 |
|
AMERICAN TEEN
Director: Nanette Burstein
Website
AMERICAN TEEN is the touching and hilarious Sundance hit that follows the lives of five teenagers - a jock, a popular girl, a heartthrob, an artsy girl and a geek – in one small town in Indiana through their senior year of high school. We see the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousies, the first loves and heartbreaks, and the struggle to make profound decisions about the future. Filming daily for ten months, filmmaker Nanette Burstein developed a deep understanding of her subjects. The result is a film that goes beyond the enduring stereotypes of high school to render complex young people trying to find their way into adulthood. |
|
|
ASHES OF TIME REDUX
Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Website
Celebrated director Wong Kar-Wai revisits his 1994 film ASHES OF TIME, the Hong Kong filmmaker's only entry into the martial arts genre. Based on the novel by Louis Cha, the film centers on a man named Ouyang Feng. Since the woman he loved rejected him, he has lived in the western desert, hiring skilled swordsmen to carry out contract killings. His wounded heart has made him pitiless and cynical, but his encounters with friends, clients and future enemies make him conscious of this solitude. |
 |
|
ASSASSINATION OF A HIGH SCHOOL PRESIDENT
Director: Brett Simon
Website
A homage to CHINATOWN set in a Catholic high school, ASSASSINATION OF A HIGH SCHOOL PRESIDENT is a witty film noir replete with surprising twists and duplicitous characters from first-time feature director Brett Simon. The film focuses on a bullied school newspaper reporter named Bobby investigating the theft of the school's SAT exams. Also tangled in the web of conspiracy is the most beautiful but devious girl in school, the long-insane principal and a host of other darkly comedic characters.
|
 |
|
BAGHEAD
Director: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Website
The Duplass Brothers explore the minutiae of relationship dynamics in this in-depth study of a group of desperate friends. What results is a comedic tale of a group of actors who, in an attempt to salvage their fledging careers, decide to hole up in a friend's cabin in the woods for the weekend to write a script staring themselves. What they come up with is far beyond any of their expectations.
|
 |
|
BATTLE IN SEATTLE
Directed by: Stuart Townsend
Website
Based on one of the most incendiary political uprisings in a generation, BATTLE IN SEATTLE takes an in-depth look at the five days that rocked the world in 1999 as tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in protest of the World Trade Organization. What began as a peaceful protest intended to stop the WTO talks quickly escalated into a full-scale riot and eventual State of Emergency that squared off peaceful and unarmed protestors against the Seattle Police Department and the National Guard.
|
 |
|
BEER FOR MY HORSES
Director: Michael Salomon
Website
BEER FOR MY HORSES tells the story of two best friends, Rack and Lonnie, that work together as deputies in a small town. The two defy the Sheriff and head off on an outrageous road trip to save the Rack’s girlfriend from drug lord kidnappers.
|
 |
|
BLINDNESS
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Website
When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine. BLINDNESS is a psychological thriller about the fragility of mankind.
|
|
|
BOTTLESHOCK
Director: Randall M. Miller
Website
Based on a true story, BOTTLE SHOCK chronicles the 1976 events leading up to the famous 'Judgment of Paris' tastings, when a small American winery bested the exalted French wines of the time. Those events sent the wine industry into a tizzy and put California wines on the map for good. |
 |
|
BOY A
Director: John Crowley
Website
BOY A is a powerful coming-of-age drama that raises difficult questions about the morals of our times. The fictional story stars Andrew Garfield as Jack. His involvement in the murder of another child means Jack, at 24, has spent most of his young life in juvenile prisons. Released from prison into an unrecognizable adult world, Jack is given a new name, new job, new home; a new life. But anonymity is both a blessing and a curse as Jack has to contend with not being able to tell the people he gets to know, and love, of his true past and the monstrous secret he must keep hidden.
|
 |
|
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
Director: Julian Jarrold
Website
Based on the Evelyn Waugh novel, BRIDESHEAD follows the memoirs of Captain Charles Ryder who was stationed at Brideshead Castle during WWII and remembers his involvement with the owners of the Brideshead estate: the aristocratic yet Catholic Flyte family and in particular brother and sister Sebastian and Julia.
|
|
|
BURN AFTER READING
Directors: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Website
BURN AFTER READING is a dark spy-comedy from Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen. An ousted CIA official's (John Malkovich) memoir accidentally falls into the hands of two unwise gym employees intent on exploiting their find. |
 |
|
CHOKE
Director: Clark Gregg
Website
Victor Mancini, a sex-addicted med-school dropout, who keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida, in an expensive private medical hospital by working days as a historical reenactor at a Colonial Williamsburg theme park. At night Victor runs a scam by deliberately choking in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who "save" him. When, in a rare lucid movement, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father's identity, Victor enlists the aid of his best friend, Denny and his mother's beautiful attending physician, Dr. Paige Marshall, to solve the mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever. The film is adapted from the best-selling, critically acclaimed novel by Chuck Palahniuk.
|
|
|
THE DUCHESS
Director: Saul Dibb
Website
A vibrant beauty and celebrity of her time is trapped in an unhappy triangle with her husband and his live-in mistress. She falls passionately in love with an ambitious young politician, and the affair causes a bitter conflict with her husband and threatens to erupt into a scandal. THE DUCHESS brings to life a vibrantly lavish, yet rapidly changing England in the time of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the madness of King George. |
|
|
ELEGY
Director: Isobel Coixet
Website
Charismatic professor David Kepesh becomes obsessed with Consuela, and ultimately his jealous fantasies of betrayal drive her away. Shattered, Kepesh faces up to the ravages of time, immersing himself in work and confronting the loss of old friends. Then, two years later, Consuela comes back into his life -- with an urgent, desperate request that will change everything. |
 |
|
THE ESCAPIST
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Website
An extraordinarily visual and visceral thriller that had its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, THE ESCAPIST stars Brian Cox as a man who is serving a life sentence in prison. When a letter informs him that his daughter is critically ill, he decides he must see her before it is too late and concocts an escape plan. He assembles a motley crew of unlikely companions each of whom possesses a special and necessary skill that will help with his far-fetched scheme.
|
 |
|
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
Director: Mike Leigh
Website
Poppy is a teacher from north London whose life, at first glance, seems to be full of complications. It is hard to figure is she is a little crazy and irresponsible or deeply sane and sensible. Either way, everybody falls in love with her for better or for worse.
|
|
|
EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE ITALIAN
Director: Jason Todd Ipson
Website
A lovelorn fishmonger who has spent nearly a decade trying to win back his ex-girlfriend gets involved in a case of mistaken ethnicity in this warm-hearted romantic comedy. It's been eight years since Jake's girlfriend left him, and despite the fact that she's now married with three children he refuses to move on. Fed up with their depressive pal's unwillingness to let go of the past, Jake's friends set him up on a blind date with a beautiful Italian woman from Boston's North End. Though Jake is convinced that such a woman would never even consider dating a non-Italian, a quick crash course in how to fake it may prove just the trick to helping him learn to love once again.
|
|
|
FOREVER STRONG
Director: Ryan Little
Website
Based on a true story, FOREVER STRONG highlights the journey of Coach Larry Gelwix and the brotherhood of his rugby team. The season gets a twist when Rick Penning, the hot-headed star of a rival team, comes to town to serve a sentence for a DUI. Mentored by Coach Gelwix and his case worker Marcus, Penning has a change of heart and focuses his efforts towards his new family. |
|
|
FROZEN RIVER
Director: Courtney Hunt
Website
Two days before Christmas in rural upstate New York, Ray Eddy's husband has left her in an impossible situation—not only is he gone, but he has gambled away all of the family's meager savings. Ray's single wage at the Yankee One Dollar Store can't make the house payment, and the situation forces Ray to feed her two sons popcorn and Tang every day. When Ray strikes out to search for her husband, she encounters Lila Littlewolf, a tough, street-smart Mohawk woman who is dealing with her own struggle to make ends meet. But Lila has found a way to do it—smuggling illegal immigrants into the States. The tribal elders disapprove and attempt to stop Lila by forbidding anyone to sell her a car. Ray has a car, and although the two women don't trust each other, they team up and share Ray's Dodge Spirit to make a run across the frozen St. Lawrence River.
|
|
|
HAMLET 2
Director: Andy Fleming
Website
An audience favorite of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, HAMLET 2 is an irreverent comedy centering on an overzealous quest to mount a high school musical. Follow, Dana Marschz, a failed actor-turned-worse-high-school-drama teacher, as he allies his Tucson, AZ students to perform his politically incorrect musical sequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet. |
 |
|
HENRY POOLE IS HERE
Director: Mark Pellington
Website
When a man discovers that he has only six weeks to live, he leaves his job, his fiancee and his overbearing mother and tries to spend his remaining days in seclusion. But when a miracle transforms his life, his quirky neighbors disrupt his plan to live out his days in quiet desperation.
|
|
|
I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND
Director: Jiri Menzel
Website
A busboy with an inferiority complex and a driving ambition to become a millionaire, quickly rises to become a head waiter, but the respect he craves continues to allude him. When he marries a Nazi gym teacher, the Czechs despise him even more, while the Germans barely tolerate him. Rare stamps taken from wealthy Jews make his dream come true after the war, but his first-class hotel is soon nationalized by the Communists and he ends his life in poverty and isolation. |
 |
|
I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG
Director: Philippe Claudel
Website
This powerful story of familial struggles and redemption follows a shell-shocked Juliett, who returns to live with he young sister Lea after being banished from the family for 15 years. An enormous critical and box office success in France, Scott-Thomas' phenomenal performance has already been singled out by critics as an award worthy film.
|
|
|
LITTLE RED TRUCK
Director: Rob Whitehair
Website
Imagine sixty kids staging a full-scale musical in six days. The film records the emotional highs, lows and in-betweens of more than 250 kids in five communities when Missoula Children's Theatre, via its signature little red truck, comes to town. It's magic and mayhem captured through the lens as the kids, under the direction of the two professional tour actor/directors who come with the touring truck, audition, rehearse, mess up, have the occasional meltdown, overcome personal obstacles, learn teamwork, acceptance and commitment, jump for joy, don costumes, and eventually grace the stage for a one-hour performance.
|
 |
|
THE LUCKY ONES
Director: Neil Burger
Website
After suffering an injury during a routine patrol, hardened sergeant TK Poole is granted a one-month leave to visit his fiancé. But when an unexpected blackout cancels all flights out of New York, TK agrees to share a ride to Pittsburgh with two similarly stranded servicemen. What begins as a short trip unexpectedly evolves into a longer journey. Forced to grapple with old relationships, broken hopes and a country divided over the war, the soldiers discover that home is not quite what they remembered, and that the unlikely companionship they've found might be what matters the most.
|
|
|
A MAN NAMED PEARL
Director: Scott Galloway & Brent Pierson
Website
A MAN NAMED PEARL tells the inspiring story of self-taught topiary artist Pearl Fryar, whose unlikely journey to national prominence began with a bigoted remark in 1976 when Pearl was told “that Black people don’t keep up their yards.” Instead of responding with anger, Pearl was motivated to prove that stereotype wrong by becoming the first African-American to win the town’s “Yard of the Month” award. Realizing he would have to do something spectacular to win that prize, Pearl began cutting every bush and tree in his yard into unusual, abstract shapes. He didn’t know it then, but he was creating a magical wonderland that would, in time, not only garner local recognition, but also draw thousands of visitors from across the United States and around the world.
|
 |
|
MAN ON WIRE
Director: James Marsh
Website
As a young wirewalker in France, Philippe Petit became fascinated by the as-yet unbuilt World Trade Center towers. He was determined to one day walk between them – without a harness, without a net, 1350 feet above the ground. What started as an obsession eventually developed into an intricate plan, as Petit and a crack team of accomplices spent eight months developing a bold strategy for their secret mission. This inspired documentary tracks the history of that famous 1974 feat that would be called the "artistic crime of the century."
|
|
|
MORNING LIGHT
Director: Mark Monroe & Paul Crowder
Website
Fifteen young sailors... six months of intense training... one chance at the brass ring. This exciting true-life documentary tells the inspiring story of a group of intrepid and daring young men and women, on the cusp of adulthood, as they embark on life's first great adventure. Racing a high-performance 52-foot sloop in the TRANSPAC, the most revered of open-ocean sailing competitions, the crew of Morning Light matches wits and skills in a dramatic 2,300-mile showdown against top professionals. From their earliest training sessions in Hawaii conducted by world-class teachers through their test of endurance on the high seas, they form an unbreakable bond in the process of becoming a singular team that is greater than the sum of its parts.
|
|
|
THE ORDER OF MYTHS
Director: Margaret Brown
Website
THE ORDER OF MYTHS is a documentary about the 2007 Mardi Gras celebration in Mobile, Alabama which remains a very segregated event. The film follows a cast of characters, parades, and parties across the enduring color line, and exposes what lies beneath the surface of all that pageantry. |
|
|
PHOBE IN WONDERLAND
Director: Daniel Barnz
Website
PHOEBE IN WONDERLAND is the fantastical tale of Phoebe, a young girl who longs to be in the school production of Alice in Wonderland. After her peculiar drama teacher Miss Dodger casts her, Phoebe struggles to control her behavior so her Principal won't kick her out. As Phoebe's stress mounts, her behavior grows worse. And Phoebe begins retreating to an imaginary fantasy world peopled by characters from Alice in Wonderland, a world which grows increasingly disturbing and treacherous. |
|
) |
PING PONG PLAYA
Director: Jessica Yu
Website
Streetwise swaggering Christopher "C-Dub" Wang is a suburban guy who waxes political on all things Asian American and clings to pro basketball pipe dreams. But when misfortune strikes his family, C-dub must overcome living at home, working a dead-end job and his worldly older brother, to run his Mom's ping pong classes and defend the family's athletic dynasty. |
 |
|
THE POOL
Director: Chris Smith
Website
A boy working in a hotel becomes obsessed with a swimming pool at a home in the opulent hills of Panjim, Goa in India. His life gets turned upside-down when he attempts to meet the mysterious family that arrives at the house.
|
|
|
RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
Director: Jonathan Demme
Website
After a detour into documentaries, Jonathan Demme directs this film about the changing family dynamics when a prodigal daughter returns. Anne Hathaway (THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA) stars as the returning daughter, and multiple Oscar nominee Debra Winger and Tony winner Bill Irwin costar. |
 |
|
RELIGULOUS
Director: Larry Charles
Website
RELIGULOUS follows Bill Maher as he travels around the globe interviewing people about God and religion. Known for his astute analytical skills, irreverent wit and commitment to never pulling a punch, Maher brings his characteristic honesty to an unusual spiritual journey.
|
 |
|
THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES
Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Website
Set in South Carolina in 1964, the film is the moving tale of Lily Owens, a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with Rosaleen, her caregiver and only friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by the intelligent and independent Boatwright sisters, Lily finds solace in their mesmerizing world of beekeeping, honey and the Black Madonna.
|
 |
|
A SECRET
Director: Claude Miller
Website
A SECRET follows the saga of a Jewish family in post-World War II Paris. François, a solitary, imaginative child, invents for himself a brother as well as the story of his parents' past. But on his fifteenth birthday, he discovers a dark family secret that ties his family’s history to the Holocaust and shatters his illusions forever. A SECRET is adapted from Philippe Grimbert's celebrated truth-inspired novel.
|
|
|
SIXTY-SIX
Director: Paul Weiland
Website
In 1966, 12-year-old Bernie is preparing for the biggest day of his - his Bar Mitzvah. However, Bernie's family is increasingly distracted by the threat of losing their business and their wayward older son, and the scale of Bernie's Bar Mitzvah diminishes daily. Worst of all the Cup Final is scheduled to take place on the same day and when England makes it through the qualifying rounds, Bernie's longed-for Bar Mitzvah looks set to be a complete disaster. |
 |
|
THE SKY TURNS (EL CIELO GIRA)
Director: Mercedes Álvarez
Website UNAVAILABLE
The filmmaker travels to the village in Northern Spain where she was born to produce this breathtakingly beautiful meditation on place. Just as she thinks the village is on the brink of extinction, she finds it renewed by a wave of new migrants.
|
 |
|
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Director: Danny Boyle
Website
An illiterate kid looks to become a contestant on the Hindi version of Who Wants to be A Millionaire in order to re-establish contact with the girl he loves, who is an ardent fan of the show.
|
 |
|
SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO
Director: Takashi Miike
Website
Famed Japanese auteur Takashi Miike, redefines the spaghetti Western with SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO. Two clans, Genji, the white clan led by Yoshitsune, and Heike, the red clan led by Kiyomori, battle for a legendary treasure hidden in a desolate mountain town. One day, a lone gunman, burdened with deep emotional scars but blessed with incredible shooting skills, drifts into town. Two clans try to woo the lone gunman to their sides, but he has ulterior motives. Dirty tricks, betrayal, desire and love collide as the situation erupts into a final, explosive showdown.
|
|
|
TELL NO ONE
Director: Guillaume Canet
Website
Pediatrician Alexandre Beck still grieves the murder of his beloved wife, Margot, eight years earlier. When two bodies are found near the scene of the crime, the police reopen the case and Alex becomes a suspect again. The mystery deepens when Alex receives an anonymous e-mail with a link to a video clip that seems to suggest Margot is somehow still alive and a message to "Tell No One.” |
|
|
TOWELHEAD
Director: Alan Ball
Website
TOWELHEAD follows the dark, bold and shockingly funny life of Jasira, a 13-year-old Arab-American girl, as she navigates the confusing and frightening path of adolescence and her own sexual awakening. |
 |
|
VICKY CRISTNA BARCELONA
Director: Woody Allen
Website
Vicky and Cristina, these two young Americans spend a summer in Spain and meet a flamboyant artist and his beautiful but insane ex-wife. Vicky is straight-laced and about to be married. Cristina is a sexually adventurous free spirit. When they all become amorously entangled, both comedic and harrowing results ensue.
|
|
|
WHAT WE DO IS SECRET
Director: Rodger Grossman
Website
WHAT WE DO IS SECRET is a documentary based on the rise and fall of Darby Crash, a founding member of the 1970's L.A. punk band, The Germs. |
 |
|
THE WOMEN
Director: Diane English
Website
Set in New York City's modern whirl of fashion and publishing, THE WOMEN tells the story of Mary Haines and Sylvie Fowler, who both live enviable lives in NYC. However, when Mary's husband enters into an affair with a sultry 'spritzer girl' who works at the Saks Fifth Avenue perfume counter, all hell breaks loose. Mary and Sylvie's relationship is tested to the breaking point while their tight-knit circle of friends, including mega-mommy Edie Cohen and author Alex Fisher, all start to question their own friendships and romantic relationships as well.
back to top |
