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Once upon a time, villagers in a tiny hill town in Tuscany came up with a remarkable way to confront their issues: they turned their lives into a play. Every summer, their piazza became their stage and residents of all ages played a part – the role of themselves. Monticchiello’s annual tradition has attracted worldwide attention and kept the town together for 50 years, but with an aging population and a future generation more interested in Facebook than farming, the town’s 50th–anniversary performance just might be its last. SPETTACOLO tells the story of Teatro Povero di Monticchiello, interweaving episodes from its past with its modern-day process as the villagers turn a series of devastating blows into a new play about the end of their world.
Once the thriving capital of Imperial China, the city of Datong now lies in near ruins. Not only is it the most polluted city in the country, it is also crippled by decrepit infrastructure and even shakier economic prospects. But Mayor Geng Tanbo plans to change all that, announcing a bold, new plan to return Datong to its former glory, the cultural haven it was some 1,600 years ago. Such declarations, however, come at a devastatingly high cost. Thousands of homes are to be bulldozed, and a half-million of its residents (30 percent of Datong’s total population) will be relocated under his watch. Whether he succeeds depends entirely on his ability to calm swarms of furious workers and an increasingly perturbed ruling elite. The Chinese Mayor captures, with remarkable access, a man and, by extension, a country leaping frantically into an increasingly unstable future.
In PUPPET MASTER XI – AXIS TERMINATION, the final chapter of the AXIS Saga, we find our heroic band of lethal puppets-BLADE, PINHEAD, TUNNELER, JESTER, SIX SHOOTER, and LEECH WOMAN, joining forces with a secret team of Allied Operatives, all masters of psychic powers, as they face off together against a new bunch of evil Nazi adversaries and their collection of vicious Axis Puppets in a showdown that will decide the future of the free world.
A woman celebrates her 40th birthday by having her three best friends come and stay with her and her husband for a long weekend. This woman has been in a wheelchair for the past two years, and it has led her to isolate herself inside of her home. Her husband stands by her as he lives with the guilt of causing the car accident which put her in the wheelchair. Over the course of the three day celebration, it is revealed that everyone is struggling with their own lives and identities. When one best friend makes a terrible mistake and betrays the woman on her birthday, everyone is immediately and uncomfortably forced into looking at their own lives and their own limitations.
When a group of friends and colleagues tracks reclusive writer Samantha Ballard (Aleece Jones) to her remote desert house, their reluctant hostess informs them that they’ll die if they try to escape. After her ex-husband disastrously tests Samantha’s pledge, the remaining guests sink into horror. If they want to leave Fear House alive, this desperate group must act fast in writer-director Michael R. Morris’s claustrophobic spook fest.
Len is a Surf Lifesaving champion, a legend in the cloistered surf club just like his father. When the younger, faster, and fitter Phil arrives at the club, Len’s legendary status starts to crumble. Then Len sees Phil arriving in the company of another man. Phil is gay. After the annual awards dinner, Len finds Phil in the Club House locker room and violently attacks him. To Len’s surprise, Phil refuses to rat on Len about the beating. When Phil wins the annual Surf Lifesaving competition, Len’s defeat is final. In an act of revenge, Len gets Phil drunk and subjects him to a series of humiliating acts. But, the hatefulness forces Len to come face to face with a fundamental question: can he accept the truth about his own sexuality.
A long time ago Tom loved Lovely. They were married and everything was perfect, at least for a little while. But that was then and this is now. Lovely has just killed a man in cold blood after he tried to drug and kidnap her in a motel. She calls Tom to help but now they’ve found a VHS tape that depicts a satanic ritual in which a woman is murdered. Lovely desperately wants to leave and they do, but Tom forgot his engraved lighter in the room, and when they go back to find it, the dead body appears missing.
Zheng Zhou is the most feared warrior from the Shaolin Dynasty in China. His fighting and weapons skills are legendary. But when his parents are killed and sister kidnapped, he turns to a life of drugs and crime that will almost kill him. With the help of Hong Kong’s notorious Dragon Triad syndicate, Colombia’s biggest drugs cartel hatches an elaborate plan to traffic two tonnes of crack cocaine through the Port of Miami in America and ultimately into Australia and China. But when the partnership turns sour after the Cartel holds a Triad family member hostage, the Triads recruit Zhou to rescue the girl and kill the Colombians. What ensues is a bloodied street war across three countries. Zhou turns international Hitman with an arsenal of hi-tech surveillance devices, explosives, high powered weaponry and an array of fighting skills dating back fifteen hundred years. But just as Zhou rescues the hostage and takes control of the entire drugs shipment…
Since the 1940’s alien beings known as “GRAYS” have been sighted around the globe with the thought that they visit our planet to study our species and civilization before they eventually invade…but what if we’re wrong? What if they are only here to protect us? After a meteorite crashes to earth awakening the extraterrestrial creature within, a young woman is abducted by an alien “GRAY” to aide in hunting down and destroying the creature before it can reach a second meteorite that fell to earth decades earlier unleashing its deadly infestation of earth.
Him and her. A husband and a wife staying in a cozy hotel where you can come for just a couple of days with a risk to get stuck forever. It is so easy to get trapped in the daily routine. Indeed, nothing is more permanent than the temporary. Their time is like a flat circle. He has his phone calls and business meetings. She is wrapped in her dreams and doubts. All reactions are predictable, all conversations are learnt by heart. An endless LP record of life keeps playing again and again repeating itself. But a few things can break this tune, like a scratch on the record, a crack on a wine glass, a sudden glance or a meeting with a stranger. And then you know: tomorrow will come soon. Any moment something can go wrong, throw you off course, and force you to make a choice.
A divorced woman finds sexual liberation through online dating.
Desperate to see their church grow, Pastor John (Robert Amaya) and wife Betsy (Erin Bethea) do the unthinkable and change their church Christmas pageant. Flabbergasted, elderly choir director Mary Margaret (Sallie Wanchisn) leads the choir to boycott. Facing termination, Pastor John resorts to disguising himself as an old man to bridge the generation gap, win over Mary, and lead the choir back to the church. When he discovers that the wounds run deeper than he first suspected, Pastor John must learn to love the unlovable or risk the ruin of his church and family.
Some six months after they first crossed verbal swords at a Washington D.C. dog show, schoolteacher Elizabeth Scott and businessman/philanthropist Donovan Darcy are blissfully in love and newly engaged. With Donovan in agreement, she looks forward to planning a small autumn wedding with the help of her mother and sister. After Donovan’s previously scornful Aunt Violet makes a heartfelt apology for her past behavior, Elizabeth is glad to include her in the planning process. As the weeks fly by and the arrangements for the wedding grow more elaborate, Elizabeth feels the burden of expectations she will face as Mrs. Darcy. Worse still, Donovan himself is wrapped up in his work and increasingly unavailable to her. Reminded yet again of their tremendous differences in background and temperament, Elizabeth can’t help but ask herself: should she marry Mr. Darcy?
A beautiful diva is murdered on the set of horror director Vincent Augustine’s latest film “Chapel Blood.” Somewhere between the crime scene and the coroner’s van, the body mysteriously disappears. Meanwhile, the city’s supply of donated blood is being dangerously depleted. Suspecting a connection between the events, detectives Mike Hung and Sasha Colfax go undercover at the studio to investigate. Their attempt to crack the case quickly turns into a desperate battle for survival when they uncover an age-old war between rival vampire covens that threatens to consume humanity in a final, grisly assault of Teeth and Blood!
In the middle of a crowded city the paths of two strangers, a man and a woman, collide. This accidental, chance occurrence sets in motion a chain of events that sees the two strangers embark on a night of adventure and connection that challenges their separate lives.
When college freshman Ranae agrees to babysit for a family with a tragic past, her run-of-the-mill Saturday night quickly turns into a confrontation with unspeakable horror. Stalked by a sinister presence and haunted by ghosts from her own past, Ranae and her friends must confront an angry, evil spirit determined to hunt them down one-by-one on a deliberate march toward its ultimate prey in THE NURSERY
Frank, a salesman from Amarillo is convinced by his friend to move to Houston and get into the music industry. Once he decides, he is confronted with obstacles. His brother helps him get a job. Then Frank meets Kesha, a gorgeous realtor who wants to help out, while his girlfriend has other plans. Watch as this inspirational romantic comedy unfolds to see if Frank achieves his musical stardom.
How many working class Balmain boys grow up to be showgirls? Not just any showgirl but a household name, a legend of Kings Cross, a daytime TV star, and a symbol of generational change.
Samuel’s dream of buying a recording studio, making a hit record, and becoming a famous hip-hop artist has hit a snag. The money he borrowed to make it all happen is long over due. With the money all gone and the record far from finished, he becomes desperate for a solution. So when “The Bruce” – unscrupulous business man and owner of a string of male strip clubs – gives him only six months to pay back sixty-thousand dollars or say good-bye to his dream, Samuel knows what he’s got to do. To make it all work, he going to take it all off. With his looks and his talents, raising enough money to pay off the loan and complete the record ought to be a cinch, but there’s still a hitch. For his plan to work he’ll have to keep it a secret for a number of reasons.
Shotgun Jimmy is a nasty piece of work. Ripping off drug dealers, killing policemen, he’d decapitate his own grandmother for a sack full of loot. Schizophrenic, psychopathic, his only friend is Mary the Shotgun – his trusty, reliable pump-action. But during a violent road-rage incident, something goes horribly wrong and Jimmy finds himself chained in shackles in a dark, grimy dungeon where he ponders over a deeply buried secret past… Tomas Sorescu’s been a bad man. He likes his whiskey. And brandy. Vodka, rum or gin? Hell, he’ll drink petrol if it isn’t nailed down. Only now he’s done a rather silly thing. He’s crashed his car – and killed his wife and little girl in the process. Tomas feels pretty bad about the situation. So bad, in fact, he needs another drink. But then it gets worse as a tall, powerful, gas-mask wearing figure pulls Tomas from the wreckage and introduces him to a special place… Sophie Scott is a successful career journalist in the sleepy village of Ramsbottom.
Ray Breslin manages an elite team of security specialists trained in the art of breaking people out of the world’s most impenetrable prisons. When his most trusted operative, Shu Ren, is kidnapped and disappears inside the most elaborate prison ever built, Ray must track him down with the help of some of his former friends.
For generations, it was an urban legend that lived in the nightmares of children. Now, the season to rejuvenate the tale will revive a town’s darkest fears. With the Scarecrow Festival on the horizon, school teacher Aaron Harris is doling out punishment for six students serving detention. Their task: help Aaron’s girlfriend Amanda fix her family farm before it’s sold. But the cornfields circling the farm come with a legend and Tyler takes macabre delight in recounting the tale: It never sleeps, it never dies, it can’t be stopped, hear their cries.
When a top-secret unmanned spacecraft disintegrates on re-entry, its mysterious military payload crash-lands in the crocodile habitat of a place called Adventure Land, a combination water park, amusement land, and world-famous crocodile exhibit. Following its pre-programmed instructions, the payload—a next-generation nanotech-based combat drone—finds a host in the form of the park’s prize twenty-foot Australian Saltwater crocodile, Stella. She is the largest saltwater croc in captivity. Immediately upon infecting its host, the drone payload’s nanobots begin to transform Stella from an organic living creature into a lethal killing machine with only a single directive: survival!
“40 Nights” is the first of the QUEST TRILOGY – films sharing alike themes of sacrifice and faith. These films focus on less known events from the biblical age. The first film examines the pre-ministry life of Jesus (DJ Perry) starting with his baptism with John the Baptist (Terry Jernigan). From there Jesus embarks on his self- exploration journey into the wilderness for 40 nights. He is tempted by the Devil thrice in various forms. Audiences will be treated to a stronger portrayal of Jesus that peeks at his childhood and family upbringing. The result is a Jesus that invokes empathy and sheds light on the true magnitude of his sacrifice for mankind.
Imagine Dragons’ Mormon frontman Dan Reynolds is taking on a new mission to explore how the church treats its LGBTQ members. With the rising suicide rate amongst teens in the state of Utah, his concern with the church’s policies sends him on an unexpected path for acceptance and change.
Hannah is the intimate portrait of a woman’s loss of identity as she teeters between denial and reality. Left alone grappling with the consequences of her husband’s imprisonment, Hannah begins to unravel. Through the exploration of her fractured sense of identity and loss of self-control, the film investigates modern day alienation, the struggle to connect, and the dividing lines between individual identity, personal relationships, and societal pressures.
Science fiction has become a reality in our modern criminal justice system. A term originally coined by science fiction author Philip K. Dick, “pre-crime” is a policing technique now used in both the US and Europe to identify “hot people”—those most likely to be victims or perpetrators of a crime. Forecasting software and algorithms that have been criticized as inaccurate and arbitrary are used to collect information, and monitor and flag people. But predictive tools are only as good as the data they’re fed. With scant evidence of the reliability of the data sources or the accuracy of the data crunching, misfires are a guarantee. In this chilling and explosive in-depth examination into the modern age of policing, directors Monika Hielscher and Matthias Heider pose an important question: How much freedom and human awareness are we willing to give to the limited logic of technology?
After a nuclear war decimated the northern hemisphere, the surviving population in the south become desperate and violent competing for scarce resources. Society crumbles and an infectious bacteria threatens to destroy those who remain.
In an attempt to rebuild civilization, a self appointed government called ‘The ORDER’ distributed an immunization to the bacteria, via a massive Electro-Macnetic Pulse (EMP). Secretly, the Order also delivered a bio-tech virus through the EMP, giving them the power to control the population.
One man remains immune to the Order’s virus – Jake Slater. Now Jake scavenges the wasteland searching for a way to keep his unconscious daughter alive, unaware she is the last child on Earth, and the key to the survival of mankind.
Claire tells the police officer, “It was all Jo’s idea.” But who’s Jo? Jo is the bright spark in Claire’s recently darkened reality; a new friend in an otherwise isolated world. The two young women hit the town to let off some steam-and find themselves in trouble with local law enforcement. In the blink of an eye, Claire discovers that Jo is not what she seems-not at all-and her easy friendship with the lighthearted, young woman splits open to reveal the truth. Luminously shot in black and white, Josephine Doe is a raw exploration of family trauma and mental health that shows the thin line between our realities.
Humanity’s desperate battle to reclaim the Earth from Godzilla continues. The key to defeating the King of the Monsters may be Mechagodzilla, a robotic weapon thought to have been lost nearly 20,000 years ago.
A revolution is taking place in the art world and it isn’t happening in Paris, Berlin or Hong Kong—but in Grand Rapids, Michigan. ArtPrize is the most highly attended art show in the world, and it awards cash prizes larger than all other competitions combined. International critics and general crowds pack bars, galleries and abandoned buildings all over town, taking in over 1,500 works from cerebral conceptualists and weekend hobbyists. An acclaimed jury awards a winner $200,000 and the ballot-carrying public does the same. Nimble cameras follow four artists, each vying not only for critical recognition but for every public vote they can drum up. Part classy game show, part engaging art exploration, More Art Upstairs captures the debates ArtPrize has intentionally (or inadvertently?) triggered: Can culture be democratized? Do artists need or want to connect with audiences? And is the canonical art establishment on its way out? (Myrocia Watamaniuk)
The Faith Club (original title)
What happens when “City Slicker” Christian Andrews is thrown into a Cowboy World filled with five sisters, two bullies, a whole lot of cattle, one grungy dog and a woman who runs it all, with only his Faith to guide him through it?
You’ll be amazed by this charming story that celebrates LIFE after LOSS. Five diverse kids formed THE FAITH CLUB as children and 10 years later, after one of their group passes away at an untimely death, they meet at the Dude Ranch that he worked at and rediscover their faith and the hope they all shared in the past trying to resurrect a dream their fallen comrade had.
During the time of the Stolen Generations, thousands upon thousands of Aboriginal girls were taken from their families and pressed into domestic servitude by the Australian Government. They were supposedly employed as servants, but with total control over their movements, wages and living conditions, their lives all too frequently became an inescapable cycle of abuse, rape and enslavement, with consequences that echo powerfully to this day. Recounting the stories of five of these women – Rita, Violet and the three Wenberg sisters – Servant or Slave is a commanding piece of first-person testimony to a dark and unacknowledged corner of Australian history. Shot with admirable craft and humanity by documentarian Steven McGregor (Croker Island Exodus, MIFF 2012), Servant or Slave is a work of great sadness and urgency, bringing to forceful life the human tragedy of Australia’s Indigenous history in the unadorned words of those who lived it.
Criminal investigator Anders Olsen begins to solve a case in which a bank robber shoots two bank clerks and runs into the streets of Copenhagen with the money. When arrested, he claims to have committed the crime alone. Some eyewitnesses say the robber seemed to have been in a trance, which makes the case even more complicated and peculiar. Olsen finds out that the accused has been in prison with the charismatic Björn Schow Nielsen and begins to suspect that Nielsen had hypnotized his fellow inmate to commit the crime for him. But could it be possible – and if so, how can the true perpetrator be caught? Olsen seeks help from a well-known psychiatrist specialized in hypnosis, with whom Olsen delves deeper into the world of mental manipulation. Absorbed in the criminal investigation, Olsen does not realize that the mysterious Nielsen has secretly befriended his young wife. Soon the mysterious case touches him closer than he could have imagined.
Grace nearly drowns before she is saved by a handsome lifeguard named Gordon. She falls for Gordon and decides to take lifeguarding lessons. However, Gordon falls in love with Pamila. Grace is aided by Eddie and Dawn, but they are unable to separate Gordon and Pamila. In fact, Eddie has romantic feelings for Grace but has had a one night stand with Dawn… The relationships quickly get complicated, how can it all get sorted out?
A recently divorced young man discovers a mint condition Blade doll in his deceased brother’s closet and plans to sell the toy at a convention in Oregon celebrating the 30th anniversary of the infamous Toulon Murders. All hell breaks loose during the auction when a strange force animates all of the puppets throughout the convention, setting them on a bloody killing spree.
Jacob, a bank manager haunted by a violent heist that took the life of a coworker, teams up with his ex-cop neighbor, James, to bring down the assailant. While the two men work together to figure out the thief’s next move, Gabriel, the highly-trained criminal, is one step ahead. When Gabriel kidnaps Jacob’s wife and daughter, Jacob barrels down a path of bloodshed that initiates an explosive counterattack and brings all three men to the breaking point.
Fans flock to a festival celebrating the most iconic horror movies, only to discover that the charismatic showman behind the event has a diabolical agenda. As attendees start dying off, three teenagers with more horror-film wits than real-world knowledge must band together and battle through every madman, monstrosity, and terrifying scenario if they have any hope of surviving.
Loosely inspired by Dostoyevsky’s short story A Gentle Creature about a woman who travels to a prison in a remote region to track down her incarcerated husband.
