The Mississippi Gambler(1929)

Fetus(hu)

This drama follows the dilemma of a young, unwillingly pregnant wife who gives her child up for adoption by a businesswoman. Anna doesn't need another mouth to feed. She can barely afford to care for the two she already has so when she discovers that she is six weeks pregnant she readily accepts the cash offer from Terez, her tough boss at the store where she works. If she will isolate herself throughout the pregnancy, secretly bear the child and immediately allow Terez to sign for it, Anna will receive $50,000. Most of the story then focuses upon Anna's emotional processes as she evaluates her choice. Included are dream segments and shots an unborn baby in the womb.

The Denunciation(de)

By 1941, Adolf Hitler had taken personal command of the German military apparatus. His initial successes made this seem like a good idea at the time, but by 1944, after an unparalleled series of military defeats that Hitler refused even to acknowledge, a group of high-ranking military and political figures in Germany decided to assassinate him and take over the government. Unfortunately for them, their assassination attempt failed, and the knives were out to find all the people involved in the attempt. The most wanted person in the coup was Carl Goerdeler (Dieter Schaad), a respected figure in German public life for many decades. Twenty years earlier, a girl by the name of Helene Schwärzel (Katherina Thalbach) met Goerdeler. After the coup attempt, during the nationwide manhunt, Helene recognized him and notified the authorities. In addition to receiving a huge reward, she became the focus of a nationwide propaganda campaign, and was widely resented for her "success."

Yearning(ja)

Famed onnagata (a man who plays women's parts in Kabuki) Tamasaburo Bando follows up on the success of his directorial debut, Gekashitsu, with this soft-focused romance about love and obligation, based on a novel by Kafu Nagai. Set during the Meiji period (1868-1912), Kaede (Sayuri Yoshinaga) is the former mistress of a wealthy merchant. When he dies, she is forced out on the street and forced to give up her young daughter to the merchant's family. The film opens with her working in a high-class brothel abutting Tokyo Bay. Though she has passionate affection for a drug wholesaler, whom she loves as well, Kaede is swamped with not only debts to the bordello and family obligations -- she is expected to support her parents and her sister -- but also guilt over losing her child. This pain is only increased when Kaede learns that her daughter is being abused. She does the only thing she can: She buys back her child by signing on at the brothel for a longer stint.

Gudrun(de)

Gudrun is a teen-aged girl living in Germany during World War II. Her father is away serving in the army and her mother has sent her to a rural village to stay with her grandmother, a cafe proprietor. In that ironically idyllic setting, Gudrun frolics with a youth who yearns to join the Hitler Youth, though his father is a pastor who has been outspoken against the regime and will soon be arrested. Meanwhile, Gudrun's mother has been having an affair with an army officer. This causes grave difficulties when her husband, who has deserted and is hiding out in grannie's cellar, stumbles upon the couple.

Lala's Gun(zh)

A boy comes of age as he searches for his father in China in order to bring him his gun.

The Long Winter(es)

In 1939, Ramón was a young man, caught up in his Barcelona family's involvement on the Republic side in the brutal Spanish Civil War. He and his family fled into exile ahead of Franco's troops. Now it is many years later, and he has come back to see how his old homestead fared in the intervening years. The only person he can find who is able to remember those years clearly is his family's old butler Claudio.

La Influencia(es)

A disoriented and vulnerable woman, overburdened with daily life problems and more: her belongings are impounded, her cosmetics shop has been closed down, and her children's future is unknown. The children's vitality draws a sharp contrast against the apathy shown by their mother, who slowly plunges into a deep depression.

Irish Eyes(en)

"Irish Eyes" explores the relationship between two Irish-American brothers in Boston born to immigrant parents and raised in a rough, working class Irish neighborhood. After watching their father being gunned down in front of their eyes as children, Thomas and Sean Phelan grow up building their lives on opposite ends of the law. Thomas, the studious and responsible brother, creates a better life for himself through education and hard, honest work. Eventually, he builds a successful career as a US Attorney. Sean, the more rebellious of the two, gets caught up in a life of crime and rises through the ranks to become the head of the Irish Mob.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny(en)

A story of lost love, young love, a legendary sword and one last opportunity at redemption.

Secret to Her(ko)

Snake's Fang(fa)

Reza, the veteran worker of a print house whose sight is adversely affected because of his job, loses his mother. Finding the gloom reigning over the home beyond bearing, he departs to overcome his sorrows. He ends up at a hostel where he shares his room with a southern guy called Ahmad who has a group of orphan war-stricken children under his wing. After the initial inkling gives way to the friendship, Reza discovers that Ahmad's patron plies his trade in black-market. At the same time, Reza's sister is constantly beaten and humiliated by her husband for being infertile.

Success(de)

For fans of history, this glimpse of Munich society in the 1920s will be a much-treasured event. The story revolves around an art-gallery manager who puts on a show featuring the scandalous works of a woman artist who committed suicide. He is unjustly accused of having committed adultery with her, and for some reason the authorities decide to make an example of him. He is imprisoned at about the same time that Hitler and the nascent Nazi party attempt the infamous Beer Hall Putsch, and the gallery manager's girlfriend and a Swiss writer valiantly (and unsuccessfully) attempt to get better justice for him. Nobody in authority, it seems, has the courage to take up the challenge of righting this particular injustice.

Quiet Days in August(el)

The stories of three lonely people surviving a sweltering summertime in Athens are interwoven in this gentle romantic drama. Nikos used to be a merchant seaman, traveling around the globe to exotic places and testing his wits and his mettle in different situations. Now he is retired, living in Athens with his wife whom he no longer loves. While at the train station, he encounters a woman who faints more or less into his arms. From her, he learns that this day has already been special to her for two reasons: her husband just died, and it is her birthday. Curiously, this meeting sparks new life in him. Another man suffering through the hot Athens summer is a bank employee who gets calls every day at four p.m. from a woman who seeks to arouse him. What she succeeds in doing is rousing his curiosity, which he is likely to regret giving in to.

When the Stars Were Red(sk)

In 1950, Jozef watched the communists assume control over his native Hungary. He was too young to have an opinion about it, but he was mightily impressed all the same. Now it is 1968, and he is a young man. When the Russian tanks come rolling through his village on their way to suppress the stirrings of freedom in Prague, he does what he can to ensure that he's in good odor with those who will inevitably come out on top. This meandering political drama is apparently an exploration of opportunism, but reviewers gave it low marks for clarity of exposition.

Herzlich willkommen(de)

Friedrich (Uwe Bohm) manages to escape from East Germany to the West in the 1950s. On his arrival, he is greeted with the words Herzlich Willkommen, or "cordial, heartfelt welcome." However, once he finds employment, what he experiences is anything but a cordial welcome at his new job, where he is a teacher/counselor for "wayward children" located in a former castle. The institution is headed by a former Nazi who runs it with the help of the more criminal, bullying boys. Despite these obstacles, Friedrich manages to establish a rapport with a boy who wants to go "straight," and also begins to have an affair with an attractive female teacher at the school.

The Secret(it)

Lucia (Natassja Kinski) is a volatile, exciteable young woman. She forms a romance with Carlo (Stefano Dionisi), who is somewhat callow and is very skittish. Their romance is not an easy one, but they are assisted in coping with its ups and downs by their mutual friendship with Franco (Franco Citti), an older, wiser and more stable man.

Bankomatt(it)

With three of his companions in a fatal gas-station robbery drowned while evading a police roadblock, the surviving young thug has no reason to turn himself in to the police, since they don't know about his existence. At least, that's the way his rescuer Bruno (Bruno Ganz) sees it. Besides, Bruno needs such an overly enterprising fellow to help him pull off a really big heist that he's been planning for a long time. It takes some doing, but the boy and his girlfriend are recruited by the older man, who has been keeping a low profile by working as a gardener.

Hope and Pain(ja)

The adventures and tribulations of a group of students during the years following the II World War.

Fallada: The Last Chapter(de)

This biographical film is set in 1937, with Fallada suffering the effects of living under a microscope. The film details his decline, as he is intermittently imprisoned and threatened in order to motivate him to write for the Fatherland. Even the attention of his kind, patient wife and loving children begin to feel oppressive to him. This is one of the few films to take a serious, in-depth look at the tribulations of a creative artist pulled in all different directions by the real world.

American Stories: Food, Family and Philosophy(en)

Belgian director Chantal Akerman avoids her usual "real time" technique in Histoires d'Amérique. The anecdotal nature of the subject matter compels Akerman to fragment her narrative, rather than offer it in one, uninterrupted continuum. Still, another Akerman trademark -- permitting the "drama" to emanate from the actors rather than the situations -- is very much in evidence. This informal history of Jewish life over the past 100 years is related in a series of eyewitness accounts, re-created by a group of largely unknown actors. Also known as American Stories, the Belgian/French Histoires d'Amérique began building an audience when it was shown at the Berlin Film Festival.