Movie Releases by Genre
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Bill W.
May 18, 2012
Bill W. tells the story of William G. Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, a man included in TIME Magazine's "100 Persons of the 20th Century." Interviews, recreations, and rare archival material reveal how Bill Wilson, a hopeless drunk near death from his alcoholism, found a way out of his own addiction and then forged a path for countless others to follow. With Bill as its driving force, A.A. grew from a handful of men to a worldwide fellowship of over 2 million men and women – a success that made him an icon within A.A., but also an alcoholic unable to be a member of the very society he had created. A reluctant hero, Bill Wilson lived a life of sacrifice and service, and left a legacy that continues every day, all around the world. (Page 124 Productions)
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Portrait of Wally
May 11, 2012
"Portrait of Wally”, Egon Schiele’s tender picture of his mistress, Walburga (“Wally”) Neuzil, is the pride of the Leopold Museum in Vienna. But for 13 years the painting was locked up in New York, caught in a legal battle between the Austrian museum and the Jewish family from whom the Nazis seized the painting in 1939. Portrait of Wally traces the history of this iconic image – from Schiele’s gesture of affection toward his young lover, to the theft of the painting from Lea Bondi, a Jewish art dealer fleeing Vienna for her life, to the post-war confusion and subterfuge that evoke "The Third Man", to the surprise resurfacing of “Wally” on loan to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan in 1997. (7th Art Releasing)
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Under African Skies
May 11, 2012
Paul Simon’s Grammy-winning album Graceland – an irresistible and groundbreaking fusion of American and South African pop music — was an immediate hit when it was released in 1986. It also proved to be a lightning rod for controversy, after South African leaders protested that Simon had broken the cultural boycott of the nation’s oppressively racist apartheid regime. In the documentary Under African Skies, premiering at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, Simon returns to South Africa, which formally ended apartheid in 1994 — 25 years after Graceland‘s release. Director Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory) follows Simon as he reunites with his South African collaborators, and revisits the controversy the album caused, while luminaries like Oprah Winfrey, Quincy Jones, Lorne Michaels, David Bryne and Sir Paul McCartney share their thoughts on what the album meant to them. (Radical Media)
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The Observers
May 10, 2012
The Observers is based on the actual work of the crew of the Mount Washington Weather Observatory -- one of the oldest weather stations in the world where staff members have taken hourly readings of the wind speed and temperature since 1932. In 1934, the staff recorded a wind speed of 231 mph --the highest wind speed ever recorded by a human being. (Jacqueline Gross Films)
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Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale
April 27, 2012
During the Japanese rule of Taiwan, the Seediq were forced to lose their own culture and give up their faith. Men were subject to harsh labor and kept from traditional hunting; whereas women had to serve the Japanese policemen and their families by doing the household work and giving up their traditional weaving work. Above all, they were forbidden to tattoo their faces. And these tattoos were seen as the Seediq's traditional belief to transform themselves into Seediq Bale.. Mona Rudao, the protagonist, witnessed the repression by the Japanese over a period of 30 years. Sometime between autumn and winter 1930, when the slave labor is at its harshest, a young Seediq couple are married and a joyful party is thrown. At the same time, a newly appointed Japanese policeman goes on his inspection tour to this tribe. Mona Rudao's first son, Tado Mona, offers wine to the policeman with gusto, but is in return beaten up because his hands were considered not clean enough. With anger, Tado Mona and his brother Baso Mona attack the policeman. And from that day onward, their tribe is living in the shadow of being the object of revenge by the Japanese. In a few days, a group of youth surround Mona Rudao. They strongly request him to lead the retaliation against the Japanese. Mona Rudao struggles for a long time between extending his fellow's lives and fighting back for dignity, until he sees these youngster's faces - clear without Seediq's tattoos - that he made up his mind. He tells the youngsters, "Japanese troops out-number the stones in Dakusui River, more intensive than the leaves in the forest, but my determination fighting them is ever stronger than Mt. Kire." "Children! On the tip of the Rainbow Bridge led to home of our ancestor's spirits, there is another beautiful hunting range. Our ancestors are all there! Remember, only brave spirits can enter this place, and we can never lose it. My fellows, let us hunt the heads of our enemies, and we wash our spirits with blood so that we walk the Rainbow Bridge to be always with our ancestors." The film Seediq Bale depicts the Wushe Incident, which occurred in central Taiwan during the Japanese rule. When the Seediq Bale, believing in the Rainbow, and the Japanese, believing in the Sun, met one another, they fought. The leader of Seediq Bale, Mona Rudao, led 300 warriors fighting against 3000 Japanese troopers. The only thing they forgot was whether it was the Rainbow or the Sun they believed in; they actually believed in the same sky.
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Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story
April 27, 2012
While filming a documentary in Mississippi in 1965, Frank De Felitta forever changed the life of an African-American waiter and his family. In 2011, Frank's son returns to the Delta to examine the repercussions of that fateful encounter.
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Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment
April 25, 2012
Inventing Our Life examines the 100 year history of Israel's kibbutz movement, one of the world's longest running and most successful experiments in pure communism. Recreating its glorious past and chronicling its recent decline, Inventing Our Life focuses on the heartbreak and hope of the modern kibbutz, as a new generation struggles to insure its survival. Can a radically socialist institution survive a new market-driven reality with its ideological integrity intact? How will this affect the lives of the tens of thousands of people who still believe in the kibbutz experiment and continue to call it home? As the film progresses, the drama shifts from Can it survive? to Yes, but at what price?
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My Way
April 20, 2012
After emerging as bitter rivals and enemies as young marathon runners, Korean native Kim Jun-shik and Japanese aristocrat Tatsuo Hasegawa both find themselves in the Japanese army, fighting the Chinese and Soviets in a bloody battle. Jun-shik is there under duress, while Tatsuo is a powerful colonel. After both are taken prisoner by the Soviets, their mutual hatred and mistrust boils over into a violence that is only stopped by the continuing horror of the war. Forced to fight for the Soviets, the two eventually rely on each other for survival, making it to Germany, where they are in turn separated and forced to fight for the Nazis. They meet again at Normandy Beach, both unlikely survivors, bonded together by history as they struggle to survive one more terrible battle as the Allies arrive on D-Day. (CJ Entertainment)
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MIS Human Secret Weapon
April 6, 2012
This film will explore an untold chapter in Japanese American history and the values of “Peace”. It describes how the MIS contributed to America’s victory and to Japan’s recovery after the World War II ended. (MIS FILM Partners)
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The Beat Hotel
March 30, 2012
1957. The Latin Quarter, Paris. A cheap no-name hotel became a haven for a new breed of artists fleeing the conformity and censorship of America. The hotel soon turned into an epicenter of Beat writing that produced some of the most important works of the Beat generation. It came to be known as the Beat Hotel. Alan Govenar’s feature documentary The Beat Hotel explores this amazing place and time. (First Run Features)
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An Encounter with Simone Weil
March 23, 2012
The film tells the story of French philosopher, activist, and mystic, Simone Weil (1909-1943)-- a woman Albert Camus described as "the only great spirit of our time." On her quest to understand Simone Weil, filmmaker Julia Haslett confronts profound questions of moral responsibility both within her own family and the larger world. From the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War to anti-war protests in Washington DC, from intimate exchanges between the filmmaker and her older brother who struggles with depression to captivating interviews with people who knew Simone Weil, the film takes us on an unforgettable journey into the heart of what it means to be a compassionate human being. (Line Street Productions)
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Pray for Japan
March 16, 2012
On March 11, 2011, Japan’s Tohoku coastal region was destroyed by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and devastating tsunami that followed. Pray for Japan takes place in the devastated region of Ishinomaki, Miyagi – the largest coastal city in Tohoku with a population of over 160,000 people. Filmmaker Stu Levy – an American living in Japan - filmed the tsunami aftermath during his trips to Tohoku as a volunteer and over a period of 6 weeks, captured over 50 hours of footage. (AMC Theatres)
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The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
January 20, 2012
It began as a housing marvel. Built in 1956, Pruitt-Igoe was heralded as the model public housing project of the future, "the poor man's penthouse." Two decades later, it ended in rubble - its razing an iconic event that the architectural theorist Charles Jencks famously called the death of modernism. The footage and images of its implosion have helped to perpetuate a myth of failure, a failure that has been used to critique Modernist architecture, attack public assistance programs, and stigmatize public housing residents. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth seeks to set the historical record straight. To examine the interests involved in Pruitt-Igoe's creation. To re-evaluate the rumors and the stigma. To implode the myth. (First Run Features)
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Red Tails
January 20, 2012
Red Tails begins its story with World War II in full swing. As the war continues to take its toll on Allied Forces in Europe, the Pentagon brass, desperate to protect their dwindling numbers of bombers look to an option previously considered unthinkable. At long last they give The Tuskegee Airmen the chance to prove themselves in battle and forever put to rest the misplaced belief that blacks lacked the courage, discipline and intelligence to be fighter pilots. Against all the odds, with something to prove and everything to lose, these intrepid young airmen take to the skies in awe inspiring displays of bravery and heroism to fight for their country and with it, the fate of the free world. (20th Century Fox)
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The Flowers of War
December 21, 2011
An unprincipled American is caught in the turmoil of China during the 1937 invasion by Japan. Seeking refuge in a Catholic Church, he meets up with a courtesan desperate to protect a group of schoolgirls from the vicious onslaught. Putting aside his usual selfish tendencies, the American risks everything to help them.
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An African Election
December 2, 2011
The 2008 presidential elections in Ghana, West Africa, serve as a backdrop for this feature documentary that looks behind-the-scenes at the complex, political machinery of a third world democracy struggling to legitimize itself to its first world contemporaries. At stake in this race are the fates of two political parties that will do almost anything to win. Director Jarreth Merz follows the key players for almost three months to provide an unprecedented insider’s view of the political, economic and social forces at work in Ghana. He builds suspense by taking the viewer down the back roads of the nation to capture each unexpected twist and turn in a contest that is always exciting and never predictable. Throughout the film, Merz depicts the pride and humanity of the larger-than-life politicians, party operatives and citizens who battle for the soul of their country. (Urban Republic)
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Coriolanus
December 2, 2011
Caius Martius ‘Coriolanus', a revered and feared Roman General is at odds with the city of Rome and his fellow citizens. Pushed by his controlling and ambitious mother Volumnia to seek the exalted and powerful position of Consul, he is loath to ingratiate himself with the masses whose votes he needs in order to secure the office. When the public refuses to support him, Coriolanus’s anger prompts a riot that culminates in his expulsion from Rome. The banished hero then allies himself with his sworn enemy Tullus Aufidius to take his revenge on the city. [The Weinstein Company]
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Garbo: The Spy
November 18, 2011
The Allies called him Garbo. The Nazis dubbed him Alaric. Both sides in World War II were sure Juan Pujol Garcia was their man. In reality, Pujol was a double agent - and his final allegiance was to the Allies. From the relative comfort of Lisbon, Garbo fed false information to the Nazis and fabricated a network of phantom agents across Europe. Although he never fired a single shot, Garbo helped to save thousands of lives, most notably by misinforming the Germans about the timing and location of the Normandy D-Day invasion. In his inexhaustible imagination he even went so far as to secure death benefits from the Nazis for an imaginary agent's nonexistent widow. (First Run Features)
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God's Fiddler: Jascha Heifetz
November 11, 2011
Not since Paganini had there been such a magician on the violin.
In this revealing documentary about the legendary musician we see vintage filmed performance clips of Jascha Heifetz and learn that he was the first truly modern violin virtuoso, the man about whom Itzhak Perlman said, “When I spoke with him, I thought, ‘I can’t believe I’m talking with God’.” This insightful film portrays an artist for whom only perfection would do, a musical wunderkind who went on to set the standards for nearly a century. We get to know Jascha Heifetz through home movies and personal family photos taken from 1903-1987, a prestigious concert artist so well known in popular culture, his name became shorthand for greatness, for everyone from Jack Benny to The Muppets to Woody Allen. This unique program includes interviews with the great violinists of his generation, and from many of his former students, telling how Heifetz was a legendary but mysterious figure whose story embodies the dual nature of artistic genius: the paradox of how a mortal man lives with immortal gifts - gifts he must honor, but which extract a life long price. (Kultur International Films)
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Paul Goodman Changed My Life
October 19, 2011
Paul Goodman was once so ubiquitous in the American zeitgeist that he merited a “cameo” in Woody Allenʼs Annie Hall. Author of legendary bestseller Growing Up Absurd (1960), Goodman was also a poet, 1940s out queer, pacifist, visionary, co-founder of Gestalt therapy—and a moral compass for many in the burgeoning counterculture of the ‘60s. Paul Goodman Changed My Life immerses you in an era of high intellect when New York was peaking culturally and artistically; when ideas, and the people who propounded them, seemed to punch in at a higher weight class than they do now. (Zeitgeist Films)
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1911
October 7, 2011
During a period war epic set during the 1911 uprisings in China, Huang Xin leads of a burgeoning revolution that aims to upend the reign of the Qing Dynasty. After a disastrous attempt to attack the Royal Army resulting in hundreds of casualties, the revolutionaries regroup to figure out how, and if, they stand a chance against the well-armed royals. (Variance Films)
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The Sons of Tennessee Williams
October 7, 2011
Mardi Gras, drag balls and politics–where else could these elements come together but in New Orleans? Interweaving archival footage and contemporary interviews, The Sons of Tennessee Williams charts the evolution of the gay Mardi Gras krewe scene over the decades, illuminating the ways in which its emergence was a seminal factor in the cause of gay liberation in the South. (First Run Features)
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The Nine Muses
October 6, 2011
Structured as an allegorical fable and loosely inspired by existential science fiction, The Nine Muses is a stylised, unusual and idiosyncratic retelling of the history of mass migration to post-war Britain through the suggestive lens of Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. Divided into nine overlapping musical chapters and mixing a vast array of archival material, The Nine Muses is a modern recasting of Homer’s epic as a tone poem about journeys, migration, memory and the power of elegy. The film deploys the ‘voices’ of a remarkable range of period and contemporary actors reading classical texts by Nietzsche, Dante, Shakespeare or Beckett, from John Barrymore to Richard Burton, Dermot Crowley, or Teresa Gallagher among others. The Nine Muses also offers a dizzying range of musical performances from Paul Robeson, Leontyne Price and India’s Gundecha Brothers, with a range of music by Arvo Pärt, Wagner as well as Schubert’s stunning Winterreise. The Nine Muses is a feast for the eyes and the ears, a virtuoso exercise in montage and sound. (New Wave Films)
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Hell and Back Again
October 1, 2011
In 2009, U.S. Marines launched a major helicopter assault on a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan. Within hours of being dropped deep behind enemy lines, 25-year-old Sergeant Nathan Harris’s unit is attacked from all sides. Embedded in Echo Company during the assault, photojournalist and filmmaker Danfung Dennis captures the frontline action with visceral immediacy. When Sergeant Harris returns home to North Carolina after a life-threatening injury in battle, the film evolves from stunning war reportage to the story of one man’s personal apocalypse. With the love and support of his wife, Ashley, Harris struggles to overcome the difficulties of transitioning back to civilian life. The two realities seamlessly intertwine to communicate both the extraordinary drama of war and, for a generation of soldiers, the no-less-difficult experience of returning home. An unprecedented exploration of the moving image and a film of uncommon intimacy, Hell and Back Again comes full circle as it lays bare the true cost of war. (Docurama Films)
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American Teacher
September 30, 2011
The Teacher Salary Project encompasses a feature-length documentary film, an interactive online resource, and a national outreach campaign that delves into the core of our educational crisis as seen through the eyes and experiences of our nation's teachers. This project is based on the New York Times bestselling book Teachers Have It Easy by journalist and teacher Daniel Moulthrop, co-founder of the 826 National writing programs Nínive Calegari, and writer Dave Eggers. (First Run Features)
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You Don't Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantanamo
September 30, 2011
This encounter between a team of Canadian intelligence agents and a child detainee in Guantánamo has never before been seen. Based on seven hours of video footage recently declassified by the Canadian courts this documentary delves into the unfolding high-stakes game of cat and mouse between captor and captive over a four day period. Maintaining the surveillance camera style this film analyzes the political, legal and scientific aspects of a forced dialogue. (Films Transit International)
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There Was Once...
September 23, 2011
This film is about a Catholic high school teacher in Kalocsa, Hungary who while doing research in local history discovers the lost Jewish community that once thrived there. She shares her research with her students, teaching tolerance, fighting prejudice. She organized a memorial for this lost community, which was attended by the Mayor, the Archbishop, several survivors and second and third generations. At the same time the neo-Nazi party of Hungary held a demonstration and a young girl visiting from New York was hit by a sling shot while attending a memorial service at the newly restored Jewish cemetery. (Gabor Kalman Films)
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The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby
September 23, 2011
A son's riveting look at a father whose life seemed straight out of a spy thriller, The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby uncovers the secret world of a legendary CIA spymaster. Told by William Colby’s son Carl, the story is at once a probing history of the CIA, a personal memoir of a family living in clandestine shadows, and an inquiry into the hard costs of a nation's most cloaked actions. From the beginning of his career as an OSS officer parachuting into Nazi-occupied Europe, William Colby rose through the ranks of "The Company," and soon was involved in covert operations in hot spots around the globe. He swayed elections against the Communists in Italy, oversaw the coup against President Diem in Saigon, and ran the controversial Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which sparked today's legacy of counter-insurgency. But after decades of obediently taking on the White House's toughest and dirtiest assignments, and rising to become Director of CIA, Colby defied the President. Braving intense controversy, he opened up to Congress some of the agency's darkest, most tightly held secrets and extra-legal operations. (First Run Features)
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In Search of God
September 23, 2011
Rupam Sarmah’s documentary In Search of God recounts the adventure of an American girl, Kavita, who embarks on a spiritual journey back to her ancestral homeland. After a life of unfulfilling materialism and superficiality, her heart calls her to seek out a greater truth. Upon a friend’s suggestion, she travels to Majuli Island, a large but remote river island in India. There she discovers a magical wonderland where culture is deeply embedded with performing arts, through centuries of tradition in music, dance, and simple spiritual lives. Along her journey, Kavita encounters a variety of fascinating holy people. A young monk named Ram guides her through an array of temples, tribal villages, and memorable dance and musical performances. Immersed into the stirring culture and religion, she gradually finds that her heart is awakening to something remarkably profound. (RJ Productions International)
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Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure
September 16, 2011
When two friends tape-recorded the fights of their violently noisy neighbors, they accidentally created one of the world's first 'viral' pop-culture sensations.
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Position Among the Stars
September 15, 2011
Twelve years ago, Dutch filmmaker Retel Helmrich decided to visit Indonesia, the birthplace of his Dutch father and Indonesian mother, looking for inspiration. The trip ignited his fascination with the country and he started filming the Shamshudin family living in a Jakarta slum. He followed them as the country shook off the rule of president Suharto, experienced a rise of Islamic power and eventually nascent democracy, corruption and a widening income gap. (HBO Films)
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The Mill and the Cross
September 14, 2011
Pieter Bruegel’s epic masterpiece The Way To Calvary depicts the story of Christ’s Passion set in Flanders under brutal Spanish occupation in the year 1564, the very year Bruegel created his
painting. From among the more than five hundred figures that fill Bruegel’s remarkable canvas, The Mill & The Cross focuses on a dozen characters whose life stories unfold and intertwine in a panoramic landscape populated by villagers and red-caped horsemen. Among them are Bruegel himself, his friend and art collector Nicholas Jonghelinck, and the Virgin Mary. (Silesia Film)
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Granito: How to Nail a Dictator
September 14, 2011
Sometimes a film makes history; it doesn’t just document it. So it is with Granito: How to Nail a Dictator”, the astonishing new film by Pamela Yates. Part political thriller, part memoir, Yates transports us back in time through a riveting, haunting tale of genocide and returns to the present with a cast of characters joined by destiny and the quest to bring a malevolent dictator to justice. (Skylight Pictures)
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Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football
September 9, 2011
Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football, an award-winning documentary, follows a predominately Arab-American high school football team from a working-class Detroit suburb as they practice for their big cross-town rivalry game during Ramadan, revealing a community holding onto its Islamic faith and the American Dream while struggling for acceptance in post 9/11 America. (AMC Independent)
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Tales from the Golden Age
August 26, 2011
The final 15 years of the Ceausescu regime were the worst in Romania's history. Nonetheless, the propaganda machine of that time referred without fail to that period as “the golden age”...
Tales From the Golden Age adapts for screen the most popular urban myths of the period. Comic, bizarre, surprising myths abounded, myths that drew on the often surreal events of everyday life under the communist regime. Humor is what kept Romanians alive, and Tales From the Golden Age aims to re-capture that mood, portraying the survival of a nation having to face every day the twisted logic of a dictatorship. On the occasion of Ceausescu's working visits, countryside mayors ended up hanging fruit in trees to make sure their villages would be noticed, obeying even the strangest orders from the ferocious Party activists. Communist Party secret regulations stated that in official pictures President Ceausescu couldn't take his hat off in front of the representatives of the rotten capitalistic world, President d'Estaing included. A professional driver decides to open his sealed truck for the first time in his career and discovers the connection between eggs, Easter and marital love. A policeman gets a live pig as gift before Christmas and decides that gas poisoning would be the best way to kill the animal silently amongst his hungry neighbors. In 1980s Romania, Bughi and Crina play Bonnie and Clyde, robbing people of bottled air. Tales From the Golden Agecombines several true stories to portray an era during which food was more important than money, freedom more important than love and survival more important than principles. (IFC Films)
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Impolex
July 15, 2011
Impolex tells the story of Tyrone S., a United States soldier in Operation Paperclip, the mission to locate and retrieve German rockets and rocket science after the end of World War II. Tyrone is tasked with finding what he believes are the last V-2’s. Lost in the woods of an undefined European country, people from Tyrone’s past begin to appear in unusual ways, bearing strange tidings. A loved one he abandoned for the war is especially prominent in Tyrone’s journey, as is a fellow soldier and a mysterious man with tidings of the present and the future that are not yet known to Tyrone. (Impolex Productions)
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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
July 15, 2011
In 19th-century China, seven year old girls Snow Flower and Lily are matched as laotong – or "old sames" – bound together for eternity. Isolated by their families, they furtively communicate by taking turns writing in a secret language, nu shu, between the folds of a white silk fan.In a parallel story in present day Shanghai, the laotong's descendants, Nina and Sophia, struggle to maintain the intimacy of their own childhood friendship in the face of demanding careers, complicated love lives, and a relentlessly evolving Shanghai. Drawing on the lessons of the past, the two modern women must understand the story of their ancestral connection, hidden from them in the folds of the antique white silk fan, or risk losing one another forever.What unfolds are two stories, generations apart, but everlasting in their universal notion of love, hope and friendship.(Fox Searchlight Pictures)
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Polytechnique
June 29, 2011
Based on the testimonies of the survivors that experienced the dramatic event at the Polytechnic School of Montreal on December 6th 1989, the film tells the story of two students whose lives are rocked when a dying young man breaks into the school with the intention of taking as many women as he can into death with him. [Remstar Distribution]
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Beginning of the Great Revival
June 24, 2011
A chronicle of the events that led to the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
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Passione
June 22, 2011
When acclaimed actor-director John Turturro was invited to make a film about Neapolitan music he was intrigued, as an Italian-American who’d grown up with many of the swooning ballads that had become popularized. But when he revisited the place from where these songs had come, and met the artists living there carrying on the tradition, he was completely blown away. Preconceived ideas evaporated and what was meant to be a straight-ahead
documentary transformed into a wild fantasia, an adventure into the vibrations of history. In the film’s 23 songs, you can hear the cultures of the city’s many invaders, the Greeks, Arabs, French, Spanish, Normans, and Americans. Eight centuries echo in the aqueducts in “The Song of the Washerwomen.” In “Tammuriata Nera,” WWII is relived as Al Dexter’s
twang collides with the primal roar of Peppe Barra. “O Sole Mio” becomes blend of goldenage television performances and the North African vibe, and “Malafemmena” is portrayed for the first time in all its irony, in the context of its very inspiration. The song “Vesuvio” is performed only as it can be by those who live at the foot of the volcano bearing that name.
Each song, whether written in protest or superstition, out of love, jealousy, or poverty, is an emotional postcard about what has changed and what has not. As we see, a solitary voice on the street can cause an entire intersection to break out into song. Passione is Turturro’s
celebration of a city intensely alive. He has let the film come directly out of the people, the walls that surround them, and the land they inhabit. (Beta Cinema)
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If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
June 22, 2011
In December 2005, Daniel McGowan was arrested by Federal agents in a nationwide sweep of radical environmentalists involved with the Earth Liberation Front-- a group the FBI has called America’s “number one domestic terrorism threat.” For years, the ELF—operating in separate anonymous cells without any central leadership—had launched spectacular arsons against dozens of businesses they accused of destroying the environment: timber companies, SUV dealerships, wild horse slaughterhouses, and a $12 million ski lodge at Vail, Colorado. With the arrest of Daniel and thirteen others, the government had cracked what was probably the largest ELF cell in America and brought down the group responsible for the
very first ELF arsons in this country. If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front tells the remarkable story of the rise and fall of this ELF cell, by focusing on the transformation and radicalization of one of its members. Part coming-of-age tale, part cops-and-robbers thriller, the film interweaves a verite chronicle of Daniel on house arrest as he faces life in prison, with a dramatic recounting of the events that led to his involvement with the group. And along the way it asks hard questions about environmentalism, activism, and the way we define terrorism. Drawing from striking archival footage -- much of it never before seen -- and intimate interviews with ELF members, and with the prosecutor and detective who were chasing them, If a Tree Falls explores the tumultuous period from 1995 until early 2001 when environmentalists were clashing with timber companies and law enforcement, and the word “terrorism” had not yet been altered by 9/11. (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
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The Broken Tower
June 20, 2011
A biography of American poet Hart Crane who committed suicide at the age of 32 by jumping off the steamship SS Orizaba.
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Empire of Silver
June 2, 2011
China, 1899. In a land of exquisite beauty and timeless tradition a young man known as 'Third Master' is the heir to a banking fortune he cares little about. However, after his brother's wife is kidnapped he reluctantly submits to the pressure of his title and his father, Lord Kang. The fate of the banking empire and its most powerful family now lies with one idealistic young man torn between the needs of the people, the duty to his family, and the undying love of a woman. (China Lion)
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True Legend
May 13, 2011
Yuen Woo Ping brings you TRUE LEGEND, a heart pounding epic about the timeless battle between good and evil. Su Can’s respectable life is obliterated when his vengeful brother, Yuan, returns from war armed with the deadly Five Venom Fists. Weakened but not destroyed, Su Can learns a never-before-seen form of martial arts: the Drunken Fist. Armed with this new power, he returns home to honor his family through retribution by taking on his brother in a battle to become the ultimate warrior. Packed with distinct fighting styles. (Indomina Releasing)
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Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
May 13, 2011
Fifty years after winning the Pulitzer Prize, To Kill a Mockingbird remains a beloved bestseller and quite possibly the most influential American novel of the 20th Century. Nearly one million copies are sold each year and the novel has been translated into more than forty languages worldwide. The film version, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, won a trio of Academy Awards, and the U.S. Postal Service's new stamp honoring Peck depicts him wearing glasses, as Finch. Behind it all was a young Southern girl named Nelle Harper Lee, who once said that she wanted to be South Alabama's Jane Austen. Hey, Boo explores Lee's life and unravels some of the mysteries surrounding her, including why she never published again. Containing never-before-seen photos and letters and an exclusive interview with Lee’s sister, Alice Finch Lee, the film also brings to light the context and history of the novel's Deep South setting and the social changes it inspired after publication. (First Run Features)
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City of Life and Death
May 11, 2011
In December 1937, the Imperial Japanese Army laid siege to the Chinese capital of Nanking, killing as many as 300,000 citizens during a six-week reign of terror, the details of which Japan and China dispute to this day. Shot in dazzling black-and-white Cinemascope, City of Life and Death is a visionary re-telling of one of the most horrific chapters in modern Asian history, and an unforgettable masterpiece of contemporary world cinema. (Kino International)
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Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story
May 6, 2011
Under the Boardwalk focuses on the MONOPOLY national and world championships that are held around the world every four years. Leading up to the exciting coronation of a new champion at the most recent World Championship in Las Vegas, the filmmakers follow some of the most colorful players in the game. (Tostie Productions)
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Cave of Forgotten Dreams
April 29, 2011
For over 20,000 years, Chauvet Cave has been completely sealed off by a fallen rock face, its crystal-encrusted interior as large as a football field and strewn with the petrified remains of giant ice age mammals. In 1994, scientists discovered the caverns, and found hundreds of pristine paintings within, spectacular artwork dating back over 30,000 years (almost twice as old as any previous finds) to a time when Neanderthals still roamed the earth and cave bears, mammoths, and ice age lions were the dominant populations of Europe. Since then, only a handful of specialists have stepped foot in the cave, and the true scope of its contents had largely gone unfelt—until Werner Herzog managed to gain access. Filming in 3D, Herzog captures the wonder and beauty of one of the most awe-inspiring sites on earth, all the while musing in his inimitable fashion about its original inhabitants, the birth of art, and the curious people surrounding the caves today. (IFC Films)
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Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
April 22, 2011
Seven years after the apparent death of Chen Zhen, who was shot after discovering who was responsible for his teacher's death (Huo Yuanjia) in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. A mysterious stranger arrives from overseas and befriends a local mafia boss. That man is a disguised Chen Zhen, who intends to infiltrate the mob when they form an alliance with the Japanese. Disguising himself as a caped fighter by night, Chen intends to take out everyone involved as well as get his hands on an assassination list prepared by the Japanese.
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The Princess of Montpensier
April 15, 2011
In The Princess of Montpensier, acclaimed filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier directs a spectacular cast in a riveting, lush romantic drama set in the high courts of 16th Century France. Against the backdrop of the savage Catholic/Protestant wars, Marie de Mézières, a beautiful young aristocrat, finds herself married to a young prince she does not love, haunted by a rakish suitor Gaspard Ulliel from her childhood, and advised by an aging nobleman Lambert Wilson, harboring his own forbidden desire for her. The Princess of Montpensier must struggle passionately to stay alive in the intrigue of this corrupt political and romantic web of duty, passion, religion and war. (IFC Films)
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My Perestroika
March 23, 2011
My Perestroika follows five ordinary Russians living in extraordinary times — from their sheltered Soviet childhood, to the collapse of the Soviet Union during their teenage years, to the constantly shifting political landscape of post-Soviet Russia. Together, these childhood classmates paint a complex picture of the dreams and disillusionment of those raised behind the Iron Curtain. (Red Square Productions)
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Winter in Wartime
March 18, 2011
Near the end of World War II, 14-year-old Michiel becomes involved with the Resistance after coming to the aid of a wounded British soldier. With the conflict coming to an end, Michiel comes of age and learns of the stark difference between adventure fantasy and the ugly realities of war. (Sony Pictures Classics)
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The Desert of Forbidden Art
March 11, 2011
How does art survive in a time of oppression? During the Soviet rule artists who stay true to their vision are executed, sent to mental hospitals or Gulags. Their plight inspires young Igor Savitsky. He pretends to buy state-approved art but instead daringly rescues 40,000 forbidden fellow artist's works and creates a museum in the desert of Uzbekistan, far from the watchful eyes of the KGB. Though a penniless artist himself, he cajoles the cash to pay for the art from the same authorities who are banning it. Savitsky amasses an eclectic mix of Russian Avant-Garde art. But his greatest discovery is an unknown school of artists who settle in Uzbekistan after the Russian revolution of 1917, encountering a unique Islamic culture, as exotic to them as Tahiti was for Gauguin. They develop a startlingly original style, fusing European modernism with centuries-old Eastern traditions. (inMotion Studios)
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Of Gods and Men
February 25, 2011
Eight French Christian monks live in harmony with their Muslim brothers in a monastery perched in the mountains of North Africa in the 1990s. When a crew of foreign workers is massacred by an Islamic fundamentalist group, fear sweeps though the region. The army offers them protection, but the monks refuse. Should they leave? Despite the growing menace in their midst, they slowly realize that they have no choice but to stay... come what may. This film is loosely based on the life of the Cistercian monks of Tibhirine in Algeria, from 1993 until their kidnapping in 1996. [Sony Pictures]
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Even the Rain (Tambien la Lluvia)
February 11, 2011
Even the Rain sets up an intriguing dialogue about Spanish imperialism through incidents taking place some 500 years apart, while examining the personal belief systems of the members of a film crew headed by director Sebastian (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his producer Costa (Luis Tosar) who arrive in Bolivia to make a revisionist film about the conquest of Latin America. (Vitagraph Films)
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Ip Man 2
January 28, 2011
During the Sino-Japanese War, Ip Man protected the dignity of Chinese by his wushu (martial art). As he had beaten the Japanese army and made them mad, he had to escape. After the war, the family lived in Foshan and experienced hardship. Ip therefore went to Hong Kong to start a new page with his family in 1949. (Mandarin Films)
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The Time That Remains
January 7, 2011
An intimate semi-biographical portrait of Palestinians living as a minority in their own homeland between 1948 and the present day, from the acclaimed director of Divine Intervention. (IFC Films)
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Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune
January 5, 2011
As our country continues to embroil itself in foreign wars and pins its hopes on a new leader's promise for change, Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune is a timely and relevant tribute to an unlikely American hero. Over the course of a meteoric music career that spanned two turbulent decades, Phil Ochs sought the bright lights of fame and social justice in equal measure - a contradiction that eventually tore him apart. From youthful idealism to rage to pessimism, the arch of Ochs' life paralleled that of the times, and the anger, satire and righteous indignation that drove his music also drove him to dark despair. In this brilliantly constructed film, interview and performance footage of Ochs is illuminated by the ruminations of Joan Baez, Tom Hayden, Pete Seeger, Sean Penn, Peter Yarrow, Christopher Hitchens, Ed Sanders, and others. (First Run Features)
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Rabbit à la Berlin
December 10, 2010
RABBIT À LA BERLIN is the 2010 Academy Award-nominated story of thousands of wild rabbits which lived in the Death Zone of the Berlin Wall. This is the first film showing the story of the Wall and the reunification of Germany seen from such an unusual perspective – from the rabbits' point of view. As if the green belt between the two walls was designed for those animals - full of untouched grass, the predators stayed behind the wall and the guards made sure no one disturbed the rabbits. They had been living there for 28 years, enclosed but safe. With the fall of the Wall in 1989, the rabbits had to look for another place to live. (Icarus Films)
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The King's Speech
November 26, 2010
Based on the true story of the Queen of England's father and his remarkable friendship with maverick Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue. "The King's Speech" stars Academy Award nominee Colin Firth as King George VI, who unexpectedly becomes King when his brother Edward abdicates the throne. Academy Award Winner Geoffrey Rush stars as Logue, the man who helps the King find a voice with which to lead the nation into war. (The Weinstein Company)
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Made in Dagenham
November 19, 2010
Based on a true story, Made in Dagenham portrays a decisive moment in that decade of upheaval, when the fight for equal rights and pay was led – unexpectedly – by ordinary working-class women with one foot in the kitchen, one foot on the factory floor, and ears glued to the pop coming over the radio and telly from far-off London (19 kilometers and a world away). It‟s a vintage “girl power” tale. (Sony Pictures Classics)
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Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story
November 5, 2010
Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story portrays the contributions of Jewish major leaguers and the special meaning that baseball has had in the lives of American Jews. More than a film about sports, this is a story of immigration, assimilation, bigotry, heroism, the passing on of traditions, and the shattering of stereotypes.(7th Art Releasing)
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Outside the Law
November 3, 2010
After losing their family home in Algeria, three brothers and their mother are scattered across the globe. Messaoud joins the French army fighting in Indochina; Abdelkader becomes a leader of the Algerian independence movement in France and Saïd moves to Paris to make his fortune in the shady clubs and boxing halls of Pigalle. Gradually, their interconnecting destinies reunite them in the French capital, where freedom is a battle to be fought and won. (Studio Canal)
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Eichmann
October 29, 2010
Based upon the final confession of Adolf Eichmann, made before his execution in Israel as he accounts to Captain Avner Less, a young Israeli Police Officer, of his past as the architect of Hitler's plan for the "final solution." Captured by intelligence operatives in Argentina, 15 years after World War II, Eichmann, the World's most wanted man, must be broken down and the truth unveiled. As the world waits, two men must confront each other in a battle of wills- the result of which will change a nation forever. (Regent Releasing)
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Shake Hands with the Devil
October 29, 2010
In 1993, the United Nations dispatches Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire to far off Rwanda to oversee a fragile cease-fire. A brilliant, workaholic officer and charismatic commander, Dallaire encounters the shabby reality of a typical UN peacekeeping operation: under-funded, overbureaucratic, and cobbled together from military units from dozens of countries, each with a slightly different agenda. Meanwhile, the peace agreement between the rebels, led by the minority Tutsi ethnic group, and the French-supported government dominated by the Hutu majority group, turns out to rest on shaky ground. When an unknown group shoots down the Rwandan President’s plane, the storm breaks and a secret but long-planned genocidal campaign against the Tutsi minority begins with a night of terror in Kigali. A reporter remains in-country and follows General Dellaire as he is forced to deal with far-away superiors and the studied indifference of the world’s great powers while trying to take decisive action to stop the genocide of over 800,000 innocent civilians. (Regent Releasing)
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Carlos
October 15, 2010
Carlos tells the story of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez who, for two decades, was one of the most wanted terrorists, on the planet. Between 1974 and 1994, he lived several lives under various pseudonyms, weaving his way through the complexities of international politics of the period. [IFC Films]
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The Two Escobars
October 15, 2010
Pablo Escobar was the richest, most powerful drug kingpin in the world, ruling the Medellín Cartel with an iron fist. Andres Escobar was the biggest soccer star in Colombia. The two were not related, but their fates were inextricably-and fatally-intertwined. Pablo's drug money had turned Andres' national team into South American champions, favored to win the 1994 World Cup in Los Angeles. It was there, in a game against the U.S., that Andres committed one of the most shocking mistakes in soccer history, scoring an "own goal" that eliminated his team from the competition and ultimately cost him his life. The Two Escobars is a riveting examination of the intersection of sports, crime, and politics. For Colombians, soccer was far more than a game: their entire national identity rode on the success or failure of their team. Jeff and Michael Zimbalist's fast and furious documentary plays out on an ever-expanding canvas, painting a fascinating portrait of Pablo, Andres, and a country in the grips of a violent, escalating civil war.
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Secretariat
October 8, 2010
Based on the remarkable true story, "Secretariat" chronicles the spectacular journey of the 1973 Triple Crown winner. Housewife and mother Penny Chenery agrees to take over her ailing father's Virginia-based Meadow Stables, despite her lack of horse-racing knowledge. Against all odds, Chenery--with the help of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin--manages to navigate the male-dominated business, ultimately fostering the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years and what may be the greatest racehorse of all time. (Walt Disney Pictures)
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Ip Man
October 1, 2010
Ip Man is the award winning film adaptation about the life story of Ip Man, the grand master of the Wing Chun style of kung fu and sifu (master) of legendary kung fu superstar Bruce Lee. Set in Foshan, China, during the Sino Japanese War, Ip Man vividly brings to life the brutality of the infamous Japanese occupation, where once proud men are forced to fight till their death for a precious bag of rice. Defined by courage and humility, one man rises to the fore, Grandmaster Ip Man, whose matchless fighting skills are revered all over China. Upon refusing to teach his beloved fighting art to the invading Japanese soldiers, he is forced to fight for the honor of his country in a series of battles that will culminate in a kill or be killed showdown with General Miura Japan’s greatest fighter. (Variance Films)
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The Social Network
October 1, 2010
On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. A mere six years and 500 million friends later, Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history... but for this entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications. [Columbia Pictures]
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Kings of Pastry
September 15, 2010
Imagine a scene never before witnessed: Sixteen French pastry chefs gathered in Lyon for three intense days of mixing, piping and sculpting everything from delicate chocolates to six-foot sugar sculptures in hopes of being declared by President Nicolas Sarkozy one of the best. This is the prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France competition (Best Craftsmen in France). The blue, white and red striped collar worn on the jackets of the winners is more than the ultimate recognition for every pastry chef – it is a dream and an obsession. The finalists, France’s culinary elite, risk their reputations as well as sacrifice family and finances in pursuit of this lifelong distinction of excellence. Similar to the Olympics, the three-day contest takes place every four years and it requires that the chefs not only have extraordinary skill and nerves of steel, but also a lot of luck. [First Run Features]
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Max Manus
September 3, 2010
The rousing historical epic tells the true story of one of Europes's most celebrated World War II-era resistance fighters.
Max Manus follows Manus from the outbreak of World War II until the summer of 1945. After fighting against the Russians during the Winter War in Finland, Manus returns to a German-occupied Norway. He joins the resistance movement and becomes one of the most important members of the so-called "Oslo Gang," soon confirming his reputation for audacity by making two daring escapes from German captivity. He eventually reunites with his best friend Gregers Gram in Scotland, where they receive special training as saboteurs with a pan-national resistance movement, after which they are parachuted back to their homeland. One of the film's most thrilling sequences is a detailed account of the sabotage techniques used to sink a heavily guarded German supply ship in Oslo harbour, an act that leads to severe retaliation from the local Gestapo leader, Siegfred Fehmer. (D Films)
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Centurion
August 27, 2010
Centurion is set during the war between Roman soldiers and Pict tribesmen during the 2nd century Roman conquest of Britain. Quintus Dias is a Roman centurion and son of a legendary gladiator who leads a group of soldiers on a raid of a Pict camp to rescue a captured general. The son of the Pict leader is murdered during the raid, and the Romans find themselves hunted by a seemingly unstoppable group of the Pict’s most vicious and skilled warriors, led by a beautiful and deadly tracker, and hell bent on revenge. (Magnolia Pictures)
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The Army of Crime
August 20, 2010
The poet Missak Manouchian leads a mixed bag of youngsters and immigrants in a clandestine battle against the Nazi occupation. Twenty-two men and one woman fighting for an ideal and for freedom. News of their daring attacks, including the assassination of an SS general, eventually reaches Berlin.
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A Film Unfinished
August 18, 2010
Yael Hersonski's powerful documentary achieves a remarkable feat through its penetrating look at another film-the now-infamous Nazi-produced film about the Warsaw Ghetto. Discovered after the war, the unfinished work, with no soundtrack, quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record, despite its elaborate propagandistic construction. The later discovery of a long-missing reel complicated earlier readings, showing the manipulations of camera crews in these "everyday" scenes. Well-heeled Jews attending elegant dinners and theatricals (while callously stepping over the dead bodies of compatriots) now appeared as unwilling, but complicit, actors, alternately fearful and in denial of their looming fate.
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Stonewall Uprising
June 18, 2010
"It was the Rosa Parks moment," says one man. June 28, 1969: NYC police raid a Greenwich Village Mafia-run gay bar, The Stonewall Inn. For the first time, patrons refuse to be led into paddy wagons, setting off a 3-day riot that launches the Gay Rights Movement. Told by Stonewall patrons, reporters and the cop who led the raid, Stonewall Uprising recalls the bad old days when psychoanalysts equated homosexuality with mental illness and advised aversion therapy, and even lobotomies; public service announcements warned youngsters against predatory homosexuals; and police entrapment was rampant. At the height of this oppression, the cops raid Stonewall, triggering nights of pandemonium with tear gas, billy clubs and a small army of tactical police. The rest is history. (Karen Cooper, Director, Film Forum)
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Agora
May 28, 2010
A historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning a slave who turns to the rising tide of Christianity in the hopes of pursuing freedom while also falling in love with his master, the famous female philosophy professor and atheist Hypatia of Alexandria. (Newmarket Films)
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John Rabe
May 21, 2010
Based on a true story, John Rabe tells the story of a German businessman who rescued more than 200,000 civilians during the so-called “Nanking Massacre” in China. (Strand Releasing)
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Warlords
April 2, 2010
Set in the midst of war and political upheaval during the Taiping Rebellion of the 1860s, WARLORDS stars Jet Li as General Pang, who barely survives a brutal massacre of his fellow soldiers by playing dead, and joins a band of bandits led by Er Hu and Wu Yang. After fighting back attackers from an helpless village, the three men take an oath to become “blood brothers,” pledging loyalty to one another until death, but things quickly turn sour and the three men become embroiled in a web of political deceit, and a love triangle between Pang, Er Hu and a beautiful courtesan. (Magnolia)
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The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet's Struggle for Freedom
March 31, 2010
In The Sun Behind the Clouds, Tibetan filmmaker, Tenzing Sonam, and his partner, Ritu Sarin, take a uniquely Tibetan perspective on the trials and tribulations of the Dalai Lama and his people as they continue their struggle for freedom in the face of determined suppression by one of the world’s biggest and most powerful nations. The filmmakers had intimate access to the Dalai Lama and followed him over the course of an eventful year, which included the 2008 protests in Tibet, the international response to it, the Beijing Olympics, and the breakdown in talks between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government. (White Crane Films)
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Vincere
March 19, 2010
In Vincere, the closely guarded story of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's secret lover and son is revealed in fittingly operatic proportions. Thunderstruck by the young Mussolini's charisma, Ida Dalser gives up everything to help champion his revolutionary ideas. When he disappears during World War I and later resurfaces with a new wife, the scorned Dalser and her son are locked away in separate asylums for more than a decade. But Ida will not disappear without a fight. (IFC Films)
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American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein
February 12, 2010
American Radical is the probing documentary portrait of American academic and activist Norman Finkelstein. A devoted son of holocaust survivors, ardent critic of Israeli and US Mid-East policies and author of six provocative books–including The Holocaust Industry, Beyond Chutzpah and the soon-to-be-released A Farewell to Israel: The Coming Break-Up of American Zionism, Finkelstein has been at the center of many intractable controversies. Called a lunatic and a self-hating Jew by some and an inspirational, street-fighting revolutionary by others, Finkelstein is a deeply polarizing figure whose struggles arise from core questions about freedom, identity and nationhood. Following him as he presents his message to audiences around the globe, American Radical provides an intimate portrait of the man behind the controversy, giving voice to Finkelstein’s critics as well as his supporters. (Typecast Releasing)
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North Face
January 29, 2010
Based on a true story, North Face is a suspenseful adventure film about a competition to climb the most dangerous rock face in the Alps. Set in 1936, as Nazi propaganda urges the nation’s Alpinists to conquer the unclimbed north face of the Swiss massif — the Eiger — two reluctant German climbers begin their daring ascent. (Music Box Films)
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Soundtrack for a Revolution
January 22, 2010
Soundtrack for a Revolution tells the story of the American civil rights movement through its powerful music -the freedom songs protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, in paddy wagons, and in jail cells as they fought for justice and equality. (Louverture Films)
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The Young Victoria
December 18, 2009
The story of Queen Victoria's early rise to power spans from her predicament as an object of a royal power-struggle in to her romantic courtship and legendary marriage to Prince Albert. (Momentum Pictures)
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Invictus
December 11, 2009
Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's underdog rugby team as they make an unlikely run to the 1995 World Cup Championship match. (Warner Bros.)
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The Last Station
December 4, 2009
After almost fifty years of marriage, the Countess Sofya, Leo Tolstoy’s devoted wife, passionate lover, muse and secretary—she’s copied out War and Peace six times…by hand!—suddenly finds her entire world turned upside down. In the name of his newly created religion, the great Russian novelist has renounced his noble title, his property and even his family in favor of poverty, vegetarianism and even celibacy. After she’s born him thirteen children!
When Sofya then discovers that Tolstoy’s trusted disciple, Chertkov—whom she despises—may have secretly convinced her husband to sign a new will, leaving the rights to his iconic novels to the Russian people rather than his very own family, she is consumed by righteous outrage. This is the last straw. Using every bit of cunning, every trick of seduction in her considerable arsenal, she fights fiercely for what she believes is rightfully hers. The more extreme her behavior becomes, however, the more easily Chertkov is able to persuade Tolstoy of the damage she will do to his glorious legacy. (Sony Picture Classics)
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The Sun
November 20, 2009
In the summer of 1945, with Tokyo under siege by American forces, Japanese Emperor Hirohito remains in seclusion from the world in an underground bunker. Held by his people as a deity, the incarnation of the Sun God, Hirohito is sheltered from the devastation that surrounds him as he is waited on hand and foot by his servants. After the razing of Tokyo and bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hirohito finally meets with General MacArthur. And, in August, millions of Japanese citizens are stunned to hear the voice of their Emperor for the first time as he commands his people to cease all fighting. The address saves the lives of countless Japanese and Allied forces alike, but the victorious powers insist that Emperor Hirohito appear before a military tribunal for war crimes. Sokurov’s fascinating film chronicles the events leading up to Hirohito’s monumental speech, the historic renunciation of his divine status and his meetings with General MacArthur, who advises his own President not to declare the Japanese leader a war criminal. Featuring a power-house central performance by Issey Ogata, Sokurov creates an intimate human portrait of the infamous Emperor Hirohito as he faces the unraveling of his own power, and the tragedy that besets his country. [Lorber HT Digital]
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Red Cliff
November 18, 2009
Red Cliff opens as power hungry Prime Minister-turned-General Cao Cao seeks permission from the Han dynasty Emperor to organize a southward-bound mission designed to crush the two troublesome warlords who stand in his way, Liu Bei and Sun Quan. As the expedition gets underway, Cao Cao's troops rain destruction on Liu Bei's army, forcing him into retreat. Liu Bei's military strategist Zhuge Liang knows that the rebels’ only hope for survival is to form an alliance with rival warlord Sun Quan, and reaches out to Sun Quan’s trusted advisor, war hero Zhou Yu. Vastly outnumbered by Cao Cao’s brutal, fast-approaching army, the warlords band together to mount a heroic campaign – unrivaled in history – that changes the face of China forever. A massive hit in Asia and the most expensive Asian film production of all time, Red Cliff is a breathtaking war epic that marks the triumphant return of John Woo. (Magnolia Pictures)
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Endgame
November 6, 2009
Set in South Africa, 1985, this is a gripping and sophisticated political thriller full of intriguing and unexpected heroes. While the country is under siege, sanctions are biting, Mandela's imprisonment is an international cause celebre, and the ANC guerrilla terrorist attacks are escalating. Every day the country is more ungovernable as it plunges towards the apocalypse of a race war. Against all the odds, through volatile discussion, intrigue and breakthroughs, they achieve the unimaginable - a precious arena of frail trust between the two warring parties. (Monterey Media Inc.)
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L'ennemi intime
October 2, 2009
A young French soldier is sent to Algeria to take over the position of a fallen officer. The war is more brutal than he expects and he finds it hard to adhere to his sense of humanity when faced with the atrocities of war.
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The Baader Meinhof Complex
August 21, 2009
Germany in the 1970s: Murderous bomb attacks, the threat of terrorism and the fear of the enemy inside are rocking the very foundations of the still fragile German democracy. The radicalised children of the Nazi generation led by Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin are fighting a violent war against what they perceive as the new face of
fascism: American imperialism supported by the German establishment, many of whom have a Nazi past. Their aim is to create a more human society but by employing inhuman means they not only spread terror and bloodshed, they also lose their own humanity. The man who understands them is also their hunter: the head of the German police force Horst Herold. And while he succeeds in his
relentless pursuit of the young terrorists, he knows he’s only dealing with the tip of the iceberg. (Vitagraph Films)
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Flame and Citron
July 31, 2009
Based on true events and developed from eyewitness accounts during World War II, Ole Christian Madsen's political thriller Flame & Citron is an ultra-stylized and remarkable spy noir about the murky moral complexities of wartime. Copenhagen, 1944. World War II is entering its final stretch in Europe. Denmark is occupied by Nazi Germany. Two resistance fighters nicknamed Flame and Citron become heroes of the underground dealing violently with traitors to their cause. When the pair is sent to execute Flame's lover Ketty, the line between ally and enemy is blurred forcing them to determine their own orders which starts with killing the much hated and feared chief of the Gestapo - Karl Heinz Hoffman. Variety's Todd McCarthy calls it, "Absorbing...accomplished. More than enough dark turns and unsettling moods to justify the comparison to Melville's ARMY OF SHADOWS." (IFC Films)
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Public Enemies
July 1, 2009
No one could stop Dillinger and his gang. No jail could hold him. His charm and audacious jailbreaks endeared him to almost everyone—from his girlfriend Billie Frechette to an American public who had no sympathy for the banks that had plunged the country into the Depression. But while the adventures of Dillinger's gang thrilled many, Hoover made Dillinger America's first Public Enemy Number One. (Universal Pictures)
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Burma VJ: Reporter i et lukket land
May 20, 2009
While 100,000 people (including 1,000s of Buddhist monks) took to the streets to protest the country's repressive regime that has held them hostage for over 40 years, foreign news crews were banned to enter and the Internet was shut down. The Democratic Voice of Burma, a collective of 30 anonymous and underground video journalists (VJs) recorded these historic and dramatic events on handycams and smuggled the footage out of the country, where it was broadcast worldwide via satellite. Risking torture and life imprisonment, the VJs vividly document the brutal clashes with the military and undercover police – even after they themselves become targets of the authorities. (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
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Katyn
February 18, 2009
In 1941, during their march on Moscow, the Nazis discovered the mass graves of 22,00 Polish intellectuals, clergy and officers. Katyn is the story of Joseph Stalin's order to execute these people.
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Of Time and the City
January 21, 2009
From the original voice of the great British auteur, Terence Davies, comes a visual poem which draws upon the first 28 years of the director's life in Liverpool until he left in 1973. "Cut it as if it were fiction," Davies says, with "images which speak" and a layered sound track of popular and classical music, voices, radio clips and a powerful, poignant voiceover by Mr. Davies. Of Time and The City is a very personal portrait of Liverpool, beyond its Beatles and its football clubs, the home of the writer’s birth, where youth and inspiration weave his own story into the recent history of the City with fascinating found footage and counterpointed sound. (Strand Releasing)
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Defiance
December 31, 2008
Based on an extraordinary true story, Defiance is an epic tale of family, honor, vengeance and salvation in World War II. (Paramount Vantage)
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Valkyrie
December 25, 2008
In a country in the grips of evil, in a police state where every move is being watched, in a world where justice and honor have been subverted, a group of men hidden inside the highest reaches of power decide to take action to eliminate one of the most evil tyrants the world has ever known. (United Artists)
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Che
December 12, 2008
November 26, 1956; led by Fidel Castro , a band of 80 rebels sails to Cuba. Among these young rebels is Argentine physician, Marxist, soldier, Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Nation-less, strapped for resources and fueled only by determination, the group engages in swift, bloody battle to free the Cuban people from the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Che and his soldiers wrestle the nation's resources and affection from Batista's grasp. Though considered a hero by some, Che becomes a hugely controversial figure. At the height of his fame and power, he disappears. Entering South America incognito, Che recruits another band of guerilla fighters in the harsh Bolivian jungles. They embark upon a mission to spark revolution throughout Latin America. (IFC Films)
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Coming Soon
-
Blood of My Blood
- Runtime: 106 min
-
We Will See Tomorrow
- Runtime: 58 min
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