A girl in traditional female clothing, with her arm in plaster, comes out of school one day and doesn’t find her mother meeting her. She decides to travel home herself though she doesn’t know her address and remembers the road only visually.
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Tag Archives: 1990s
Witchcraft / Myrkrahöfðinginn (1999) Hrafn Gunnlaugsson, Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Hallgrímur H. Helgason, Stefan Jorgen, Drama
The young and fanatical Jon is appointed pastor to a remote church in 17th century Iceland. As is custom, he marries the widow of his predecessor, a woman much older than he is. He is ardent in his fight against Satan, and the villagers don’t dare to question his authority. When he falls for a beautiful young woman, Jon is convinced witchcraft is at work, and his crusade leads to cruel executions of innocent people. The stronger his lust, the deeper his madness drives him in his religious fervor.
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Virdzina / Virgina (1991) Srdjan Karanovic, Miodrag Krivokapic, Ina Gogálová, Slobodan Milovanovic, Drama
The story takes place in Yugoslavia at the end of the 19th century, in an isolated village near the Adriatic sea. Because of the extreme patriarchal culture there is a superstition that families without male heirs are cursed. When the wife of a farmer gives birth to their fourth daughter, father decides that the child will be brought up to become a so-called “Virgina” and that she will live as a man, so that she can work and be the family heir. This heartbreaking story of Virginas life is told with strong words, augmented with harsh inviroment.
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As Bodas de Deus / The Spousals of God / God’s Wedding (1999) João César Monteiro, Rita Durão, Joana Azevedo, Comedy
All seems lost. And then, in an old, lonely and icy park two shadowy figures meet: those of Deus and a Messenger from God. The Messenger gives the crook (the temporary state of poor João de Deus) a suitcase stuffed with money. His mission accomplished, the Messenger leaves. João counts the bank notes. The silent waters of a nearby lake are disturbed when a heavy object plunges in. João goes to see what is happening. A young girl (Joana) is drowning. João throws himself into the water and carries the unconscious Joana off to a convent (Capucines?). How Responsible! João de Deus returns to the park to recover the case and its precious contents: happily, nothing has been touched…
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American Masters: A Conversation with Gregory Peck (1999) Barbara Kopple, Gregory Peck, Cecilia Peck, Veronique Peck, Documentary, Biography
In 1999, Gregory Peck (1916-2003) visits the Barter Theatre, Abingdon, VA, where he had acted in 1940 and where this evening he tells stories and answers questions about his career. Interspersed are clips from Peck’s films and from interviews recorded over the years and vérité contemporary footage of visiting with his daughter Cecilia before and after the birth of her son, receiving the National Medal of Arts, chatting with Lauren Bacall and with Martin Scorsese, and dining with Jacques Chirac, always with his wife of forty-four years, Veronique Passani, beside him. Throughout, Peck is informal, candid, and wry.
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In weiter Ferne, so nah! / Faraway, So Close! (1993) Wim Wenders, Otto Sander, Bruno Ganz, Peter Falk, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
In Faraway, So Close! angels watch over the people of Berlin. The world weighs heavily upon these men and women. Their attachment to things diminishes their desire for the invisible. As one angel laments, “It’s so exhausting to love people who run away from us.”
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Abe ichizoku / The Abe Clan (1995) Kinji Fukasaku, Yumi Asô, Mariko Fuji, Renji Ishibashi, Drama, Action
A Choice between Loyalty or Duty of the Samurai! Can the heartlessness of society crush the honor of an individual? In the spring of the 18th year of Kanei (Feb/30/1624 – Dec/16/1644), Hosokawa Tadatoshi, feudal lord of the Higo area, died. Although Tadatoshi forbade his vassals to follow him in death before he died, they still committed seppuku one after the other. The new feudal lord, Mitsunao, Tadatoshi’s son, also gave the order forbidding seppuku. Abe Yaichiemon obeyed his former lord’s last wish but is now being called a coward by his comrades and finally decided to follow Tadatoshi in death in order to save his family’s honor. Mitsunao, upset by Yaichiemon actions, punished the Abe family unfairly. Objected to this, the Abe family shut themselves up in their manor as the lords troops moved in… This is the true story of what happened within the Hosokawa clan in early Edo era. A masterpiece by director Kinji Fukasaku that boldly depicts the struggle between humanity and the code of the Samurai.
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Kamia sympatheia gia ton Diavolo / No Sympathy for the Devil (1997) Dimitris Athanitis, Kostas Kazanas, Lena Kitsopoulou, Giorgos Kotanidis, Romance, Sci-Fi
A romance of extremes in Athens tomorrow. A cashier finds true love in the face of a young waitress who has just been released from prison. When he looses her, he travels all the way to get her back.
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Woman In Lust (1993) Drama, Crime, Sexploitation, Erotic
Anna for her boyfriend Steven, when at the expense of the dancers, and the earned money is given to Steven to do business, hope one day to live a normal life, but the original love Stephen is a liar…
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Trois vies et une seule mort / Three Lives and Only One Death (1996) Raoul Ruiz, Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Galiena, Marisa Paredes, Comedy, Crime
Take a walk into the weird world of filmmaker Raul Ruiz as he takes us to Paris for a twisted ride. A man which shares four names and four personalities (which is the real one?) is the link between four different, yet similar, stories involving love, lust, crime, and time.
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Farewell My Concubine (1993) Kaige Chen, Leslie Cheung, Fengyi Zhang, Li Gong, Drama, Romance, Music
In 1924, young Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) begins training at the Beijing Opera House at the same time as Duan Xiaolou (Fengyi Zhang). Cheng specializes in playing female parts, often against Duan’s commanding male leads. While pretending to be in love with Duan onstage, Cheng begins to develop actual romantic feelings for his co-star, which are not reciprocated. Over the next 50 years, the two men maintain a complicated friendship as China undergoes turbulent changes.
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Kyua / Cure (1997) Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Masato Hagiwara, Kôji Yakusho, Tsuyoshi Ujiki, Crime, Horror, Mystery
A wave of gruesome murders is sweeping Tokyo. The only connection is a bloody X carved into the neck of each of the victims. In each case, the murderer is found near the victim and remembers nothing of the crime. Detective Takabe and psychologist Sakuma are called in to figure out the connection, but their investigation goes nowhere. An odd young man is arrested near the scene of the latest murder, who has a strange effect on everyone who comes into contact with him. Detective Takabe starts a series of interrogations to determine the man’s connection with the killings.
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Leila (1997) Dariush Mehrjui, Leila Hatami, Ali Mosaffa, Jamileh Sheikhi, Drama, Romance
Leila and Reza meet in a kind of celebration and fall for each other. Having discovered their love, they get married soon only to find out the infertility of Leila. That’s when Reza’s authoritative mother starts wheedling Leila to persuade Reza into second marriage for the sake of having a grandchild. Leila accepts at first but is unaware of her own strain threshold.
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A Month by the Lake (1995) John Irvin, Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Fox, Uma Thurman, Comedy, Drama, Romance
For 16 years Miss Bentley has been spending April at an elegant hillside villa on Lake Como. This year, 1937, her London society artist father has recently died and the only other English-speaking guests are brash Americans. Then Major Wilshaw arrives. He suggests they meet for cocktails and Miss Bentley stands him up – not even thinking about it – as she helps the new nanny of an Italian family settle in. Miss Beaumont, a tall, young American who has dropped out of finishing school in Switzerland, is bored and finds some amusement in flirting with the major, whose libido is awakened for the first time since before the great war. And Miss Bentley now finds more about the major to admire than his ears.
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Eleftheri katadysi / Love Knot (1995) Giorgos Panousopoulos, Karyofyllia Karabeti, Alekos Sissovitis, Valeria Christodoulidou, Drama, Romance
Story about a tempestuous love affair taking place on a Greek island between a diver and two women, one of them married and the other just out of prison.
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