Land of empty promises

The Shape

A storm is on the horizon. When a jet-black cloud engulfs a small village, the residents discover that it could put an end to more than just blue skies.

7.2

1962

Antoine and Colette

Now aged 17, Antoine Doinel works in a factory which makes records. At a music concert, he meets a girl his own age, Colette, and falls in love with her. Later, Antoine goes to extraordinary lengths to please his new girlfriend and her parents, but Colette still only regards him as a casual friend. First segment of “Love at Twenty” (1962).

7.6

Sing

Quiet 10-year-old Zsofi has just changed schools. Feeling out of place at first, she is quickly admitted to the school’s famous choir and befriends her popular classmate Liza. Soon, they have to stand up united against their choir master, who isn’t quite the friendly and inspirational teacher they first thought she was.

7.7

2004

Hotel Rwanda

Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.

4.0

2020

Fragile

Mehdi is a hopeless romantic. But he’s too uptight according to his best friend, Olive, who urges him to loosen up and have some fun with gay dating apps.

6.7

1948

The Bear Dodger

Created by Noburo Ofuji, who had been cartoon making since the 1920s, often with decorative paper cutouts. The character animation looks like it was done 15 years before, but a lot of the elements are highly original; design (those trees!), use of camera focus. Heavily musical in a manner that recalls animation's earliest use of sound. The lesson here is: "If you can't count on your friends, travel alone".

6.0

2008

Late

A young, and, as yet unsuccessful journalist is assigned to write an article about a teacher at his old school who is suspected of sexual misconduct. He approaches a former fellow-pupil for help. Their meeting has unexpected consequences.

3.7

2007

My Little Boy

Berlin, 1934. Many men are forced to live their hidden homosexuality. Erich, a photographer, has an appointment in his photo studio with Wolfgang, a Nazi soldier, with whom he shares a loving, tumultuous, and passionate relationship. For both of them, this should not be a problem, but appearances deceive.

5.3

2012

It's Getting Late

In the translucent LA dusk we discover four women living very different lives. The camera follows each as they wind down their working days, their four stories weaving together as each prepares for their evening.

7.1

Person to Person

Waking up the morning after hosting a party, a man discovers a stranger passed out on his floor. He spends the rest of the day trying to convince her to leave.

5.6

2015

Closets

It's 1986, tormented teenager Henry is struggling with his sexuality and abusive home life. Henry sits in his closet contemplating suicide. In a flash of light he is transported to 2016 where he meets teenager Ben — now occupying his room 30 years later.

3.0

2012

The Gift of Tears

A princess and a hunter. An iconographic journey immersed in Lusitanian fantasy.

5.0

2017

The Raisin

A short film about a raisin.

7.0

2018

Elliott's To Do List

A quirky high school girl has to learn that you can't fit friendship into a checkbox.

Spaceman

SPACEMAN uses mime, stop motion, classic animation, and theatrical elements, to explore one artist's loss of creative passion, and his journey to get it back again.

3.0

1908

The Music Master

What is more miserable than love-blighted life? For the heart that truly loves can never forget. Such is the sad fate of the hero of this Biograph story.

7.5

The Dam Keeper

In a desolate future, one small town has survived because of a large windmill dam that acts as a fan to keep out pollution. The dam's operator, Pig, works tirelessly to keep the sails spinning and protect the town, despite abuse from classmates and an indifferent public. When a new student joins Pig's class, nothing will be the same again.

Son

August has to put up with quite a lot. Ever since his parents separated, his father no longer seems to have any time for him. To console him, his Dad gives him a sweet little dog. But his mother refuses to have the animal in her house and before long there are shouting matches on the phone again. August can hear them arguing through his bedroom door – it's something he seems to have become used to. When his mother remains adamant about not having the dog, August packs his bags to move in with his father. But there’s no place for him in his father’s new family either. And so the boy makes up his mind to create a drastic wake-up call. Told from the boy’s perspective, this coming-of-age drama describes the situation for children who are caught in the middle when their parents decide to separate.

2.0

Smile

A young woman has been living alone with her brother since their parents died in an accident. The mentally handicapped brother pursues his hobby, takes countless photos every day with his instant camera and collects newspaper clippings, which gradually end up in the apartment. The sister experiences a gloomy daily life between the monotonous work on the assembly line and the same rituals at home. How much she would like to escape from this daily life, but the dream of New York is not compatible with her obligations...

My Pretty Lover

An experimental short film loosely adapting the story “My Pretty Pony” by Stephen King.

Recommended Movies

7.4

1980

Little Lord Fauntleroy

Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.

7.4

2006

Vitus

Vitus tells the story of a highly-gifted boy (played by real-life piano prodigy Teo Gheorghiu) whose parents have demanding and ambitious plans for him.

6.2

2018

Farming

Based on the writer/director's childhood, FARMING tells the story of a young Nigerian boy, 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he becomes the feared leader of a white skinhead gang.

6.1

1992

Sarafina!

A Soweto schoolgirl named Sarafina is galvanized to protest apartheid after her teacher is arrested for her activism, leading her to join the student resistance movement.

6.9

2003

I Am David

A 12-year-old boy manages to flee a Communist concentration camp on his own, through sheer will and determination. All he has in his possession is a loaf of bread, a letter to deliver to someone in Denmark, and a compass to help get him there.

6.4

2009

Skin

Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.

7.4

The Good Lie

A young refugee of the Sudanese Civil War who wins a lottery for relocation to the United States with three other lost boys. Encountering the modern world for the first time, they develop an unlikely friendship with a brash American woman assigned to help them, but the young man struggles to adjust to this new life and his feelings of guilt about the brother he left behind.

7.1

2000

John Henry

The story of the legendary steel-driving folk hero born with a hammer in his hands, who pitted his strength against a mighty railroad-building machine.

7.2

Anne of Green Gables

A retelling of L.M. Montgomery's story of Anne Shirley, an orphan who is accidentally sent to a couple looking to adopt a boy instead.

7.1

The Lion King

Simba idolizes his father, King Mufasa, and takes to heart his own royal destiny. But not everyone in the kingdom celebrates the new cub's arrival. Scar, Mufasa's brother—and former heir to the throne—has plans of his own. The battle for Pride Rock is ravaged with betrayal, tragedy and drama, ultimately resulting in Simba's exile. With help from a curious pair of newfound friends, Simba will have to figure out how to grow up and take back what is rightfully his.

6.0

XOXO

XOXO follows six strangers whose lives collide in one frenetic, dream-chasing, hopelessly romantic night.

6.7

1994

Jacob

Isaac's son Jacob deprives his brother Esau of his birthright and has to flee for his life. He finds shelter with his uncle Laban, but is himself deceived. Finally, Jacob has to face both his uncle and brother.

7.8

2022

Emancipation

Inspired by the gripping true story of a man who would do anything for his family—and for freedom. When Peter, an enslaved man, risks his life to escape and return to his family, he embarks on a perilous journey of love and endurance.

5.9

2008

Boot Camp

A group of troubled teens are sent to a rehabilitation program housed in a remote camp on the island of Fiji. What their parents believe is a state-of-the-art deluxe institution in a beautiful natural environment turns out to be a prison-like boot camp where they are abused and brainwashed.

6.2

2003

In This World

Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient 'In This World' follows young Afghan Jamal and his older cousin Enayat as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel on to Paris, the Sangatte refuge centre and ultimately asylum in London.

6.3

Cardboard Boxer

Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.

6.9

1926

Sparrows

Molly, the eldest child of a group of orphans being used as slaves on a farm hidden deep in a swamp, must rescue the others when their cruel master decides that one of them will be disposed of.

7.0

1993

Abraham

Rather than choosing a great leader or king, God chooses Abraham, an elderly shepherd from Mesopotamia, as the way to establish his Covenant with mankind... A man of great faith, Abraham continues to believe in God even when He seems to have abandoned him.

6.4

2015

Sanjay's Super Team

SANJAY'S SUPER TEAM follows the daydream of a young Indian boy, bored with his father's religious meditation, who imagines "a kind of ancient, Hindu version of The Avengers," with the gods appearing like superheros.

7.9

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Against all the odds, a thirteen year old boy in Malawi invents an unconventional way to save his family and village from famine.