The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire(2025)

Human Relationships(cn)

Lee Sun-fung is renowned for adapting literary classics for the silver screen. To commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Union Film Enterprise known for producing quality films and co-founded by Lee, Human Relationships is adapted from writer Ba Jin's novel into film. The Yiu family moves into a manor. Mrs Yiu, while frustrated by the way her step-son is spoiled by her husband and mother-in-law, develops a friendship with a kid (Michael Lai) who steals flowers from the mansion's garden. She later learns that he is the son of the place's former owner whose downfall at middle age is the result of being spoiled when young. Lai was only a child but gained a foothold among seasoned veterans like Cheung Wood-yau, Ng Cho-fan and Pak Yin.

Bison Kaalamaadan(ta)

A young man fights to overcome violence plaguing his village and succeed as a professional kabaddi player.

Family(cn)

"Family" (1953), which launched the Union Film legacy, "Spring" (1953) and "Autumn" (1954) are adaptations of Ba Jin's highly regarded novel "Torrent Trilogy". In "Family", director Ng Wui skilfully condenses the voluminous first part of the novel into an emotionally powerful and intellectually focused story of youngsters struggling to survive oppression and repression in a feudalistic family. This well-received film quickly established the company's reputation.

Autumn(cn)

Hak-ming heads the Ko Family, but he and his brothers, Hak-ting and Hak-on, and the second wife of the late Master Ko quarrel. Young Cousin Mui, who has tuberculosis, is forced by to marry an older woman. Kok-sun is guilty of being unable to stop the marriage. Sun and maid Chui-wan are wary of their feelings for each other due to class difference. Cousin Mui dies of illness. Hak-ting has his eyes on Wan. His wife, Wong, complains to their daughter, Shuk-ching, who cannot take it and commits suicide. Wong blames herself for her death. Undergone these tragedies, Cousin Kam's mother let Kam have a modern wedding with Kok-man. When Ming is ill, Ting and On want to sell the ancestral home. Hak-ming dies of angst. When the fifth uncle of Sun forces Wan to be his concubine, Wan tries to kill herself but is intercepted by Sun. Pressurised by people of the house over the issue of inheritance, Sun protests by declaring his love for Wan and leaves the family, with his mother, brother Man and Wan.

Mona Lisa Smile(en)

Katherine Watson is a recent UCLA graduate hired to teach art history at the prestigious all-female Wellesley College, in 1953. Determined to confront the outdated mores of society and the institution that embraces them, Katherine inspires her traditional students, including Betty and Joan, to challenge the lives they are expected to lead.

Behind the Screen(ru)

Famous Russian screen actors play themselves in this drama about the lives of actors. Thirteen minutes of the film survive.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight(fr)

An aging movie actor who is preparing to shoot a death scene finds himself visited by the spirit of a dead, long-ago lover.

Ilaiyaraaja(ta)

Bergman Island(en)

An English-German filmmaking couple retreat to Fårö for the summer to each write screenplays for their upcoming films in an act of pilgrimage to the place that inspired Ingmar Bergman. As the summer and their screenplays advance, the lines between reality and fiction start to blur against the backdrop of the Island's wild landscape.

The Witty Bus Girl(cn)

Industrialist Tam Kar-cheung knowingly puts the lives of his workers at risk so as to line his pocket with insurance payments. The chivalrous Bus Money gets into fisticuffs with Tam's chauffeur, Tam Biu, who bears a grudge against the assailant. When Money catches wind of Kar-cheung's vicious plot to set fire to a squatter area to clear the path for a property development project, she moves in and watches vigilantly for signs of arson. Soon, she saves Ah-hau, Biu's girlfriend and a young victim of drug rape, from her suicidal attempt by drowning. Money pursues fragments of clues which lead her to the victim's boss, Taipan Cheung who sucks up to his master Kar-cheung by drawing his prey to her trap. Money then organises squatter residences into fire brigade to guard against arson attacks and exposes Kar-cheung's evil. Realising he has been exploited for his blind loyalty, Biu teams up with Money to dispense justice.

The Girl in the Bus(cn)

Bus Money dons various disguises on public buses to protect the defenceless from the bullies and receives heroic praise. Money meets Tai Ngau, a righteous journalist, when they bear witness to the callous response of Manager Mo to the death of his servant Ah-kwai. Tai writes to redress grievances of the deceased. When visiting the family of orphans, he chances on his kindred spirit giving the eldest daughter Ah-yin a gift of gold. Money exploits the weakness of Mo and her connection with his son Sze-fu to swindle a fortune out of the lewd man for the benefits of the fatherless children. Her rage grows learning that Mo's friend Fong Hak-sang has pulled off a lucrative fraud on returned overseas Chinese and forces Ah-yin to pledge herself in paying off her father's debts. Money, who has all kinds of tricks up her sleeve, teams up with Tai and gives Mo and Fong their comeuppance before setting off on her next mission.

Matinee(en)

A showman introduces a small coastal town to a unique movie experience and capitalizes on the Cuban Missile crisis hysteria with a kitschy horror extravaganza combining film effects, stage props and actors in rubber suits in this salute to the B-movie.

Bullets or Ballots(en)

After Police Captain Dan McLaren becomes police commissioner, former detective Johnny Blake publicly punches him, convincing rackets boss Al Kruger that Blake is sincere in his effort to join the mob. "Bugs" Fenner, meanwhile, is certain that Blake is a police agent.

Dillinger(en)

After a shoot-out kills five FBI agents in Kansas City the Bureau target John Dillinger as one of the men to hunt down. Waiting for him to break Federal law they sort out several other mobsters, while Dillinger's bank robbing exploits make him something of a folk hero. Escaping from jail he finds Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson have joined the gang and pretty soon he is Public Enemy Number One. Now the G-men really are after him.

A Little Piece of Sunshine(en)

Sunshine, an idyllic and almost forgotten island under British rule, is shortly to become independent. But a few days before this event is to take place, the British governor of the island is shot. Her Majesty's secret service is called in and Sam McCready asks Desmond Hannah of Scotland Yard to take charge of the case.

The Natural Son(cn)

Chor Yuen started his directorial career with a bang. From its very first image, The Natural Son establishes Chor as a filmmaker of stylistic flourish, which would be sustained in various forms throughout his long tenure. Adapted from '30 cents' pulp fiction, it is a Kong Ngee melodrama made in the studio's mould, with Westernised characters and trendy middle-class lifestyles. Yet, Chor's first film is not exempt from the social urgency that characterises the Cantonese cinema of his father, Cheung Wood-yau. The film cloaks its entertainment in a moral deliberation on blood ties, its story about the raising of a bastard child a head-on challenge of archaic family values. An ostentatious start for a colourful and eventful career.

The Other Side of the Wind(en)

Surrounded by fans and sceptics, grizzled director J.J. "Jake" Hannaford returns from years abroad in Europe to a changed Hollywood, where he attempts to make his innovative comeback film. This film was started in 1970 by Orson Welles but never completed during his lifetime.

The Caiman(it)

Bruno Bonomo was a famous producer of B-movies in the ‘70s. After a long hiatus, Bonomo offers a screenplay to RAI centered on the figure of Italy’s prime minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, a subject so controversial that even the public television broadcaster refuses to produce it

That Which Once Was(en)

In 2032 an eight-year old boy, displaced by global warming, fends for himself as an environmental refugee in a hostile northern metropolis. Haunted by memories of flooding that left him homeless and orphaned, the boy forms an unexpected friendship with an Inuk ice carver who helps him confront his past.

Basquiat(en)

The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.