Social & External
Gummadi Narsaiah
In the late 1990s, Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd had their musical ambitions consistently ridiculed for having the 'wrong' accents, so they went for broke and reinvented themselves as Californian rappers. The duo re-recorded their own tracks with fake accents and turned up in London claiming to be an established duo on the Cali scene as well as childhood friends with Eminem. They quickly bagged themselves a record deal, a hefty sum in advances, and an appearance on MTV... until it all came crashing down.
On the stormy night of July 5th, 1995, Trick Stuart works the graveyard shift with his plus-sized pal Meathead at the Delta Kream, a 24HR fast food joint. As they practice their brass band routine, a very unexpected visitor arrives.
In 1894, French officer Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted for the treasonous acts of another man, Major Esterhazy. When investigations begin into the dubious evidence used in the trial, an institutional coverup begins, aided by fears of army disgrace and anti-Semitic paranoia against Dreyfus. But a determined group, headed by prominent author Émile Zola, leads a mounting public call to reopen the Dreyfus case.
In 1914, with men gone to war, Marcel Proust hired Céleste Albaret as his attendant. More than eight years later, she was at his side when he died. During this entire time, she only entered his room when he rang for her, sleeping from 9 AM to 3 PM to wait during the night while he wrote. Marcel uses her as more than a servant: she is his muse, telling stories of her childhood to stir his remembrance of things past; she's in cahoots with him as he manipulates those he wants to draw on for his writing; she listens appalled to his descriptions of the underside of Paris. Hers is a life of love and sweet devotion as he races time to finish his work before death.
Bill, an intellectually disabled man, ventures out into the world for the first time, having spent most of his life in a dreary inner city institution. He is taken in by a kind family and learns what it means to love and be loved for the first time in his life.
Close to bankruptcy, Irena, the owner of a struggling pig farm in a tiny post-Communist town, finds a surprising benefactor in a handsome American man who appears to be the answer to all her prayers.
Biography of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of modern Pakistan is told through flashbacks as his soul tries to find eternal rest. The flashbacks start in 1947 as Jinnah pleads for a separate nation for the Muslim minority, infuriating Lord Mountbatten. Mountbatten then tries to enlist Gandhi & Nehru to persuade Jinnah to stop his efforts. Gandhi sides with Jinnah, which upsets Nehru. However, Jinnah turns down the offer to become prime minister and the film takes another slide back to 1916, which reveals all of the political implications that have occurred.
An epic drama about Nichiren's life. Nichiren was a Buddhist monk who lived for 60 years during the Kamakura period (1185-1333) in Japan. Nichiren taught devotion to the Lotus Sutra as the exclusive means to attain enlightenment. Because of his devout belief, Nichiren is met with opposition throught his travels, with life on the line, can Nichiren accomplish his goal?
Genoan navigator Christopher Columbus has a dream to find an alternative route to sail to the Indies, by traveling west instead of east, across the unchartered Ocean sea. After failing to find backing from the Portugese, he goes to the Spanish court to ask Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand for help. After surviving a grilling from the Head of the Spanish Inquisition Tomas de Torquemada, he eventually gets the blessing from Queen Isabella and sets sail in three ships to travel into the unknown. Along the way he must deal with sabotage from Portugese spies and mutiny from a rebellious crew.
1936. Giovanni Comini, the youngest Federal in Fascist Italy, is summoned to Rome for a delicate mission: to surveil aging national poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, whose increasingly restless behavior Mussolini fears could damage his alliance with Nazi Germany. However, after spending time with D'Annunzio, Comini finds himself torn between loyalty to the Party and his fascination with the poet, who will put his burgeoning career at risk.
The controversial true story of a gay activist who rejects his homosexuality and becomes a Christian pastor.
A short documentary about the life and death of the bullfighter Manuel Rodriguez Manolete. It recounts his career this celebrated Spanish bullfighter who was the inspiration for the ill-fated Montalvo in Pandora and The Flying Dutchman.
It's the 1990s, in a sleepy hillside town in Southern India there is a cavernous mansion surrounded by plantations, inside three preadolescent brothers live with their German shepherd. They buy the groceries, lug water up the slopes in plastic cans, get each other ready for school and lend a hand to workers on the estate. The boys may practically run the house, but the lord of this forsaken domain is their father, a ruthless martinet whose mere sight frightens them to the core.
David Marshall Williams is sent to a prison farm where he works in the tool shop and eventually develops the precursor of the famous M-1 Carbine automatic rifle used in World War II.
The film depicts the early years of Islam, focusing on Bilal-i Habeşi, a slave. Bilal-i Habeşi finds the religion of the Quraysh absurd and believes in the existence of a single God who created everything. When the first revelation came to Muhammad, whom he had known since childhood, he became one of the first people to believe and convert to Islam. However, his owner, Beni Ümeyye, does not approve of his conversion to Islam and pressures him to renounce his faith. Bilal, who endures all the torture inflicted upon him, is purchased by Prophet Muhammad's companion Abu Bakr, who grants him his freedom. Islam will begin to spread through the voice of Bilal-i Habeşi.
Frustrated by the liberal left and what he deems the destruction of the country he risked his life for, reclusive veteran Quint North (Schneider) is ordered by the court to keep his distance from the local high school with the American flag on the back of his El Camino or face a fine and jail time. In an ultimate exhibition of patriotism, he sets forth a series of events that just may get him killed in his own front yard.
Alice and Horst paints a moving portrait of two siblings from Saarbrücken whose lives were shaped by their family’s antifascist resistance. As children, Alice Hornung and Horst Bernard were forced to flee from the Nazis into exile in France, where, despite constant danger, they also experienced great solidarity. After their return they continued their parents’ political commitment: against fascism, for peace and disarmament. The film combines personal memories with rare archival footage and portrays two individuals who, well into old age, remain unwavering in their commitment to justice and remembrance.
The career of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo is halted by a witch hunt in the late 1940s when he defies the anti-communist HUAC committee and is blacklisted.
As bare-knuckled boxing enters the modern era, brash extrovert Jim Corbett uses new rules and dazzlingly innovative footwork to rise to the top of the boxing world.
Abe Lincoln in Illinois is a 1940 biographical film which tells the story of the life of Abraham Lincoln from his departure from Kentucky until his election as President of the United States.
While investigating the global phenomenon of caste and its dark influence on society, a journalist faces unfathomable personal loss and uncovers the beauty of human resilience.
A dramatisation that follows Tony Blair's journey from political understudy waiting in the wings of the world arena to accomplished prime minister standing confidently in the spotlight of centre stage. It is a story about relationships, between two powerful men (Blair and Bill Clinton), two powerful couples, and husbands and wives.
Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.
At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.
Young women toiling in a factory are exposed to hazardous material which takes a disastrous toll on their health.
Buddy is a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, whose life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance. Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.
Based on true events about the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State.
Electricity titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse compete to create a sustainable system and market it to the American people.
Stephen Glass is a staff writer for the respected current events and policy magazine The New Republic and a freelance feature writer for publications such as Rolling Stone, Harper's and George. By the mid-90s, Glass' articles had turned him into one of the most sought-after young journalists in Washington, but a bizarre chain of events - chronicled in Buzz Bissinger's September 1998 Vanity Fair article - suddenly stopped his career in its tracks.
In May 1940, the fate of World War II hangs on Winston Churchill, who must decide whether to negotiate with Adolf Hitler or fight on knowing that it could mean the end of the British Empire.
When a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond.
A ticking-clock thriller following Winston Churchill in the 24 hours before D-Day.
All Eyez on Me chronicles the life and legacy of Tupac Shakur, including his rise to superstardom as a hip-hop artist, actor, poet and activist, as well as his imprisonment and prolific, controversial time at Death Row Records. Against insurmountable odds, Tupac rose to become a cultural icon whose career and persona both continue to grow long after his passing.
Jimmy Erskine is the most feared theatre critic of the age. He lives as flamboyantly as he writes and takes pleasure in savagely taking down any actor who fails to meet his standards. When the owner of the Daily Chronicle dies, and his son takes over, Jimmy quickly finds himself at odds with his new boss and his position under threat. In an attempt to preserve the power and influence he holds so sacred, Jimmy strikes a Faustian pact with a struggling actress, entangling them and the boss in a thrilling but deadly web of desire, blackmail, and betrayal.
In this sprawling, fictionalized history of the Black Panthers, 1960s Oakland becomes a war zone as the Panthers battle for the right to exist.
Yale University, 1961. Stanley Milgram designs a psychology experiment that still resonates to this day, in which people think they’re delivering painful electric shocks to an affable stranger strapped into a chair in another room. Despite his pleads for mercy, the majority of subjects don’t stop the experiment, administering what they think is a near-fatal electric shock, simply because they’ve been told to do so. With Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s trial airing in living rooms across America, Milgram strikes a nerve in popular culture and the scientific community with his exploration into people’s tendency to comply with authority. Celebrated in some circles, he is also accused of being a deceptive, manipulative monster, but his wife Sasha stands by him through it all.
An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
A chronicle of Nelson Mandela's life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.
Diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome at 15, John Davidson navigates his way against the odds through troubled teenage years and into adulthood, finding inspiration in the kindness of others to discover his true purpose in life.
