Prison of Denial (2023)

Happiness

The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

The Celebration

The family of a wealthy businessman gather to celebrate his 60th birthday. During the course of the party, his eldest son presents a speech that reveals a shocking secret.

Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams

A woman and her daughter struggle to make their way through the aftermath of the Balkan war.

Harold and Maude

The young Harold lives in his own world of suicide-attempts and funeral visits to avoid the misery of his current family and home environment. Harold meets an 80-year-old woman named Maude who also lives in her own world yet one in which she is having the time of her life. When the two opposites meet they realize that their differences don’t matter and they become best friends and love each other.

Daughter of the Sun

A 12-year-old girl lives life on the run alongside her father who has Tourette Syndrome. Desperately seeking a normal family life, she befriends a group of outcasts who want to harness a volatile supernatural power her father is hiding.

The Heart Is a Dark Forest

A woman's life is destroyed when she discovers that her husband has another family.

It's Winter

Unemotional, restrained cinematographic poem, situated in a wintry and poor suburb of Tehran. A man is dismissed and his lack of prospects for the future make him decide to seek his happiness abroad. He leaves his wife and child behind and for a long time nothing is heard of him. Then a stranger turns up, a car mechanic looking for a job. The attractive single mother can’t resist his attentions. Very subtly, a struggle ensues that reflects that of a whole generation of young doubting Iranians who may want to leave the country, but hardly know how to start.

Selling Body

Na-young becomes a prostitute when her heart is broken and then she is sexually violated by Jung-han, a street thug.

Same Old Song

Odile is a business executive looking for a new, bigger apartment. Her younger sister Camille has just completed her doctoral thesis in history and is a Paris tour guide. Simon is a regular on Camille's tours because he's attracted to her. Camille has fallen for Marc, and they begin an affair. Nicolas is also looking for an apartment, since he hopes to eventually have his family join him in Paris.

Metamorphosis

Seeking refuge on an island in Upstate New York, a married couple's final attempt to salvage their failing relationship takes a turn for the worse when the husband begins to regress emotionally, mentally, and physically.

Princesses

Caye is a young prostitute whose family is unaware of her profession. She meets her striking Dominican neighbour Zulema, an illegal immigrant, after she finds her in the bathroom, badly beaten up. They strike up a close friendship unbeknownst to Caye's xenophobic co-workers.

Helen

On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.

We Shall Overcome

A drama about a boy who's inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and challenges repressive school authority in 1969 Denmark.

Baise-moi

Nadine and Manu are two mad women, as tidy as can be, almost perfectionists. They have several things in common: extreme sex, drugs, beer and the trigger. They find the solution to their problems with guns and beware to those who dare to get in their way!

No Hit Wonder

Daniel is a singer who became famous overnight thanks to one song. But for the aspiring artist, the dream of fame was short-lived: his song turned out to be a one-hit wonder, and Daniel fell into a deep depression when his subsequent songs failed to connect with audiences. Daniel soon finds himself with few options left – he wants to end his life. However, his suicide attempt fails and he ends up in a secure psychiatric ward. He is allowed to leave on one condition: he must use his music to make a group of depressed people happy.

Synecdoche, New York

A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

American Gangster

Loosely based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina, who smuggled heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, before being detained by a task force led by Newark Detective Richie Roberts.

One Step

When Tadashi sees a girl from his school stood alone on the beach, he becomes determined to find out why.

Hotel Chevalier

In a Paris hotel room, Jack Whitman lies on a bed. His phone rings; it's a woman on her way to see him, a surprise. She arrives and the complications of their relationship emerge in bits and pieces. Will they make love? Is their relationship over? (A prequel to The Darjeeling Limited, 2007.)

The Shipping News

An emotionally-beaten man with his young daughter moves to his ancestral home in Newfoundland to reclaim his life.

Takva: A Man's Fear of God

Humble and introvert Muharrem lives in a solitary and meager existence of a prayer and sexual abstinence adhering strictly to the most severe Islamic doctrines.His extraordinary devotion attracts the attention of the leader of a rich and powerful Istanbul religious group and he offers him an administrative post as a rent collector for their numerous properties. Muharrem's new job throws him into the modern outside world he has successfully avoided for so long. He soon witnesses conflict attitude toward alcohol consumption and goodwill.He notices that he himself has become proud, domineering and even dishonest.To make matters worse, Muharrem's inner peace is unnerved by the tormenting image of seductive woman who tempts him in his dreams,both night and day.With the balance of his devotion now upset,his fear of God begins to eat away at his senses.

The Savages

A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.

Blindness

When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.

Limite

Adrift in the vast expanse of the ocean, a solitary boat carries three castaways—a man and two women. Stranded and devoid of any glimmer of rescue, they find solace in recounting the tales of their lives to one another. As they delve into their personal narratives, reminiscing about the circumstances that led them to this desolate predicament, they navigate through the depths of three distinct destinies. Bound by the confines of their shared space, every aspect of their existence becomes a boundary, underscoring their plight.

ARIANNA

Plot unavailable

Of Horses and Men

A country romance about the human streak in the horse and the horse in the human. Love and death become interlaced and with terrible consequences. The fortunes of the people in the country through the horses' perception.

The Conformist

A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.

Charlie Bartlett

Awkward teenager Charlie Bartlett has trouble fitting in at a new high school. Charlie needs some friends fast, and decides that the best way to find them is to appoint himself the resident psychiatrist. He becomes one of the most popular guys in school by doling out advice and, occasionally, medication, to the student body.

The Match Factory Girl

Iris is a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job at a match factory, who dreams of finding love at the local dancehall. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father, Iris finally decides the time has come to get even and she begins to plot her revenge.

The Day After

In the mid-1980s, the U.S. is poised on the brink of nuclear war. This shadow looms over the residents of a small town in Kansas as they continue their daily lives. Dr. Russell Oakes maintains his busy schedule at the hospital, Denise Dahlberg prepares for her upcoming wedding, and Stephen Klein is deep in his graduate studies. When the unthinkable happens and the bombs come down, the town's residents are thrust into the horrors of nuclear winter.

Far North

In the arctic, as Saiva is being born, a shaman declares that she is evil and will bring harm to all who become involved with her. Saiva is cast out of her tribe of herders and grows up to live a nomadic existence with Anja, a young woman she adopts as an infant. Then Loki, an injured and starving soldier, stumbles into their isolated lives. The women nurse him back to health, but treachery, violence and doom await them all.

Punch-Drunk Love

A socially awkward and volatile small business owner meets the love of his life after being threatened by a gang of scammers.

Machination

An anxious woman struggles to cope in isolation as a pandemic sweeps the world, forcing her to confront the monsters in her head.

The Piano

When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.

The Last Emperor

A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.

Garden State

Andrew returns to his hometown for the funeral of his mother, a journey that reconnects him with past friends. The trip coincides with his decision to stop taking his powerful antidepressants. A chance meeting with Sam - a girl also suffering from various maladies - opens up the possibility of rekindling emotional attachments, confronting his psychologist father, and perhaps beginning a new life.

Summer in Berlin

An intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.

8½

Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.

Sissi: The Fateful Years of an Empress

After a wonderful time in Hungary Sissi falls extremely ill and must retreat to a Mediterranean climate to rest. The young empress’ mother takes her from Austria to recover in Madeira.

Requiem

Michaela, an epileptic, enrolls in college to study education. She goes off her medication and soon begins hearing voices and seeing apparitions that tell her to avoid religious objects, although she is devoutly Roman Catholic. One priest scoffs at the idea that Michaela could be possessed by demons, but a younger pastor arranges an exorcism for the young woman.

Italian for Beginners

Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring

An isolated lake, where an old monk lives in a small floating temple. The monk has a young boy living with him, learning to become a monk. We watch as seasons and years pass by.

Breaking the Waves

In a small, conservative Scottish village, an oilman is paralyzed in an accident. His wife, who prayed for his return, feels guilty; even more, when he urges her to have sex with another.

The Secret Life of Words

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself

The strange comedy film of two close brothers; one, Wilbur, who wants to kill himself, and the other, Harbour, who tries to prevent this. When their father dies leaving them his bookstore they meet a woman who makes their lives a bit better yet with a bit more trouble as well.

Edward Scissorhands

A small suburban town receives a visit from a castaway unfinished science experiment named Edward.

The Assassination of Richard Nixon

It’s 1974 and Sam Bicke has lost everything. His wife leaves him with his three kids, his boss fires him, his brother turns away from him, and the bank won’t give him any money to start anew. He tries to find someone to blame for his misfortunes and comes up with the President of the United States who he plans to murder. Based on a true story.

Lo Invisible

When Luisa, 45, returns from a psychiatric clinic after a bout with severe postpartum depression, she enters a new confinement in her dazzling home, surrounded by family members and a brigade of servants who expect her struggles to remain invisible. Unable to continue playing the role of the perfect housewife, Luisa's only escape is to waltz elegantly into madness.

She's in Portland

Two college friends, now in their thirties, admire each others' lives and feel trapped in their own. Wes, tied to a demanding career and responsibilities to family, extends a work trip to drag his dispirited artist friend Luke to find Luke's "one that got away."

Sister My Sister

A true story of shocking violence catapults a picturesque little town into history. The close sibling relationship between the two maids takes on a new dimension as their overbearing employer discovers a sexual fever between the two sisters.

Inland

A young woman from Stockholm moves to her boyfriend's hometown in northern Sweden, but the relationship quickly ends. She finds a job and stays, for reasons she doesn't even understand herself. How do you become part of something new?

Shopping

A dark, hip, urban story of a barren and anonymous city where the underclass' sport of choice is ram-raiding. An exciting game in which stolen cars are driven through shop windows to aid large-scale looting before the police arrive. For Tommy, it's a business, but for Billy and Jo, it's a labour of love. As the competition between Tommy and Billy grows more fierce, the stakes become higher and the "shopping" trips increasingly risky.

My Last Five Girlfriends

Depressed and suicidal, thirtysomething bachelor Duncan determined to find the secret to a healthy, strong relationship, flashes back to his last five relationships (in the last four years) and considers what caused each one to fail. Based on the novel 'Essays in Love' by Alain de Botton.

Soul Surfer

The true story of teen surfer Bethany Hamilton, who lost her arm in a shark attack and courageously overcame all odds to become a champion again, through her sheer determination and unwavering faith.

Streif

Jesper’s partner and daughter are away for the weekend. His plan to be alone is disrupted by an unknown call. Can meaning and hope arise in a conversation with a stranger?

House of Sand and Fog

Behrani, an Iranian immigrant buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send his son to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy. After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer and befriends a police officer. Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.

The Snow Walker

A bush pilot in nothern Canada who with the aid of modernity thinks he can handle it all & knows it all. After reluctantly agreeing to transport a local indian girl to a medical facility his light plane crashes & they have to survive whilst finding their way back to civilization. Along the journey the man finds a new respect for the native ways as they battle to survive the elements.

mother!

A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.

Farewell My Concubine

Two boys meet at an opera training school in Peking in 1924. Their resulting friendship will span nearly 70 years and endure some of the most troublesome times in China's history.

Taste of Cherry

A middle-aged Tehranian man, Mr. Badii is intent on killing himself and seeks someone to bury him after his demise. Driving around the city, the seemingly well-to-do Badii meets with numerous people, including a Muslim student, asking them to take on the job, but initially he has little luck. Eventually, Badii finds a man who is up for the task because he needs the money, but his new associate soon tries to talk him out of committing suicide.

The Night House

Reeling from the unexpected death of her husband, Beth is left alone in the lakeside home he built for her. Soon she begins to uncover her recently deceased husband's disturbing secrets.

Tideland

Because of the actions of her irresponsible parents, a young girl is left alone on a decrepit country estate and survives inside her fantastic imagination.

Blast from the Past

Following a bomb scare in the 1960s that locked the Webers into their bomb shelter for 35 years, Adam now ventures forth into Los Angeles to obtain food and supplies for his family, and a non-mutant wife for himself.

Beautiful Kate

Ned Kendall is asked to return to the remote and isolated family home by his sister, to say goodbye to his father who is dying. Ned also brings his young aspiring actress fiancee who struggles with the isolation. When home he starts having memories of his childhood many involving his beautiful twin sister and his older brother. These memories awaken long-buried secrets from the family's past.