Theban Plays: Oedipus the King(1986)

Oedipus Rex(en)

The story of Oedipus' gradual discovery of his primal crime, killing his father and marrying his mother, filmed by the famed British theatrical director Sir Tyrone Guthrie. This elegant version of Sophocles' play adds a brilliant stroke: the actors wear masks just as the Greeks did in the playwright's day.

Funeral Parade of Roses(ja)

In 1960s Tokyo, Gonda owns a bar in which the gay, cross-dresser, and trans scenes meet. Gonda is in a relationship with the madam of the bar, Leda. As the younger Eddie starts a passionate affair with Gonda, she ignites the jealousy of Leda, unaware of another kind of history between them.

Medea(it)

Based on the plot of Euripides' Medea. Medea centers on the barbarian protagonist as she finds her position in the Greek world threatened, and the revenge she takes against her husband Jason who has betrayed her for another woman.

Frine cortigiana d'Oriente(it)

Phaedra(en)

A modern retelling of the Greek myth of Phaedra. The young and fiery second wife of an extremely wealthy shipping magnate meets her estranged stepson Alexis and sparks immediately fly. Their love seems doomed from the beginning when she convinces him to come to Paris to meet his father.

The Trojan Women(en)

In the aftermath of the Trojan Wars, Queen Hecuba takes stock of the defeated kingdom. Her son has been killed, and his widow, Andromache, is left to raise their son, Astyanax, alone. Hecuba's daughter, Cassandra, fears being enslaved by her Greek masters, while Helen of Troy risks being executed. Astyanax also becomes the focus of the Greeks' attention as the last male heir of the Trojan royal family.

Electra(el)

Living in exile after the death of their father, the grown children of a murdered and usurped king converge to exact eye-for-an-eye revenge.

Meinir's Tree(en)

Mother's Meat and Freud's Flesh(en)

Inspired by the early trash films of John Waters, the film stars Estdelacropolis as Demira, a gay porn actor struggling with both his emotionally complicated relationship with his mother Esther and his desire to break out of porn and into mainstream movies. He connects with a Freudian psychiatrist who is convinced that his homosexuality stems from an unresolved Oedipus complex which he has repressed by denying his natural attractions to women, to which the psychiatrist's proposed solution is to hypnotize Esther into believing that she is a man so that men will become the gender that sexually repulses Demira; in his career, he is ambivalent when the first "mainstream" role he is able to land is a gore film in which he will play the victim of a cannibal family for which Esther has also been cast as the mother.

Stone Cold(en)

A lonely, recluse sculptor must confront his inner turmoil and reckon with his romantic desires when his statue comes to life.

Catching the Big Fish(en)

Set during the turbulent shift from silent to sound, this film intertwines the lives of a struggling filmmaker and a solitary fisherman. A meditation on creativity and change, this film explores the enduring value of artistic integrity in an ever-shifting world.

Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One(pt)

Scheherazade narrates three more tales, supposedly selected from the 470th, 484th and 497th nights of her ordeal: “It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that a Judge will cry instead of giving out her sentence. A runaway murderer will wander through the land for over forty days and will teletransport himself to escape the Guard while dreaming of prostitutes and partridges. A wounded cow will reminisce about a thousand-year-old olive tree while saying what she must say, which will sound none less than sad!

A Hole in the Head(pl)

After a particularly embarrassing performance, a struggling Polish actor chooses to quit his acting troupe. In desperation, he returns home, only to find his dying mother has replaced him with a farm hand from a nearby mental institution. Alienated and depressed, he attempts to find his place in the world by driving out his replacement as completely as possible.

Ahare Mon(bn)

A heartwarming collage of inter-connected love stories, Ahare Mon is a romantic drama that revolves around people who are otherwise forbidden to fall in love.

Creature Companion(en)

In the American suburbs, two women mysteriously and sensuously entwine in this slow-burning, saucy, abstracted fable on the longing and laboring female body.

A Knife(en)

A father takes his son to rehab.

Aami Ashbo Phirey(bn)

Aami Ashbo Phirey is a musical that is about four different stories that are all connected by a violent incident. A young, unknown and unheard singer and songwriter accidentally enters the stories through virtual media and changes their lives for the better. The film re-asserts that art can surpass all differences, violence, intolerance and give them a chance to redeem oneself.

Grey and Black(pt)

The story of Maria, a woman betrayed by his companion, David, when he steals a sack of money and flees, taking refuge in the island of Pico. Furious and determined to avenge herself, she proposes to an Police Inspector, Lucas, to chase and to find David. However, David, on a visit to the island of Faial, falls in love with a local, Marina. Maria and Lucas look for David in the Azores, they cross with Mariana in Faial and the three will discover David in his house of the mountain, at the top of the Peak. In a final confrontation, as in a Greek tragedy, Mary and David adjust the accounts that fate has traced to them.

Medea(he)

An actress loses her identity in a character, what then turns her life into tragedy.

Theban Plays: Oedipus at Colonus(en)

Oedipus's wanderings come to an end when he finds his final resting place, as foretold by the gods. But his brother-in-law and his son each try to take him away.