Illuminated Texts (1982)

Brutal Ardour

Boy meets girl (or vice versa) and they predictably fall in love to follow the canons of the strictest convention.

Lamentations: A Monument for the Dead World

Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World belongs to a 35-hour film cycle, The Book of All the Dead, which comprises the bulk of Toronto-based Bruce Elder’s filmmaking from 1975 to 1994. In ancient Egyptian culture, the Book of the Dead consisted of religious texts intended to help preserve the spirit of the departed in the afterlife — but in Elder’s reading, that comforting idea of continuity takes on a rather darker cast. Lamentations is comprised of a complex audio and visual patchwork: a philosophical meditation superimposed as text throughout the film; vignettes featuring a comical but disturbing Franz Liszt, a debate between Isaac Newton and George Berkeley, an angry, deranged man in an alley, and an arrogant psychiatrist; and a final search for salvation in the forests of British Columbia, the American Southwest, and Mexico’s Yucatan.

Six Reasons Why

In a desolate place called the Badlands, four men stand off with guns drawn, their fingers ready at the trigger. Among them are a fugitive seeking redemption, a son out to avenge his father's murder, a loyal servant with a secret and a murderous criminal hired to kill with a vengeance. This is their story...in a place where revenge, deception and cruelty are a way of life.

Road

Arvind Chauhan and Lakhsmi are in love with each other. Lakhsmi's dad, a senior police inspector, hates Arvind, and so Arvind and Lakshmi decide to elope

Fantastic Return to Oz

A year to the day after Dorothy and the people of the Emerald City defeated Urfin Jus, the villain is trying to exact his revenge. To command the army of Carraci, however, Urfin needs not only the magic book, but also Dorothy’s silver slippers. The slippers are safely hidden away in Dorothy’s house. Unfortunately, Dorothy’s guest, Tim, is overcome by curiosity and picks up the shoes, accidentally transporting himself, Dorothy and the slippers to the Land of Oz. The Emerald City and its citizens are in danger once again.

Blue Family

Blue Family is the story, inspired by actual events, of three women kidnapped and held captive in a basement for years, fighting for freedom with immense hope and faith even when it seemed impossible.

Farah Goes Bang

Farah hits the road with her buddies to stump for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, hoping the trip will be her opportunity to finally shed her unwanted virginity. She soon finds her efforts on both political and sexual fronts continuously thwarted.

Breathing

How does breathing affect our bodies? How does the way we breathe affect our health and sensations? Spotlight on our most fundamental need and its unconscious but vital process.

Black Eagles

The documentary Schwarze Adler (Black Eagles) lets black players of the German national football team tell their personal stories for the first time. What road did they take before they got to where we cheer for them? What hurdles did they have to overcome? What prejudices and racist hostility were they exposed to – and what was it like in the past, what is it like today?

In Pursuit of Polly

Pretty Polly Marsden is ardently pursued by three different Romeos, but she coyly refuses to choose between them. When they insist that she give them her answer, she arranges an impromptu automobile race: whichever one of the three can overtake her speeding roadster will be the man whom she will marry.

In the Open

Elisa, a thirty-eight-year old woman, leaves for a week with her husband and young daughter on a vacation to a house in the country. Everything is going for her: she has a successful professional career, loves her family, has enough money for a comfortable life, and has plans for the future. After arriving to the country, a strange feeling takes hold of her. She starts feeling the presence of something that moves the treetops at night, makes the dogs howl, and wanders like the breath of a ghost across the infinite countryside. A stinging feeling that kills all her certainties. In the middle of the night Elisa wakes up. The moonlight shines on her face.

Derby Dogs

When 12 year old Ben sets out to win the local trolly derby in memory of his father, he learns what matters in life when he is forced to battle cheating opponents, the school loan sharks and a mother who has banned him from the race.

'Till Death Do us Part

Harper Waller is a struggling nurse who takes the job of looking after a dying patient named Samuel Plaque to escape the toxic atmosphere of her home life and the broken relationship between her and her mother. As Samuel's final days grow near, Harper begins to form an unlikely bond with him, as they slowly grow to realise they share more in common than they believed and just may be the key to each other's redemption.

Liebe auf den dritten Blick

Diane falls from the clouds when she receives the anonymous message that her husband is cheating on her business trip to Verona. Immediately she makes her way to Italy to get to the bottom of it. In fact, Heiko does not just have a lover - he even gives her out to his business partners as his wife. In her grief, Dianne finds support with the likeable Anton Brück, whom she has already met on the train. When he takes down the depressed Dianne for an important business lunch and there Heiko and his "wife" appear, the amorous entanglements really get going