Social & External
The people behind it
Alex Reis
Almeida da Silva
Caju Bezerra
Jade Maria Zimbra
Yhuri Cruz
While waiting for answers after her brother's disappearance, Mirela, who lives in the northern zone of São Paulo, encounters a situation that changes her night.
In the fields of Yamasá, the documentary revives the story of Florinda Soriano Muñoz, a symbol of the peasant struggle for land. Through an intimate and observational lens, it reconstructs her legacy and the impact of her resistance on a community that still cherishes her memory.
Every Music Theory class, Mark and Boris playfully taunt each other in the back row. One day, during a listening session of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake," the teenagers' customary teasing unveils a deeper truth about their feelings for one another.
A poor couple wants to buy a pearl necklace with their own money.
Winter, Friday. A group of young university students leave for a weekend in São João da Cruz to celebrate their promotion to the prestigious Academic Life Association (AVA). The young people's fun turns to terror when, at night, on Praia da Cruz beach, a hazing ritual is taken to the extreme.
Anna and her rebellious daughter Lena live on the outskirts of Riga. Lena skips school and falls into dangerous circles. When her best friend dies of an overdose and Lena narrowly survives, they have to flee abroad to escape the police. They find refuge with Anna's cousin in Switzerland. But Lena's resistance jeopardises their new start.
A group of 4 teenagers go camping in an isolated forest. Soon, strange events and increasingly disturbing behavior jeopardize their stay. As one after another disappears or descends into paranoia, they realize that the threat may be closer than they imagined...
Throughout the months of summer, an apparition will appear to mourn the sun and roam the earth seeking the last of her warmth. It's his eternal journey and never ending elegy of the sun.
A self-made man divorces his wife who becomes a typist and warns him his second wife may leave him too.
A Cockney fishmonger's daughter weds a bart who loses his all on a trotting race.
A less than ideal arrangement turns unexpectedly healing when a working, single mother is forced to call her absent father for a last minute babysitting request.
Louise has been a widow for years and teaches literature in a high school. She divides all her time between books and her son, Martin, who still lives with her. During a family lunch, she meets Martin's best friend, Stanislas, a young painter of Russian origin, who is studying at the Beaux-Arts and whose talent promises a brilliant career. Louise is still finding Stanislas very attractive and already the young man is madly in love with her. All it takes is a little something to bring the two lovers together in the same passionate embrace. Informed by his mother, Martin pretends to be delighted by this unexpected rapprochement between the two beings he loves the most. His rage bursts, however, during the family meeting that Louise has organized to make her affair with Stanislas official.
When a progressive, midwestern pastor's life is threatened by extremists, she must answer to a gang of interrogating FBI Agents as she reels from the trauma of terrorism. "The Pulpit: Prelude" is about small town politics and the challenges faced by progressive leadership. The film sheds light on the violence and prejudice in a variety of faith communities and the challenges of seeking help from institutions like law enforcement. Inspired by a True Story, this short film is a prelude to a feature-length Thriller of the same name. "THE PULPIT" will return.
The Russian Descendant of the Snow Leopard is based on a famous Kirghizian folktale. Apparently the Kirghizian folks had plenty of time to tell this story: to print a full synopsis would result in a novelette. Essentially, the story involves a proud group of highland hunters called the Snow Leopards, who in order to survive a brutal winter must request help from the Lowland people. The price for this assistance is the hand of the Snow Leopard's daughter, who is promised in marriage to a wealthy Lowland trader. During the Springtime wedding celebration, the trader becomes fascinated by a stranger who wins all the athletic contests. This "male" contestant turns out to be a woman, who has arrived to seek freedom for her imprisoned husband. The subsequent romance between the trader and the beautiful stranger results in disaster and bloodshed for both the Snow Leopards and the Lowlanders.
The culturally isolated, nomadic Seburi people of western Japan are the subject of this tragedy about a few of the community's members who especially experience difficulties as modern Japan encroaches on their world. The setting is World War II, and conflicts have already arisen when the military police come to take Seburi men away into the army. Still following their own customs that can be harsh at times, and are particularly cruel to women (women must give birth alone and unaided, a woman's adultery is punished by burying her up to her neck in the earth and then leaving her for days), the Seburi are mainly treated with fear and animosity by the non-Seburi townspeople of the region. Along with the hardships arising from cultural clashes, nature's own vagaries present other challenges to the Seburi -- who still lived in tents until the 1950s. Winter avalanches and snowstorms cause as much havoc as the tensions engendered by the slow encroachment of the modern world.
The seeming hopelessness of combatting an all-powerful government that will not tolerate political dissension is the focus of this excellent historical drama set in the mid-19th century in Hungary. In the opening scenes, Hungary has just lost its bid for independence from Austria and a Magyar officer, unable to bear the tragedy of defeat and what it means, says an affectionate good-bye to his beloved horse and then shoots the animal and himself. Two years later, Ferenc (Gyorgy Cserhalmi) is trying to eke out a living for his wife and her family -- and at the same time avoid any hint of sympathy for Hungarian independence because the Secret Police are everywhere. Just as life seems to be going well, Ferenc's former commanding officer (Lajos Oze) arrives and begins discussing revolution again -- a futile pursuit at this point in time. The next day, Ferenc is thrown into an insane asylum and everyone else is arrested as well.
This somewhat superficial historical drama is about the 1525 Peasants' War in Germany when the lower classes rebelled against oppressive conditions imposed by the clergy and nobility and then committed many acts (including atrocities) that did not morally set them far apart from the people they were fighting. It was a time of upheaval: Martin Luther (1483-1556) had broken away from the Catholic Church, calling for reform, and Anabaptists in Germany, like Thomas Munzer fought on the side of the peasants (opposed by Luther). This complex age and its political and religious turmoil are summed up in a story about an attack on a small monastery whose monks used a forged document to confiscate some land from the peasants. When their wrong-doing is revealed by the monk who forged the document in the first place, the peasants attack.
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
The story of golf icon and legend, Bobby Jones, who retired from competition at the tender age of 28.
A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.
A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.
As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father's death but paralyzed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
West Philadelphia basketball star Sergio Taylor deals with the pressures of fame while his brother and sister have their own issues with ambition.
A successful "house tuner" in New York City, who calibrates the sound in people's homes in order to adjust their moods, meets a client with a problem he can't solve.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
In a small village, a lonely fisherman yearning for a son is drawn to an ethereal light that links him to others and their long-buried secrets.
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
After her stay-at-home husband leaves her, a workaholic lawyer finds that she is not completely up to the tasks of caring for her young son, ailing father and household all by herself.
Romulus, a misunderstood musician turned recluse hiding from personal demons in a New York City cave, finds the frozen body of a young drifter in a tree. The authorities, including his police officer daughter, claim the death is accidental. Romulus is convinced the man was murdered by a prominent art photographer but how can he prove he's right when everyone thinks he's insane?
Julie is a new mom and children's book author, who escapes into the bright Crayola-colored world of her creation in order to leave behind the darkness caused by her post-partum depression.
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
An aging Tennessee farmer returns to his homestead and must confront a family betrayal, the reappearance of an old enemy, and the loss of his farm.
A sweeping drama set in the chaotic aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, where the life of top UN diplomat Brazilian Sérgio Vieira de Mello hangs in the balance during the most treacherous mission of his career.
