Tag Archives: 2000s

Paloma de papel / Paper Dove (2003) Fabrizio Aguilar

Paloma de papel (2003)
Juan, a young man convicted of terrorism, is given amnesty from a Lima prison; he boards a bus to return home and, in his mind’s eye, recalls events in his village near Huaraz when he was 10 or 12. His father is long dead, his mother lives with Fermin, secretly a sympathizer with the Communist guerrillas in the hills. Town leaders are assassinated at night. When Juan discovers Fermin’s secret, Juan is spirited away to the guerrillas to learn Marxist slogans and how to fight. When the band decides to attack the town to avenge the death of a comrade, Juan must choose. There are no white hats on any side: critical thought without love of life bears no fruit, writes Erich Fromm.
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Anklaget / Accused (2005) Jacob Thuesen

Anklaget (2005)
On the surface Henrik and Nina Christofferson are an ordinary family living happily. But they have a problem. Their daughter, Stine, a difficult 14 year old, has a habit of telling lies in class. When Stine accuses her father of sexual abuse, and is believed by seemingly eager social workers, their family is thrust into crisis. Could Henrik have done it? And when Stine prepares to return home, the ugly side of family life is exposed.
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La doublure / The Valet (2006) Francis Veber

La doublure (2006)
A Parisian valet loves a woman who rejects him: she’s in debt to open a bookshop, and he’s not her ideal man. A billionaire two-times his wealthy wife with his beautiful mistress, a young supermodel. To draw the paparazzi and his wife off the trail of adultery, and to give his lawyer time to arrange a divorce that won’t cost him a fortune, the billionaire pays the supermodel and the valet to pretend for a month to be a couple. Within days, the bookshop owner and the billionaire are jealous, the supermodel experiences life with a nice guy, and the valet has status and self-confidence. What will each do with newfound wisdom?
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Adam Resurrected (2008) Paul Schrader

Adam Resurrected (2008)
“Adam Resurrected” follows the story of Adam Stein, a charismatic patient at a mental institution for Holocaust survivors in Israel, 1961. He reads minds and confounds his doctors, lead by Nathan Gross. Before the war, in Berlin, Adam was an entertainer–cabaret impresario, circus owner, magician, musician–loved by audiences and Nazis alike until he finds himself in a concentration camp, confronted by Commandant Klein. Adam survives the camp by becoming the Commandant’s “dog”, entertaining him while his wife and daughter are sent off to die. Years later we find him at the Institute. One day, Adam smells something, hears a sound. “Who brought a dog in here?” he asks Gross. Gross denies there is a dog but Adam finds him–a young boy raised in a basement on a chain. Adam and the boy see and recognize each other as dogs–and their journey begins. “Adam Resurrected” is the story of a man who once was a dog who meets a dog who once was a boy.
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Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) Steven Shainberg

Fur An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006)
In 1958, in New York City, the upper class Diane Arbus is a frustrated and lonely woman with a conventional marriage with two daughters. Her husband is a photographer sponsored by the wealthy parents of Diane, and she works as his assistant. When Lionel Sweeney, a mysterious man with hypertrichosis (a.k.a. werewolf syndrome, a disease that causes excessive body hair), comes to live in the apartment in the upper floor, Diane feels a great attraction for him and is introduced to the world of freaks and marginalized people, falling in love with Lionel.
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Was tun, wenn’s brennt? / What to Do in Case of Fire (2001) Gregor Schnitzler, Klaus Löwitsch, Til Schweiger, Martin Feifel, Action, Comedy, Drama

Was tun, wenn's brennt (2001)
What To Do In Case of Fire? tells the humorous and touching story of six former creative anarchists who lived as house squatters in Berlin during its heyday in the 80s when Berlin was still an island in the middle of the former eastern Germany. At the end of the 80s they went their separate ways with the exception of Tim and Hotte, who have remained true to their ideals and continue to fight the issues they did as a group. In 2000, with Berlin as Germany’s new capital, an event happens forcing the group out of existential reason to reunite and, ultimately, come to grips with the reason they separated 12 years ago.
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Hamesh shaot me’Pariz / Five Hours from Paris (2009) Leonid Prudovsky, Vladimir Friedman, Efim Gelman, Ohad Gil, Drama

Hamesh shaot me'Pariz (2009)
Only 5 flight hours from Paris, in a working-class suburb of Tel Aviv, two people meet. He is a bred-and-born Israeli and she is a Russian immigrant. He is a taxi driver and she is a music teacher. He has no aspirations. She gave up hers long ago. He is afraid of flying and she is about to fly away. What are the odds of them ending up together?
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Elles étaient cinq / The Five of Us (2004) Ghyslaine Côté, Jacinthe Laguë, Julie Deslauriers, Ingrid Falaise, Crime, Drama

Elles etaient cinq (2004)
In Montreal, the teenagers Manon, Anne, Isa, Claudie and Sophie are friends since their childhood. While spending a couple of days in the cottage of Sophie’s parents nearby a lake, the girls decide to give a party, and Manon and Sophie hitch for a ride to the town in a jeep to buy some beers and supplies and they invite the driver to the party. On the return, the same driver stops the car and later Sophie is found stabbed, raped and covered of blood. Fifteen years later, Manon sees the guy in a car-wash and she invites her former friends to return to the house nearby the lake, where wounds of their traumatic loss are disclosed.
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L’uomo che verrà / The Man Who Will Come (2009) Giorgio Diritti, Maya Sansa, Alba Rohrwacher, Eleonora Mazzoni

L'uomo che verra (2009)
Winter 1943. Martina is small child, who stopped talking since the death of her infant brother some years before. She lives in a rural area of central Italy. Her mother is pregnant again and Martina lives for the arrival of her new brother. Meanwhile, the war is getting closer and closer, forcing the people of the village to tread a difficult path, torn between the partisan brigades and the Nazi Army. On practically the same day as the birth of Martina’s brother, the SS start a massive roundup of civilians in the area, an infamous event that will come to be known as the Marzabotto massacre during which more than 770 people were killed in houses, cemeteries and churches.
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Klass / The Class (2007) Ilmar Raag, Vallo Kirs, Pärt Uusberg, Lauri Pedaja

Klass (2007)
Kaspar and the class pushover Joosep are 16 and life in high school isn’t easy. Without meaning to, Kaspar defends Joosep against the bullying of his classmates, but every time Kaspar tries to him, it backfires, with the class taking it out on Joosep. Kaspar just wants his friends, his girl and his unassuming life back. Joosep wants to regain his dignity and the chance to switch to a high school far away. But their classmates are relentless, going further and further with each incident.
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A propósito de Buenos Aires (2006) Manuel Ferrari, Alejo Franzetti, Maria Abadi, Mariana Chaud, Inés Efron

A proposito de Buenos Aires (2006)
From the port of Santa Maria of Buenos Aires, the city as a desert where we can not expect mercy or no relief. Black and sound vessels. Orchestral trains. Abandoned children. Lights of methylene blue. Theater lobbies. Broad avenues. Straight narrow streets. Studies outdated. Air collisions. Smokeless chimneys. Identical letters. Furtive encounters. Prefabricated swamps. Slimy beds. Prohibited Islands. Almost a million books. Stone angels. Allegorical stones. Songwriters locals body and soul. Deceptions. Robberies. Scams. Black and white images of a dead Buenos Aires. Eleven directors collective experiment with thirty two characters over a city of five parts: Traps. The money. Desert. Lights. The dead. Temperate and relatives, the remains of a shipwreck: Speaking of Buenos Aires. These young directors met to collaborate on this unusual project, not only for its technical specifications, but for its narrative structure. There are several scenes joined together only by the city. None of these has come to define a unique story, each is part of a larger situation that we see, as if the beginning and end of each story should be completed by the viewer. Or rather, as if there were no need to begin and end because, ultimately, this is nothing more than the conventional way of telling stories.
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