Reef Hunters (1999)

Copying Beethoven

A fictionalised exploration of Beethoven's life in his final days working on his Ninth Symphony. It is 1824. Beethoven is racing to finish his new symphony. However, it has been years since his last success and he is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A copyist is urgently needed to help the composer. A fictional character is introduced in the form of a young conservatory student and aspiring composer named Anna Holtz. The mercurial Beethoven is skeptical that a woman might become involved in his masterpiece but slowly comes to trust in Anna's assistance and in the end becomes quite fond of her. By the time the piece is performed, her presence in his life is an absolute necessity. Her deep understanding of his work is such that she even corrects mistakes he has made, while her passionate personality opens a door into his private world.

Nowhere in Africa

A Jewish woman named Jettel Redlich flees Nazi Germany with her daughter Regina, to join her husband, Walter, on a farm in Kenya. At first, Jettel refuses to adjust to her new circumstances, bringing with her a set of china dishes and an evening gown. While Regina adapts readily to this new world, forming a strong bond with her father's cook, an African named Owuor.

Feng Shui

One of the most acclaimed movies to come out of China last year, Feng Shui harnesses the talents of underrated actress Yan Bingyan to deliver this family drama about a woman desperate to ascend to the middle class and willing to pay any price. Powerful and emotionally tense, this is a portrait of the hidden side of the great Chinese success story.

The Return

Gülcan and her husband İbrahim dream of a happy future together in their village. However, they are subjected to the cruelty of the Agha, the local landowner who lords over the entire village. İbrahim is fed up and moves to Germany to find work. On the other hand, Gülcan has to deal with Agha's evils alone.

Lines

Six poems written by six young prisoners animated to tell their stories, thoughts, fears and hopes.

Tuesday

A mother and her teenage daughter must confront Death when it arrives in the form of an astonishing talking bird.

More Beautiful

The main thing is sexy - no matter whether thin, fat, what skin color, young, old, we can all be sexy in different ways. Almost every woman grows up having to work on herself in order to remain desirable. Why? What if we stopped pushing ourselves into a sexy pose with all our might? What if we no longer fought for the right to be sexy, but were truly free? What if we stopped investing all our time and energy in being heard and the world started to hear us? A modern movie about modern women and men - who might be able to find a common language.

Nobody's Child

Fact-based drama about the life of Marie Balter, who spent most of her young life in mental institutions. At age 16, she first attempted suicide and the next 20 years she spent in and out of the institutions. At last, a caring doctor started treating her for extreme depression and panic disorder. Weened from strong medications she had taken all her life, at age 36, she emerged for the last time and started a rehabilitation program in the home of a volunteer married couple. There she met a fellow patient with whom she developed a romantic relationship. She also started a college degree. This followed with a long-term professional success in the field of mental health.

I Think We're Alone Now

After a catastrophe destroys most of humanity, recluse Del lives in his small, empty town, content with the utopia he has methodically created for himself, until an interloper, young Grace, disrupts his solitude.

What They Had

A woman must fly back to her hometown when her Alzheimer's-stricken mother wanders into a blizzard. The return home forces her to confront her past.

Open Hearts

Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.

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.

The Secret Life of Words

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

Face of Evil

Using her girl-next-door looks to her advantage, Darcy Palmer is a calculating thief and murderer. After killing a young college student and taking her identity, Darcy enrolls in the victim's New England school in her place. At the university, Darcy gets to know her new roommate, Jeanelle, and her handsome father, Russell Polk, who soon play into her next scheme. When Darcy has to alter her plans, both Russell and Jeanelle become quite expendable.

Hot Pursuit

Straight-arrow policewoman Cooper is excited and thrilled about her next assignment. Her task is to escort Daniella Riva, a wisecracking Colombian beauty, from San Antonio to Dallas so both she and her husband can testify against a drug lord. Plans go awry when Mr. Riva gets ambushed, leaving Daniella a widow. Cooper and her witness must now use their wits to escape from crooked cops and murderous gunmen, while not killing each other in the process.

Rolling Home with a Bull

Jaded by a series of failures in Seoul, unknown poet, Sun-ho returns to his hometown to help his elderly parents work their farm. Fed up with having to clean up after their cow, he sneaks out one night to sell off the bull at a cattle market. Following some misadventures, he arrives at the market but is unable to sell the cow. Sun-ho's predicament is further complicated by a call from his the onetime love of his life, Hyun-su, in 7 years who married his close friend. She tells him that her husband has passed away. Faced with the news of her husband and once best friend, Min-gyu's death, Sun-Ho is tormented with memories of their friendships which fell apart. Following the funeral, Sun-ho travels with the cow he couldn't sell and his one-time lover who just lost her husband. On a journey that will help Sun-ho to get rid of bitterness and hatred that he has from himself...

Hypocrites

The story of St. Gabriel, who was killed by an ignorant mob for making a nude statue representing Purity, who is also represented by a ghostly naked girl that flits through the film.

The Ocean Waif

An abused young woman finds safety and love in the arms of a famous novelist.

Chaos, Disorder

Zaki, Mounir and Manal are in their twenties, and living in a confined community where basic needs are met yet chaos and disorder brew. The two boys are in love with the same girl who finds herself the subject of a bet for a football match between them, the winner marries Manal. This story reflects a football and play-station youth and how they deal with their emotions in a community that is increasingly closed off and isolated.

The Adventures of Huck Finn

Huckleberry Finn, a rambunctious boy adventurer chafing under the bonds of civilization, escapes his humdrum world and his selfish, plotting father by sailing a raft down the Mississippi River. Accompanying him is Jim, a slave running away from being sold. Together the two strike a bond of friendship that takes them through harrowing events and thrilling adventures.

Intimate Parts

Residents of a big city, each of whom has their own sexual problems and desires, secret and, most often, shameful from the point of view of society, need to solve them. Each of the characters tries to solve their problems in their own way: someone sublimates them, someone turns to a psychotherapist for help, someone rushes into experiments... but sooner or later they all return to where they started, and they have to overcome themselves again and again to get at least a little, even a millimeter closer to their happiness.

Miss and the Doctors

Two sibling doctors take on a young diabetic patient and both fall for the girl’s lovely mother, who tends bar at a local watering hole, testing their fraternal bonds and professional relationship.

The Sisterhood of Night

When a teenage girl says she's the victim of a secret network called The Sisterhood of Night, a quiet suburban town becomes the backdrop for a modern-day Salem witch trial.

Riddles of the Sphinx

In this avant-garde classic, protagonist Louise deals with a change in her lifestyle in which she must learn to negotiate domestic life and motherhood.

Geheimkommando Familie

Klaus Gremme, a retired instructor with the combat swimmers at the Baltic Sea, sets off for Lake Constance to meet his son Thomas and his grandchildren. They don't know anything about him because Klaus left his wife and Thomas when the boy was still very young. Klaus takes up residence with Mona, a single mother whose house is across the street from Thomas'. The reunion with his son turns into a fiasco, but Klaus doesn't give up and develops an elaborate plan to win Thomas and his family over after all. In the coming weeks, however, the ex-fight swimmer constantly clashes with his esoteric, pacifist landlady Mona. She and her children, the overweight Linus and Claire, who has Down syndrome, slowly grow fond of the lone warrior. In the end, the rapprochement with his own family seems to have failed. But Klaus may have found a new, completely different family in this search.

Aglaya

This film is about the relationship of a mother and her daughter, the split-up of their family, the blessing and curse of belonging together and about coming of age - all this from the perspective of the young girl Aglaja. The story is based on real-life events, an Eastern European circus artist family that fled to the West. If they want to stay in the circus business they have to make up an exotic act. The mother spends all their money to buy a very dangerous act: hanging by her hair high up in the dome of the circus while juggling with burning torches. Every night Aglaja is terrified by the fear of losing her mother. But, on some day, she has to follow the family tradition and become the "Woman with the Hair of Steel".

The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas

Antonis arrives at a hotel resort by the sea. It is wintertime, the hotel is closed and Antonis drifts around alone. He has a lot of time to kill. Until television announces the disappearance of the famous TV host Antonis Paraskevas…

Papusza

The rise and fall of the most distinguished Polish-Gypsy poetess Bronislawa Wajs, widely known as Papusza, and her relationship with her discoverer, writer Jerzy Ficowski.

Francis of Assisi

A 1966 biopic of Francis of Assisi presents him as a troubled rebel and champion of radical brotherhood, reflecting the spirit of 1968 student protests. Praised and condemned, the film sparked controversy for its bold, dissenting portrayal of faith.

The Crown and the Dragon

In a war-torn country that is plagued by a vicious dragon, Elenn, an arrogant, young noblewoman, accompanies her aunt on a mission to bring an ancient relic to the secret coronation of the rightful king.

The Love Light

Angela maintains a coastal lighthouse in Italy, where she awaits the return of her brothers from the war. She learns they are casualties and takes solace in the arms of an American sailor washed ashore. However, the sailor turns out to be a German spy, and she is torn between her love for him and her realization that he is part of the enemy force that has destroyed her family.

Fante-Anne

The story of an orphaned girl brought up by the Storlein family. Young Anne (Asta Nielsen) is brought as an infant to the Storlein farm by her mother, who has been traveling and is in need of a rest. The two are turned away at the door, and the mother takes her young daughter to the barn to sleep. The farmhand Jon discovers them in the morning but the mother has not made it through the night, so young Anne is taken in and raised by the family.

Secret Love: The Schoolboy and the Mailwoman

A 17 year old boy falls in love with a 37 year old woman. As if this wouldn't be enough they are of different social classes and she is married.

The Secret

A tangled murder mystery unfolds amid a complex love triangle. As conflicting witness accounts emerge, the truth about the victim and key suspects is revealed, leading investigators down a dark and twisty path where nothing is as it seems.

Lucia in Limbo

Sixteen-year-old Lucia wants to get rid of two things more than anything: her lice & her virginity.

Bull

In a near-abandoned subdivision west of Houston, a wayward teen runs headlong into her equally willful and unforgiving neighbor, an aging bullfighter who's seen his best days in the arena; it's a collision that will change them both.

China Behind

A group of Mainlanders fleeing the Cultural Revolution risk all to reach the adjacent British ‘haven’ of Hong Kong; yet what they find there is a far cry from their dreams of liberty.

Between the Lines

The staff of the Back Bay Mainline, a Boston underground newspaper that rose to prominence in the 1960s, struggles with the shifting social climate of the '70s amid rumors that the paper is about to be sold to a media giant.

Finishing School

Virginia, who studies at a boarding school for upper-class girls, falls in love with a medical intern who works as a waiter for a living. Both the director of the school and her mother oppose such a relationship.

Foreign Letters

A bittersweet coming-of-age film, Foreign Letters is itself a love letter to the unshakeable bond between friends. Set in the pre-email era of the 1980s, young Ellie, newly arrived to the US from Israel, anxiously waits for letters from her best friend back home. Suffering from homesickness, language difficulties and rejection at school, life brightens when she meets Thuy, a Vietnamese refugee her age. As the two bond and become inseparable, they eventually hurt each other, and Ellie must find a way to restore their trust. Based on director Ela Thier's personal immigration experience, Foreign Letters is a film about poverty, prejudice, shame, and the healing power of friendship.

Amour Fou

Heinrich wishes to conquer death through love, and when he meets Henriette, the wife of a business acquaintance, she expresses interest in a suicide pact when she learns she has a terminal illness.

A Girl at My Door

Sent from Seoul to serve in a remote coastal village, a policewoman gets involved in the life of a mysterious teenage girl who is abused by both her father and her grandmother.

Girlhood

Oppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom.

Our Time Will Come

In Japanese-occupied Hong Kong, a school teacher and her would-be-fiancé link up with Chinese guerrilla fighters, forging their own path to freedom.

Renaissance Man

An advertising man is slowly sliding downhill. When he is fired from his job in Detroit, he signs up for unemployment. One day they find him a job: teaching thinking skills to Army recruits. He arrives on base to find that there is no structure set up for the class.

How to Make an American Quilt

Soon-to-be-wed graduate student Finn Dodd develops cold feet when she suspects her fiancé is cheating on her. In order to clear her head, Finn visits her grandmother, Hy, and great aunt, Glady Joe Cleary, in Grasse, Calif. There, Finn learns that Hy and Glady Joe are members of a group of passionate quilters, and over the course of her visit she is regaled with tales of love and life by women who have collected rich experiences and much wisdom.

Jinn

Summer is a carefree teenage girl whose world is turned upside down when her mother abruptly converts to Islam and becomes a different person. At first resistant to the faith, she begins to reevaluate her identity after becoming attracted to a Muslim classmate, crossing the thin line between physical desire and piety.

Nobody Loves Me

On the brink of her 30th birthday, Fanny feels the door to marital happiness closing on her. She is obsessed with death and even visits evening classes on dying, so it seems fitting that she encounters a skeleton in the malfunctioning elevator of her apartment building. The skeleton is her neighbour Orfeo, a Black, gay, self-declared psychic, who convinces her that she is about to meet "him". But is it really Lothar, the new yuppie apartment manager ...?

Mad Money

Three female employees of the Federal Reserve plot to steal money that is about to be destroyed.

Waru

Eight Māori female directors have each contributed a sequence to this powerful and challenging feature which unfolds around the tangi of a small boy who died at the hands of his caregiver.

Sofie

Liv Ulmann's directorial debut also had her co-authoring the screenplay (with poet Peter Poulsen) as based on a Henri Nathansen's 1932 novel about an affluent late 19th century Jewish merchant family in Copenhagen. Ulmann focuses on strong-willed daughter Sofie's progress through life: a love affair with a gentile painter, an arranged marriage , childbirth and ever more fateful challenges.

Awakenings

Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patient to receive the controversial treatment. His awakening, filled with awe and enthusiasm, proves a rebirth for Sayer too, as the exuberant patient reveals life's simple but unutterably sweet pleasures to the introverted doctor.

Thirteen

When 13-year-old Tracy befriends Evie, the most popular girl in school, her life is turned upside down as Evie introduces her to a world of sex, drugs, and money. But it isn’t long before Tracy’s new lifestyle begins to take a heavy toll on her and her family.

Holy Smoke

While on a journey of discovery in exotic India, beautiful young Ruth Barron falls under the influence of a charismatic religious guru. Her desperate parents then hire PJ Waters, a macho cult de-programmer who confronts Ruth in a remote desert hideaway. But PJ quickly learns that he's met his match in the sexy, intelligent and iron-willed Ruth.

Head On

Nineteen-year-old Ari confronts both his sexuality and his Greek family. Ari despises his once-beloved parents, former radical activists, for having entombed themselves in insular tradition. Ari is obsessed with gay sex, although he does make an unenthusiastic attempt to satisfy the sister of one of his best friends. While all of this is going on, he's facing problems with his traditional Greek parents, who have no clue about his sexual activities.

Laurel Canyon

When an uptight young man and his fiancée move into his libertine mother's house, the resulting clash of life attitudes shakes everyone up.