At – The Horse 1982

At - The Horse 1982

At – The Horse 1982
1h 56min | Drama | 1982 (Switzerland)

Review:

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Although Ali Ozgenturk’s film is called “The Horse”, we actually see very little of said animal. In the film we follow a father named Hüseyin and his son Ferhat as they move from their poverty stricken town in the Turkish countryside to Istanbul. Hüseyin is desperate to find enough money so he can send his son to school, and Ferhat hopes the money can be used to buy a horse. In Istanbul, Hüseyin buys a vegetable cart and the two attempt to sell vegetables on the street. Because Hüseyin doesn’t have a licence to sell vegetables, the two are constantly on the look out for cops, and eventually Hüseyin has a run in with the law and loses his cart, although he himself escapes. Hüseyin tries various other methods to get money but they all prove fruitless. Finally, he steals a cart and takes it to the market place. All he has to sell is a single flower, but before he call sell it he his attacked and accidentally killed by the carts owner. Ferhat is sent home.

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Barnens O 1980

Barnens O 1980

Barnens O 1980

Barnens O 1980
Barnens Ö (original title)
1h 49min | Drama | 25 December 1980 (Sweden)

Storyline:

Reine is supposed to go to a summer camp called Children’s Island but decides to remain in Stockholm over the summer while his mother is working at a hospital. She thinks he is at the camp, and he tells her he is. We then follow him around Stockholm that summer and see what he encounters on the path of life.

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Esperame mucho 1983

Esperame mucho 1983

Esperame mucho 1983

Esperame mucho 1983
1h 30min | Drama | 11 August 1983 (Argentina)

Storyline:

Memories of Argentina in the early 1950s bring a man back (in his mind) to his neighborhood, his family, and their hardware store. Although the barrio was filled with people both for and against Juan Perón who was in office as President at this time, the bonds of friendship were stronger than political differences. This view, and the view held throughout the film is that of the man as a young child. Newsreel clips and scenes of Evita Perón’s funeral insert an adult perspective, though there is still an element of indecision throughout the film as to which perspective should hold.

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The Boys of St Vincent 15 Years Later 1992

The Boys of St Vincent 15 Years Later 1992

The Boys of St Vincent 15 Years Later 1992
1h 33min | Drama | TV Movie 7 December 1992

Storyline

Fifteen years after the events of The Boys of St. Vincent took place, the various boys involved are brought in to testify against the brothers, now finally standing trial, who assaulted them when they were children. The former head of the orphanage, Peter Lavin, has been married for several years at this point, has two children, and is living in Montreal when he is placed under arrest and brought to stand trial. While he maintains his innocence, the boy he favoured durring those years, Kevin Reevey, as well as many others, are faced with revisiting the abuse and trauma they sustained as children.

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Napola Before The Fall 2004

Napola Before The Wall 2004

Napola Before The Wall 2004
Napola – Elite für den Führer (original title)
14 | 1h 57min | Drama, Sport, War | 4 July 2004 (Czech Republic)

Storyline

In 1942, Friedrich Weimer’s boxing skills get him an appointment to a National Political Academy (NaPolA) – high schools that produce Nazi elite. Over his father’s objections, Friedrich enrolls, seeing this as his ticket out of factory life to university and a good salary. During his year in seventh column (fifth form), this innocence is altered as Friedrich encounters hazing, cruelty, death, and the Nazi code. His friendship with Albrecht, the ascetic son of the area’s governor, is central to this education; a night in the forest hunting for escaped Russian POWs brings things to a head.

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Freistatt 2015

Freistatt 2015

Freistatt 2015

Freistatt 2015
1h 44min | Drama | 25 June 2015 (Germany)

Storyline:

May 1968: Rolling Stones, bell-bottoms, mini-skirts, sexual revolution, protests against the Vietnam War… While Germany sets off for a new era of freedom, rebellious fourteen-year-old Wolfgang gets sent to Freistatt, a foster home for difficult children. There he shall be “educated” to become a decent boy. Wolfgang puts up a determined resistance against the brutal working conditions and the perfidious education methods of the wardens; he doesn’t allow them to get him down. But for how long can he manage to resist the system of violence and oppression without brutalising himself?

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