Dear Etranger

The doomed love of a city girl caught in the vise of poverty is detailed in Vavra’s fluid, romantic work, one of the most elegant creations of the Czech Modernist era... The film lingers over its characters’ habitats and haunts, finding psychological truths in what each owns or desires, and countering every Hollywood-ready scene of gleaming restaurants and dazzling penthouses with realist moments of employment lines and crammed flats. Vavra’s classical camerawork and aura of romantic defeatism give Virginity a force comparable to the master of this genre, Hollywood’s Frank Borzage. (BAM/PFA)

MT RUSH - is the present as a near-future science fiction, chronicling the day-to-day activities of a lesbian Mt. Rushmore Park Ranger as she navigates an onslaught of interactive fundraising emails that appear on a transparent interface, leading up to the 2016 Presidential election. The narrative arc of the movie is based on the urgent, alarmist, and oddly personalized campaign and fundraising emails from the Democrats and Republicans (i.e. Hillary Has Been Emailing You… or WE QUIT: but we don’t want to quit). Serving as both narrator and foil to the ranger, the emails perform the pervasive political rhetoric in today’s systems of governance; while acting as a meditation on the National Park Service and politics.

Manuela (40) is the cook in a restaurant when the Balkan conflict breaks out on the other side of the world. The madness of war permeates her surroundings, invades her intimacy and unleashes its own warlike escalade.

Young computer enthusiast Liam runs a website streaming video of his every action captured on a webcam. He lives a reclusive life, temporarily staying in a friend’s apartment in Paris until waitress Alison and her British husband, James, move in.

Germany in the autumn of 1957: Lola, a seductive cabaret singer-prostitute exults in her power as a temptress of men, but she wants out—she wants money, property, and love. Pitting a corrupt building contractor against the new straight-arrow building commissioner, Lola launches an outrageous plan to elevate herself in a world where everything, and everyone, is for sale. Shot in childlike candy colors, Fassbinder’s homage to Josef von Sternberg’s classic The Blue Angel stands as a satiric tribute to capitalism.

Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to choose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.

A boy's life is turned upside down when he learns that he is the last of a group of immortal warriors who have dedicated their lives to fighting the forces of the dark.

Richard Martin buys a gift, a new NDR-114 robot. The product is named Andrew by the youngest of the family's children. "Bicentennial Man" follows the life and times of Andrew, a robot purchased as a household appliance programmed to perform menial tasks. As Andrew begins to experience emotions and creative thought, the Martin family soon discovers they don't have an ordinary robot.

When a young boy makes a wish at a carnival machine to be big, he wakes up the following morning to find that it has been granted and his body has grown older overnight, but he is still the same 13-year-old boy inside. Now he must learn how to cope with the unfamiliar world of grown-ups, including getting a job and having his first romantic encounter with a woman.

In 1944 Poland, a Jewish shop keeper named Jakob is summoned to ghetto headquarters after being caught out after curfew. While waiting for the German Kommondant, Jakob overhears a German radio broadcast about Russian troop movements. Returned to the ghetto, the shopkeeper shares his information with a friend and then rumors fly that there is a secret radio within the ghetto.

Kai Aono is a high school student. He transfers to a scenic island in the Seto Inland Sea from Kyoto. There, he meets high school student Akimi Inoue, who was born on the island and lives with her mother. They fall in love with each other, but they are forced to make a choice due to their own fates.

A huge wave is about to destroy the city. Many people leave in panic, only a few remain in the lonely streets. Among them are SEBASTIAN, a skeptical and irresolute young loner; ANA, a woman who seeks in others the passion she can’t live; and an apocalyptic GIRL. They turn the city into a games board where the stakes are love and the end of the world.