The Song of the Shirt
Adaptation of a poem written by Thomas Hood.
Filmmaker-griot coming from the theater, it was with a camera, while the war in Vietnam occupied everyone's minds, that Sarah Maldoror gave visibility to the African wars of decolonization: Angola, Guinea Bissau, French Guinea, Cape Verde... Her short film Monangambée addresses the torture by the Portuguese army of a sympathizer of the Angolan resistance. At the end of editing, Sarah Maldoror approached the members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago during a Parisian concert and offered to add sound to her film. The next day they watched the film, were convinced and recorded their first soundtrack for free as evidence of African-American solidarity. Shot in Algiers, Monangambée is a film about torture and, more broadly, about the incomprehension between the colonized and the colonizers. It is based on a novel by the Angolan writer Luandino Vieira, then imprisoned by the Portuguese colonial power.
Adaptation of a poem written by Thomas Hood.
Diogo Alves is a Spanish fugitive that comes to the Portuguese capital terrorizing the inhabitants by his cut-throat methods against rich and poor people alike. He attacks the women launderers on the Lisbon Aqueduct and throws the bodies over the high wall, and assaults homes with his large band of criminals. Eventually arrested, he, his female companion and his henchmen are condemned to death by the court.
Accompanied by a lilting soundtrack, characters wander through London's concrete jungle as the narrator reflects on the current state of the city and her imagined future.
A group of migrants from the drought areas of Northeastern of Brazil gets a truck "pau-de-arara" trying to move to São Paulo and have a better life. Along their travel, one of the women delivers a baby on the road. The driver, indeed, intends to carry them to the slave-work in the fields of a powerful "colonel", but the brave Ana faces the foreman of the farm and the driver, and the truck follows to the hired final destination.
Mike, a young hired hand in California is working a small farm with a close friend, Dan. Mike is content on the farm and obviously attracted to the handsome Dan. Dan seems to be attracted to Mike as well but is a drifter and not happy as a farmer. He longs to finish out the contract and move on to a big city, perhaps with Mike. Gary, a boy from the next farm over, befriends them during their daily chores. When an innocent session of skinny-dipping is misconstrued, the young hired hands soon find themselves unjustly suspected of wrongdoing in a suddenly hostile small town.
A big-city cop is reassigned to the country after his superiors find him too angry to be an effective policeman. While on his temporary assignment he assists in a manhunt of a suspected murderer.
In 1899, Lord Kang must decide which of his three sons will take over his family's Chinese banking empire. When circumstances dictate that he appoint his unreliable youngest son, family bonds are pushed to the limit as father and son clash in a climate of political turmoil. Winner of the Special Jury Award at the 2009 Shanghai International Film Festival.
In Cairo on her own as she waits for her husband, Juliette finds herself caught in a whirlwind romance with his friend Tareq, a retired cop. As Tareq escorts Juliette around the city, they find themselves in the middle of a brief affair that catches them both unawares.
Tala, a London-based Palestinian, is preparing for her elaborate Middle Eastern wedding when she meets Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating her best friend. Spirited Christian Tala and shy Muslim Leyla could not be more different from each other, but the attraction is immediate and goes deeper than friendship. But Tala is not ready to accept the implications of the choice her heart has made for her and escapes back to Jordan, while Leyla tries to move on with her new-found life, to the shock of her tradition-loving parents. As Tala's wedding day approaches, simmering tensions come to boiling point and the pressure mounts for Tala to be true to herself.
During his rehabilitation in a municipal swimming pool, a man has to learn how to cope with his new body though he is not ready to accept it. The physiotherapist accompanying him will try to bridge the distance that the man maintains both with his body and the swimming pool environment.
When Aziza finally shares a recurring dream, it’s what she leaves unsaid that reveals her fractured sense of self. Aziza’s dream – in which she must sing a song – takes her on a journey through the post-industrial hills of the American Rust Belt, the eternal fields of Egypt, and the most repressed parts of her mind.
Based on author's childhood memories of the devastating 1988 Spitak earthquake. The father and his two young kids are left without a home and above all, the disaster had claimed the life of their beloved mother and wife. After painful quest to find her body and give her a proper burial, by the new year's eve the family is settled in a makeshift home near the wreckage of their home. While his daughter and son are still playing and merging the disaster into their games, the father for the sake of his children struggles to find strength and heart to live on.
In the summer of 1976, a shared family yard becomes the setting, as the adults bicker over selling the garden and the kids are free to explore the mysterious neighboring lot. Then they hear about a girl that has disappeared...
Separate We Come, Separate We Go is the story of a 10-year-old girl, Thea who escapes her bleak domestic life to find sanctuary in the surreal desert landscape of Dungeness. Roaming around the barren skeletons of boats and abandoned fishing huts, she is increasingly aware of her loneliness and vulnerability. Seemingly out of nowhere a man (David Thewlis) appears; she is so intrigued by him she defies all lessons taught about strangers and approaches him. As they walk and talk she discovers he is a widower and has lost his son; she realises she is not alone in experiencing loss. He notices her sadness and unusual maturity and decides to help lift her out of her melancholy. Through the metaphor of the freedom of flying birds, he shows her that life does have exciting possibilities. This redemptive story shows that in life you should not allow fear to limit your horizons.
A teenager from an abusive household falls in love with a free-spirited runaway that leads him into the fast-lane lifestyle of drugs and addiction which threatens to destroy him.
After a concert, Jaguar and Javier go to collect a delivery, but they don't have in mind that this will put their friendship to the test.
Lily, a little girl, prepares a party for her father while she is in the care of her cousin Teo, who completes her idea of family.
Marina, who was a primary school teacher in life, emerges seriously injured from a lake and after a long journey, arrives at the school where she once worked.
Communication is complicated. He tries to talk to her, but she seems unreachable. It’s unimaginable: she’s right on the other side of the table. When she tries to talk, it’s the same. At a time when “communication” is one of the great leitmotifs!
Sebastian is 24 years old, his mother is dying of cancer, and their relationship is in tatters. All he has left are escape fantasies and memories of happier times.