Mediterraneo (1991)

Marrakech Express

After learning that an old friend of theirs has been arrested in Morocco on drug charges, four former college buddies set out for Marrakech to bail him out.

Puerto Escondido

Targeted by a dirty cop after witnessing a murder, bank clerk Mario flees to Puerto Escondido, Mexico, where a couple of oddball Italian expats drags him into a journey of self-discovery and bad decisions.

Turné

Two stage actors leave on a tournée, but there's a matter to be settled: one has become the lover of the other's girlfriend and since they are very good friends, cannot bring himself to tell him.

Eccezzziunale... veramente

Diego Abatantuono in the shoes of three huge fans: the Juventus truck driver Tirzan, the head of the ultra Milanese Donato and the Franco inter.

Nirvana

Jimi, a computer game designer, finds that his latest product has been infected by a virus which has given consciousness to the main character of the game, Solo. Tormented by the memory of his fled girlfriend Lisa and begged by Solo to end its useless "life", Jimi begins a search for people who can help him both to discover what happened to Lisa and to delete his game before it is released.

Siberian Education

The story of a gang of children growing up in a community of banished criminals, in a forgotten corner of the former Soviet Union. This community rejects the world outside. The only law it obeys… is its own. Against this backdrop two best friends, Kolyma and Gagarin, gradually become fierce enemies as they find themselves on opposite sides of the strict code of honour of the ‘honest criminal’ brotherhood.

Welcome Mr. President!

In a small mountain village lives a man with a challenging name, Giuseppe Garibaldi (one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland"), but everybody call him with the nickname Peppino. Love fishing, the company of friends, the library where he works as a precarious employee. He is an optimistic person even if his child accuse him of being a wannabe. One day, due to a mess of politicians, an amazing thing happens: Peppino is mistakenly elected President of the Italian Republic. Pulled out from his quiet life, is to play a role for which he knows he is obviously inappropriate, but his common sense and his instinctive gestures are incredibly effective, except for the etiquette, for which he is in trouble. The inflexible and fascinating Deputy Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic, Janis Clementi, is anxious to no avail in an attempt to regulate the unpredictable actions of the President...

I'm Not Scared

While playing outside one day, nine-year-old Michele discovers Filippo, who is chained to the ground at the bottom of a hole. Michele witnesses town baddie Felice nearby and suspects something bad is happening. Michele is unsure whom he should tell about his discovery, eventually spilling the beans to his closest friend. Michele's parents learn of his discovery and warn him to forget what he saw

Happy Family

A blocked screenwriter, Ezio, is trying to finish a story about two off-kilter families thrown together when their teenage children announce they’re getting married. So Ezio writes himself into the story with a romantic part—a development his characters welcome, as they’ve got some ideas of their own for bigger and better roles.

Berlinguer: I Love You

A young poet falls in love with a sophisticated woman who hates poetry. But the poet wants to win her with poetry — and a bit of help from his mum.

Ti stimo fratello

Plot unavailable

Sud

During a hot Sunday afternoon in a small Southern Italian town, a school serving as a polling place is occupied by a group of three locals and an Eritrean immigrant, all unemployed, desperate and armed.

1945

An unsettling feeling overwhelms a small Hungarian town when two orthodox Jews arrive with a mysterious trunk. As residents begin to speculate on the purpose of the visit of these two strangers, order starts to crumble in town with some pursuing devious plans and others finding remorse in their hearts.

The Passion of Anna

Andreas, a man struggling with the recent demise of his marriage and his own emotional isolation, befriends a married couple also in the midst of psychological turmoil. In turn he meets Anna, who is grieving the recent deaths of her husband and son. She appears zealous in her faith and steadfast in her search for truth, but gradually her delusions surface. Andreas and Anna pursue a love affair, but he is unable to overcome his feelings of deep humiliation and remains disconnected. Meanwhile, the island community is victimized by an unknown person committing acts of animal cruelty.

The Guest

Dumped by his girlfriend and finding himself stranded on different couches at friends’ places, Guido tries to transform his drift into an opportunity for a new beginning.

The Devil at 4 O'Clock

A crusty, eccentric priest recruits three reluctant convicts to help him rescue a children's leper colony from a Pacific island menaced by a smoldering volcano.

Where Are You Going on Holiday?

In three vignettes, two exes, a tour guide and a married couple struggle to overcome a series of misadventures during their vacations.

Richard Pryor: Live in Concert

Richard Pryor delivers monologues on race, sex, family and his favorite target—himself, live at the Terrace Theatre in Long Beach, California.

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

Cumberland, 1348. The plague is spreading in medieval England. The remote village of little Griffin is also threatened. But the 9-year-old boy has a recurring dream that holds the key to a tiny hope of survival: a lake with a coffin floating on it. A white church with an iron cross. A falling glove. A falling silhouette. A torch tumble through a dark shaft into infinity. With his brother he recognizes in it a prophecy to escape the Black Death. So they embark with a few men on a journey to a distant cathedral, where they want to set up an iron cross as an offering to God. Her path leads them through a deep and dark mine shaft into an unknown land and completely outlandish time - into the present-day New Zealand of the 1980s.

Bickford Shmeckler's Cool Ideas

When his journal of bright ideas is stolen, college freshman Bickford Schmeckler has to blanket the campus in order to locate it.

My Brother-in-Law

A man recruits the help of his gangster brother-in-law to retrieve his stolen car.

Foxtrot

A Romanian aristocrat retreats to a desert isle with his wife and servants on the eve of World War II.

Our Tropical Island

A businessman is leaving for his family vacation in the South Pacific when he finds out that a rival has emptied his bank account. To save face he and his family lock themselves in the house, pretending to have gone on their trip, but it is not so easy to hide from the outside world.

Tales of Erotica

Four women of Gubbio – Angelica, Violetta, Lisa and Bettina – are conducted before the court by their lovers and husbands.

My Father Jack

Plot unavailable

The Day of the Triffids

After an unusual meteor shower leaves most of the human population blind, a merchant navy officer must find a way to conquer tall, aggressive plants which are feeding on people and animals.

Everything's Gonna Be Great

When Altan swipes prescription drugs from his brother Nuri's pharmacy, they soon find themselves on a dangerous but funny road trip to get rid of the stuff and escape the mafiosi Altan tried to double-cross. Along the way, the brother who are compete opposites finally bond.

Grand Hotel Excelsior

Taddeus is the manager of the Grand Hotel Excelsior. The Summer season begins in May and since then many odd persons frequent the hotel. There is Ilde Vivaldi, in love with Taddeus and the boxer Pericle Coccia who has an important match and falls in love with Maria. There is the Mago di Segrate trying to win world fame by levitating thirty meters high. And there is the waiter Egisto whose daughter is in a Swiss College believing her father is a man of importance.

The Prince of Tides

A troubled Southern man talks to his suicidal sister's psychiatrist about their family history and falls in love with her (and New York City) in the process.

Stromboli

After the end of WWII, a young Lithuanian woman and a young Italian man from Stromboli impulsively marry, but married life on the island is more demanding than she can accept.

I Hired a Contract Killer

After losing his job and realizing that he is alone in the world, a businessman opts to voluntarily end his life. Lacking courage, he hires a contract killer to do the job. Then, while awaiting his demise, he meets a woman and promptly falls in love.

Christmas Present

On Christmas night, four estranged friends reunite after a long time to rip off a rich industrialist in a game of poker, but old grudges get in the way.

Vieni avanti cretino

Pasquale Baudaffi, on amnesty, comes out of prison and starts looking for a job with the help of his cousin Gaetano. But first he goes to what was once a brothel, but, unbeknownst to our hapless hero, has been taken over and rented as a dental office. Pasquale finds himself at the center of endless misunderstandings. He tries to be a gamekeeper but that's not okay, he tries to be a waiter in a bar: he immediately gets his orders wrong and he is fired. His performance as a garage keeper was negative. The very latest experience is in an electronics company but its insertion into the futuristic mechanism triggers the craziest complications. The encounter with a lost dog allows him to get to know his mistress and thus discover the woman of his life.

Fido

Timmy Robinson's best friend in the whole wide world is a six-foot tall rotting zombie named Fido. But when Fido eats the next-door neighbor, Mom and Dad hit the roof, and Timmy has to go to the ends of the earth to keep Fido a part of the family. A boy-and-his-dog movie for grown ups, "Fido" will rip your heart out.

The Million Dollar Hotel

A federal agent searches for a potential killer among the bizarre residents of a dilapidated Los Angeles hotel.

The Postman

Simple Italian postman learns to love poetry while delivering mail to a famous poet; he uses this to woo local beauty Beatrice.

Don't Move

While waiting for the brain surgery of his daughter Angela, victim of a motorcycle accident, the surgeon Timoteo recalls his torrid affair with and passion for Italia, a simple woman from slums in the periphery of the big city where he lives. The ghost of the beloved and sexual object of desire Italia chases him in his memories.

The Little Shop of Horrors

Seymour works in a skid row florist shop and is in love with his beautiful co-worker, Audrey. He creates a new plant that not only talks but cannot survive without human flesh and blood.

Power and Paranoia of the Third Reich

Plot unavailable

A Company of Heroes

Easy Company, the 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, fought their way through Europe, liberated concentration camps, and drank a victory toast in April 1945 at Hitler's hideout. Veterans from Easy Company, along with the families of three deceased others, recount their horrors and victories, bonds they made and the friends they lost.

Flying Tigers

Jim Gordon commands a unit of the famed Flying Tigers, the American Volunteer Group which fought the Japanese in China before America's entry into World War II. Gordon must send his outnumbered band of fighter pilots out against overwhelming odds while juggling the disparate personalities and problems of his fellow flyers.

The Winter War

Russia attacked Finland in late November 1939. This film tells the story of a Finnish platoon of reservists from the municipality of Kauhava in the province of Pohjanmaa/Ostrobothnia who leave their homes and go to war. The film focuses on the farmer brothers Martti and Paavo Hakala.

Survival of the Dead

On a small island off the coast of Delaware, two families are locked in a struggle for power and control over the fate of the undead.

Move Over, Darling

Three years into their loving marriage, with two infant daughters at home in Los Angeles, Nicholas Arden and Ellen Wagstaff Arden are on a plane that goes down in the South Pacific. Although most passengers manage to survive the incident, Ellen presumably perishes when swept off her lifeboat, her body never recovered. Fast forward five years. Nicholas, wanting to move on with his life, has Ellen declared legally dead. Part of that moving on includes getting remarried, this time to a young woman named Bianca Steele, who, for their honeymoon, he plans to take to the same Monterrey resort where he and Ellen spent their honeymoon. On that very same day, Ellen is dropped off in Los Angeles by the Navy, who rescued her from the South Pacific island where she was stranded for the past five years. She asks the Navy not to publicize her rescue nor notify Nicholas as she wants to do so herself.

Father Goose

During World War II, South Sea beachcomber Walter Eckland is persuaded to spy on planes passing over his island. He gets more than he bargained for as schoolteacher Catherine Frenau arrives on the run from the Japanese with her pupils in tow!

The Secret of Santa Vittoria

During World War II, Italian villagers hide their wine from the German army.

Army of Crime

This gripping historical drama recounts the story of Armenian-born Missak Manouchian, a woodworker and political activist who led an immigrant laborer division of the Parisian Resistance on 30 operations against the Nazis in 1943. The Nazis branded the group an Army of Crime, an anti-immigrant propaganda stunt that backfired as the team's members became martyrs for the Resistance.

The Truce

After the liberation of Auschwitz, an Italian prisoner of War begins a torturous voyage home to Turin, through a Europe caught between war and peace.

I See a Dark Stranger

Proud Irishwoman Bridie Quilty journeys to Dublin while World War II rages across Europe. During her travels, she encounters J. Miller, who recruits her as a Nazi spy. She acquires the necessary information that leads to the breakout of a German spy who holds key information about the Allies' newest offensive plans. However, the arrival of British officer David Baynes and his romancing of Bridie lead to unexpected consequences.

No Escape

During WWII two sisters have stolen some emeralds from the lesbian Nazi SS officer (Rena Riffel) and now are on the run. One gets captured by her and gets tortured with electrified Freddy Krueger glove into revealing the location of the gems. The other escapes to her cousin's house, but her cousin who isn't that pleased with her appearance and blackmails the girl into becoming her personal slave in return for not turning her over to the SS.

Passport to Pimlico

When an unexploded WWII bomb is accidentally detonated in Pimlico, it reveals a treasure trove and documents proving that the region is in fact part of Burgundy, France and thus foreign territory. The British government attempts to regain control by setting up border controls and cutting off services to the area.

Sea of Sand

A small British army team is sent deep behind enemy lines to destroy a German petrol dump as part of the preparation for a major attack in the North African campaign. Sea of Sand was distributed in the US in a shortened version, Desert Patrol.

The Bridge

In order to check the German offensive, Partizans send an elite team of explosive experts to blow up a strategically important bridge. Besides being heavily guarded, that bridge is almost indestructible and the only man who knows weak spots in the construction is the architect who built it. He is, however, reluctant to cooperate because he doesn't want to see his masterpiece destroyed.

Kokoda

A bitter battle is fought between Australian and Japanese soldiers along the Kokoda trail in New Guinea during World War II.

Intimates

Foon escapes an arranged marriage by walking the road of a Ji Sor. After an affair with Shing, she becomes pregnant. An attempted abortion nearly costs Foon her life. Wan, the young owner of a silk factory, rescues her. Wan and Foon share their romances, reflecting the experience of women during the 40's.

Operation Petticoat

A World War II submarine commander finds himself stuck with a damaged sub, a con-man executive officer, and a group of army nurses.

Antonia's Line

After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.

The Best Years of Our Lives

It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.

The Great Dictator

Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.

The Great Love

The attractive Oberleutnant Paul Wendlandt is stationed in North Africa as a fighter pilot. While in Berlin to deliver a report he is given a day's leave, and on the stage of the cabaret theatre "Skala" sees the popular Danish singer Hanna Holberg. For Paul it is love at first sight. When Hanna visits friends after the end of the performance, he follows her, and speaks to her in the U-Bahn. After the party in her friends' flat, he accompanies her home and chance throws them further together when an air raid warning forces them to take cover in the air raid shelter. Hanna reciprocates Paul's feelings, but after a night spent together Paul has to return immediately to the front. There now follows a whole series of misunderstandings, and one missed opportunity after another. While Hanna waits in vain for some sign of life from Paul, he is flying on missions in North Africa. When he tries to visit her in her Berlin flat, she is giving a Christmas concert in Paris.

Madagascar

Four animal friends get a taste of the wild life when they break out of captivity at the Central Park Zoo and wash ashore on the island of Madagascar.

The General

During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnny Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.

Paths of Glory

A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.

Full Metal Jacket

A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.

The Birth of a Nation

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

Soldier of Orange

The lives of Erik Lanshof and five of his closest friends take different paths when the German army invades the Netherlands in 1940: fight and resistance, fear and resignation, collaboration and high treason.

Life Is Beautiful

A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.

Pan's Labyrinth

Living with her tyrannical stepfather in a new home with her pregnant mother, 10-year-old Ofelia feels alone until she explores a decaying labyrinth guarded by a mysterious faun who claims to know her destiny. If she wishes to return to her real father, Ofelia must complete three terrifying tasks.

King Kong vs. Godzilla

The advertising director of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, frustrated with the low ratings of their sponsored TV program, seeks a more sensationalist approach. He orders his staff to Faro Island to capture King Kong for exploitation. As Godzilla re-emerges, a media frenzy generates with Pacific looking to capitalize off of the ultimate battle.

The Hill

North Africa, World War II. British soldiers on the brink of collapse push beyond endurance to struggle up a brutal incline. It's not a military objective. It's The Hill, a manmade instrument of torture, a tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. And the troops' tormentors are not the enemy, but their own comrades-at-arms.

Bad Lucky Goat

After accidentally killing a bearded goat with their father’s pick-up truck, two incompatible siblings in their teenage years, embark on a journey of reconciliation.

Gunga Din

British army sergeants Ballantine, Cutter and MacChesney serve in India during the 1880s, along with their native water-bearer, Gunga Din. While completing a dangerous telegraph-repair mission, they unearth evidence of the suppressed Thuggee cult. When Gunga Din tells the sergeants about a secret temple made of gold, the fortune-hunting Cutter is captured by the Thuggees, and it's up to his friends to rescue him.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

General Candy, who's overseeing an English squad in 1943, is a veteran leader who doesn't have the respect of the men he's training and is considered out-of-touch with what's needed to win the war. But it wasn't always this way. Flashing back to his early career in the Boer War and World War I, we see a dashing young officer whose life has been shaped by three different women, and by a lasting friendship with a German soldier.

Operation Cross Eagles

War - In this thrilling war drama set in Yugoslavia during WWII, a small band of courageous commandoes are sent to kidnap an important German commander in exchange for an American general being held in a German fortress. "Operation Cross Eagles" is a story of suspense and intrigue that will have you on the edge of your seat one moment and blast you back the next. - Richard Conte, Rory Calhoun, Aili King

The Discussion

Three years after the fascist occupation, a group of children create the anti-fascist organization called "Debatik". Coli, an orphan boy, manages to become a member.

Victory Over Death

World War II. Albania is under the Nazi occupation. The Germans capture two young girls and torture them to learn more about the communist movement.

Suite Française

France, 1940. In the first days of occupation, beautiful Lucile Angellier is trapped in a stifled existence with her controlling mother-in-law as they both await news of her husband: a prisoner of war. Parisian refugees start to pour into their small town, soon followed by a regiment of German soldiers who take up residence in the villagers' own homes. Lucile initially tries to ignore Bruno von Falk, the handsome and refined German officer staying with them. But soon, a powerful love draws them together and leads them into the tragedy of war.

Escape from Sobibor

The true story of WWII's notorious Sobibor Nazi death camp, where a courageous inmate orchestrates and leads the escape of over 300 prisoners.

Tobruk

In September 1942, the German Afrika Korps under Rommel have successfully pushed the Allies back into Egypt. A counter-attack is planned, for which the fuel dumps at Tobruk are a critical impediment. In order to aid the attack, a group of British commandos and German Jews make their way undercover through 800 miles of desert, to destroy the fuel dumps starving the Germans of fuel.

The Silent Enemy

The Mediterranean, 1941/42 - Axis forces are using frogmen and manned torpedoes to attack previously impregnable harbours. The Allied forces need to come up with something to answer this threat, which they find in the form of Lt. Lionel "Buster" Crabb.

Attack: The Battle for New Britain

War - Documentary film depicting the attack by Allied forces on the Japanese strong-holds of Arawe Beach and Cape Gloucester, New Britain, in the South Pacific theatre of the Second World War in 1943. - Leo Genn, Burgess Meredith, Anthony Veiller

Once at Dawn

A driver is tasked with sending weapons illegally to the partisan soldiers.

Mountains Clad in Green

Year 1943. A group of soldiers, carrying an injured comrade, are trying to reach the hospital.

Devils on the Doorstep

During the Japanese occupation of China, two prisoners are dumped in a peasant's home in a small town. The owner is bullied into keeping the prisoners until the next New Year, at which time they will be collected. The village leaders convene to interrogate the prisoners. The townspeople then struggle to accommodate the prisoners. One is a bellicose Japanese nationalist, the other a nervous translator. Will the townspeople manage to keep the prisoners until the New Year?

Battle Over Britain

A young pilot, fresh out of training, is called to join a Flight while they wait for the call to scramble. Throughout a single day, he witnesses the skies of southern England filled with deadly dog fights, and after every exhausting battle the men return to their dispersal hut, only to find another of their number missing. Unwilling to surrender, the pilot and his comrades unite to take to the skies once more, determined to defend not only the airfield, but their entire country.

Lion of the Desert

This movie tells the story of Omar Mukhtar, an Arab Muslim rebel who fought against the Italian conquest of Libya in WWII. It gives western viewers a glimpse into this little-known region and chapter of history, and exposes the savage means by which the conquering army attempted to subdue the natives.

Tonight We Raid Calais

A British commando is on a one-man raid to destroy a bomb factory in Nazi-occupied France. He must enlist the aid of French farmers to complete his mission.

Hannibal Brooks

A POW in World War II is put to work in a Munich zoo, looking after an Asian elephant. The zoo is bombed by the Americans and the director of the zoo decides it is not safe for his Asian elephant Lucy to remain there. So he sends Brooks to safety with Lucy. They escape and go on the run in order to get to Switzerland.

All Things Fair

Stig is a 15-year-old pupil of 37-year-old teacher Viola. He is attracted by her beauty and maturity while she is drawn to him by his youth and innocence, a relief from her drunk and miserable husband.

The Siege: Operation "Iskra"

"Iskra" is the codename for the plan of the operation of the Soviet troops to break the blockade of Leningrad. In January 1943, the blockade of Leningrad was broken. A corridor 8-11 km wide was formed between Lake Ladoga and the front line.

39-45 L'histoire des bases sous-marines

Plot unavailable

The Ace of Cads

An officer in the British Guards takes to drink when a friend and fellow officer convinces the woman they both love that he has another woman.

Ghosts of War

A group of World War II American soldiers encounter a supernatural enemy as they occupy a French castle previously under Nazi control.

In Enemy Hands

At the height of Hitler's infamous U-boat war, the crew of the U.S.S. Swordfish were heading home after months at sea. They never made it. Now prisoners of war aboard U-boat 429, a small group of American survivors will find their loyalties put to the ultimate test when they're forced to join their German captors to fight for their very lives.

Command Decision

High-ranking officers struggle with the decision to prioritize bombing German factories producing new jet fighters over the extremely high casualties the mission will cost.

A Midnight Clear

In 1944 France, an American Intelligence Squad locates a German Platoon wishing to surrender rather than die in Germany's final war offensive. The two groups of men, isolated from the war at present, put aside their differences and spend Christmas together before the surrender plan turns bad and both sides are forced to fight the other.

Man Hunt

Shortly before the start of WW2, renowned British big-game hunter Alan Thorndike, vacationing in Bavaria, has Hitler in his gun sight. He is captured, beaten, left for dead, and escapes back to London where he is hounded by Nazi agents and aided by a young woman.

To Have and Have Not

A Martinique charter boat skipper gets mixed up with the underground French resistance operatives during WWII.

Carter's Army

A racist officer is put in charge of an all-black squad of troops charged with the mission of blowing up an important hydro-dam in Nazi Germany. Their failure would delay the Allies' advance into Germany, thus prolonging the war.

Black Dragons

It is prior to the commencement of World War II, and Japan's fiendish Black Dragon Society is hatching an evil plot with the Nazis. They instruct a brilliant scientist, Dr. Melcher, to travel to Japan on a secret mission. There he operates on six Japanese conspirators, transforming them to resemble six American leaders. The actual leaders are murdered and replaced with their likeness.

Slaughterhouse-Five

Billy Pilgrim, a veteran of the Second World War, finds himself mysteriously detached from time, so that he is able to travel, without being able to help it, from the days of his childhood to those of his peculiar life on a distant planet called Tralfamadore, passing through his bitter experience as a prisoner of war in the German city of Dresden, over which looms the inevitable shadow of an unspeakable tragedy.