Familiar Phantoms is an experimental documentary short film about memory, history and trauma.
Social & External
Narrator
Young Larissa
Aunt
Father
Young Girl
Young Boy
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.
Captain Kim is grievously wounded in the first days of the war. When the northern troops continue their advance, his wife and small daughters flee south to Taegu, dragging him along in a two-wheel handcart. His wife struggles to keep herself and their surviving daughter alive. Working as a market trader, she meets a kind young man -- who happens to be tall, dark and handsome.
What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)
Sophie, a quiet and shy maid working for an upper-class French family, finds a friend in the energetic and uncompromising postmaster Jeanne, who encourages her to stand up against her bourgeois employers.
Amidst a mostly Catholic community, a small tiny Anglican church offers more to the community of Placentia than people may think, and holds many connections and history to the rest of the world.
A married young academic falls under the sexual thrall of a much older man whose air of jaded ennui conceals a secret desire for vengeance.
When a disc containing memoirs of a former CIA analyst falls into the hands of gym employees, Linda and Chad, they see a chance to make enough money for Linda to have life-changing cosmetic surgery. Predictably, events whirl out of control for the duo, and those in their orbit.
Loosely based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina, who smuggled heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, before being detained by a task force led by Newark Detective Richie Roberts.
Teacher Anne and policeman Georg are thought of as the perfect couple. However, appearances are deceptive: one of them is covered with scars and bruises. But which one is the abuser?
The Israeli filmmaker Shai Corneli Polak records the building of the 'security wall' through Palestinian territory at the village of Bil'in. The villagers protest mostly peacefully, while the Israeli army doesn't react peacefully. By now the Israeli High Court has ruled that the building of the wall was illegal.
The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.
Texan Charles Farmer left the Air Force as a young man to save the family ranch when his dad died. Like most American ranchers, he owes his bank. Unlike most, he's an astrophysicist with a rocket in his barn - one he's built and wants to take into space. It's his dream. The FBI puts him under surveillance when he tries to buy rocket fuel, and the FAA stalls him when he files a flight plan – but Charles is undeterred.
A small Egyptian police band travels to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves stuck in the wrong town.
The viewpoints of women from a country that no longer exists preserved on low-band U-matic tape. GDR-FRG. Courageous, self-confident and emancipated: female industry workers talk about gaining autonomy.
A recluse painter’s careful routine is shaken up when a mysterious young woman knocks on his door. An encounter that will confront him with his past.
Because the late Berlin artist Dorn failed to pay his taxes or inform the family for years, his widow Erika and daughters must urgently sell the splendid estate in Tuscany they hardly visited since his death anyhow. Eldest daughter Valerie, junior partner in fiancé Andreas Imdahl's rising architects firm, travels ahead to negotiate with the suitable candidate Robert Beck, a fellow German, who agreed trough mayor-publican Fredo to keep on caretaker Antonio 'Toni' Gianni. By the time Andreas arrives, he finds Viviane unfaithful with her study lover Stefan Korten, but is interested by Toni's daughter. Second daughter Susi and her fellow arts student fiancé Bruno Tomasi have several announcements. Mother arrives stating she decided to sell the Cologne home instead, but Robert offers an alternative. Written by KGF Vissers
Young lion prince Simba, eager to one day become king of the Pride Lands, grows up under the watchful eye of his father Mufasa; all the while his villainous uncle Scar conspires to take the throne for himself. Amid betrayal and tragedy, Simba must confront his past and find his rightful place in the Circle of Life.
The story of an unruly class of bright, funny history students at a Yorkshire grammar school in pursuit of an undergraduate place at Oxford or Cambridge. Bounced between their maverick English master, a young and shrewd teacher hired to up their test scores, a grossly out-numbered history teacher, and a headmaster obsessed with results, the boys attempt to pass.
An American Army officer is recruited by the yet to exist Israel to help them form an army. He is disturbed by this sudden appeal to his Jewish heritage. Each of Israel's Arab neighbors has vowed to invade the poorly prepared country as soon as partition is granted. He is made commander of the Israeli forces just before the war begins.
A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.