Roots (2023)

The Show Man

Stranded en route to a film festival, cynical Junior and the inscrutable Senior encounter the Stranger spinning a dramatic tale of woe. While Junior sees an obvious con, Senior sees the veil and its beauty. "The Show Man" delves into the ambiguous lines between performance, reality, and perception in the most unexpected of scenery, unravelling between highly conflicted characters.

Before The Spotlight

Behind every electrifying performance lies a story of sacrifice and passion. Before the Spotlight journeys behind the scenes of the dynamic Dauntless Movement Crew, diving into the lives of three of its standout members, Sienna, Chris and Manu. In a tough industry defined by fierce competition, fleeting opportunities and constant audition cycles, these performers are faced with uncertainty. To challenge them further, the risk of financial instability is significant in a high demanding economy. Yet, their passion grows stronger, fuelled by the support from the community. But what makes the risk worth it?

Pianowork 2

Pianowork 2 is an animated recording of me playing Jürg Frey’s ‘Klavierstück 2’ at Mimic Productions in Berlin on 22 June 2023. It was a very hot, early summer’s day. Mimic created a ‘digital double’ of me, scanning my head and hands. It was the first time I’d used a computer-generated figure with my own likeness. I played the piece at an upright piano, wearing a sensor-filled Lycra onesie with a head-mounted rig holding an iPhone a short distance from my face. I tried very hard to do what Frey’s score asks. I counted the beats in the vast rests, the 468 instances of the same fourth, the precisely instructed micro-shifts of tempo. I worried about and tried to depress the keys with the correct pianissimo dynamic to follow the previous decayed chord played 40 seconds prior. This agonising pace makes for a terrific mounting of anxiety.

Unfurl

Unfurl is a minimalist short film composed of six contemplative shots featuring different colored plastic bags placed before a dual-camera setup, presented in split-screen from two contrasting angles. Each sequence begins with Devereaux's hand compressing a bag, then releasing it — allowing the material to slowly expand. The initial release is rapid, but the motion soon settles into a meditative, near-slow-motion unfurling, drawing attention to the subtle behavior of shape, light, and texture. Inspired by a live performance Devereaux witnessed of avant-garde composer Takehisa Kosugi — specifically his act of wrapping a microphone in paper during a performance at the Getty Center's Rajikaru! conference — the film channels a similar spirit of experimental material interaction, silence, and focused perception. Unfurl invites viewers to observe slowness and transformation as a form of quiet performance.

Segretario Particolare

Plot unavailable

Sham

When a young student shows signs of trauma, his parents act swiftly against his middle school teacher. But all may not be as it seems, leading the scales of justice to tip in fascinating, heartbreaking ways.

An Obsession

Police detective Sosuke is shot down while chasing down a suspect. While he is unconscious, his gun is stolen. He recovers, but loses his wife and resigns from the police force. All of a sudden, his lost gun used in a series of crimes.

Ankhon Dekhi

Bauji resists his daughter's request to let her marry the man she loves as the neighbours incessantly shame him. However, his opinion changes after he meets him and he decides to change his viewpoint.

Red Family

A growing friendship with their neighbors softens the resolve of a group of North Korean spies who are posing as an ordinary South Korean family.

The Christmas Spirit

Charlotte Hart, a distinguished journalist, is spending time with her family over the holidays when a real estate developer approaches their small town with quite an offer. Skeptical and looking for the real scoop, Charlotte drives to see the real estate head honcho to question him. While she's en route, she gets into a terrible car accident and wakes up in the hospital only to realize that her body is in a coma, but her spirit is very much awake. She meets another spirit, who just happens to be the greedy developer. It turns out that he was on the other end of the accident and he too is in a coma. With only a few days left before the town votes on the development, Charlotte must try to change the minds of the developer and the town, but that is no easy task when no one can see or hear her. Will her voice be heard?

Claudia and David

The follow-up film to "Claudia", with Dorothy McGuire and Robert Young reprising their earlier roles as a young married couple living in a small Connecticut town.

Santo vs. the King of Crime

Plot unavailable

Manshin: Ten Thousand Spirits

A life documentary of a woman who was shunned for being possessed by spirits as a girl, oppressed for following superstitions as an adult, how she grows to be a great shaman who embraces the pain of all people, and how she comes to be honored as a national treasure of Korea with her outstanding artistic talents throughout Korea's tumultuous history.

The Blue Hour

THE BLUE HOUR tells the story of Tanya, a young woman with a mysterious past who finds herself trapped in a sexual hell in Los Angeles. Punctuated by striking visuals and avant-garde editing, THE BLUE HOUR is a lost masterpiece of late period sexploitation.

One Naked Night

After the death of her prostitute mother, a young woman travels to New York City only to find herself in the clutches of lecherous men and deviate women. She tries to avoid the fast nightlife lifestyle, but she finds it more difficult than it sounds.

Escape from East Berlin

East Berlin, shortly after the construction of the Berlin Wall. Kurt Schröder and his family dig a tunnel to escape to West Berlin as they struggle to overcome the obstacles blocking their underground path to freedom.

Carmina and Amen

After her husband dies, Carmina keeps it a secret until a check that he had been expecting comes in.

Love's Crucible

At the end of the middle ages, Ursula is accused of having poisoned her own husband. She claims she is innocent, but to prove it, she must submit to a ritual: trial by fire, walking on fire along a path leading directly to a crucifix. A film that has been much commended for the visual creativity shown by the director in successive blending in of images involving Ursula, her husband, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ. Much applauded, also: the performance of Jenny Hasselqvist, thus described by French director René Clair: “We shall never forget her flaming eyes, the severity of her spirit, her abrupt and alarmed expressions, like an animal under threat.”

I Am Alive

A young Italian worker, persuaded by his friend to take on a one-off 'nightwatchman' job for easy money, finds the reality is more macabre -- and complex -- than he expected.

Love and Journalism

A woman journalist employed as a maid by a great explorer is overcome with remorse at revealing his private life to the public. He shares her feelings and marries her

Aşk Kırmızı

The film asks the question would have been triple love. Ferhat and Zeynep is a happily married couple. Karlıdağ outside of marriage appears happy couple, the first love of life remained in the years ahead will be turned upside down with the introduction of the Euphrates Nazlıgül again. Zeynep even a night encounter with the former love of her husband Nazlıgül powdery mildew that can not bear to be separated , and that is the love in his heart can not prevent the re-ignition.

Locke

Ivan Locke has worked hard to craft a good life for himself. Tonight, that life will collapse around him. On the eve of the biggest challenge of his career, Ivan receives a phone call that sets in motion a series of events that will unravel his family, job, and soul.

Thoovanathumbikal

Jayakrishnan falls in love with two girls, Radha (a villager) and Clara (a sex-worker), and fights his confusion about whom he should marry and spend his life with.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

As the west rapidly becomes civilized, a pair of outlaws in 1890s Wyoming find themselves pursued by a posse and decide to flee to South America in hopes of evading the law.

Battleship Potemkin

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre. The film had an incredible impact on the development of cinema and is a masterful example of montage editing.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

David, a robotic boy—the first of his kind programmed to love—is adopted as a test case by a Cybertronics employee and his wife. Though he gradually becomes their child, a series of unexpected circumstances make this life impossible for David.

Beauty and the Beast

The story of a gentle-hearted beast in love with a simple and beautiful girl. She is drawn to the repellent but strangely fascinating Beast, who tests her fidelity by giving her a key, telling her that if she doesn't return it to him by a specific time, he will die of grief. She is unable to return the key on time, but it is revealed that the Beast is the genuinely handsome one. A simple tale of tragic love that turns into a surreal vision of death, desire, and beauty.

Belle de Jour

Beautiful young housewife Séverine Serizy cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. When her lovestruck friend Henri mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais, Séverine begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life.

Boyz n the Hood

In the middle of the Los Angeles ghetto, drugs, robberies and shootings dominate everyday life. During these times, Furious tries to raise his son Tre to be a decent person. Tre's friends, on the other hand, have little regard for the law and drag the entire neighborhood into a street war...

M*A*S*H

The staff of a Korean War field hospital use humor and hijinks to keep their sanity in the face of the horror of war.

On the Waterfront

A prizefighter-turned-longshoreman with a conscience goes up against labor leaders to expose corruption, extortion, and murder among the union ranks.

Paris, Texas

A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.

The Tin Drum

Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.

The Marriage of Maria Braun

Maria marries a young soldier in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. She must rely on her beauty and ambition to navigate the difficult post-war years alone.

La Jetée

A man confronts his past during an experiment that attempts to find a solution to the problems of a post-apocalyptic world caused by a world war.

Twister

An unprecedented series of violent tornadoes is sweeping across Oklahoma. Tornado chasers, headed by Dr. Jo Harding, attempt to release a groundbreaking device that will allow them to track them and create a more advanced warning system. They are joined by Jo's soon to be ex-husband Bill, a former tornado chaser himself, and his girlfriend Melissa.

Ben-Hur

In 25 AD, Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners.

Central Station

An emotional journey of a former school teacher, who writes letters for illiterate people, and a young boy, whose mother has just died, as they search for the father he never knew.

Nanook of the North

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Oldboy

With no clue how he came to be imprisoned, drugged and tortured for 15 years, a desperate man seeks revenge on his captors.

Pulp Fiction

A burger-loving hit man, his philosophical partner, a drug-addled gangster's moll and a washed-up boxer converge in this sprawling, comedic crime caper. Their adventures unfurl in three stories that ingeniously trip back and forth in time.

Contact

A radio astronomer receives the first extraterrestrial radio signal ever picked up on Earth. As the world powers scramble to decipher the message and decide upon a course of action, she must make some difficult decisions between her beliefs, the truth, and reality.

Dead Man Walking

A death row inmate turns for spiritual guidance to a local nun in the days leading up to his scheduled execution for the murders of a young couple.

The Bridges of Madison County

Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson for four days in the 1960s.

The Travelling Players

This expansive Greek drama follows a troupe of theater actors as they perform around their country during World War II. While the production that they put on is entitled "Golfo the Shepherdess," the thespians end up echoing scenes from classic Greek tales in their own lives, as Elektra plots revenge on her mother for the death of her father, and seeks help from her brother, Orestes, a young anti-fascist rebel.

Pickpocket

Michel takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques, and his mother's neighbor Jeanne, Michel teams up with a couple of petty thieves in order to improve his craft. With a police inspector keeping an eye on him, Michel also tries to get a straight job, but the temptation to steal is hard to resist.

Short Cuts

Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy's grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy's birthday cake.

Manhattan

Manhattan explores how the life of a middle-aged television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.

October (Ten Days that Shook the World)

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

A Streetcar Named Desire

A disturbed, aging Southern belle moves in with her sister for solace — but being face-to-face with her brutish brother-in-law accelerates her downward spiral.

Annie Hall

New York comedian Alvy Singer falls in love with the ditsy Annie Hall.