2013-06-28
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A native of Sennwald, Anna Göldi arrived in Glarus in 1765. For seventeen years, she worked as a maidservant for Johann Jakob Tschudi, a physician. Tschudi reported her for having put needles in the bread and milk of one of his daughters, apparently through supernatural means. Göldi at first escaped arrest, but the authorities of the Canton of Glarus advertised a reward for her capture in the Zürcher Zeitung on February 9, 1782. Göldi was arrested and under torture, admitted to entering in a pact with the Devil, who had appeared to her as a black dog. She withdrew her confession after the torture ended, but was sentenced on June 18, 1782 to execution by decapitation. The charges were officially of "poisoning" rather than witchcraft, even though the law at the time did not impose the death penalty for non-lethal poisoning.
Manhattanite Ashley is known to many as the luckiest woman around. After a chance encounter with a down-and-out young man, however, she realizes that she's swapped her fortune for his.
Lon is an author who wants to write a book on superstitious practices in the provinces. He decides to rent a house in a village rumored to be a center of black magic. As soon as he gets there he finds out it's haunted. He gets involved with the daughter of the village headman who has a boyfriend already. Like her father he's a small town gangster. He gets jealous and decides to use black magic on him. However, the ghost who is really his ex-wife from a past life does her best to try to fight him and the rest of them off.
A blacksmith falls off his bicycle when he tries to avoid a tortoise which crosses his path. He brings the animal home to his twelve year old son, Rabi, who becomes so fascinated that he forgets his chores at this father's shop. When the angry smith removes the tortoise, Rabi's grandfather, Pusga, helps Rabi find a larger one to consol the boy. Rabi wants to tame the animal and this new obsession leads him to defy parental authority. Pusga gently opens the boy's eyes to the visible and invisible ways of nature. Rabi starts to understand liberty, responsibility and respect for life. In turn he awakens long buried sentiments in the grandfather.
When the San Francisco Giants pay center-fielder, Bobby Rayburn $40 million to lead their team to the World Series, no one is happier or more supportive than #1 fan, Gil Renard. When Rayburn becomes mired in the worst slump of his career, the obsessed Renard decides to stop at nothing to help his idol regain his former glory—not even murder.
A nurse in the Caribbean turns to voodoo in hopes of curing her patient, a mindless woman whose husband she's fallen in love with.
Boris Buzančić plays an idealistic young doctor who is assigned a nearly deserted village. The backwards residents at first resent Buzančić's new-fangled methods. Gradually, he proves his worth and wins their confidence. The clincher comes when Buzančić rids the community of a despotic villain.
A doctor searches for the cure for nagana, the sleeping sickness caused by the tsetse fly.
A visually challenged boy from the mesmerising village of Chilika lake of Odisha defeats age old blind Odia faith.
The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.
37-year-old Italian-American widow Loretta Castorini believes she is unlucky in love, and so accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend Johnny, even though she doesn't love him. When she meets his estranged younger brother Ronny, an emotional and passionate man, she finds herself drawn to him. She tries to resist, but Ronny, who blames his brother for the loss of his hand, has no scruples about aggressively pursuing her while Johnny is out of the country. As Loretta falls for Ronny, she learns that she's not the only one in her family with a secret romance.
Region of Castilla La Vieja, Spain, early 20th century. In Luján, a village ravaged by drought, Juan, a humble farmer who survives with his wife and son, confronts a local loan shark and is imprisoned as a result.
Three generations of women survive the east wind, fire, insanity, superstition and even death by means of goodness, lies and boundless vitality.
A New York gangster and his girlfriend attempt to turn street beggar Apple Annie into a society lady when the peddler learns her daughter is marrying royalty.
An enigmatic tale of four people whose lives are intertwined by destiny are subject to the laws of fate. They discover that luck is something they cannot afford to be without as they gamble with the highest stakes possible in a deadly game from which only one of them will emerge intact.
Father Peter fears that the universe has become indifferent. God no longer intervenes in earthly affairs. Peter's wife abandoned him, his son disobeys him and his mother suffers from Alzheimer's and hardly ever recognizes him. When Peter becomes an obstacle to a large property sale in his small island parish, a group of interesting, but vengeful villagers decides to force him to leave. Using very creative methods, they convince the entire superstitious village that Peter is the cause of all the troubles on their island.
A woman suffers from amnesia after killing her husband, who was just about to demand a divorce for having found her engaging in an affair with a lover, who is only interested in her to find where some precious jewels are hidden.
When a mystery illness infects the pigs of a village farmer and a local boy is also taken ill, the villagers try to convince a veterinarian that it is caused by a curse from a woman they believe to be a witch.
During the marijuana bonanza, a violent decade that saw the origins of drug trafficking in Colombia, Rapayet and his indigenous family get involved in a war to control the business that ends up destroying their lives and their culture.