Tag Archives: 2000s

Tam, a timid loner, is bullied regularly by his fellow pupils at school. He is met with similar rejection and suspicion within the narrow confines of his parents’ dingy home, where his father beats him. One day Tam arranges online to meet Phum at a derelict swimming pool. They are both looking for sex, but their encounter leaves them with a feeling of comfort and security. A close bond develops between the two boys and, before long, they are roaming the rubbish heaps and dark corners of the city together, day and night. Phum opens a door for Tam, revealing a fantastical parallel universe full of spirits and dangerous encounters. Although he feels safe and loved for the first time in his life, Tam can no longer differentiate between dream and reality and finds himself increasingly drawn into a spiral of paranoia and violence. In his feature debut Boonyawatana leads his protagonist into an ambiguous microcosm full of chasms, at the same time cleverly toying with the conventions of different genres.
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Fernando arrives at the island of Menorca and gets embroiled in the comedic misadventures of various of its inhabitants.
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Thirteen men and one woman look back at gay life and sex in Manhattan and Fire Island – from Stonewall (June, 1969) to the first reporting on AIDS (June, 1981). They describe the rapid move from repression to celebration, from the removal of shame to joy, the on-going search for “someone,” the freedom before AIDS, the friendships, and brotherhood. They take us through cruising and sex in public places, the drug scene, the bars and the baths, the birth of entertainment and dance clubs, and starry nights on Fire Island. Photographs, home movies, newsreels, and film clips illustrate the story. A few contemporary “what did the 70’s mean?” man-in-the-street takes end the documentary.
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Jonas is already head of the family at just 12 years of age. He has been helping his two younger siblings and supporting his mother, Sabine, since his father left. Sabine is very loving towards her children but she often loses her patience and disappears into her room for the day. Mysterious demons drive her to spend a weekend away to relax in the “sunny valley”. But the weekend grows into weeks in which the three children hear nothing from their mother. Food and money have long since run out, the house has become more and more like a haunted castle: a spiderweb house. Jonas tries his best to maintain the appearance of an intact family. On the hunt for something to eat, he meets a young man, Felix Count of Gütersloh, who speaks in rhymes and declares himself to be not quite right in the head. Rather like a guardian angel, he takes Jonas under his wing and shows him how to get by in a world without adults. The film is less a social drama than a modern-day fairy tale shot in black and white. The audience is immersed in the eerily beautiful world of the children which unfolds its own particular magic.
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Jack-of-all-trades director Miike Takashi takes on more serious material in the human drama The Lion Standing in the Wind about the experiences of a Japanese doctor in Africa. Featuring location shooting in Kenya, the film is based on Sada Masashi’s novel and song Kaze ni Tatsu Lion, which were inspired by the true story of a Japanese doctor who operated a mobile clinic in the African nation.
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Autumn of 1982, in a small town on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. A story about two childhood friends staying together through the Cultural Revolution.
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The story started in high school. Su Yunjin (Liu Yifei) is a struggling transfer student from a regional town, while rich heir Cheng Zheng (Kris Wu) is the star student who sits behind her. He fell in love with her and started to pursue her all the way through college, even though they studied and lived in different cities. Cheng Zheng was ultimately successful in pursuing Su Yunjin, who willed herself to follow her heart for once, even though she knew there would be many obstacles in their way. Soon, they were basking in happiness, and subsequently moved in together after university. However, reality caught up with them two years after graduation. Their vastly different personalities and disparate family background meant their relationship was unequal from the very beginning – their unspoken expectations of each other and all the misunderstandings that came with a mundane lifestyle caused them to part ways with each other.[3] A few years later, both of them establish successful careers, and end up living in the same neighborhood, thus meeting and getting entangled in each other’s lives again. They both try to move on with different relationships, but are unsuccessful. When Su Yunjin loses her mother to cancer, Cheng Zheng is the only one to comfort her, causing the former to rekindle their relationship.
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In nineteenth century Yorkshire wealthy orphan Anne Lister lives with an aunt and uncle, anxious for her to marry well and blissfully – unaware that she is a lesbian. Anne is recording her thoughts and exploits in a coded diary. When her lover Mariana Belcombe makes a marriage of convenience to rich old Charles Lawton she feels betrayed and, although Mariana visits her,the relationship is going nowhere. Helped by old flame Tib she makes a play for innocent Miss Browne but sees she is barking up the wrong tree and diverts herself by renovating the family hall. A drunken Tib almost exposes her secret and scornful mine-owner Christopher Rawson, whose marriage proposal she rejects, tells her that her sexuality is a subject of local gossip….
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Julien and Marguerite de Ravalet, son and daughter of the Lord of Tourlaville, have loved each other since childhood. But as they grow up, their affection veers toward voracious passion. Scandalized by their affair, society hounds them until, unable to resist their feelings, they flee. A contemporary fairytale about desire, passion, hope, love and death.
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Hisamatsu’s son Hayato lives an honest, crime-free life but is best friends with Ogoshi’s son Daisuke, who’s still working as a bodyguard for the gang. It all kicks off when a reporter asks Hayato’s mother to reveal the truth about the original attack on the Goseikei, and soon history is threatening to repeat itself.
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Several intertwining stories explore the true meaning of “proper love”. A filmmaker dedicates himself to stop cheating on girlfriends. Meanwhile, a man intends to buy a gift for a part-time employee at the filmmaker’s favorite cafe, but instead falls in love with a shopkeeper. A longtime fan of a pop idol finally gets a chance to meet her after 10 years of pining. Unfortunately, she’s meeting him for the first time just as she’s about to get married…
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Manu and Nadine lose their last tenuous relationship with main-stream society when Manu gets raped and Nadine sees her only friend being shot. After a chance encounter, they embark on an explosive journey of sex and murder. Perhaps as a revenge against men, perhaps as a revolt against bourgeois society, but certainly in a negation – almost joyful in its senseless violence – of all the codes of a society which has excluded, raped and humiliated them. Controversial for its violence and real sex scenes: a vividly nihilist road movie set in France.
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The epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman, last survivor of his people, and two scientists that, over the course of 40 years, travel through the Amazon in search of a sacred plant that can heal them. Inspired by the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes.
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Jacob Petersen has dedicated his life to helping street children in India. When the orphanage he heads is threatened by closure, he receives an unusual offer. A Danish businessman, Jørgen, offers him a donation of $4 million dollars. There are, however, certain conditions… Not only must Jacob return to Denmark, he must also take part in the wedding of Jørgen’s daughter. The wedding proves to be a critical juncture between past and future and catapults Jacob into the most intense dilemma of his life.
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The story of 50-something Pavlos unfolds in an unspecified modern-day Greek city, portraying the man’s midlife crisis with a light and gently ironic tone. Pavlos takes over custodial duties from his aging mother and immediately has to deal with a disaster involving a sewage pipe. The fix-it job becomes complicated and creates an apt parallel to Pavlos’s increasingly complicated personal circumstances. At heart Pavlos is gracious and kind, and he tries to be a good husband, son, and building manager. But the ensuing state of affairs turns him into a morose and angry man whose nerves sometimes snap. Will Pavlos succeed in fixing the broken sewage pipe before he can fix his own “broken” life? Director and screenwriter Periklis Hoursoglou, who plays the lead role, has shot a drama with comic touches and gentle socio-critical accents. Hoursoglou succeeds in creating a faithful, entertaining, and even touching portrait of “ordinary” interpersonal relations.
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