As Hard as You Can 2019
Aussi fort que tu peux (original title)
26min | Short, Drama, Thriller | 9 December 2019 (Germany)
Storyline:
In the middle of the countryside, Virgile is trying to reconnect with his childhood friend. But he discovers that Anthony has sunk into the throes of self-destruction and surrenders to extreme sexuality.
At the end of 1945, a young boy is taken to a brothel by his uncle to become a man. Through the evening’s bittersweet encounters, he discovers the adult world in all its cruelty.
The Power of the Dog 2021
2h 5min | Drama, Romance, Western | 4 September 2021 (USA)
Storyline:
Severe, pale-eyed, handsome, Phil Burbank is brutally beguiling. All of Phil’s romance, power and fragility is trapped in the past and in the land: He can castrate a bull calf with two swift slashes of his knife; he swims naked in the river, smearing his body with mud. He is a cowboy as raw as his hides. The year is 1925. The Burbank brothers are wealthy ranchers in Montana. At the Red Mill restaurant on their way to market, the brothers meet Rose, the widowed proprietress, and her impressionable son Peter. Phil behaves so cruelly he drives them both to tears, revelling in their hurt and rousing his fellow cowhands to laughter – all except his brother George, who comforts Rose then returns to marry her. As Phil swings between fury and cunning, his taunting of Rose takes an eerie form – he hovers at the edges of her vision, whistling a tune she can no longer play. His mockery of her son is more overt, amplified by the cheering of Phil’s cowhand disciples. Then Phil appears to take the boy under his wing. Is this latest gesture a softening that leaves Phil exposed, or a plot twisting further into menace?
After years of sexual denial, Yiftach leaves his family to live alone in Tel-Aviv.
Attracted to men but torn between his former and new life, Yiftach is consumed with blame and feels disconnected from everything around him. The drama moves between different time periods, raising penetrating questions regarding prejudice and life on the fringes of society.
Venice 2010
Wenecja (original title)
1h 55min | Drama | 25 May 2010 (Poland)
Storyline:
Marek is in his early teens and dreams of going to Venice. Although the war makes his plans highly unlikely, the boy won’t let his dreams drift away too easily.
The Scent of Oranges 2019
Uzly a pomerance (original title)
1h 32min | Drama, Family, Romance | 27 May 2019 (Czechia)
Storyline:
In love with a girl that smells of oranges while in a complicated relationship with his father, Darek is gentle, strong and devoted to his little sister and their herd of horses. Darek’s world is a story about the joy and pain of growing up in the isolated yet beautiful Lusatian Mountains. Here, horses are not expensive specimens of racing stables but beings you should care for and love. Not even that is enough in life though, as Darek finds out nearing the Summer’s end, closing his childhood definitely. However, just like any ending, this is a start of something new. This is an adaptation of the book, “The Orange Days,” which has won literary prizes in Europe and been published in five languages.
Together 2000
Tillsammans (original title)
1h 46min | Comedy, Drama, Romance | 25 August 2000 (Sweden)
Storyline:
It is the 1970s and a group of very different individuals live together as a community. One of the members’ sister, Elisabeth, needs a new place to stay with her children after having had enough of her alcoholic and abusive husband. Elisabeth is neither a socialist nor a feminist nor into the green movement but ends up loving living in the community where they all learn from each other. The film makes a little fun of people with strong ideals and “square” minds whether they be vegans, communists or people who absolutely disgust vegans or socialists. In the end, the message of the film is that people can grow and gain from bonding with each other. It also shows how we need to shape up a little for this to work, either through working on our behavior that affects other people badly (like alcoholism or abuse) or the need to set boundaries and not let other people walk all over oneself.
Love Like Poison 2010
Un poison violent (original title)
1h 32min | Drama | 14 May 2010 (France)
Storyline:
Anna a young teenager comes home from her Catholic boarding school for the holidays and discovers her father has left. Her mother is devastated and confined in the company of the local priest, who is also a childhood friend. Anna clings to her beloved grandfather. She also grows close to Pierre, a free-spirited teenager who cares little about God. Anna is preparing for her confirmation, but her budding desire for Pierre shakes her faith. She longs to give herself over, body and soul… but doesn’t know if it is to God, or something else?