The Understanding Heart

The Forester of the Silver Wood(de)

Landscape with a Woman(sh)

A ranger whose passion is nude painting comes to work in a remote Bosnian village. He asks the local women to pose naked for him. They are shy at first, but they eventually agree to do so. This makes their husbands furious, who think that the ranger is sleeping with their wives.

Gone, But Not Forgotten(en)

Questions about the identity of an amnesiac threaten his romance with the park ranger who rescued him.

Der Freischütz(de)

Set in a mountainous and thickly wooded Bohemian landscape in the 17th century, Carl Maria von Weber's opera "Der Freischütz" (The Marksman) tells the tale of Max, a young gamekeeper. Max is in love with Agathe, daughter of the head ranger to Prince Ottokar. To win her hand, an ancient custom requires Max to prove his skill as a marksman on the morning of the wedding by shooting at any object the Prince may choose on the spur of the moment. Max is willing to do anything, absolutely anything to succeed - even at the cost of selling his soul to the demon Samiel. Recorded live at the Zürich Opera House, 1999.

Paandi Naattu Thangam(ta)

Thangapandian, an honest forest officer, is transferred to a village. The village chief cuts illegally the sandalwood trees. Radha is brought up by her adoptive family. When she was young, her father, a famous singer, died in a car accident. Thangapandian falls in love with Radha. What transpires later forms the crux of the story.

Gaia(en)

In the depths of an ancient forest, something has been growing. Something older than humanity itself, and perhaps greater too. When a park ranger discovers a man and his son living wild, she stumbles onto a secret that is about to change the world.

Red Skies of Montana(en)

When a large forest fire breaks out in the mountains of Montana, a squad of 'Smoke Jumpers', the paratroop-corps of fire-fighters in the U. S. Forest Service, is flown to the scene from their regional headquarters in Missoula, Montana. The Forest Rangers, under Cliff Mason, put out the blaze, but several of the fire-fighters are killed. Ed Miller, son of one of the dead rangers, thinks he died because Mason was a coward, and sets out to prove it.

It Waits(en)

A lone female park ranger tries to track down a vicious creature killing various people and terrorizing her at a remote national park.

Redwood Forest Trail(en)

Forest Ranger and singing cowboy, Rex Allen, attempts to save a camp for underprivileged boys with the help of "Alfalfa " Switzer who plays one of the boys.

Women, Maasai and rangers - The lionesses of Kenya(fr)

Leah and Purity are rangers in the Kenyan bushland. They roam around Amboseli National Park every day to track down wildlife. The Maasai shepherds also have their villages here. Conflicts can hardly be avoided. The young women are often called to missions to mediate or comfort. The two Maasai women themselves have to fight against discrimination

The Astounding She-Monster(en)

A scientist and a gang that has kidnapped a rich heiress come up against a beautiful but lethal alien who has crash-landed her spaceship on Earth.

The Forest Commandos(en)

This short film focuses on Ontario's fire rangers, who keep watch over Canada's forests.

The Flash of the Forest(en)

Silent action film featuring forest rangers.

Red Hot Rangers(en)

Forest rangers George and Junior try to snuff out a frisky flame with a sparky personality that threatens to set the forest alight.

Winterbeast(en)

Set during the fall (NOT winter), a small New England town is brutally ravaged by possessed totem poles.

Werewolves Within(en)

When a proposed pipeline creates hostilities between residents of a small town, a newly-arrived forest ranger must keep the peace after a snowstorm confines the townspeople to an old lodge. But when a mysterious creature begins terrorizing the group, their worst tendencies and prejudices rise to the surface, and it is up to the ranger to keep the residents alive, both from each other and the monster which plagues them.

Hooked Bear(en)

Humphrey the bear isn't having much luck with his fishing; every time he catches some nice fish, he gets distracted and drops them. So he goes after the catches of the local anglers instead. But ranger Woodlore frowns on this, insisting the bear fish like one.

Rys Follows the Path(ru)

A wilderness drama about a Russian forest ranger and his tame lynx. Man and lynx aid each other in their survival and mission to protect wildlife against poachers. Sequel to Tropoy beskorystoy lyubvi.

Colorado Sundown(nl)

The Hurley's own a lumber mill and want to harvest all the timber in the valley. They kill the Forester and substitute their brother Dusty in his place. Dusty then says all the trees are infected and must be cut down. But Rex Allen is suspicious and writes to the Forestry Department and gets involved with the murders.

Feet of Death(en)

When paranormal social media influencer, Chris Dixon, winds up dead near the base of Mt. Saint Helens, Jason Esterly, a USFS ranger, must pull himself out of mourning his late wife to grapple with the reality that Bigfoot could actually exist. The supposed mythical creature might even be responsible for a string of unusual deaths in his small town.

Dream of Love(en)

A duke has deposed Prince Mauritz's father, so Mauritz spends his time in affairs with a countess, the duke's wife and a gypsy girl Adrienne. Years later she is a famous actress in a play resembling the sad story of their earlier relationship. He falls in love with her again. The jealous duchess and the duke arrange to have him shot by firing squad but revolutionaries save him and make him King.

War and Peace(ru)

A seven-hour epic adaptation of the novel by Leo Tolstoy. The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.

The Boy and the Wind(pt)

A young engineer on holiday gets involved with a boy who has a strange relationship with the wind. Their close friendship arouses suspicion in the small town. When the boy disappears, the engineer is accused of murdering him.

The Silence(sv)

Traveling through an unnamed European country on the brink of war, sickly, intellectual Ester, her sister Anna and Anna's young son, Johan, check into a near-empty hotel. A basic inability to communicate among the three seems only to worsen during their stay. Anna provokes her sister by enjoying a dalliance with a local man, while the boy, left to himself, has a series of enigmatic encounters that heighten the growing air of isolation.

Polyester(en)

Blessed with a keen sense of smell and cursed with a philandering pornographer husband, a parasitic mother, and a pair of delinquent children, the long-suffering Francine Fishpaw turns to the bottle as her life falls apart -- until deliverance appears in the form of a hunk named Todd Tomorrow.

Our Hospitality(en)

A young man falls for a young woman on his trip home; unbeknownst to him, her family has vowed to kill every member of his family.

Love(en)

After losing contact with Earth, Astronaut Lee Miller becomes stranded in orbit alone aboard the International Space Station. As time passes and life support systems dwindle, Lee battles to maintain his sanity - and simply stay alive. His world is a claustrophobic and lonely existence, until he makes a strange discovery aboard the ship.

The Crucified Lovers(ja)

When the wife of a 17th century Kyoto scroll-maker is falsely accused of having an affair with his best employee, the pair flee the city and find themselves falling for one another.

The Son(fr)

A joinery instructor at a rehab center refuses to take a new teen as his apprentice, but then begins to follow the boy through the hallways and streets.

Frankenstein Conquers the World(ja)

During WWII, Germans obtain the immortal heart of Frankenstein's monster and transport it to Japan to prevent it being seized by the Allies. Kept in a Hiroshima laboratory, it is seeming lost when the United States destroys the city with the atomic bomb. Years later a wild boy is discovered wandering the streets of the city alone, born of the immortal heart.

The Brood(en)

A man tries to uncover an unconventional psychologist's therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife, while a series of brutal attacks committed by a brood of mutant children coincides with the husband's investigation.

The Outsider(fr)

Philippe Jordan is a policeman prone to advancing the cause of justice by any means necessary. On his agenda is a powerful drug cartel working out of Paris and Marseilles, with a drug lord who is essentially inaccessible -- but not immortal.

Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion(en)

From an inauspicious beginning performing comedy routines in the back of a burger joint in New York, unorthodox stand-up star Zach Galifianakis has made a splash on the scene with his inimitable brand of humor. In this live show filmed at San Francisco's Purple Onion nightclub, the versatile funnyman serves up a healthy dose of his signature wit.

Simon of the Desert(es)

Simon, a deeply religious man living in the 4th century, wants to be nearer to God so he climbs a column. The Devil wants him come down to Earth and is trying to seduce him.

Eating Out: All You Can Eat(en)

Tiffani attempts to help her geeky but very cute friend Casey find true love - or at least a sexy hunk. Taken under Tiffani’s wing, Casey pretends to be Ryan, Tiffani's hot, straight, stripper ex-boyfriend, in order to seduce the smoldering Zack online, which works, until the real Ryan shows up!

The Trial of Joan of Arc(fr)

Rouen, Normandy, 1431, during the Hundred Years' War. After being captured by French soldiers from an opposing faction, Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans, is unjustly tried by an ecclesiastical court overseen by her English enemies.

A View of Love(fr)

Happily married with a daughter, Marc is a successful real estate agent in Aix-en-Provence. One day, he has an appointment with a woman to view a traditional country house. A few hours later, Marc finally puts a name to her face. It's Cathy, the girl he was in love with growing up in Oran, Algeria, in the last days of the French colonial regime. Marc hurries to her hotel. They spend the night together. Then she's gone again. And Marc's mother tells him Cathy never left Algeria. She was killed with her father in a bombing just before independence...

A Lizard in a Woman's Skin(it)

Carol Hammond, daughter of a politician, has vivid nightmares involving sex orgies and LSD. In a dream, she murders a neighbor she envies and wakes up to a real investigation into her neighbor's murder.

Francofonia(fr)

Master filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) transforms a portrait of the world-renowned museum into a magisterial, centuries-spanning reflection on the relation between art, culture and power.

The World According to Garp(en)

A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.