In Rappaport’s dazzling and bizarre feature-length debut, he focuses on states of imaginative possession and dispossession, demonstrating how impossible it is to separate fantasies, dreams, and realities.
Three parallel love stories set in three different cities are set against some of the major international events of the last five years, in this ambitious.
During the Thirty Years' War, the camp-follower Anna Fierling, called "Mother Courage", travels the length and breadth of Europe with her covered wagon. She does not care if it's Catholics or Protestants she trades with as long as business thrives. She loses her three children as a result of the war: bold and spirited Eilif, sincere and upright Swiss Cheese and mute Katrin, who saves the children of Halle by beating a drum on a farmstead roof In wartime, the Fierling children's virtues prove to be deadly. Yet, Mother Courage, remains incorrigible. She will not have anyone "spoil the war" for her and so sets out once more after the soldiers with her wagon.
Kathe Kollwitz was 47 years old, and already a well established artist in Germany and abroad when Peter, her youngest son, volunteered to join the German army in WWI and was killed two weeks later. This painful tragedy changed Kollwitz's life and art forever.
A day in the life of Lina, a young girl from Port-Louis, capital of Mauritius, seen through the eyes of the cathedral. A day that will not be the same as the rest when an unexpected meeting brings Lina face to face with reality and she is forced her to make a choice.
Nebraska in the 1880's: bleak, lonely, and far from what you'd expect The Wild West to be. But for a naive Swedish immigrant, the frontier parlor of THE BLUE HOTEL represents the quintessential western fantasy. No one can convince The Swede that his dime-store notions about The West are foolish. He sees murderous intentions all around him and in his terror he turns everybody against him. Inevitably, the Swede attracts tragedy. However, who is responsible? The negative Swede? Or the cliquish hotel guests? Jan Kadar directs this timely story of how society punishes outsiders for being different.
A group of high school teens steal a van full of music equipment and pretend to be a band called "Truckstop" in order to stay on the road. When the band starts playing gigs, their sound is largely inconsistent and incoherent, however, over time the band becomes increasingly competent in their musicianship.
This historical drama tells the story of Qin Shihuang, who unified China's vast territory and declared himself emperor in 221 B.C. During his reign, he introduced sweeping reforms, built a vast network of roads and connected the Great Wall of China. From the grandiose inner sanctum of Emperor Qin's royal palace, to fierce battles with feudal kings, this film re-creates the glory and the terror of the Qin Dynasty, including footage of Qin's life-sized terra cotta army, constructed 2,200 years ago for his tomb.
The story centers on a devout Muslim, Faco, who tries to run his two-wife household in the traditional way. The trouble begins when his ambitious younger son, Kalifa lapses and gets involved with his older brother's hoodlum friends. Kalifa then gives them his money and soon loses his job. The city has a curfew at night and only those with a highly-prized identity card are allowed out. Police rigorously patrol the streets in search of whores and people without cards. One homeless, unemployed man, Oussou, decides to earn the card by becoming a stoolie for the cops, and snitches on Kalifa's older brother, precipitating a police raid of Faco's home that results in their finding a cache of illegal drugs. Faco and the older son are both stripped naked and thrown in jail. Suddenly Faco finds himself brutalized and humiliated by his Muslim brothers. Meanwhile, the dark-skinned daughter of a white storekeeper, with a lust for black hookers, sets off to find her real mother.
In 1995, several cargo containers are discovered high in the Bolivian Andes. Inside are potentially toxic chemicals, and local policeman Mariscal soon becomes charged with the task of smuggling the containers into neighboring Chile. He recommissions an old train to haul the toxic waste out of Bolivia, but encounters one mishap after another, beginning with the local townspeople who know what's inside, halting the train's path.
Inge Herold is in her mid-thirties. She is divorced and lives with her 15-year-old son. She works as a psychologist and social worker and is involved with a married man. Suddenly, Inge finds out she may have breast cancer, which would mean an operation the very next day. The 24 hours before the planned surgery puts her under enormous psychological pressure and she begins to reevaluate her life. With heightened awareness of matters of everyday life, she realizes that what she previously considered meaningful, was actually void of any real meaning.
Susanne and Christian get to know each other during a wonderful week in summer - and fall in love. This, however, leads to conflicts: up to now, Susanne has been living with Wolfgang, a biologist. This shared life was harmonious and based on mutual trust. Wolfgang is not only resolute and in full command of social situations; he has also always been the stabilizing force in the relationship. This is precisely why Susanne now feels drawn to the unsettled, unsteady and frivolous Christian, the complete opposite of the calm, well-balanced Wolfgang. And Christian, working as a shift boss on a natural gas derrick, has become more aware of his personal and social responsibilities as a result of loving Susanne.
A young and successful insurance underwriter must allow her mentally unstable mother to move in with her after the institution in which the mother had been living is deemed unfit for occupancy. The mother then begins to dislike how close her daughter is with her boss.
Far North Queensland, 1955. Deep in the untamed frontier tough rancher Lance Dillon and his sensual, but bored wife, battle inhospitable nature to eke out a living from their cattle herd. When the aborigines kill the Dillon's prize bull a chase begins that will culminate in bloody tragedy with Lance pitted against Mandaru - an aborigine struggling to maintain his cultural way of life
A story about a Tongan hunter named, Flying Fox, who is instructed to set out on a journey by his village chief, Singing Whale , to learn about his strengths as a man. During his journey he meets two warring villages and attempts to mediate their differences. Flying Fox applies the lessons he learned on his journey when he returns to his home village to find trouble.
After selling herself at fourteen to a brothel inside her home town of Svay Pak, Mien takes an undesired path all over Cambodia for the remainder of her teenage life. At twenty, her path crosses with a group of people fighting to make a difference, bringing her long and onerous journey back to face where it all began. The Pink Room is an intertwined story of the heart-rending, epic battle to end sex slavery, from rescue to prevention, and experiencing first hand, the need to change not just individuals, but the communities they come from. Most documentaries on trafficking only bring awareness to the problem. This film bring awareness to the solutions.
In rural Nicaragua, Dulce Maria and her brother Francisco are Deaf adults who know no language at all--spoken, written or signed--until Tomasa, a Deaf sign-language teacher, arrives determined to teach them their first words.
Melba is a Californian trailer-park girl who is told to look for three kings by a phone psychic, and when she meets three guys - Trent, Brad and Joel traveling to Las Vegas, she decides they are those kings and joins them on their trip.
Tim Murphy is a Vietnam Vet. When he loses his job he starts to relive all the pain and horror of his time in Vietnam. The stresses and strains nearly destroy his marriage and his family. Only after joining a veterans' therapy group does Tim find relief from his nightmares. With the support of his fellow vets and the love of his wife, Tim recovers. Written by Pfyre Caidmon