An in-depth look into how the World of Darkness and Vampire: The Masquerade created a phenomenon in the 1990s – a zeitgeist that helped shape film, literature, fashion, club culture, and ultimately fans, whose lives it forever altered.
Career criminal Johnny Clay recruits a sharpshooter, a crooked police officer, a bartender and a betting teller named George, among others, for one last job before he goes straight and gets married. But when George tells his restless wife about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own.
Though Kevin has evidenced 23 personalities to his trusted psychiatrist, Dr. Fletcher, there remains one still submerged who is set to materialize and dominate all the others. Compelled to abduct three teenage girls led by the willful, observant Casey, Kevin reaches a war for survival among all of those contained within him — as well as everyone around him — as the walls between his compartments shatter apart.
World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.
At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.
A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feed his urge for violent action.
Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.
Two leading computer scientists work toward their goal of Technological Singularity, as a radical anti-technology organization fights to prevent them from creating a world where computers can transcend the abilities of the human brain.
101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.
Born under unusual circumstances, Benjamin Button springs into being as an elderly man in a New Orleans nursing home and ages in reverse. Twelve years after his birth, he meets Daisy, a child who flits in and out of his life as she grows up to be a dancer. Though he has all sorts of unusual adventures over the course of his life, it is his relationship with Daisy, and the hope that they will come together at the right time, that drives Benjamin forward.
When siblings Judy and Peter discover an enchanted board game that opens the door to a magical world, they unwittingly invite Alan -- an adult who's been trapped inside the game for 26 years -- into their living room. Alan's only hope for freedom is to finish the game, which proves risky as all three find themselves running from giant rhinoceroses, evil monkeys and other terrifying creatures.
A burger-loving hit man, his philosophical partner, a drug-addled gangster's moll and a washed-up boxer converge in this sprawling, comedic crime caper. Their adventures unfurl in three stories that ingeniously trip back and forth in time.
The quiet life of a terrier named Max is upended when his owner takes in Duke, a stray whom Max instantly dislikes.
Keller Dover is facing every parent’s worst nightmare. His six-year-old daughter, Anna, is missing, together with her young friend, Joy, and as minutes turn to hours, panic sets in. The only lead is a dilapidated RV that had earlier been parked on their street.
Tony Lip, a bouncer in 1962, is hired to drive pianist Don Shirley on a tour through the Deep South in the days when African Americans, forced to find alternate accommodations and services due to segregation laws below the Mason-Dixon Line, relied on a guide called The Negro Motorist Green Book.
A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies.
In the not so distant future, Theodore, a lonely writer, purchases a newly developed operating system designed to meet the user's every need. To Theodore's surprise, a romantic relationship develops between him and his operating system. This unconventional love story blends science fiction and romance in a sweet tale that explores the nature of love and the ways that technology isolates and connects us all.
The Theory of Everything is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde.
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.
The story of a super-secret spy organization that recruits an unrefined but promising street kid into the agency's ultra-competitive training program just as a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.
The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.
Every year during summer one of the biggest battles of mankind takes place amidst the hillsides of middle earth. Knights, elves and magicians are fighting orcs and the dark powers. What looks like a scene from Lord of the Rings actually takes place in a field in Germany, where thousands of role players meet to plunge into a fantasy world of their own. More than 250.000 people in Germany regularly make this transition. The documentary accompanies five role players in their daily lives and their parallel ones. Where does their yearning for a shared world of fantasy come from? What does this reveal about our hectic, technological life? Sunday warriors is a film about the passion for playing and the ambition to exceed your limits.
Darkon is an award-winning feature-length documentary film that follows the real-life adventures of the Darkon Wargaming Club in Baltimore, Maryland, a group of fantasy live-action role-playing (LARP) gamers.
Welcome to Monster Camp, the true story about a world where people transform into creatures, heroes, and monsters to escape their daily lives. In the vein of Lord of the Rings, World of Warcraft, and Dungeons and Dragons; these enthusiasts have developed a complicated world to bring their fantasies to life. Romantic relationships are forged between characters. Friendships are destroyed over plot disputes. Characters are slain and never return. But keeping this world alive takes a lot of real world work. And unless someone is willing to take charge, the fantasy may be lost forever.
Meet Jon Gallagher, a LARPer with Asperger's syndrome, and see how LARPing helps him make friends, learn social skills, get a job, and in many ways, saves his life.
Über Goober focuses on the often-misunderstood, sometimes-controversial, and always-kind-of-geeky world of Gamers. Director Steve Metze examines several different groups including historical miniature gamers, role-players, and those known simply as "LARPers." The film also explores opposition from religious groups, negative media portrayals, and some of the meanest 'man-on-the-street' interviews ever committed to video. Meet the Gamers, learn their exotic language, see their bizarre rituals, gasp at their semi-authentic costumes, and thrill to the painting techniques on their miniatures!
The Dungeon Masters explores the subculture of role-playing games, specifically Dungeons & Dragons, which for over 30 years has offered gamers the chance to escape their mundane lives and participate in a world they might otherwise never experience. Popularity and power are based on creativity and imagination rather than social status or wealth, and success is based not on who you know but on what you do.
Haunted by childhood traumas, Veera is trying to become more independent through live-action role-playing. As she guides herself and her mentally challenged brother through worlds of multiple roles and identities, witches and wizards, she finds the courage to face the demons of her own past and her abusive father’s legacy.
A coming of age saga about a 14-year old boy whose life alternates between the medieval fantasy kingdom of Adria and the real world trials of a challenging adolescence.
A documentary about three people with an extraordinary hobby: live Game (LARP). A weekend to be someone else, experience adventure, fight battles, be a child again; recovery from reality and yourself.
Caught between two worlds, one real and one imagined, three filmmakers have travelled 4000-miles across Europe to understand Live Action Role-Play (LARP), the hobby where these worlds collide. In its essence, LARP is an extension of how you experienced games as a child. When tabletop games grew too big for the board, players put down their dice, picked up their swords, and have been playing make-believe ever since. The culmination of years-old conversations in a local pub, Treasure Trapped is part-documentary, part-road movie; a film that charts the journey of Mike, Al and Nick, as they explore this often misunderstood pastime. Casting a unique look over a worldwide community that is known for its eccentricities, this project aspires to bring the hobby to the masses. Game on!
For some it's a cathartic release, and for others a means of escape, but for everyone who chooses to commit the time and expenses of doing it, Live-Action Role-Playing is addictive fun that allows fully grown adults to engage in the magical realm of make-believe-- a place that, as we all age, becomes increasingly less accessible.
National Vampire is a feature-length documentary that explores vampire culture in the United States. To achieve this, the filmmakers spent more than two years traveling around the country, attending vampire-related events, and interviewing dozens of people involved in the vampire community. Shooting locations include a Vampire’s Ball held in New Orleans each Halloween, a vampire tour of San Francisco, and a New York City shop that “transforms” people into vampires. Also featured are a vampire “dentist” who makes fangs for a living, vampire role playing gamers in Dayton, Ohio, a vampire-themed magician, and a bloodthirsty Texas couple that claims to be the real thing. Going beyond the surface, National Vampire also explores a number of subcultures that overlap the vampire community, including the goth music scene, bondage and S&M, and blood fetishists who take part in piercing and full-body suspension rituals.
Two salesmen trash a company truck on an energy drink-fueled bender. Upon their arrest, the court gives them a choice: do hard time or spend 150 service hours with a mentorship program. After one day with the kids, however, jail doesn't look half bad.
Bound together by a desire to play "Mazes and Monsters," Robbie and his four college classmates decide to move the board game into the local cavern. Robbie loses his mind, and the line between reality and fantasy fuse into a harrowing nightmare.
Three best friends and dedicated roleplayers take to the woods to reenact a dungeons and dragons-like scenario as a live action role-playing game. Trouble arises when a prop spellbook purchased from the internet ends up being a genuine grimoire and they unwittingly conjure up a blood-lusting succubus from hell.
A MODERN MEDIEVAL SAGA, The Wild Hunt tells the story of Erik Magnusson, a young man who decides to follow his estranged girlfriend Evelyn into a medieval re-enactment game when he discovers that she has been seduced by one of the players. As the down-to-earth Erik treks deeper into the game in search of his love, he inadvertently disrupts the delicate balance of the make believe fantasy-land. Passions are unleashed. Rules are broken. Reality and fantasy collide. The good-hearted game turns into a tragedy of mythic proportion... Capturing the culture of costume play and the potentially dangerous intersection of real and made-up worlds, The Wild Hunt is a timely and potent comment on the consuming nature of adopting another identity, even within a game, and the modern yearning for ritual.
Follows two years in the life of Greg Sommer, aka Skull Man, as he builds the Canadian chapter of Box Wars, an international underground movement of cardboard-based combat.
Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. Where the two-part epic's first half, Festival of the Nations, focused on the international aspects of the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin, part two, The Festival of Beauty, concentrates on individual athletes such as equestrians, gymnasts, and swimmers, climaxing with American Glenn Morris' performance in the decathalon and the games' majestic closing ceremonies.
Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.