Foreign - Movies

Battle of Dunkirk: From Disaster to Triumph

Foreign

Relive the bravery of the Dunkirk veterans in defenseless boats crossing the English Channel to rescue the stranded soldiers from the inferno through their uplifting stories of heroism in a battle that changed the course of WWII.

The Golden Glove

Foreign

Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, acclaimed filmmaker Fatih Akin (Head-On, The Edge of Heaven, In The Fade) delivers a gruesome tale of notorious German serial killer Fritz Honka as he haunts Hamburg’s red light district in the 1970s, frequenting his favorite bar of boozy castaways, the “Golden Glove”, and chasing after any lonely woman he might just be able to lure into his attic.

Coco Before Chanel

Foreign

This is the story of Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel, who begins her life as a headstrong orphan, and through an extraordinary journey becomes the legendary couturier who embodied the modern woman and became a timeless symbol of success, freedom and style.

A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop (Subtitled)

Foreign

(Subtitled) In a small desert town near Jiayu Pass in China (the first pass at the west end of the Great Wall), Wang owns a noodle shop where he, his wife and his employees also live. Not exactly a loving boss, he spends every penny to his own advantage, owing his workers their wages for months. Miserable from suffering with Wang’s dark temper and abuse, his wife has an affair with Li, who can spin round sheets of noodle dough nimbly but never shows the same confidence outside the kitchen. Every time Li drives her to buy rouge, the two have sex in the carriage. One day, to Li’s dismay, she purchases a gun from a Persian merchant, claiming that only Wang’s death can guarantee their happiness. Never a match for her biting wit and tongue, Li agrees to hide the weapon. Meanwhile, waiter Zhao and patrol officer Zhang – both bribed by the cunning Wang – inform him of the gun and the affair respectively. After catching her wife red-handed and grappling with her during one of her rouge trips, Wang resorts to paying Zhang to kill the illicit lovers. The day after, Zhang returns with a blood-stained piece of clothing and fiercely pierced woman’s underwear. In his client’s secret chamber, Zhang waits for his reward and, all of a sudden, shoots Wang with Li’s gun he found earlier. As Wang lies completely motionless, Zhang struggles to open the safe but fails. Outside, Zhao and waitress Chen are arguing about whether they should sneak in and ‘steal’ their wages from the safe. As the door squeaks and a ray of light seeps through the crack, Zhang loses his nerve and escapes through the window, leaving the gun behind… Will someone discover Wang’s body? What will be done with his money? Who will lay hands on the gun? Nobody can say for sure because everyone is either silently plotting or plotted against…

Y Tu Mama Tambien

Foreign

Winner of the Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and named the same by the National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics’ Circle, LA Film Critics’ Association and such groups in Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Florida, Ft. Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Santa Fe. In Mexico, two teenage boys and an attractive older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life, friendship, sex, and each other. The eroticism in Cuaron's road movie (which broke all box-office records in Mexico) is the real deal: tactile, sexy, psychologically charged. It's not there to shock or provoke giggles--this is no Hollywood teen comedy--but to illuminate these complex, poignant and lost characters… The movie has an emotional kick that lingers like a primal memory. When the year is over, Cuaron's film will be remembered as one of 2002's finest.

The Missing Gun

Foreign

Things get out of hand for a small town cop when his gun is missing.

Golden Voices

Foreign

Raya (Maria Belkin) and Victor (Vladimir Friedman) built a shared career as the Soviet Union’s most beloved film dubbers, translating the work of Federico Fellini and Stanley Kubrick into Russian over the decades. Upon the collapse of the USSR in 1990, the Jewish couple must immigrate to Israel and reinvent themselves to find employment. As they strive to acclimate to their adopted home, opportunities for first-rate vocal performances are few and far between. Raya answers a help wanted ad searching for women with “pleasant voices” and finds herself catering to a lonely Russian community as a phone-sex operator, while Victor falls in with a band of black market film pirates from the VHS underground. A charming comedy about disrupting old dynamics, starting anew, and rediscovering yourself in the most unexpected places, GOLDEN VOICES is also a stirring tribute to the redemptive power of cinema.

Beasts Clawing at Straws

Foreign

A Louis Vuitton bag stuffed full of cash sends a group of hard-luck lowlifes on a desperate chase for the fortune in this pitch-black neo-noir crime thriller. Fish-mongering gangsters, a greasy cop, an “innocent” gym cleaner, a young prostitute, her wife beater of a husband, her ruthless boss and her clueless boyfriend all violently scheme to get their hands on the elusive bag. First time director Kim Yong-hoon’s witty thriller is a beautifully constructed puzzle that with each double-cross, the pieces fall into place. Starring Jung Woo-sung from Asura: City of Madness and Jeon Do-yeon, award winner in Cannes for her lead role in Secret Sunshine.

This Is Not Berlin

Foreign

1986. Mexico City. Seventeen-year-old Carlos doesn't fit in anywhere: not in his family nor with the friends he has chosen in school. But everything changes when he is invited to a mythical nightclub where he discovers the underground nightlife scene: post punk, sexual liberty, and drugs that challenges the relationship with his best friend Gera and lets him find his passion for art.

Francofonia

Foreign

Set against the history and artworks of Paris’ famed Louvre Museum, master director Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) embarks on a uniquely personal exploration of the profound cultural legacy of WWII's Nazi occupation of France. Using rare archives and beautifully staged recreations, Sokurov re-envisions two remarkable real-life figures: enemies-turned-collaborators Jacques Jaujard, Director of French National Museums, and Franziskus Wolff-Metternich, a German officer and art historian leading the Reich’s art collection efforts. The tentative alliance that formed between the two men would transcend nationalism and lead to the preservation of many of the world’s greatest treasures. Depicting the Louvre as a living, breathing paragon of civilization, FRANCOFONIA delivers a mesmerizing and urgent meditation on the essential relationship between art, history and culture.

Legend of the Mountain

Foreign

A traveling scholar, intent on translating a Buddhist sutra, loses his way in the mountains. Time and space collapse around him as he continues his journey, encountering ghostly visitations amid a haunting fantasia of color, light and landscape. King Hu rose to prominence in the 1960s and 70s as a superb director of wuxia, a prevalent genre in Chinese-language film and literature built on ancient lore of swords, sorcery and chivalrous heroes. Legend of the Mountain comes from the director’s later period, when his artistry, specifically his landscape compositions, was at the height of its powers. The film’s astonishing nature scenes, shot on location in the Korean countryside, are reminiscent of Terrence Malick, while the reflective blend of myth and history is all Hu’s own.

Happy Times

Foreign

This bittersweet farce from Academy Award®-nominated director Jiang Yimou (Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern) stars Zhao Benshan as Zhao, an aging bachelor who entices his beloved by pretending to be wealthy and agreeing to an expensive wedding. He tries to raise the money by refurbishing an abandoned bus and renting it out by the hour "The Happy Times Hotel" to young couples starved for privacy. Meanwhile, Zhao's fiancee insists that he take her beautiful blind stepdaughter, Wu Ying (Dong Jie), to the Happy Times Hotel and give her a job. Zhao reluctantly agrees, then creates a series of deceptions to keep the girl occupied. As the subterfuge unravels, unexpected truths come to light as a real empathy grows between the young woman and the older man.

Nobody from Nowhere (Un illustre inconnu)

Foreign

Much lauded Oscar winner Mathieu Kassovitz stars as a kind of twisted Walter Mitty; a man so bored with his own life he begins assuming other people’s identities. Eventually this behaviour takes on a sinister tone and begins to spiral out of control… Kassovitz gives an impressive performance as Sebastien Nicolas, a reclusive loner leading a double life: by day he works as a respectable realtor, by night he creates complex latex disguises in the workshop beneath his seemingly ordinary suburban house. Enabling him to take on the appearance of his targets, combined with minutely studied and rehearsed mannerisms and personality, Sebastien can disappear completely. After on too many close shaves Sebastien vows to give up his game, but one day he meets a man who looks strikingly like him, it’s an irresistible opportunity. Sebastien is quickly drawn deeper into his subject’s life than ever before. Insinuating himself into the other man’s life Sebastien is caught up in an increasingly tangled web. From the shocking opening scene to the final breath taking twist this is a dark, polished, and classy thriller not to be missed.

Mao's Last Dancer

Foreign

"Mao's Last Dancer" is the inspiring true story of Li Cunxin and his extraordinary journey from a poor upbringing in rural China to international stardom as a world-class ballet dancer. It compellingly captures the struggles, sacrifices and triumphs, as well as the intoxicating effects of first love and celebrity amid the pain of exile.

Don't Look at the Demon

Foreign

Led by the troubled medium Jules (Fiona Dourif) an American team of paranormal TV investigators go to the home of a couple who claim to have experienced inexplicable, threatening disturbances. Delving into the mystery, they encounter possessions and apparitions more terrifying than any they’d witnessed before – actual contact with the other side. As the cameras roll and bodies are possessed, they’re inevitably overwhelmed by this violent supernatural force. Their only hope? Jules. She refuses to face what really happened when her first supernatural encounter left her sister dead. But her dark past, if she can unlock it, may be their only hope of stopping the demon before it’s too late.

Jappeloup

Foreign

Based on the true story of one of France's most beloved sporting heroes. In 1980 Pierre Durand was at the start of a promising law career. To everyone's surprise however, he gave it all up to dedicate himself to his true passion: show jumping. Throwing himself into the endeavor he invested everything he had in a young horse called Jappeloup. It was obvious to everyone around him however that the horse was too small and much too temperamental to succeed. Determined to prove the doubters wrong Pierre forged ahead, and competition after competition, horse and rider began to improve. Through triumph and setback, driven at times by sheer force of will, they took a journey that lead them, against all odds, to gold medal success at the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

The Sacrifice

Foreign

As a wealthy Swedish family celebrates the birthday of their patriarch Alexander (Erland Josephson, Cries and Whispers), news of the outbreak of World War III reaches their remote Baltic island — and the happy mood turns to horror. The family descends into a state of psychological devastation, brilliantly evoked by Tarkovsky's arresting palette of luminous greys washing over the bleak landscape around their home. (The film's masterful cinematography is by Sven Nykvist, Ingmar Bergman's longtime collaborator).

The Silence

Foreign

A young girl is brutally murdered in a wheat field on a hot summer day in 1986. The killer is never found. 23 years later, a 13-year-old girl disappears in similar circumstances, leading the police to suspect the same killer may be at work. As the retired investigator of the earlier case joins a widowed young detective to delve into the mystery of the parallel crimes, the parents of the missing girl, the mother of the original victim, and an accomplice to the 1986 killing all have their worlds begin to crumble as they are drawn deeper into a web of guilt, despair and uncertainty. Luminously shot and commandingly directed by Baran bo Odar, The Silence is a startling, cinematic and utterly mesmerizing thriller.

The Reports on Sarah & Saleem

Foreign

Sarah, an Israeli café owner living in West Jerusalem, has a clandestine relationship with Saleem, her Palestinian bread vendor, who lives in East Jerusalem. When their spouses discover the affair, two lives already divided by politics, culture, class, and marital commitments are made infinitely more complicated. Based on true events.

Lamb (Subtitled)

Foreign

Yared Zeleke’s remarkable feature debut tells the story of young Ephraim, a half-Jewish, Ethiopian boy who is sent by his father to live among distant relatives after his mother’s death. Ephraim uses his cooking skills to carve out a place among his cousins, but when his uncle decides that his beloved sheep must be sacrificed for the next religious feast, he will do anything to save the animal and return home. Drawing amazing performances from his cast of professional and non-professional actors, first time filmmaker Yared Zeleke tells his deceptively simple story with a refreshing honesty and naturalness. Beautifully shot against the majestic backdrop of Ethiopia's southern mountains, Lamb is an affecting tale about what people will risk in order to take charge of their own destinies. Lamb is the first film from Ethiopia to be included in the Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival and the country’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

Foreign Movies