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On the outside, Sarah Miles appears to have it all: her husband is charming and successful and their daughter Megan is bright and engaging. Having put her once successful career as a published poet on hold to raise Megan, Sarah now shares her writing on her poetry blog. But there’s a terrible truth lurking behind the doors of her suburban mansion… despite his polished persona, Sarah’s husband is controlling, manipulative, and abusive. Isolated and desperate to escape her marriage, Sarah welcomes the newfound attention of one of her devoted fans, a bookish young woman named Lee Maxson. But as Sarah gets closer to Lee, she begins to discover that she’s found an ever more dangerous companion. Stars Cassandra Scerbo, Alex Paxton-Beesley, Scott Gibson.
Based on a novel by the late Finnish writer Timo Mukka, this simple story focuses on what happens when Milka (Irma Huntus), a girl barely out of childhood, gets pregnant by Ojanen (Matti Turunen) a rustic fieldhand. Her own mother had been hoping to marry Ojanen, and her daughter’s pregnancy turns their lives around. Set in the Lapp country of northern Finland, the scenery is breathtaking, made even more so by the isolation of the region. A sense of natural solitude is underscored by a slow-moving dialogue interspersed with long silences, and the connection between nature and the dialogue is underscored as the young Milka recites poetry while out in the countryside. The fate of Milka and her mother, however, is connected to the decision that Ojanen makes at the end.
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.
Upon discovering that their town is up for sale, crafty Irish villagers scheme to raise the money to prevent the buy-out. They hold a poetry contest with a tempting grand prize — the deed to their local pub. But what could happen when a duplicitous American rapper emerges as the best poet around?
Donte Clark’s poetic voice was honed on the violent street corners of a struggling city. Yet rather than succumb to the pressures of Richmond, CA, Clark uses his artistic perspective to help save his city from itself.
Iskyss is a strong and poetic love story based on Gunvor Galtung Haavik’s double life through 30 years. During the Cold War, she was employed by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and assigned to the Norwegian Embassy in Moscow. With the information she had access to in the capacity of her position as interpreter and secretary, she frequently fed the KGB secret information.
Claire and Maurice have to take the whole family to Claire’s father’s funeral. This tightly knit family is not only composed of Claire’s vegetarian son, Alex, who’s secretly fond of Maurice’s daughter, Lucie, the teenage rebel, but also Claire’s brother, a poet living under his sister’s roof; without forgetting young Prune, Claire and Maurice’s daughter, who will develop a passion for the country’s emblematic cows. They must all strive to get along during the road trip to Willouby.
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.
Based on a controversial French novel, Lila Says tells the story of a quiet young poet named Chimo who develops a crush on the pretty, blond Lila, a girl who recently moved into his Arab ghetto with her aunt. When the leader of a rival gang also falls for Lila, the ensuing love triangle initiates a journey of sexual discovery — and sets off a chain of devastating events.
An aspiring hip-hop artist discovers the world of slam poetry.
This documentary film examines the transformative power of lyrics in the world of hip-hop music. Through dynamic archival footage, in-depth interviews and excursions with artists like Nas, Tech9, J Cole, Rapsody and Anderson. Paak, the film explores the many dimensions that hip-hop poetics occupy.
As if ripped from today’s headlines reporting fires, evictions and street protests, “Another Barrio” tells the story of housing inspector Bob Morales as he investigates the suspicious circumstances of a fatal fire. While investigating a residential hotel in San Francisco’s Latino Mission District, Morales finds himself face to face with corruption at City Hall and the mysterious Sofia Nido, a beautiful flame from his past. Morales must also confront his own demons while investigating the crime and ends up caught in a dangerous web of deceit, as he gets drawn into the seedy underworld of bribery, corruption and murder. This independent Neo-noir feature film, based on a story by San Francisco Poet Laureate Alejandro Murguia, takes viewers deep into neighborhoods and communities seldom seen on film, while addressing issues around gentrification and displacement of low-income communities along the way.
Moses and Kitch, two young black men, chat their way through a long, aimless day on a Chicago street corner. Periodically ducking bullets and managing visits from a genial but ominous stranger and an overtly hostile police officer, Moses and Kitch rely on their poetic, funny, at times profane banter to get them through a day that is a hopeless retread of every other day, even as they continue to dream of their deliverance.
The love affair between poet Percy Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin resulted in the creation of an immortal novel, “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.”
Colin (Barry McEvoy) is a Catholic and George (Brian O’Byrne) is a poetry-loving Protestant. In Belfast in the 1980s, they could have been enemies, but instead they became business partners. After persuading a mad wig salesman, known as the Scalper (Billy Connolly), to sell them his leads, the two embark on a series of house calls
The life of revered the 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 an impressionistic work.
During the Late Tang Dynasty, a manor is invaded by a demon cat and a sense of unrest befalls the capital of Changan. A poet is charged with investigating the case and meets up with a monk. The two work together and pull apart the thread of clues to reveal a history of truths leading to the events.
Cinema Novo is a movie-essay that investigates poetically the most important movement of Latin America cinema, through the thoughts of its main auteurs: Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Glauber Rocha, Leon Hirszman, Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, Ruy Guerra, Walter Lima Jr., Paulo César Saraceni, among others.
On a night of April 1957, Albertine, a brillant and rebel 19-year-old girl, jumps from the wall of the prison where she’s serving a sentence for a holdup. In her fall, a bone from her ankle breaks: the astragal. She is rescued by Julien, a justice fugitive, and so is born a burning passion between them. He takes her to Paris and hides her. But while he leads his gangster life here and there, the young woman struggles for her freedom and against the wounds inflicted by Julien’s absence, and writes poetry.
Poet Ross Sutherland takes fragments of old films and TV shows and rebuilds them into an audiovisual meditation on memory, death and reruns.
Holly, a professor at a small college, has had a long history of finding the wrong guy. She’s accomplished quite a bit in her life, but after her younger sister announces she is pregnant, Holly decides she is going to make an effort to meet Mr. Right. Meanwhile, David, another professor, is a single father, very smart and kind, but not the type that Holly takes notice of when the two are assigned to plan the Christmas Formal. At the insistence of her best friend, Holly signs up for the dating website “Cupid’s Arrow,” where she meets Josh, an attorney just hired by the school. He’s everything she wants on the surface, but has little to say beyond his work and good looks. Josh and David were roommates in college, so Josh recruits David to write poetic messages in an attempt to win Holly over.
Joe carries around a rusty saw and a gasoline tank, he may or may not be a murderer but when he reads his poetry at the Limerick theatre, it affects people in all walks of life. Joe says there is no such thing as an un-interesting life.
A teacher discovers in a five year-old child a prodigious gift for poetry. Amazed and inspired by this young boy, she decides to protect his talent in spite of everyone.
Passed the Door of Darkness: Two young children dead, floating face down in their family’s bathtub. Their mother, shot in the back of the head, lies next to the tub in a pool of her own blood. On the floor slumped against a blood covered wall is her husband, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. For rookie Homicide Detective Chris Malloy this grisly scene is more than he expected to see in his first week of working the graveyard shift. For his partner, grizzled yet poetic Detective Murphy MacCasey, this is but one tragedy among countless in his fifteen years in homicide. They haven’t seen anything yet.
Shot during the summer of 2005, this enigmatic film was the second collaboration between Saint Etienne and director Paul Kelly. It follows a young paperboy’s adventure across London’s last remaining wilderness in the Lea Valley on the eve of the Olympic development. A poetic ode to a metropolitan hinterland that has been forever changed by the impact of the 2012 Olympics games.
Trudell is a 2005 documentary film about the life of author and American Indian activist John Trudell. The film traces Trudell from his childhood in Omaha, Nebraska, to his role in the American Indian Movement, and finally to his rebirth as a musician and spoken word poet.
West of Brooklyn takes us on a heartfelt and often humorous journey from Brooklyn, New York to Hollywood, California. “Sebi” is a young Italian American man, a simple street kid and a secret beat poet, who after the death of his mother escapes Brooklyn to join his crew of friends who recently relocated to L.A. These colorful characters from New York are truly fish out of water in L.A. and Sebi longs to find a place he can feel at home. Sebi’s friends, a beautiful rich girl from Beverly Hills named “Matty”, and his idol, a famous Bronx poet named “Gaetano D’Amico” bring Sebi face to face with his identity and help him find the courage to be exactly who he was all along. Written by Ronnie Marmo
Japan in the 19th century. A poetic love story far beyond any other samurai movie stereotype…
19-year old Ah Loong is in charge of a street stall selling pirated VCDs. Ah Loong is an incurable romantic with a unique hobby – he loves to read and write poetry. Quite content to carry on being the Romeo of the slums, Ah Loong’s life takes on a sudden change one day when a 16-year old Malay schoolgirl arrives at his stall in search of Wong Kar-Wai films.
Poet Yusuf (35-38) returns to his childhood hometown, which he hadn’t visited for years, upon his mother’s death. He is faced with a neglected, crumbling house. Ayla, a young girl (17-19) awaits him there. Yusuf has been unaware of the existence of this distant relation who had been living with his mother for five years; He stays by his dead mother’s bedside for a while on the morning of his return…
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.
A feature-length documentary film about hip-hop DJing, otherwise known as turntablism. From the South Bronx in the 1970s to San Francisco now, the world’s best scratchers, beat-diggers, party-rockers, and producers wax poetic on beats, breaks, battles, and the infinite possibilities of vinyl.
Baby Girl, 30, a poet with a bachelor’s degree in arts, is anguished because of her relationship with Pirkka, a relatively smart, young man. Baby Girl’s parents, Eila and Rampe, do their best to become friends with Pirkka and his elegant mother. Through coincidence and error Eila occupies her summerhouse neighbors’ empty luxury villa. When Pirkka’s mother drops by, Eila lies that she and Rampe own the fancy house. The showing off and lying escalate when Eila’s mother and sister show up. The real owners of the house, an upper-class couple, Thomas and Monica, are driven away to Eila and Rampe’s modest cottage.
Ray and Ramona is a young couple in their 30s. They hate the injustice of the social context they are part of. Each from their own niche Ramona as a musician, Ray as an activist tries to fight for a more just world. Devoted to self-sabotage, Ray fails in his rebellion and drags Ramona into a downward spiral that culminates in an act of poetic terrorism.
Brilliant Moon chronicles the life of the writer, poet, and meditation master Khyentse Rinpoche, one of Tibet’s most revered 20th-century Buddhist teachers. Spiritual guide to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Royal Family of Bhutan, his life and teachings were an inspiration to all who encountered him. Richard Gere and Lou Reed provide the narration for his dangerous journey out of China, the subsequent spread of his influence and the search for his reincarnation after his death.
A journalist (Liane Balaban) meets “Man of Today” (Paul Ahmarani) who, while a responsible citizen, is disengaged from greater society. He believes once he’s dead nothing more matters. As an experiment to see if she can turn his pessimistic view around, the journalist sends him on a journey of enlightenment to prove that the future does matter. Travelling the globe, he finds himself in surprising encounters with great minds in the arts and sciences. Starting with an unexpected poetry reading and conversation with experimental poet Christian Bök, Man of Today engages with architect Shigeru Ban, activist Francis Dupuis-Déri, philosopher Alain de Botton, artist Marlene Dumas, novelist Rivka Galchen, leading scientists and a ghost. Will the journalist succeed in turning a cynic into an optimist? Will it matter? What can one person do?
In this poetic, richly allegorical debut by Colombian director William Vega, a teenage girl flees to a rundown inn after being driven from her home in the Andean highlands by civil war, as the violence engulfing the country creeps ever closer to her remote refuge. (TIFF)
