Alexander Pope: Rediscovering a Genius (2021)

Love in Thoughts

A posthumous look at the last days of Guenther's life as he, his best friend, and his sister let loose on a four-day binge of alcohol, drugs, and sex.

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown

No one expects much from Christy Brown, a boy with cerebral palsy born into a working-class Irish family. Though Christy is a spastic quadriplegic and essentially paralyzed, a miraculous event occurs when, at the age of 5, he demonstrates control of his left foot by using chalk to scrawl a word on the floor. With the help of his steely mother — and no shortage of grit and determination — Christy overcomes his infirmity to become a painter, poet and author.

More Beautiful Than Death

And death and life she hated equally, And nothing saw, for her despair, But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, No comfort anywhere

Moulin Rouge!

A celebration of love and creative inspiration takes place in the infamous, gaudy and glamorous Parisian nightclub, at the cusp of the 20th century. A young poet, who is plunged into the heady world of Moulin Rouge, begins a passionate affair with the club's most notorious and beautiful star.

Forever a Woman

Fumiko, mother of two children and wife of an unfaithful man, shares her family life with her budding vocation as a poet. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and her breast cancer diagnosis. In the last stage of her life, she meets a young journalist from Tokyo who wants to write a story on her life.

Maya Dardel

An internationally respected poet announces she is going to kill herself and needs an heir and executor. Young writers drive up the mountain to compete for the position and are challenged intellectually, emotionally, and erotically.

Cyrano de Bergerac

Famed swordsman and poet Cyrano de Bergerac is in love with his cousin Roxane. He has never expressed his love for her as he his large nose undermines his self-confidence. Then he finds a way to express his love to her, indirectly.

Barfly

Downtrodden writer Henry and distressed goddess Wanda aren't exactly husband and wife: they're wedded to their bar stools. But, they like each other's company—and Barfly captures their giddy, gin-soaked attempts to make a go of life on the skids.

The Postman

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

Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive

How the inventor of the detective story became his own greatest mystery.

The Color of Pomegranates

The life of the revered 18th-century Armenian poet and musician Sayat-Nova. Portraying events in the life of the artist from childhood up to his death, the movie addresses in particular his relationships with women, including his muse. The production tells Sayat-Nova's dramatic story by using both his poems and largely still camerawork, creating a work hailed as revolutionary by Mikhail Vartanov.

Leopardi

In 19th-century Italy, Giacomo Leopardi channels his debilitating illness and isolation into poetry.

Nobel Son

Soon after his insufferably arrogant father wins the Nobel Prize for chemistry, Barkley Michaelson is kidnapped by Thaddeus James, a young genius who claims to be Barkley's illegitimate half-brother. Motivated not so much by money as revenge, Thaddeus tries to convince Barkley to help him carry out a multimillion-dollar extortion plot against their patriarch.

The Tiger and the Snow

Love and injury in time of war. Attilio de Giovanni teaches poetry in Italy. He has a romantic soul, and women love him. But he is in love with Vittoria, and the love is unrequited. Every night he dreams of marrying her, in his boxer shorts and t-shirt, as Tom Waits sings. Vittoria travels to Iraq with her friend, Fuad, a poet; they are there with the second Gulf War breaks out. Vittoria is injured. Attilio must get to her side, and then, as war rages around him, he must find her the medical care she needs. In war, does love conquer all?

Le Divorce

While visiting her sister in Paris, a young woman finds romance and learns her brother-in-law is a philanderer.

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.

The Libertine

The story of John Wilmot, a.k.a. the Earl of Rochester, a 17th century poet who famously drank and debauched his way to an early grave, only to earn posthumous critical acclaim for his life's work.

The Consul of Sodom

Fascinating journey through the life and work of the prestigious Catalan poet Jaime Gil de Biedma, both marked by sexuality and eroticism. Charismatic and somewhat eccentric, brilliant intellectual with extraordinary sensitivity and member of Barcelona's 'gauche divine' in the 60s, Gil de Biedma liked to describe himself as a 'poet of experience' while he suffered dreadfully from the dichotomy strangling him: bourgeois and executive for a multinational by day, communist and homosexual poet by night.

Lost Illusions

Lucien de Rubempré, a young, lower-class poet, leaves his family's printing house for Paris. Soon, he learns the dark side of the arts business as he tries to stay true to his dreams.

A Fine Madness

A womanizing poet falls into the hands of a psychiatrist with a straying wife.

Being in a Place: A Portrait of Margaret Tait

Drawing on a wealth of unseen archival material and unpublished notebooks, the film weaves a complex and personal portrait of Margaret’s life, from the perspective of a fellow artist sensitive to the potential Margaret envisaged for film as a poetic medium.

Video Letter

This remarkable compilation follows an exchange of video letters that took place between Shuji Terayama and Shuntaro Tanikawa in the months immediately preceding Terayama's death. It can be thought of as a home video produced by two preeminent poets and inter-laid with highly abstract philosophizing, slightly aberrant behavior and occasionally flamboyant visuals.

Lindisfarne’s Geordie Genius: The Alan Hull Story

Brit Award-winner Sam Fender goes in search of a musical hero from another era - the late, great, Alan Hull of Lindisfarne, in this one-off BBC Four documentary.

Softness of Bodies

An American poet living in Berlin hopes to win a prestigious grant while dealing with her former relationships, a rival poet, and her own penchant for stealing things.

Anonymous

Set against the backdrop of the succession of Queen Elizabeth I, and the Essex Rebellion against her, the story advances the theory that it was in fact Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford who penned Shakespeare's plays.

Pink Motherland

A documentary about Néstor Perlongher. His life, his poems, and his activism in Argentina's Frente de Liberación Homosexual (homosexual liberation front).

Belle

A married, middle-aged professor meets a mysterious woman in the woods and has an affair with her.

Though You May Not Know

An account of the life and work of the Spanish poet Luis García Montero; a journey through his experiences, his mentors, his influences and his contact with other artists, both from the literary world and from other disciplines.

The Broken Tower

Docudrama about American poet Hart Crane, who committed suicide in April 1932 at the age of 32 by jumping off the steamship SS Orizaba.

Tales of Ordinary Madness

Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity.

Quartet

Somerset Maugham introduces four of his tales in this anthology film: "The Facts of Life," "The Alien Corn," "The Kite," and "The Colonel's Lady."

Lamya's Poem

An inspiring and timely tale about a 12-year-old Syrian refugee girl named Lamya. When she flees the violence of her country, she is given a book of poetry of the famous 13th-century Poet, Rumi. As the perils of her journey mount, the book becomes a magical gateway where she meets Rumi when he was a boy and also a refugee fleeing the violence of his time. In a shared dreamworld, they battle the monsters that follow them from their real world situations, and Lamya must help young Rumi find his calling and write the poem that 800 years later will save her life.

We Three Debutantes

Three young poets are about to make their debuts.

A Quiet Passion

The story of American poet Emily Dickinson from her early days as a young schoolgirl to her later years as a reclusive, unrecognized artist.

I, the Worst of All

Assumpta Serna stars as the brilliant and beautiful poet Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz in this magnificent portrayal of 17th Century Mexico. In order to pursue her love of writing, Juana enters the convent and gains international renown. When the Inquisition comes, the local Vicereine becomes Juana's protectress and erotic muse, and soon begins a thrilling romance of startling passion and intensity.

Dongju: The Portrait of a Poet

Based on a true story, renowned Korean poet, Yun Dong-ju, is detained and abused by the Japanese for participating in the Korean Independence Movement.

Hedd Wyn

'Hedd Wyn' is a 1992 Welsh anti-war biopic. Ellis Humphrey Evans, a farmer's son and poet living at Trawsfynydd in the Meirionydd countryside of upland Wales, competes for the most coveted prize of all in Welsh Poetry - that of the chair of the National Eisteddfod, which in August 1917 was due to be held in Birkenhead (one of the rare occasions when it was held in England). After submitting his entry, under his bardic name "Hedd Wyn" ("Blessed Peace") Evans later departs from Meirionydd by train to join the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in Liverpool, despite his initial misgivings about the war. Ellis is sent to fight in the trenches of Flanders. 'Hedd Wyn' was the first Welsh-language film to be nominated for an Oscar.

Evening Primrose

A man becomes part of a secret society of people who live in a department store and quickly falls in love with their leader’s young maid.

Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise

A celebration of Dr. Maya Angelou by weaving her words with rare and intimate archival photographs and videos, which paint hidden moments of her exuberant life during some of America’s most defining civil rights moments. From her upbringing in the Depression-era South to her swinging soirees with Malcolm X in Ghana to her inaugural speech for President Bill Clinton, we are given special access to interviews with Dr. Angelou whose indelible charm and quick wit make it easy to love her.

Eric Clapton: Standing at the Crossroads

Eric Clapton is one of the most influential guitarists of all time. He ranked 2nd in Rolling Stone magazines list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and 4th in Gibson's "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". In this documentary feature he is interviewed in depth with contributions from Keith Richards, John Mayall, The Yardbirds, Jack Bruce and many more. It is the definitive Clapton biography.

La Bohème

In the early 1960s two artistic giants, conductor Herbert von Karajan and director Franco Zeffirelli, joined forces to create this milestone production of Puccini’s masterpiece at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. Filmed in that legendary opera house in 1965, with Zeffireli himself directing for the cameras, this “Bohème” has been acclaimed universally for its unique theatrical impact and visual splendour. Starring the young Mirella Freni in her carreer-making performance. – For the first time the full dimension of opera on film.

The Strange Thing About the Johnsons

A dark domestic drama about the familial ties that bind and the ties that really bind.