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Les Diaboliques
Michel Delasalle (Meurisse) is the headmaster of a boys boarding school near Paris. He is verbally and physically abusive of both his wife Christina (Vera Clouzot) and his mistress, Nicole Horner (Signoret). The two women join forces to murder him, drowning him in his bath and subsequently attempting to make it look like suicide. When…
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Like Water For Chocolate
An adaptation of a novel by Laura Esquivel, ‘Como Agua Para Chocolate’ (Like Water for Chocolate) is a Latin American expression which refers to the near boiling temperature of water for use in the making of chocolate, and is, figuratively, a reference to passion. In this tale of early 20th century, pre-revolution Mexico, a family…
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Spirit of the Beehive
In 1940s Spain a family of four live in an isolated farmhouse with window panes resembling the pattern of honeycomb. Father (a beekeeper and poet), and mother barely speak to each other and are disconnected from their two young daughters, little Ana (Ana Torrent) and her elder sister Isabel (Isabel Telleria). One day a rickety…
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Northern Soul
Set in Lancashire in 1974, the film follows Matt and John as they leave behind a humdrum life of youth clubs and factory lines to chase a dream of travelling to the US, unearthing unknown soul 45s and establishing themselves as top DJs on the Northern soul music scene. Their dance and amphetamine-fuelled quest brings…
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Like Father Like Son
Ryota has worked hard for everything in his life and he thinks nothing can stop him from pursuing a perfect life. Then one day, he and his wife Midori, receives a phone call from the hospital. A blood test shows that their son is not theirs, that the hospital made a mistake when their son…
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Nightcrawler
A pulse-pounding thriller set in the nocturnal underbelly of contemporary Los Angeles. Lou Bloom is a driven young man desperate for work who discovers the high-speed world of L.A. crime journalism. Joining a group of freelance camera crews who specialize in filming crashes, fires, murder and other mayhem, known as nightcrawlers, Lou muscles into the…
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A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
The story loosely follows two travelling novelty salesmen and their unsuccessful attempts to sell their vampire teeth, laughing bags and monster masks. But this is merely the framework for a series of absurdist tableaux that comment more generally on history and the human condition. “This is the third in what Andersson is now calling a…
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Son of Saul
At several camps the Nazis established units of Jewish male prisoners (sonderkommandos) picked for their youth and relative health. Those at Auschwitz-Birkenau lived in better physical conditions than other inmates and were divided into different groups, each with specialised functions including greeting new arrivals to the camp; sorting their suitcases and packages for shipping to…
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Our Little Sister
Just as in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Like Father, Like Son (Palme d’Or in Cannes 2013), this is a family drama, but now with a focus on the relationships between sisters. Three of them are living with their grandmother as they have long been estranged from their parents. Their father left them to live with another woman.…
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The Salesman
Renowned Iranian writer/director Asghar Farhadi’s films depict dramas in the lives of ordinary people that present a microcosm of modern Iran and its complexities, particularly in regard to class and gender, with middle-class marriage his signature theme. As a student Farhadi arrived in Tehran hoping to study cinema in college and was instead assigned to…