to try out for cheerleader.
First-year acting student Stanley mines his girlfriend's family scandal as material for the end-of-year show at drama school. The result is a moral minefield.
Set against the backdrop of Trinidad and Tobago’s mystical Carnival, a gifted and struggling young man becomes the object of intrigue for an older, well-meaning businessman until their worlds collide.
This is a film about moral dilemmas which surgeons face. Dr Panov, the head doctor of a provincial hospital, has a keen sense of responsibility and he takes risks in the name of life a lot more often than his colleagues.
Desillussioned by life, Béa decides to commit suicide. She is interrupted by a phone call with a proposal of work for a financial tycoon. Far from the watchful eyes of her boss, she practices fraud, but it seems it gonna last not so long.
Kennedy is a rebellious, young musician who believes that talent and determination are all it takes to be a success. But as he and his loyal bandmates learn, success carries a heavy price .
Filmmaker-griot coming from the theater, it was with a camera, while the war in Vietnam occupied everyone's minds, that Sarah Maldoror gave visibility to the African wars of decolonization: Angola, Guinea Bissau, French Guinea, Cape Verde... Her short film Monangambée addresses the torture by the Portuguese army of a sympathizer of the Angolan resistance. At the end of editing, Sarah Maldoror approached the members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago during a Parisian concert and offered to add sound to her film. The next day they watched the film, were convinced and recorded their first soundtrack for free as evidence of African-American solidarity. Shot in Algiers, Monangambée is a film about torture and, more broadly, about the incomprehension between the colonized and the colonizers. It is based on a novel by the Angolan writer Luandino Vieira, then imprisoned by the Portuguese colonial power.
When an asteroid threatens to hit New York, Sadie, a neurotic and anxious 20-something, embarks on a quest from Brooklyn to Manhattan to reunite with her therapist, who she is in love with. She believes they can finally be together in a post-apocalyptic world since the rules keeping them apart will cease to exist.
As experienced by 9 year old Angelita, the film portrays the hardship of migration endured by her family’s move from a small town in Puerto Rico to New York City’s Lower East Side.