Pastorale (1975)

Sept pièces pour cinéma noir et blanc

"Before we started work on the film "Les Favoris de la Lune" , I tried to capture on film my first impressions of the city and the people who inhabit it. This etude of Paris, slightly shortened, was shown on television." -- Otar Ioseliani

The End of the World

The plot concerns a comet hurling toward Earth on a collision course and the different reactions to people on the impending disaster.

Main Krishna Hoon

In answer to an orphan boy's prayers, the divine Lord Krishna comes to Earth, befriends the boy, and helps him find a loving family.

Flow

A turbulent day in a life, painted by air.

Gunpowder

At the end of September 1941, Soviet artillery troops in besieged Leningrad realize that pretty soon they will fire their last shot, and after that the defense of the city will be doomed. The film is based on a true event: a small group of fearless soldiers transported a large supply of gunpowder through enemy lines to Leningrad.

Flow

Plot unavailable

Maine-Ocean Express

"Maine-Ocean" is the name of a train that rides from Paris to Saint-Nazaire (near the ocean). In that train, Dejanira, a Brazilian, has a brush with the two ticket inspectors. Mimi, another traveler and also a lawyer, helps her. The four of them will meet together later and live a few shifted adventures with a strange-speaking sailor (Mimi's client).

Re-Births

A documentary film depicting five intimate portraits of migrants who fled their country of origin to seek refuge in France and find a space of freedom where they can fully experience their sexuality and their sexual identity: Giovanna, woman transgender of Colombian origin, Roman, Russian transgender man, Cate, Ugandan lesbian mother, Yi Chen, young Chinese gay man…

Anna's Struggle

Anna is a woman who sells flowers at the local market and whose only hope and joy in her life is her only son Amaurys. Raul, Amaurys' best friend, involves him in a drug deal which results in his death.

Partida de Cartas

Plot unavailable

Donauspital

The daily workings of Austria's Danube Hospital.

King of the Ghetto

An idealistic former soldier helps unite and house ethnic minorities in a run down area of London's east end

For One Thousand Dollars Per Day

Hud's parents were murdered, their land stolen and now Hud will dish out justice to the guilty - the three Clark brothers know they are in danger but they don't know from where the blow will come.

The Abyss of shadows

Ayush suffers from sleep paralysis and dark hallucinations, haunted by shadowy figures that represent his repressed fears. Trapped between dream and reality, he confronts these manifestations of his inner turmoil.

Coldplay at the BBC

Coldplay showcased several tracks from their new album in an open-air concert at the BBC Television Centre in London. The gig – broadcast live on BBC Two – featured new material such as 'Violet Hill' and '42', alongside old favorites including 'Clocks', 'Fix You' and 'In My Place'. The band left the main stage briefly to perform an acoustic version of 'Yellow' against the backdrop of the Television Centre building. The gig ended with a rousing version of 'Lovers in Japan' that involved showering the crowd with thousands of paper butterflies.

Gillo of Ladies and Knights, of Loves and Arms

Pontecorvo is one of those Italian filmmakers marked for life by neorealism. He declares that he decided to do cinema after leaving a screening of "Paisa" by Roberto Rossellini. The future filmmaker was then in Paris, a year after a war during which he became one of the main figures of the Italian resistance and one of the founders of the Youth Front. Leaving his status as a war hero behind him, Pontecorvo made his directorial debut with "Giovanna", a short film heralding a cinematic career dedicated to what he himself calls the "dictatorship of truth."

The Inheritors

In a small farming valley in Austria in the beginning of the 20th century a tyrannical farmer is found dead, and all the farmhands are relieved to be free of their tyrant. But the farmer was childless, so suddenly they all inherit the farm together. Now conflicts begin, as nobody is the boss and nobody has to obey.

Nobody Wanted to Die

The film is set in Lithuania after the Second World War. It shows dramatic events in a small Lithuanian farming community, where people are split between the Soviets and the "brothers in the woods", who are fighting to defend their land from the Soviets after the end of the Second World War.

Tears of the Sun

Navy SEAL Lieutenant A.K. Waters and his elite squadron of tactical specialists are forced to choose between their duty and their humanity, between following orders by ignoring the conflict that surrounds them, or finding the courage to follow their conscience and protect a group of innocent refugees. When the democratic government of Nigeria collapses and the country is taken over by a ruthless military dictator, Waters, a fiercely loyal and hardened veteran is dispatched on a routine mission to retrieve a Doctors Without Borders physician.

The Sweet Hereafter

A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.

Volver

A resourcefull working-class woman living in Madrid gets her hands dirty in family secrets with the help of a teenage daughter and hairdresser sister.

East Is East

In 1971 Salford fish-and-chip shop owner George Khan expects his family to follow his strict Pakistani Muslim ways. But his children, with an English mother and having been born and brought up in Britain, increasingly see themselves as British and start to reject their father's rules on dress, food, religion, and living in general.

Luna Papa

The unborn child of Mamlakat is telling her story. She is 17, beautiful and vivacious, and dreaming secretly of becoming an actress. She lives with her father and brother in a small village in Central Asia. One night she is seduced by an actor from a travelling troupe, who poses as a friend of Tom Cruise, and gets her pregnant. She tries to abort, but her father and brother become determined to find the seducer, setting in motion a cascade of comic adventures.

Zorba the Greek

An uptight English writer traveling to Crete on a matter of business finds his life changed forever when he meets the gregarious Alexis Zorba.

The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain

When an English cartographer arrives in Wales to tell the residents of the Welsh village of Ffynnon Garw that their 'mountain' is only a hill, the offended community sets out to remedy the situation.

War of the Buttons

For generations, two rival French villages, Longueverne and Velrans, have been at war. But this is no ordinary conflict, for the on-going hostilities are between two armies of young schoolboys. When he is beaten by his father for having lost his buttons, the leader of the Longueverne army, Lebrac, has an idea which will give his side the advantage: next time, he and his brave soldiers will go in battle without their clothes...

Fleisch ist mein Gemüse

Heinz Strunk, plagued by crater-like skin rashes, lives with his sick mother in Hamburg-Harburg in the 1980s. As a saxophonist, he tours the North German lowlands with the dance combo "Tiffanys". In this bizarre universe of Korn, Klaus & Klaus and Koteletts, bandleader Gurki teaches him how to deliver cheerful, upbeat music. To escape the vicious circle of shooting festivals and village weddings, Heinz wants to start a solo career and become a hit producer...

Three the Movie

Three stories are intertwined in a land, Friuli, in the North-East of Italy, which extends along a triple border. The stories of Irene, a Carnian, Christian girl; Pavel, Ukrainian and Jewish; Mehdi, Iranian and Muslim. Udine. A beautiful city, but one that is perceived as cold and inhospitable by emigrants. Pavel and Mehdi are illegal immigrants, who share an apartment - and concerns about social matters - in the “ghetto” of Via Roma. In love with Pavel, Irene tries to help them, but her surge of solidarity goes perhaps too far, and she regrets it. Mehdi lives obsessed with an ancient guilt: his fragile soul is attracted to Evil. Predestination and moral choice. Two alternatives? Subjection to freedom of Good or Evil. What will the protagonists choose?

Turtles Can Fly

Turtles Can Fly tells the story of a group of young children near the Turkey-Iraq border. They clean up mines and wait for the Saddam regime to fall.

¡Three Amigos!

A trio of unemployed silent film actors are mistaken for real heroes by a small Mexican village in search of someone to stop a malevolent bandit.

Wood Job!

After failing his university entrance exam, Yuki Hirano sets his eyes on the role of a forestry trainee. Setting off for training he doubts his decision many times, but eventually after passing the training course, he is sent to Kamusari Village for a year of work experience - where he becomes assimilated with the beauty of nature and the warm-hearted people of the village.

The Grocer's Son

Antoine Sforza, a thirty-year-old young man, left his village ten years before in order to start a new life in the big city, but now that his father, a traveling grocer, is in hospital after a stroke, he more or less reluctantly accepts to come back to replace him in his daily rounds.

Train of Life

In 1941, the inhabitants of a small Jewish village in Central Europe organize a fake deportation train so that they can escape the Nazis and flee to Palestine.

Welcome to the Sticks

Although living a comfortable life in Salon-de-Provence, a charming town in the South of France, Julie has been feeling depressed for a while. To please her, Philippe Abrams, a post office administrator, her husband, tries to obtain a transfer to a seaside town, on the French Riviera, at any cost. The trouble is that he is caught red-handed while trying to scam an inspector. Philippe is immediately banished to the distant unheard of town of Bergues, in the Far North of France...

Piggy

A bullied overweight teenager sees a glimpse of hope when her tormentors are brutally abducted by a mesmerizing stranger.

Local Hero

An American oil company sends a man to Scotland to buy up an entire village where they want to build a refinery. But things don't go as expected.

The New Shelter

Film set in a remote mountainous area where work and living conditions are harsh.

On the Track

Film set after World War II. A group of kids notice a shady new resident in their neighborhood.

Short

"Short" tells the story of Sakhavat who lives in a village, where, according to a tradition, nobody allows their daughter to get married to someone who has never served in the military.

Urtajo

A toxic spill threatens the town of Urtajo: tackle the problem or cover it up? Javier will learn that not everything can be bought with money.

Welcome to Dongmakgol

Based on the long running play by Jang Jin, the story is set in Korea during the Korean War in 1950. Soldiers from both the North and South, as well as an American pilot, find themselves in a secluded and naively idealistic village, its residents unaware of the outside world, including the war.

An Event

A grandfather and his grandson go to a fair to sell a horse. A ranger and his vicious partner, Matijevic, follow them as they return home in order to rob them. The confrontation takes place in the forest.

Way Down East

A naive country girl is tricked into a sham marriage by a wealthy womanizer, then must rebuild her life despite the taint of having borne a child out of wedlock.

The Tree of Wooden Clogs

On a turn-of-the-20th-century northern Italian farm, a group of sharecroppers eke out a threadbare existence. A priest advises Batisti and his wife Batistina that their young son Minec should be formally educated, so they sacrifice his help in the fields and send him to school. When Minec's wooden shoe breaks one day, Batisti--in an act of desperation--puts the family's future at risk to replace the clog.

Wild Roses

After spending some time in a hospital, Ewa returns to her Polish village to work on a wild rose plantation. Her family situation gets increasingly complicated, however, as her husband returns home from abroad, while it is revealed that Ewa has had an affair with a high-school-aged boy. Meanwhile, her relationship with her two children is strained, in particular with the headstrong Marysia, who is approaching her first communion. As things pile up for Ewa, she starts to realize that the time has come to make some difficult decisions.

The Stoning of Soraya M.

In 1986 Iran, Sahebjam, whose car breaks down in a remote village, enters into a conversation with Zahra, who relays to him the story about her niece, Soraya, whose arranged marriage to an abusive tyrant ended in tragedy.

Mao’s Last Dancer

At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he falls in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.

Where the Ravens Fly

Set in the dense forests of 1940s Eastern Europe, this story reveals the supernatural encounters that challenge three soldiers' understanding of life and death.

Corpse Prison: Part 1

From the moment she and her fellow students arrive in the mountain village of Yasaka, Mikoto knows that there is something very wrong with this tiny town. Can it really be true that, for 50 years, not a single girl has been born in this isolated community? Despite the fact that Mayor Amano and the other all male residents have enthusiastically welcomed her and the other three coeds attending Professor Ashihara’s overnight seminar, Mikoto can’t shake the sense of increasing dread that consumes her. Something horrible has happened here. Something that is about to happen again. Because the town has been waiting for her. And the other girls. From the pages of the hit online manga published in Web Comic Gamma, the nightmare is about to begin!

Good Favour

A teenage stranger is welcomed into a household in a devout Catholic village and gradually reveals his motives and what seem to be magical powers.

Saving Face

A Chinese-American lesbian and her traditionalist mother are reluctant to go public with secret loves that clash against cultural expectations.

His

Shun and Nagisa first meet and fall in love during their first year of high school. While Shun is graduating from university, Nagisa tells him that he doesn't see a future for them. Despite Shun's strong feelings, they go their separate ways. Years later, Shun is now a store owner, living alone in a rural area. Out of the blue, Nagisa arrives with his six-year-old daughter, Sora. Spending time together, Shun realizes he still harbors feelings for Nagisa. Can Nagisa reconcile with his feelings for Shun, which have been there all along?

Misericordia

Jérémie returns to his hometown for the funeral of his former boss, the village baker. He decides to stay for a few days with Martine, the man's widow. A mysterious disappearance, a threatening neighbor and a priest with strange intentions make Jérémie's short stay in the village take an unexpected turn.

The Reckoning

In 14th Century England, this tale of murder and mystery follows a fugitive priest who falls in with a troupe of actors. As they arrive in a small town, the actors encounter a woman being sentenced to death for practicing witchcraft and murder. Discarding the expected bible stories, the actors now stage a performance based on the crime. Through the performance of the play, they discover a mystery.

The Masque of the Red Death

A European prince terrorizes the local peasantry while using his castle as a refuge against the "Red Death" plague that stalks the land.

The Home Song Stories

A glamorous Hong Kong performer struggles to make a home in suburban 1960s Australia.

The American

Dispatched to a small Italian town to await further orders, assassin Jack embarks on a double life that may be more relaxing than is good for him.