Drama
For his fourth full feature, Toyoshi Toyoda has abandoned the theme of the angry young man, examined in depth in Pornostar, Blue Spring and 9 Souls. Kuchu Teien is, on the face of it, more a drama, a character study, than a typical Toyoda genre flick. Yet within this beautifully structured and photographed film, there lies a dark soul. Ostensibly the story of a happy family, it becomes increasingly clear as the movie progresses that the Kyobashis are anything but. Despite a family agreement that they are all open with each other, the entire household knows the opposite is true.
Proud American presents five powerful singular stories all of which magnify the themes mentioned above. Our film is an emotional, inspirational, and visual journey depicting America and the everyday Americans who exemplify the best that we can be.
The first film in the Seto language in the world speaks about the brightest heroine of a small people, the folk singer Hilana Taarka, a woman who lived her whole life as an outcast in a small chimney-less hut; as an unmarried mother of children in poverty, begging her bread, doing odd jobs and singing. She always sang the truth, sometimes bitter, sometimes funny, sometimes cruel. She was feared, despised and coveted. Taarka sang throughout her remarkable life, throughout her fate, from a small Seto village to international fame. And she sang well. Really well. Taarka became the Mother of the Song, a legend. But as a woman, as a member of the community, the Seto people never really accepted her. Taarka – a despised woman and a worshiped singer.
The Ames’ seem to have built the perfect life until their six year old daughter is kidnapped; over the course of seven days they begin to uncover secrets about their past that could rip their marriage and lives apart.
The story bases on four Finnish brothers, nicknamed ‘the Eura Daltons’ who received nation-wide notoriety for tearing gas pumps apart when they needed cash. The cast is an impressive one: the brothers are portrayed by Peter Franzen, Lauri Nurkse, Niko Saarela and Jasper Pääkkönen while their really evil father is played by Vesa-Matti Loiri, one of the grand old men of Finnish cinema.
The film centers on a Spanish tapas bar and the love lives of the loosely interconnected people in the neighborhood surrounding the bar. The pairs of lovers include a middle aged woman and a young man; an elderly, drug dealing woman and her terminally ill husband in poor health; the tapas bar owner and his estranged wife; and two Chinese immigrants.
A Swedish family found murdered in her home on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain – all except the 16-year-old daughter, who has disappeared. At first the police believe that there is a burglary gone wrong, but the more crime examined, the more remarkable it becomes. When the burglars also found dead paralyzed the entire investigation. The offense sends a shockwave that shakes, and even on the crime-ridden Costa del Sol.
As a kid, Leo thought he possessed, like a magician, the secret power to make things happen. As a young man, he certainly knows how to make things happen with women. But as his best friend Krantz would say to him, “Why do you always ask questions you already know answers to?”. Leo believes firmly in what he invents from one day to the next. Images, impressions, stories fill his head. That’s just how he is: life, for Leo, is just a game. Behind this childlike attitude, hides the very essence of his own life’s quest.
When the troubled son of an NGO worker refuses to take a test and announces that he is not leaving his room, his concerned mother asks one of her clients, a Cuban exile, for help in setting the boy straight. Gonzalo has decided to drop out of school, and his mother Ana isn’t sure how to convince the boy that he’s making a crucial mistake. Ana’s client Carlos is a Cuban exile who makes his living selling cigars and artwork on the black market. When Carlos learns of Ana’s dilemma, he calls on recently released convict Mikel to teach the boy how to play chess. Perhaps is young Gonzalo can master the game, he can learn to start living again. As the lessons get underway, each of these characters learns that in order to truly move on with their lives they much first break free of the bonds that prevent them from being who they really are.
When David Lindholm, Sweden’s most famous police officer, found shot in bed identifies herself quickly with his young wife Julia. Julia is threatened with life imprisonment for murder, both her husband and her missing four year old son Alexander. However, Julia refuse. It was not her. There was another woman who shot her husband and kidnapped her son. While life is falling apart around Annika digs herself deeper into the murdered police’s violent past.
When Anita Raja, CEO of Sheppard power plant, brings a power plant proposal to set up in rural Mahrashtra before the Nagres, insightful Shankar is quick to realise the benefits the power plant can bring to the people.
Spaces and Reservations is an intimate and unsparingly realistic relationship drama that tells the story of a young couple being torn apart by malaise and infidelity, and the way the trauma of their breakup brings them back together. Jamie and Kacie have been dating for four years, and are separately beginning to feel the affects of malaise and disconnect. As they drift apart from one another and struggle to bridge the gaps growing between them, Jamie begins to develop feelings for another woman. After precariously flirting with infidelity, Jamie abandons this new pursuit and attempts to salvage his relationship with Kacie, only to discover that she too has fallen for someone else.
Impressive debut feature from writer director Inon Shampanier. A man needs to convince his kidknappers that they have got the wrong person before they deliver him to his death.
After being denied an American visa, a Bolivian professor becomes involved in a web of criminal activities, holds-up the American consulate and falls for a beautiful prostitute from the Bolivian lowlands.
When Jeff discovers that the bowling alley he manages is being sold, he must do everything he can to save the place he’s come to call home.
Set over the course of a single evening at the Reynolds’ family home in Connecticut, Clara, fed up with the constant ribbing from her self-absorbed showbiz family, finds solace in and guidance from the supernatural force she believes is haunting her.
In a bleak Inverness midwinter, Luisaidh is careering off the rails after the suicide of her best friend. She medicates her misery with joyless sex, chips and a belief in the power of positive drinking. Surrounded by bittersweet memories, she struggles to find someone to talk to or some reason to make life worthwhile at the most stressful time of the year.
When Blanca Snow is faced with spending Christmas with her dastardly stepmother, Victoria, she attempts to fulfill her late father’s wishes and create new memories as a family. However, Victoria plots to edge Blanca out of her father’s inheritance and keep the money and his mansion, for herself. Victoria has Blanca hypnotized, so she will forget everyone and everything about her father’s will. When Blanca wakes up in a quaint motor lodge out of town with severe amnesia, she receives the help of seven quirky friends, the Holly Jollies, to help her figure out her life. While attempting to regain her memory, she finds herself the object of affection to both house painter Hunter, and Lucas Prince. But, who can she trust?
When Jonas was 14 he met the charismatic but mysterious Nathan. In addition to guiding him in his sexuality, Jonas soon confronts something dark and even dangerous about his new friend. Now an attractive, sexually assured adult, memories still haunt him. Trying frantically to put the missing pieces together, Jonas becomes determined to break the shackles of the past and finally set himself free.
In Nebraska, in pioneer days, a woman who knows she is going to die asks a prostitute to replace her with her husband and four children in order to make it possible for them to keep their family farm.
After stepping down as CEO of her dream job, Maddie heads home for the holidays to gain perspective. She finds herself running into her old high school sweetheart Carter, and tensions quickly arise. When forced to put together a Christmas dance for the local high school, Carter and Maddie find themselves putting their differences aside and rediscover what made them fall in love all those years ago.
A policeman investigating a peeping Tom becomes obsessed with the married victim.
Two listless brothers fall for the same girl.
A Muslim fundamentalist in New York kidnaps a liberal Muslim scholar with intent to kill. A closeted lesbian in New Delhi kidnaps her activist bisexual lover with intent to marry. The resulting torture and violence evokes a brutal struggle of identities against unfreedom.
Neil Lawrence (DJ Qualls) is sent to a boarding school by his father. During his first couple days he meets T.J. (Rachel Blanchard) who he falls in love with. After being assigned a paper on Holden Caufield – the main character in J.D. Salinger s Catcher And The Rye – Neil decides to go on a journey to meet Salinger, who he feels has played a huge role in his life. Both Neil & T.J. take off on a journey to New York City. A journey that leads to more then they both ever could have imagined – and changes both their lives forever.
Lamington Road on Bombay’s Western Railway is the nearest railway station that takes one to Kamathipura, notorious for it’s red-light, in particular, and a crime-prone area in general.
A psychiatrist is drawn into a complex mind game when he questions a disturbed patient about the disappearance of a colleague.
The return of a vengeful ex-girlfriend sets into motion a series of gruesome events for a hapless Irish bachelor in director Robert Quinn’s grim black comedy. Tommy (Andrew Scott) had thought he had seen the last of Jean (Katy Davis) after their recent breakup, but when she returns to stake her claim on Tommy’s apartment, the confrontation that ensues makes their previous quarrels look petty by comparison. After leaving the apartment in the head of the fight to cool his head and gather his thoughts, he returns only to find that Jean has died and enlists the aid of his friend Noel (Darren Healy) in ditching the body and ensuring that no one ever finds out what happened.
Russian political elite hires American consultants to help with President Yeltsin’s re-election campaign when his approval rating is down to single digits.
In the wake of his daughter’s disappearance, a father wallowing in grief feeds his desire to find her with unusual methods.
Co-pilot Kazuhiro (Tanabe Seiichi) is up for promotion, but before he can get his captain’s wings he has to get through a flight evaluation, and things aren’t exactly going his way. He just crashed and burned on a simulated flight test, and his friendly examiner has been replaced with the tough-as-nails Harada (Tokito Saburo). On the same plane is cabin attendant Etsuko (Ayase Haruka) who’s flying her first international flight and trying hard to not mess up. Elsewhere in the Happy Flight universe, staff are bustling back and forth with various problems and gripes – all to make this ordinary yet fateful flight a safe and happy one.
Tim has no job, but Tim ‘works’, selling stolen goods…In the face of mounting internal and external pressure, how far will he go to keep his head above water and protect those he loves?
Varg Veum is going to be a father. In a way he could never imagine, life takes on a new direction while he is searching for a missing pair of siblings in the prostitution circles in Bergen. Varg realizes that life will never be the same when he has to make a decision: Let the criminals go free or expose Karin to mortal danger.
