Foreign - Movies

An Elephant Sitting Still

Foreign

Sure to be remembered as a landmark in Chinese cinema, this intensely felt epic marks a career cut tragically short: its debut director Hu Bo took his own life last October, at the age of 29. The protagonist of this modern reworking of the tale of Jason and the Argonauts is teenage Wei Bu, who critically injures a school bully by accident. Over a single, eventful day, he crosses paths with a classmate, an elderly neighbor, and the bully’s older brother, all of them bearing their own individual burdens, and all drawn as if by gravity to the city of Manzhouli, where a mythical elephant is said to sit, indifferent to a cruel world. Full of moody close-ups and virtuosic tracking shots, An Elephant Sitting Still is nothing short of a masterpiece.

The Death of Louis XIV

Foreign

Versailles, August 1715. Back from hunting, Louis XIV–masterfully portrayed by French New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Leaud (The 400 Blows) - feels a pain in his leg. A serious fever erupts, which marks the beginning of agony for the greatest King of France. Surrounded by a horde of doctors and his closest counselors, who sense an impending power vacuum, the Sun King struggles to run the country from his bed. Based on extensive medical records and the memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon and other courtiers, The Death of Louis XIV is a wry neoclassical chamber drama, a work of pure magic by Albert Serra, one of today’s most singular directors.

Great Barrier Reef

Foreign

Explore the paradise in Australia that is home to a large diversity of species including turtles, colorful fish and coral reefs. Accompany underwater cinematographers on their journey through this miracle of nature.

Güeros

Foreign

Ever since the National University strike broke out, Sombra and Santos have been living in angst-ridden limbo. Education-less, motionless, purposeless, and unsure of what the strike will bring, they begin to look for strange ways to kill time. But their idiosyncratic routine is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Tomas, Sombra's kid brother. Unable to fit in amongst these older slackers, Tomas discovers that unsung Mexican folk-rock hero Epigmenio Cruz has been hospitalized somewhere in the city. Tomas convinces Sombra and Santos they must track him down in order to pay their final respects on his deathbed. But what they thought would be a simple trip to find their childhood idol, soon becomes a voyage of self-discovery across Mexico City's invisible frontiers.

Paradise Hope

Foreign

The third installment in Ulrich Seidl's PARADISE trilogy, PARADISE: HOPE tells the story of overweight 13-year-old Melanie and her first love. While her mother travels to Kenya (PARADISE: LOVE) and her aunt does missionary work (PARADISE: FAITH), Melanie spends her summer vacation at a strict diet camp for overweight teenagers. Between physical education and nutrition counseling, pillow fights and her first cigarette, Melanie falls in love with the camp director, a doctor 40 years her senior. As the doctor struggles with the guilty nature of his desire, Melanie had imagined her paradise differently.

Vivre sa vie

Foreign

VIVRE SA VIE was a turning point for Jean-Luc Godard and remains one of his most dynamic films, combining brilliant visual design with a tragic character study. The lovely Anna Karina, Godard’s greatest muse, plays Nana, a young Parisian who aspires to be an actress but instead ends up a prostitute, her downward spiral depicted in a series of discrete tableaux of daydreams and dances. Featuring some of Karina and Godard’s most iconic moments—from her movie theater vigil with THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC to her seductive pool-hall strut—VIVRE SA VIE is a landmark of the French New Wave that still surprises at every turn.

Tótem

Foreign

In a bustling Mexican household, seven-year-old Sol is swept up in a whirlwind of preparations for the birthday party for her father, Tona, led by her mother, aunts and other relatives. As the day goes on, building to an event both anticipated and dreaded, Sol begins to understand the gravity of the celebration this year and watches as her family does the same. This poignant and emotionally expansive film from Lila Aviles (THE CHAMBERMAID) cements her skill at directing dynamic, ensemble performances in her stunning sophomore effort.

4 Moons

Foreign

Four stories about love and self-acceptance: An eleven year-old boy struggles to keep secret the attraction he feels towards his male cousin. Two former childhood friends reunite and start a relationship that gets complicated due to one of them's fear of getting caught. A gay long lasting relationship is in jeopardy when a third man comes along. An old family man is obsessed with a young male prostitute and tries to raise the money to afford the experience.

La Grande Illusion (Grand Illusion)

Foreign

During the First World War, two French soldiers are captured and imprisoned in a German POW camp. Several escape attempts follow until they are sent to a seemingly impenetrable fortress which seems impossible to escape from.

Boys

Foreign

In this beautiful and uplifting gay romance, two teen track stars discover first love as they train for the biggest relay race of their young lives. Dutch phenom Gijs Blom stars as Sieger, a thoughtful 15-year-old who grapples mightily with his emerging sexuality. Ko Zandvliet co-stars as his love interest, the spirited, outgoing, and popular Marc.In their boyish summer courtship the pair swim, bike, and run — they also share ice creams and kisses as they gradually find the courage to be vulnerable with one another. The romance between them unfolds with a palpable sense of longing, and an aching sequence of heartache as Sieger tries to fight the inevitable outcome. With its authentic and perfectly poignant tone, plus an irresistible pop soundtrack, Mischa Kamp’s Boys ranks as one of the most wholesomely romantic gay teen films ever.

The Front Line

Foreign

Toward the end of the Korean War, an uneasy ceasefire is ordered, but out on the Eastern front line of the Aerok Hills, in an expanse of land called the Aero.K, fierce fighting continues. A race to capture a strategic point to determine a new border between the two Koreas is the ultimate prize. At the Eastern border stands the “Alligator Company,” known to be the best soliders of the front line. They are the only unit to have survived the worst battle of the war at Pohang. When a South Korean bullet is found in the dead body of a company commander, Lieutenant of Defense Security Command Kang Eun-Pyo (Shin Ha-Kyun) is ordered to investigate Alligator Company for the murder. Upon arrival, Kang Eun-Pyo is immediately shocked at the state of the soldiers, the conditions on the front, and the presence of Kim Soo-Hyuk, a former friend he believed to be dead. With a truce promised for years but no end in sight, one man struggles to make sense of a crime in the face of countless lives sacrificed for war.

Live Flesh

Foreign

From critically acclaimed, erotically candid writer/director Pedro Almodóvar (Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down; Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) comes a raw, seductive tale based on a novel by British mystery writer Ruth Rendell. When naive, lovestruck Victor (Liberto Rabal) attempts to seduce beautiful and wealthy but strung-out junkie Elena (Francesca Neri), all he gets for his trouble is a one-way, six-year ticket to prison, where he concentrates on strengthening his mind, his body...and his desire for vengeance on the man who put him there. After his release, Victor crosses paths with Elena, who is as beautiful as ever since she cleaned up her act. Still madly in love with her, Victor will stop at nothing to win her over even if it means revenge for Elena has married David (Javier Bardem), the cop who sent him to prison!

Pierrot Le Fou

Foreign

Dissatisfied in marriage and life, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) takes to the road with the babysitter, his ex-lover Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), and leaves the bourgeois world behind. Yet this is no normal road trip: the tenth feature in six years by genius auteur Jean-Luc Godard is a stylish mash-up of anticonsumerist satire, au courant politics, and comic-book aesthetics, as well as a violent, zigzag tale of, as Godard called them, "the last romantic couple." With blissful color imagery by cinematographer Raoul Coutard and Belmondo and Karina at their most animated, PIERROT LE FOU is one of the high points of the French New Wave, and was Godard’s last frolic before he moved ever further into radical cinema.

Les anges gardiens (Guardian Angels)

Foreign

A priest and a nightclub owner go on a wild caper that drags them from Paris to Hong-Kong and back again. The stakes are not to be sneezed at: 40 million dollars and the life of a five year-old Chinese boy. And if that weren't bad enough, two meddling guardian angels show up and make matters worse!

Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed

Foreign

Spain, 1966: Antonio (Javier Cámara, from “I’m So Excited!”) is a teacher and a Beatles fan – facets he combines by getting his pupils to recite the lyrics from “Help” in English class. When he learns that his idol John Lennon is making a film in Almería (Richard Lester’s “How I Won the War”) he resolves to meet him. On the journey he picks up two young runaways: Bethlehem, a pregnant girl fleeing a convent, and Juanjo, a boy escaping a dictatorial father.

The Emperor and the Assassin

Foreign

From the acclaimed director of Farewell, My Concubine comes The Emperor and the Assassin a visually stunning epic, exploring the devastating price one country pays for peace and one man pays for power. Ying Zheng, the King of Qin, has one driving ambition: to unify China's seven kingdoms into one magnificent empire. Impressed by her lover's convictions, Lady Zhao (Gong Li) helps Ying Zheng concoct an assassination plot that would justify the conquest of Qin's most powerful enemy. When Ying Zheng's peaceful mission explodes into a brutal holocaust, a disillusioned Lady Zhao is forced to question her loyalty and her lover's destiny.

Rabies (Unrated)

Foreign

A psychotic serial killer on the loose in the woods crosses paths with a group of unsuspecting teenagers. Soon people are dying one by one… but the bad guy isn't who you think. Turning genre conventions on their head with a smart script and plenty of unexpected scares, RABIES is a surprising debut worthy of its mantle as Israel's first-ever slasher horror film.

Happily Ever After (Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants)

Foreign

A quintessentially French film about love, lust, life, and the challenges of monogamy. Revolving around the central couple Vincent and Gabrielle (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who seem to have an idyllic life. However, Vincent has been cheating on Gabrielle, and she knows it. The problem is not that Vincent doesn't love her anymore or that he no longer lusts for her, but that he does. It's just that he happens to love his mistress as well... Meanwhile Gabrielle (unbeknownst to Vincent) embarks on a fling with a mysterious man she meets in a record store (played by Johnny Depp speaking perfect French). Vincent's friend Georges, on the other hand, has always been faithful to his wife, but seems to have tired of her and their son. What he thinks he wants, but doesn't have the courage to go out and get, is the kind of life Fred, a playboy buddy of his, has created for himself. That is to say; no commitments and a different girlfriend seemingly every night. It is a life that Fred though is tiring of, and turning his attention to the pursuit of monogamy. Then there are Vincent's parents, a couple who have been married and presumably faithful to each other for 40 years, but who heartbreakingly have nothing to say to each other at the dinner table. Finally, George's neighbors, a husband and wife of 15 years, yet still so in love it's disgusting.

Tokyo Drifter

Foreign

In this jazzy gangster film, reformed killer Phoenix Tetsu’s attempt to go straight is squashed when his former cohorts call him back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang. This onslaught of stylized violence and trippy colors got director Seijun Suzuki in trouble with Nikkatsu studio heads, who were put off by his anything-goes, in-your-face aesthetic, equal parts Russ Meyer, Samuel Fuller, and Nagisa Oshima. Tokyo Drifter is a delirious highlight of the brilliantly excessive Japanese cinema of the sixties.

Winter Sleep

Foreign

Aydin, a former actor, runs a small hotel in central Anatolia with his young wife Nihal with whom he has a stormy relationship and his sister Necla who is suffering from her recent divorce. In winter as the snow begins to fall, the hotel turns into a shelter but also an inescapable place that fuels their animosities.

Foreign Movies