300 hommes / 300 Souls (2014) Aline Dalbis, Emmanuel Gras, Documentary, Biography

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‘Three hundred men’ is one long night at Saint Jean de Dieu, in Marseille. The center welcomes and confines three hundred homeless men every night over the winter. This documentary is neither the description nor the chronicle of the life of a shelter. It portrays humanity reduced to its essence, when only remain speech, humor, anger or madness to affirm that one still exists.’
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11’09”01 – September 11 (2002) Youssef Chahine, Amos Gitai, Maryam Karimi, Mohamad Dolati, Agelem Habibi, Drama

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Eleven directors from 11 countries each contribute an 11-minute short reflecting on the events of 11 September 2001. A village teacher in Iran tries to explain to her young students what’s happened. City kids in Burkina Faso think they’ve spotted Osama bin Laden. A deaf Frenchwoman in Manhattan writes a Dear John letter to a man who has left that morning for work at the World Trade Center. A Chilean remembers Allende. Events recall other deaths. A mother endures more than her son’s death. And so on. The tone varies, as do the locales. Most stories are about others coming to terms with the events of the day, but at least one confronts the viewer with tragedy and death.
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La faute à Fidel! / Blame it on Fidel (2006) Julie Gavras, Nina Kervel-Bey, Julie Depardieu, Stefano Accorsi, Drama, History

La faute a Fidel! (2006)
Hello, my name is Anna and I am nine years old. I wish you had known me before – I mean before my aunt Marga and my cousin Pilar came to my parents’house -, I was such a happy little girl. Before their coming life was a bed of roses. Of course my little brother could be a pain in the neck – little brothers always are, aren’t they? – but there was that wonderful big house, there was my Cuban-born nanny who cooked so well, there was the bath before dinner, not to mention this wonderful catechism class at the catholic school. But they did come, those Spanish intruders. And now never heard before names like “Franco”, “Allende”, “Women’s Lib”, “abortion”, the lot, have got into my life. Daddy and Mummy have suddenly become “communists”, although this a term that Bon Papa and Bonne Maman (my grandparents from Bordeaux, in fact) just hate. Because of the intruders not only did we move to a tiny apartment but the place is invaded day and night by “barbudos” (bearded men). No more bath before …
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Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) Alex Gibney, John Beard, Tim Belden, Barbara Boxer, Documentary

Enron The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
Enron dives from the seventh largest US company to bankruptcy in less than a year in this tale told chronologically. The emphasis is on human drama, from suicide to 20,000 people sacked: the personalities of Ken Lay (with Falwellesque rectitude), Jeff Skilling (he of big ideas), Lou Pai (gone with $250 M), and Andy Fastow (the dark prince) dominate. Along the way, we watch Enron game California’s deregulated electricity market, get a free pass from Arthur Andersen (which okays the dubious mark-to-market accounting), use greed to manipulate banks and brokerages (Merrill Lynch fires the analyst who questions Enron’s rise), and hear from both Presidents Bush what great guys these are.
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The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday (1976) Don Taylor, Lee Marvin, Oliver Reed, Robert Culp, Comedy, Western

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Sam Longwood, a frontiersman who has seen better days, spies the gold-mine partner, Jack Colby, who ran off with all the gold from a mine they were prospecting fifteen years earlier. He tells his other partners from that time, Joe Knox and Billy, and they confront Colby demanding not only the thousand dollars he took but an addition fifty-nine thousand for their trouble. After being thwarted in this attempt, they, and a would-be whore named Thursday, hatch a plan to kidnap Colby’s wife, Nancy Sue, who is coincidently Sam’s old flame, but find that Nancy Sue is not the sweet girl that Sam remembers.
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Within Our Gates (1920) Oscar Micheaux, Evelyn Preer, Flo Clements, James D. Ruffin, Drama, Romance

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Southern negro Sylvia Landry visits her cousin Alma in the north, where there is less racial prejudice than in her home town of Piney Woods in the deep south, and is anxiously awaiting her fiancé, Conrad. But Alma has designs on Conrad and tricks Sylvia into a compromising situation when he arrives, and he abandons her. Disheartened, she returns to Piney Woods to help a reverend running a school for young negroes. Sylvia learns that the reverend hasn’t the heart to turn away poor students, and unless he can raise $5,000 to supplement the $1.49 per child per year that the state supplies, the school will be closed. She goes up north again to try to raise the money and has little success, but meets kindly negro, Dr. V. Vivian, who helps her regain her stolen purse. When she saves a child from being hit by an auto, she herself is slightly injured. But the owner of the car is philanthropist Mrs. Elena Warwick, who is sympathetic to her quest and promises to donate the $5,000 to the school…
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Viy / Viy or Spirit of Evil (1967) Konstantin Ershov, Georgiy Kropachyov, Leonid Kuravlyov, Natalya Varley, Aleksey Glazyrin, Drama, Fantasy, Horror

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Getting lost, wandering home whilst on leave from his seminary, novice monk Khoma stays in the barn of an old woman. A scuffle breaks out. Later, he is summoned to stand and pray over a young dead woman, in the local church, for three nights. It is here that, while in the long, dark nights of the locked doors, the dead regain life, the souls of Hell taunt the young monk to near terrifying insanity, and the test of Faith will be as powerful as the witches, monsters and the mighty demon Viy who haunt his every step and bay for his very soul.
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L’innocente / The Innocent (1976) Luchino Visconti, Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli, Jennifer O’Neill, Drama, Romance

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Luchino Visconti’s last film based on a novella by Gabrielle d’Annunzio is a haunting account of aristocratic chauvinism and sexual double standards in turn of the century Italy. Giannini as the psichotic husband whose lust cannot be satisfied. Antonelli as his sensitive and tormented wife and O’Neil as cunning possesive mistress.
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Nøgle hus spejl / Key House Mirror (2015) Michael Noer, Ghita Nørby, Sven Wollter, Trine Pallesen, Drama, Romance

noegle-hus-spejl-aka-key-house-mirror-2015
Lily and Max have been married for more than 50 years. Now they live together in a nursing home, where Max has been reliant on professional care since his stroke. Lily has been putting her own needs aside and is desperately longing for excitement and intimacy in her life. When a man known as “the Pilot” moves in next door, Lily is immediately charmed by him and his passion for life. But neither her family nor the other residents at the nursing home are fond of her new acquaintance. Misunderstood by her family and trapped in her life with Max, Lily decides to fight to escape the bars of her invisible prison and claim her freedom.
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