
Dolores Del Rosario is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who works as a maid for wealthy New Yorkers. Treated patronizingly whenever she isn't simply ignored, she witnesses all her privileged employers' quirks and indiscretions, including affairs and other secrets. When she loses her highest-paying job because the family's political ambitions preclude employing an illegal immigrant, Dolores' neighbors, led by her best friend, Mona, come to her aid. (Cinetopia Film Festival)
Manny Ortega

Dolores Del Rosario is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who works as a maid for wealthy New Yorkers. Treated patronizingly whenever she isn't simply ignored, she witnesses all her privileged employers' quirks and indiscretions, including affairs and other secrets. When she loses her highest-paying job because the family's political ambitions preclude employing an illegal immigrant, Dolores' neighbors, led by her best friend, Mona, come to her aid. (Cinetopia Film Festival)
2003-03-08
7
She lives her life without leaving a mark.
6.6In this story inspired by real characters, three girls from America, Nigeria and India are trafficked through an elaborate global network and enslaved in a Texas brothel, and must together attempt a daring escape to reclaim their freedom.
6.2A war criminal in hiding forms a relationship with his only connection to the outside world - his maid.
6.9An undocumented immigrant finds a human heart in one of the toilets of the west London hotel where he works with other undocumented immigrants.
6.4In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
7.2Trying to escape her past, Millie Calloway accepts a job as a live-in housemaid for the wealthy Nina and Andrew Winchester. But what begins as a dream job quickly unravels into something far more dangerous—a sexy, seductive game of secrets, scandal, and power.
6.6The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
6.5Alone in her empty flat, from her window Anne observes the people passing by who nervously snatch up the personal belongings and pieces of furniture she has put out on the pavement. Her final gesture of taking a ring off her finger signals she is leaving her previous life in Holland behind. She goes to Ireland, where she chooses to lead a solitary, wandering existence, striding through the austere landscapes of Connemara. During her travels, she discovers a house that is home to a hermit, Martin.
7.2A family of Irish immigrants adjusts to life on the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen while also grieving the death of a child.
7.9The inspiring true story of Richard Montañez, the Frito Lay janitor who channeled his Mexican American heritage and upbringing to turn the iconic Flamin' Hot Cheetos into a snack that disrupted the food industry and became a global pop culture phenomenon.
5.9A young woman is sent to Paradise Hills to be reformed, only to learn that the high-class facility's beautiful facade hides a sinister secret.
5.9American retired Judge Randall Nemes and his hired gun, Gaspar, track down a con man posing as a priest in a small Colombian town only to be thrown off-course by a scrappy 16-year-old girl intent on reuniting with her sister in the United States.
6.1Immigrants from around the world enter Los Angeles every day, with hopeful visions of a better life, but little notion of what that life may cost. Their desperate scenarios test the humanity of immigration enforcement officers. In Crossing Over, writer-director Wayne Kramer explores the allure of the American dream, and the reality that immigrants find – and create -- in 21st century L.A.
7.1In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.
8.2Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet they are always kept at a certain distance because of racial lines.
6.6As a top student at St. Adeline's Catholic Boarding School, Zoe senses that something is not quite right about the school's new nun-- a sense proven to be true when it is revealed the "good' nun is an imposter with a fatal attraction to Zoe's brother.
6.6The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
6.3Albert Nobbs struggles to survive in late 19th century Ireland, where women aren't encouraged to be independent. Posing as a man, so she can work as a butler in Dublin's most posh hotel, Albert meets a handsome painter and looks to escape the lie she has been living.
7.1A small-time hood must choose from among love, friendship and the chance to rise within the mob.
6.9A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
6.2The true story of Madalyn Murray O'Hair -- iconoclast, opportunist, and outspoken atheist -- from her controversial rise to her untimely demise.
7.5After dumping a bucket of water on a beautiful young woman from the window of a train car, wealthy Frenchman Mathieu, regales his fellow passengers with the story of the dysfunctional relationship between himself and the young woman in question, a fiery 19-year-old flamenco dancer named Conchita. What follows is a tale of cruelty, depravity and lies -- the very building blocks of love.
6.6This film, adapted from a work of fiction by author Tracy Chevalier, tells a story about the events surrounding the creation of the painting "Girl With A Pearl Earring" by 17th century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. A young peasant maid working in the house of painter Johannes Vermeer becomes his talented assistant and the model for one of his most famous works.
6.8Caye is a young prostitute whose family is unaware of her profession. She meets her striking Dominican neighbour Zulema, an illegal immigrant, after she finds her in the bathroom, badly beaten up. They strike up a close friendship unbeknownst to Caye's xenophobic co-workers.
5.9After being discharged from a mental institution, a man is tasked by his mother to revive a struggling supermarket in Limoges. He must navigate unexpected responsibilities and the challenges of managing the store's staff.
7.3Sophie, a quiet and shy maid working for an upper-class French family, finds a friend in the energetic and uncompromising postmaster Jeanne, who encourages her to stand up against her bourgeois employers.
6.8In 1930s England, a group of pretentious rich and famous gather together for a weekend of relaxation at a hunting resort. But when a murder occurs, each one of these interesting characters becomes a suspect.
THE BRIGHT DAY weaves a story that has its roots in the complexity of Iran’s draconian laws governing capital punishment. A kindergarten teacher hopes to aid the father of one of her young students, a man accused of manslaughter, by convincing each of seven reluctant witnesses to come forward. No one lacks a hidden agenda in this drama in which shades of truth collide with self-interest and the specter of payback. (Gene Siskel Film Center)
0.0A Mexican social activist fearing for his life seeks asylum in the U.S. He finds illegal work on a Vermont dairy farm alongside other undocumented workers. Here he learns that their ambiguous status leaves them vulnerable to the injustice, abuse and cruelty they were escaping from.
5.2As she reaches her mid-thirties and quits her lucrative job, singleton Olivia finds herself unsure about her future and her relationships with her successful and wealthy friends. She begins to envy the security of her richer friends and, although their lives may seem easier, Olivia's friends have their problems too: screenwriters Christine and Patrick are unable to collaborate on their latest project, Jane and Aaron have lost the romance in their relationship, and Franny and Matt have difficulties handling the demands of parenthood.
7.1Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa 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.
6.7Raquel has been the live-in housekeeper for a kind, reasonably wealthy family for half her life, and the joyless repetition of the job has begun to take its toll. Increasingly dependent on painkillers, Raquel resorts to pranks and childish avoidance to antagonize the family’s college-age daughter and a procession of new servants, all in the hopes of protecting her precarious power within the home. Her antics successfully push everyone away, until new maid Lucy actually pushes back.
7.3Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.
6.1A corrupted border agent decides to clean up his act when an impoverished woman's baby is put up for sale on the black market.
7.0Meduzot (the Hebrew word for Jellyfish) tells the story of three very different Israeli women living in Tel Aviv whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a young child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is one of the servers at the wedding reception of Keren, a young bride who breaks her leg in trying to escape from a locked toilet stall, which ruins her chance at a romantic honeymoon in the Caribbean. One of the guests is Joy, a Philippine chore woman attending the event with her employer, and who doesn't speak any Hebrew (she communicates mainly in English), and who is guilt-ridden after having left her young son behind in the Philippines.
6.7Upon his release from a mental hospital following a nervous breakdown, the directionless Anthony joins his friend Dignan, who seems far less sane than the former. Dignan has hatched a harebrained scheme for an as-yet-unspecified crime spree that somehow involves his former boss, the (supposedly) legendary Mr. Henry.
7.0The story concerns two agents, one Mexican (PJF) and one American, who are tasked to stop the smuggling of Mexican migrant workers across the border to California. The two agents go undercover, one as a poor migrant.
6.9Five maids in São Paulo are observed in this episodic, impressionistic film. The women interact with each other, ride busses, work, and have longings: Rai for a husband, Créo for her lost daughter, Roxane for a career in modeling. Quitéria is naive, a gull for thieves. Cida has a husband and also a lover. While each woman gets what she wishes for (more or less), it doesn't always make things better.
7.0A perverse woman "works" on the corruption of a young girl who serves as her maid.
7.1In early 19th-century France, the Marquis de Sade is confined to an asylum where his forbidden writings continue to circulate beyond its walls. As the authorities tighten control, a clash unfolds between the Marquis’ unyielding imagination, the reformist ideals of the Abbé in charge, and the repressive measures of a doctor sent to silence him. Desire, power, and censorship collide in a battle over freedom of expression.
5.6An illegal immigrant from Albania infiltrates the lives of a group of Londoners with devastating consequences.