The End of the Track 1970
The End of the Track 1970
Pao dao zhong dian (original title)
1h 31m | Drama | Release date: 1970 (Taiwan)
Storyline:
Hsiao-Tung and Yung-shen are best friends who spend their time wandering the countryside, training for athletics, and hanging out at the dumpling stall operated by Yung-shen’s parents. When Yung-shen suffers an unexpected heart attack on the track field, it shakes his parents to the core – and sends Tung into a downhill spiral.
Feuerzeichen 1979
Feuerzeichen 1979
1h 42m | Drama | Release date: 1979 (West Germany)
Storyline:
Adrian Melik grows up as a scholarship holder in a private boarding school. On his thirteenth birthday he makes a suicide attempt: he wants to plunge from the roof of the boarding school. One of the firefighters, an American named Dave, takes care of the boy and a friendship develops over time. Adrian gets to know security, warmth, understanding and trust in Dave. At the boarding school, Adrian’s friendship with Dave is increasingly being viewed with suspicion and they eventually prohibit the boy from any further contact with the American. Adrian sees only one way to send a “sign” to his friend.
Niñato 2017
Niñato 2017
1h 12m | Documentary, Drama | Release date: May 11, 2018 (Spain)
Storyline:
Jobless and with no prospects, “Niñato” (Kid) lives with his parents and does hip-hop music. He lives the life of the outskirts, it’s the Madrid of the chronic crisis. But he is 34 years old and has 3 children to bring up. Time goes by, the kids are growing up and “Niñato” carries on, making music and looking after the children, without worrying too much about his future. Oro, the smallest one, not too motivated at school, will demand more attention and drive “Niñato” to face his own conflicts.
Brazil Festival Part 1
Documentary
Plot:
Naturists gather in Rio De Janeiro Brazil for beach volleyball, group exercises, fun in the waves, wrestling on the sand, and hula hoops in ocean. Then it’s back to the Nudist Resort for pool games, an outdoor shower, and lots of dancing.
Dva lidi v zoo 1989
Dva lidi v zoo 1989
1h 29m | Comedy | Release date: January 1, 1989 (Czechoslovakia)
Storyline:
Twin brothers are sent to Grandpa to spend some days. The Grandpa is a vet at a zoo and barely has time or patience to deal with the boys, most of the time the boys just help the animals by feeding, petting or playing their violins.
Sweet Journey 2011
Sweet Journey 2011
Yun xia de ri zi (original title)
1h 42m | Drama | Release date: March 8, 2011 (China)
Storyline:
Guizhou province, southern China, spring 1980. Schoolboys Zhao Qiangsheng (Ma Guoxing) and Fulai (Wang Shibin), who’ve spent their whole life in a remote village, hear from a PLA soldier about a thing called a “city”, full of people, buildings and cars, three mountains away. Full of curiosity, and with the orphaned Fulai fed up with being passed around the community, the two set off to reach it when their school is closed for five days…
Vracenky 1991
Vracenky 1991
1h 34m | Drama | Release date: November 1, 1991 (Czechoslovakia)
Storyline:
In the fifites the 10 year old boy Honza lives with his single mother in Prague. The mother is a dedicated communist in the beginning but she changes her mind when a show trial is held. She speaks about her dissatisfaction with the government and is immediately arrested. Honza is given to another family.
Louis, enfant roi 1993
Louis, enfant roi 1993
2h 40m | Biography, Drama, History | Release date: April 21, 1993 (France)
Storyline:
The title of this major French costume drama means “Louis, child-king”, and indeed it’s a fascinating fresco about the formative years of the young king Louis XIV, before he became the Sun-king at Versailles. It was a dark and violent period, when the Louvre (meaning ‘wolves hunt castle’, hunting was a major aristocratic pastime), then still the somewhat gloomy royal palace, was the battle field of palace intrigues while the regency was held by queen-mother Anne of Austria but the actual head of the royal government was the aging cardinal Giulio Mazirini (‘Mazarin’), the less-known Italian successor of Richelieu, who also introduced to the court and the kingdom a host of his countrymen from whom Louis would learn the passion for Italian culture, especially music which would flourish under the direction of Lully (but that later story is another movie, “Le Roi danse”). The elaborate script sketches the story of French power politics, too complicate and devious to summarize in any detail, but mainly from the viewpoint of the immature king under maternal guardianship, who probably didn’t comprehend half of the grave troubles focusing on the strife between the official Catholic church and those claiming freedom of religion, especially for the Huguenots, but in reality mainly driven by personal and family ambitions and the grip of nobles on the kingdom at the expense of the royal power, and climaxing in a full rebellion, known as the Fronde, which forces the royal family to flee for their lives, an experience that may have decided Louis to dedicate his reign to preventing a repeat by establishing absolutism as he did. Some narration is done by Louis’s younger brother Philip, the duke of Anjou, who seems smarter but as the spare heir is condemned to life in a golden cage, overshadowed by Louis while any ‘disrespect’ for his crowned sibling is punishable on the spot by strap lashes administered on his bare behind by a servant.
Koi kizuna no sato 2012
Koi kizuna no sato 2012
57m | Drama | Release date: 2012 (Japan)
Storyline:
Twelve year old Osamu Hirano is in love with his classmate Rio, but he doesn’t have courage to confess his love to her. One day he learns that she is going out with Shuichi and this makes him very depressed. Shuichi is also a classmate, but unlike Osamu, he is very smart and also good at sports. Meanwhile, Osamu’s 21 year old sister Yumi, who years ago ran away to the big city of Nagoya, suddenly turns up with her fiancé, Kenji Yamaoka, a 45 year old ethnologist. Unsurprisingly, her parents have problems with Yumi’s choice of husband, particularly since he is the same age as her father and appears to have major health problems to boot. Yumi’s sudden reappearance, after years of silence, and her insistence on marrying a man more than twice her age, predictably throws the family into turmoil. Both Yumi and Osamu have problems addressing love, the deeper they fall into it, the more difficulty they have expressing their true feelings.
