Earning his keep at a photography studio where he also sleeps, an orphan aspires to be closer to the object of his affection, an older girl from a higher social class.
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Drama
The Poll Diaries / Poll (2010) Chris Kraus, Paula Beer, Edgar Selge, Tambet Tuisk
In the summer of 1914, thirteen-year-old Oda von Siering (Paula Beer) leaves Berlin to join her family and an assortment of German and Russian aristocrats on an estate in Estonia. The von Siering family home is a character in its own right, a hulking, neoclassical manor that hovers on stilts above the sea. Oda arrives there bearing her mother’s coffin and a gift requested by her surgeon father: a jarred, two-headed fetus to add to his laboratory of gruesome curiosities. Ebbo von Siering (Edgar Selge) sees himself in his daughter when she calmly and expertly learns to suture the corpse of a cat. What he fails to recognize – and what Oda luckily understands – is that their interest in science is their only similarity. His dedication to experimentation is linked to an appalling obsession with power and destruction, while Oda is genuinely curious about life. Her quick, quiet intelligence complements her humanity and her lucid understanding of right and wrong. When she strays from a family…
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Yoen dokufuden: Hitokiri okatsu (1969) Nobuo Nakagawa, Junko Miyazono, Reiko Ônobuta, Kô Nishimura
Okatsu, the daughter of a katana instructor must avenge a judge who rapes and kills his father. Next to the wild Rui, will conduct a bloody persecution.
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L’assedio / Besieged (1998) Thandie Newton, David Thewlis, Claudio Santamaria, Bernardo Bertolucci
When an African dictator jails her husband, Shandurai goes into exile in Italy, studying medicine and keeping house for Mr. Kinsky, an eccentric English pianist and composer. She lives in one room of his Roman palazzo. He besieges her with flowers, gifts, and music, declaring passionately that he loves her, would go to Africa with her, would do anything for her. “What do you know of Africa?,” she asks, then, in anguish, shouts, “Get my husband out of jail!” The rest of the film plays out the implications of this scene and leaves Shandurai with a choice.
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The Comedians (1967) Peter Glenville, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Alec Guinness
Set in the Haiti of “Papa Doc” Duvalier, The Comedians tells the story of a sardonic Welsh hotel owner and his encroaching fatalism as he watches Haiti sink into barbarism and poverty. Complications include his inability to sell the hotel so he can leave, a friendship with a rebel leader, some politically “charged” hotel guests, an affair with the German-born wife of a South American ambassador, and the manipulations of a British arms dealer who’s in over his head.
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Hin helgu vé / Pojkdrömmar / The Sacred Mound (1993) Hrafn Gunnlaugsson, Steinþór Rafn Matthíasson, Alda Sigurðardóttir, Helgi Skúlason
On a small island in the west of Island, Gestur, only seven years old, falls in love with 20 years old Helga. When she introduces him her fiancée one day, he decides to fight the competitor with traditional Wicking weapons.
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Árido Movie (2005) Lírio Ferreira, Guilherme Weber, Giulia Gam, José Dumont
Weatherman from a TV network goes back to his hometown, Vale da Rocha, a place in Northeast Brazil, devastated by the drought. He is forced to face the geographic elements and his own memories.
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La porta del cielo (1945) Vittorio De Sica, Marina Berti, Elettra Druscovich, Massimo Girotti
Story about the pilgrimage to Loreto train a group of sick and maimed.
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Une femme à sa fenêtre (1976) Granier-Deferre, Romy Schneider, Philippe Noiret, Victor Lanoux
On August 4, 1936, General Metaxas declared martial law in Greece. A union leader using the name Boutros is sought in Athens by Primoukis, a ruthless police leader. Boutros narrowly escapes and, early the next morning, jumps through the window of Marchese Margot Santorini, the wealthy Austrian-born wife of Rico, a penniless Italian diplomat and playboy. Margot is bored and without purpose: aiding Boutros’s escape invigorates her, and soon she is in love. The film briefly jumps to 1945 when Rico and Raoul (who assisted her out of love) meet in France to talk about her fate, and then jumps 30 years to Margot’s daughter’s visit to Greece to find out about her father.
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À ma soeur! / Fat Girl (2001) Catherine Breillat, Anaïs Reboux, Roxane Mesquida, Libero De Rienzo
A Ma Soeur! is a provocative and shocking drama about sibling rivalry, family discord and relationships. Elena is 15, beautiful and flirtatious. Her less confident sister, Anais, is 12, and constantly eats. On holiday, Elena meets a young Italian student who is determined to seduce her. Anais is forced to watch in silence, conspiring with the lovers, but harbouring jealousy and similar desires. Their actions, however, have unforeseen tragic consequences for the whole family.
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