Maren, a young girl, is the sole survivor of the Black Death in her Norwegian village. Using instincts, folklore, luck, and the clairvoyant powers granted her by being born with a “Victory Cap,” Maren survives on her own, waiting for other people to discover her plight. Painstaking recreations of medieval customs and settings dominate the film.
Category: Drama
A day in the life of Monika, an ordinary, modern (ca.1975) Swedish woman. Her surroundings are a lot sleeker than her daily existence, though; she’s unemployed, her husband is gone, and she’s alone in the midst of what ought to be the good life.
Beshkempir takes its title from the name of the boy whose story it tells. His life is sunny and carefree, spent in childhood games, until the day he hears terrible news from his playmates: he is not his parents’ biological child. Overnight, his best friend becomes his rival and the young girl of his dreams starts going bicycling with somebody else. His pleasant and peaceful existence is over: if his parents are not his own, Beshkempir feels he has lost his whole identity. He tries to gradually overcome the problems that arise from this new situation. Aktan Abdykalykov’s first feature was also the first independent film to be produced and directed in Kyrgyzstan.
The story focuses on an ambitious young executive, Amanda, who inherits a lovely B&B on a remote island in Maine when her grandmother dies. She arrives with every intent of selling it all off and going back to her busy career, but in going through her grandmother’s belongings, she discovers much about her family’s past which ultimately makes her re-evaluate her life and values. Amanda is faced with making right decisions amidst trying circumstances.
In 1939, Charlotte Salomon leaves Berlin to seek refuge at her grandparents’ villa in the south of France. A little later, war breaks out, and Charlotte must, besides forgetting all she left behind, deal with her grandmother’s depression, and her mother’s suicide. To fight despair, Charlotte starts to paint, producing over one thousand images. “Is my life real, or is it theater?” This is the title she gives her body of work, which highlights her former life in Berlin. She finds herself though her art, but in 1943 is deported to Germany and Auschwitz.
Døden på Oslo S follows two teenage friends, Pelle and Proffen, in late-1980s Oslo as they navigate the city’s gritty underbelly. When Pelle falls for the troubled young Lena, who struggles with drug addiction, they both try to help her escape her destructive life. Their search exposes them to violence, addiction, and the harsh realities of life around Oslo Central Station.
A macho Cossack immigrant to the U.S. goes West and joins a ring of rustlers. Later his son follows him to states and he too begins stealing cows. Not knowing his father very well, the youth is anxious to prove himself a manly man and a friendly rivalry develops until the father is captured and imprisoned. Meanwhile, his son joins the cavalry and secretly engineers a break out. He succeeds and then feels terrible guilt, for it is his unit that has been assigned to bring his father to justice.
A young girl, Jadzia, is sentenced to death for the murder of her child. Shocked by her fate, lawyer Krystyna decides to defend her in the court of second instance. She learns the story of a girl who was seduced by a strange man during a trip. Jadzia is acquitted and tries to start her life anew, but fate is preparing another fatal surprise for her.