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Former East Germany, 1992. Patrick Stein and Markus Bach, two very different police officers, are commissioned to investigate the disappearance of two female teenagers in a remote area of the country. Did they run away from home or did something more terrible happen to them?
In the middle of nowhere lived an unexpected piece of skateboarding and punk music history. “The Crest”..a skateboarding mecca of the 80’s, a veritable metal monolith, tucked away on a country club in the suburbs of the nation’s Capital. It was a place of pure unadulterated expressionist freedom where cutting edge skateboarding and punk rock music collided and made history. Professional skaters and legendary bands, 11 gauge steel and, of course, blood. “Blood and Steel: Cedar Crest Country Club” is the story of a one of a kind skateboarding playground that attracted skaters and bands from all over to come experience what became known simply as, “The Crest”.
Josefin is a six year old girl who lives isolated in the countryside, where her father is a priest. She has no friends until she meets Hugo. He is a carefree boy who’d rather walk in the forest than go to school. Together with the gardener, they make up fun things to do.
The Romanian penitentiary system allows, from 2006, the marriage of people sentenced to serve time in prison. Most of the inmates cultivate the pre-existing relationships with the concubines or partners who live outside the prison walls. Though, there is a special category, of those who find a life partner during their time in prison. VISITING ROOM follows the stories of some prisoners found in different penitentiaries across the country, who have found their life partner during their sentence time. The one is either a person from outside, or as them, a person who is serving time in prison. Our intention was to talk to the people found in the special situation of being deprived of freedom, to whom love becomes a substitute for freedom and represents maybe their only hope for a better future.
In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the ‘No’ vote persuade a brash young advertising executive, René Saavedra, to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and while under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free.
As corruption becomes rampant in the country, a group of idealistic youngsters attract attention of freedom fighter-turned-vigilante Senapathy through social media, who returns to his homeland to finish what he started.
Spring 1995 – after the closure of the Needle Park and the public drug scene in Zurich, eleven-year-old Mia and her heroin addicted mother Sandrine are relocated to the countryside. While caring for her mother, Mia spends time with her imaginary friend and a gang of local teenage misfits. These friendships finally give her the strength to rebel and break free from her abusive mother.
Matured through two years in prison, Babtou is looking forward to a new beginning with his buddy Dennis. A free man in a free world! But of all things, his welcome party where all the boys from the block are gathered ends in a police operation. Babtou has his hands cuffed again and is confronted with dramatic news. He will soon be deported to his “home country” of Senegal. To prevent a deportation, Babtou and Dennis are willing to do anything, including marriage.
The Swedish Liberal party leader David Holst is in crisis. Just recently, he was Sweden’s hottest politician. Stylish, funny, popular and the obvious candidate as the country’s next Prime Minister. Now, two years and a disappointing election defeat later, he finds himself in free fall. The voters have deserted him, the party is in uproar and he can hardly manage to get out of bed. It gets no better when he falls head over heels in love with party general secretary Martin, the last person on earth he can fall in love with. A man. A Social Democrat.
In a dystopian Switzerland that has fallen under the fascist rule of an evil cheese tyrant, Heidi lives the pure and simple life in the Swiss Alps. Grandfather Alpöhi does his best to protect Heidi, but her yearning for freedom soon gets her into trouble with the dictator’s henchmen. The innocent girl transforms herself into a kick-ass female fighting force who sets out to liberate the country from the insane cheese fascists.
Mona Bergeron is dead, her frozen body found in a ditch in the French countryside. From this, the film flashes back to the weeks leading up to her death. Through these flashbacks, Mona gradually declines as she travels from place to place, taking odd jobs and staying with whomever will offer her a place to sleep. Mona is fiercely independent, craving freedom over comfort, but it is this desire to be free that will eventually lead to her demise.
Paris, 1993. Selma, 17, lives in a bourgeois and secular Berber family. When she meets and is strongly attracted to Julien, a dashing young man, she realizes for the first time the heavy rules of her patriarchal family and how they affect her intimacy. As Islamism takes over her country of origin and her family crumbles, Selma discovers the power of her own desire. She must resist and fight. Through the strength of her people, she starts walking down the path of what it means to become a free woman.
1994, a small town in central Scotland. Best mates Johnno and Spanner, despite being total opposites, have a deep bond. Now on the cusp of adulthood, life is destined to take them in different directions – Johnno’s family are moving him to a new town and a better life, leaving Spanner behind to face a precarious future. But this summer is going to be different for them, and for the country. The explosion of the free party scene and the largest counter-cultural youth movement in recent history is happening across the UK.
In the conditioning unit of a small chestnut can factory in a quiet little country village as winter slowly settles, a young ladybug gets trapped by accident in a cardboard box shipped to the Caribbean. His parent sets off for the paradise archipelago to find his little kid and free him. Once he finally makes it there, our hero finds himself entrusted with a double mission: find his offspring and save his new Caribbean ladybug friends’ home threatened by a human construction site. Thankfully our hero will be able to count on his friend the black ant that flies to the rescue from the other side of the world.
Given the country’s overcrowded prisons, the U.S. government begins to allow 12-hour periods of time in which all illegal activity is legal. During one of these free-for-alls, a family must protect themselves from a home invasion.
In the year 1215, the rebel barons of England have forced their despised King John to put his royal seal on the Magna Carta, a seminal document that upheld the rights of free men. Yet within months of pledging himself to the great charter, the King reneged on his word and assembled a mercenary army on the south coast of England with the intention of bringing the barons and the country back under his tyrannical rule. Barring his way stood the mighty Rochester castle, a place that would become the symbol of the rebel’s momentous struggle for justice and freedom.
To escape their marital problems, a young family travels from the city to spend the summer in Amish Country where a malevolent presence grips them. They soon discover that they were brought there for a reason and they must break free before the demonic hold consumes them.
A group of veterans wake up after a night of partying to find out that the zombie apocalypse has spread across the United States. Together, they must fight their way across the country in order to find a cure for the outbreak and restore freedom before it’s too late.
Fleeing religious persecution in Germany, the Leininger family seeks a new start in uncharted country – America. It is the mid-1700s and British and French forces are struggling for control over the abundant resources of this new territory. Carving out a homestead can be arduous work, but the Leiningers labor joyfully. Then the unthinkable: In a terrifying raid, Delaware warriors kidnap the two young Leininger daughters and attempt to indoctrinate them into native culture. Through their ordeal they never lose hope and “their faith becomes their freedom”.
A young single mother of four living in a small Texas town. Arrested during a drug raid and accused of a crime she didn’t commit, Dee goes against the wishes of her mother, Alma, and rejects the plea-bargain that would free her from jail, but brand her as a felon for life. As word begins to spread that similar incidents are occurring in poor communities all across the country, Dee realizes that there are more mothers out there like her, and decides to take a stand against powerful district attorney Calvin Beckett. Now, despite being well aware of District Attorney Beckett’s fierce reputation, Dee enlists the aid of ACLU attorney David Cohen and former narcotics officer Sam Conroy in overcoming the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that, if not navigated with the greatest of caution, now threaten to destroy her life. With the custody of her children on the line, one brave mother wages a valiant battle to strike at the very heart of the corrupt Texas justice system.
Get swept up in the action as an armored car driver (Christian Slater) tries to elude a gang of thieves (led by Morgan Freeman) while a flood ravages the countryside. Hard Rain is “a wild, thrilling, chilling action ride” filled with close calls, uncertain loyalties and heart-stopping heroics.
Six college students from different universities around the country are selected to participate in Econo Air’s annual, company program to compete for an internship. Each student has dire reasons why they need to land this position that comes long with pay and free tuition. For these reasons, and others- they cannot see the craziness that’s going on all around them in the company.
Set on the border, where Mexico becomes the crucible and the fearsome gangs of today’s Mexican countryside, the gauntlet, to freedom. The stories of a girl living in Honduras and hungering for a brighter future, and two teen gang members, for whom the Mara Salvatrucha is near their entire universe, become interlaced on the train to the border, a journey that will determine the future of their lives
A freewheeling portrait of Ken Kesey and the Merry Prankster’s fabled road trip across America in the legendary Magic Bus. In 1964, Ken Kesey, the famed author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” set off on a legendary, LSD-fuelled cross-country road trip to the New York World’s Fair. He was joined by “The Merry Band of Pranksters,” a renegade group of counterculture truth-seekers, including Neal Cassady, the American icon immortalized in Kerouac’s “On the Road,” and the driver and painter of the psychedelic Magic Bus.
In this strange western version of JAWS, Wild Bill Hickok hunts a white buffalo he has seen in a dream. Hickok moves through a variety of uniquely authentic western locations – dim, filthy, makeshift taverns; freezing, slaughterhouse-like frontier towns and beautifully desolate high country – before improbably teaming up with a young Crazy Horse to pursue the creature.
In the final decades of the 20th century, the Philippines was a country where low-budget exploitation-film producers were free to make nearly any kind of movie they wanted, any way they pleased. It was a country with extremely lax labor regulations and a very permissive attitude towards cultural expression. As a result, it became a hotbed for the production of cheapie movies. Their history and the genre itself are detailed in this breezy, nostalgic documentary.
How far would you go to be with the love of your life? In 2003, in the midst of war, in a country where homosexuality is banned, two Iraqi men meet by chance and fall in love. Nayyef, a translator for the U.S. military, and Btoo, a soldier in the Iraqi army, face persecution, and possibly death, if they stay in their homeland. After obtaining a visa, Nayyef leaves his love behind, settling in Seattle with a determination to one day reunite with Btoo in a place where they can express their love freely and without fear.
Touko Laaksonen, a decorated officer, returns home after a harrowing and heroic experience serving his country in World War II, but life in Finland during peacetime proves equally distressing. He finds peace-time Helsinki rampant with persecution of the homosexual and men around him even being pressured to marry women and have children. Touko finds refuge in his liberating art, specialising in homoerotic drawings of muscular men, free of inhibitions. His work – made famous by his signature ‘Tom of Finland’ – became the emblem of a generation of men and fanned the flames of a gay revolution.
When Colonel James Braddock is told that his Asian wife and 12-year-old son are still alive in Communist Vietnam, he mounts a one-man assault to free them. Armed with the latest high-tech firepower, Braddock fights his way into the heart of the country and ends up battling his way out with several dozen abused Amerasian children in tow! Struggling to keep them alive while outmaneuvering a sadistic Vietnamese officer, Braddock ignites the jungle in a blazing cross-country race for freedom.
A grand and patriotic tale of Poland’s struggle for freedom just before Napoleon’s war with Russia. Written in poetic style by Adam Mickiewicz, this story follows two feuding Polish families as they overcome their old conflicts and petty lives. However, they are able to unite as one with their patriotic and rebellious efforts to free the country they deeply love from Russian control.
Raised suckling poison arrows among the sparring Iga ninja factions, Mumon (Satoshi Ohno, of idol group Arashi) is a carefree 16th-century mercenary. When the ninja council makes a power play to defeat the young Nobukatsu Oda struggling to step into his father’s warlord shoes as they expand rule across the country, Mumon jumps into the fray to satisfy his new bride Okuni’s (Satomi Ishihara of Shin Godzilla, Attack on Titan) demand that he make good on his promises of wealth. Yet Mumon soon finds what is worth fighting for beyond money or nation. A longtime JAPAN CUTS favorite known for his offbeat dramas, Yoshihiro Nakamura (Fish Story, Golden Slumber) takes on the jidaigeki epic with his signature sense of play featuring a jazzy soundtrack and fantastical ninja tricks. -JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film
A team of Navy Seals are sent to destroy a disabled submarine so it will not fall into the “wrong” hands. They complete their mission, but are captured before they can return to their base. The U.S. Government will not mount a rescue mission to free the soldiers, so their teenage children take over. The kids find a way to venture into the foreign country and then must overcome many obstacles.
The story of the Polish fliers who found themselves fighting for the freedom of their own country in foreign skies. Seen through the eyes of Jan Zumbach, fighter ace and adventurer, it tells how the Poles, driven across Europe by the German war machine, finally made their last stand. Flying Hurricanes for the RAF over Britain, they became a key component in the legend of ‘The Few’. Up against the might of the Luftwaffe they hoped that, by saving Great Britain from Nazi invasion, they were keeping the dream of a free Poland alive.
Single mom Laura, along with her awkward 14 year-old son Henry is forced to drive Jack, her estranged, care-free pot dealing father across country after he’s kicked out of yet another nursing home.
Alana and Lori were just two LGBT 20-somethings looking for love on Tinder when a casual right swipe made a match that would bind them together forever. Within a few weeks of meeting, Lori learned that Alana suffers from Lupus and has been waiting on the kidney transplant list for years. The state of New York, where Alana lives, has the lowest number of organ donors in the country, and because of her complex medical background, her chances of finding a donor match were incredibly slim. Against all odds, Lori found that she was a candidate for donation and decided to give Alana the ultimate gift. If the transplant is a success, Alana will triple her life expectancy and be freed from nightly dialysis. But if it fails, Lori will go through risky surgery and lose a healthy organ in vain. BEAN is an emotional medical journey for two families that tests the true limits of love and sacrifice.
Fernando is on holiday with his closest male friends in a beautiful country house in a suburb of Buenos Aries. On their own without their girlfriends in a “men only” environment, the hunky young studs bask in the hot sun, play in the pool, smoke pot, and drink, most often semi-clad or naked. In this freewheeling and testosterone-infused environment, they talk of their desires and strengthen their individual bonds.
The Arab Spring in Egypt: From a dictator to free elections, back to a dictatorship. One comedy show united the country and tested the limits of free press. This is the story of Bassem Youssef, a cardiologist turned comedian, the Jon Stewart of Egypt, and his show “The Show”.
A revealing look into the lives of students who put it all on the line to be selected, proving that a free education is never without a cost. ‘Selected’ is a documentary about the challenges of public urban education. Through unprecedented access in a Chicago public school, ‘Selected’ explores leadership, triumphs and losses in one of the most culturally and economically diverse schools in the country. ‘Selected’ investigates the impact of being educated in a true melting pot environment and the effect it has on education, acceptance, tolerance and a worldview. It illustrates what is possible when great leadership, diverse cultures and extraordinary minds come together. These interwoven stories highlight the benefits, and unintended consequences, of select schools and society’s constant struggle with urban education.
Sharkey, part of the sinister world of child trade, picks up Vlado, an orphan of war, dreaming of freedom and a better life. They embark upon a strange and enlightening journey through war torn Bosnia. As they struggle to get out of the country and fight to stay alive, they find a special love and compassion from which emerges their ultimate moral and spiritual redemption.
