Tag Archives: 2000s

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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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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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 Studies outdated.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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Iris finds a new job working in a preservation lab where she gradually enters into a troubled relationship with her boss.
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A ruthless gang led by private detective Joseph Plender is extorting rich people and famous fashion photographer Vincent Mandel seems the next victim. He is married to Hélène, daughter of one of the richest people in Europe, but not quite happily. In fact the marriage is on the brink of a divorce and a judge is deciding who will take the two children. Can Hélène take them to Germany or will they stay with Vincent? Vincent has a lot on his mind and he improvises when model Sofia Kippiani comes to his studio, but his makeup crew doesn’t show up. Before he knows it, he is accused of a rape. Things go worse and worse for Vincent, he sees his entire life slipping away and, most importantly, he might lose his children. But why does his former schoolmate Joseph Plender seek contact with Vincent and even solve a nasty problem for him? Does Plender want something more than money?
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The local disability support group visits an involuntary member, not realizing that it will bring them to a critical mass.
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Munich, 1918. German-Jew Max Rothman has returned to much of his pre-war life which includes to his wife Nina and their two children, to his mistress Liselore von Peltz, and to his work as an art dealer. He has however not returned to being an aspiring painter as he lost his dominant right arm during the war. He is approached by an aspiring painter, a thirty-year old Austrian war veteran named Adolf Hitler, who wants him to show his works. Although he doesn’t think the paintings are all that original and he doesn’t really like Hitler as a person, Rothman takes Hitler under his wings if only because of their camaraderie of being war veterans, and knowing that Hitler had nothing and no one to come back to after the war unlike himself. Rothman believes that Hitler has promise if only he can find his original artistic point of view. In part out of need for money, Hitler, on the urging of Captain Karl Mayr, agrees to work for the army as a political spokesman in anti-Semitic propaganda.
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The movie is based on a true story. On 16 March 1978 Aldo Moro, the former Italian Prime Minister was kidnapped in Via Fani by the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades), a militant Communist Italian group. He was the main supporter of the Compromesso Storico (Hystorical Compromise), which had to lead to the first Italian government supported by both the Christian Democrats and the Communists, in a period of social, economic and political crises. During the attack his five escort agents were all killed. Moro’s corpse was found on 9 May 1978 in a car parked in a street between the headquarters of the Christian Democrat Party and the Communist Party. This movie is inspired by this tragic event which traumatize the whole nation. It focuses mainly on the relationship between the prisoner and his guards through the eyes of Chiara, the young woman whose role is to guard the prisoner. The movie portraits Chiara’s life (her job as a librarian, the ordinary household) on one side and the political …
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Rebirth of a nation. Not since Genghis Khan has anyone united the Kazakh tribes. Jungar tribesmen of Mongolia rule Kazakh land, but a prophecy has it that a descendant of Genghis will unite his people. Oraz the Wise travels the land looking for the child who will fulfill the prophecy. He finds that infant and protects him from the warriors of Galdan, the Jungar king. Oraz recruits one lad from each Kazakh tribe and teaches them the art of war, loyalty, and camaraderie. Two are the best: Mansur and Erali. They are like brothers. Each must prove himself; both fall in love with the same young woman; both fall into enemy hands. At what cost does a prophecy come to pass?
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A father (Michel Piccoli) is scheming to have his slightly mental daughter from an earlier marriage (Elsa Zylberstein) killed by allowing a murderous psychopath (Bernard Giraudeau) to be released from the asylum and led to his house. However, the psychopath and the daughter fall for each other.
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