Flame was the first Zimbabwean film since independence and is a tribute to the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army’s female guerrillas. In the 1970s in former Rhodesia, the people stand up against the oppressors. As war reaches rural villages, friends Florence and Nyasha run away from home to join the fighters in Mozambican training camps. Both adopt revolutionary identities: Nyasha becomes Liberty, while Florence brands herself Flame. Flame created controversy in Zimbabwe, as the realistic depiction of the treatment of women in the liberation army was seen as anti-nationalist. The film also serves as a critique for post-independence Zimbabwe, and Mugabe’s rule.
Category: Drama
Mambéty describes what would be his final film as “a hymn to the courage of street children,” but like all of his works, it is also a hymn to Senegal, to post-colonial Africa and to resourceful visionaries like the courageous girl of the title. Undaunted by poverty or handicap, the young Sili Laam leaves her blind grandmother begging in the street to seek out a better existence for them both. As the only female newspaper seller, she encounters constant obstacles along the way, yet reacts by simply standing up for herself and others. Nonchalantly fighting for equality and justice, Sili’s courage and resilience are depicted with a mix of joy and hardship, but no saccharine.
On New Year’s Eve, a young soldier is looking forward to going home but is given orders to escort a juvenile delinquent to a distant reformatory. He sets off with the child handcuffed to him.
Geoff, a journalist in his mid 40s, returns to Australia from 15 years abroad, leaving behind him in the U.S. a failed marriage and three children. He meets Maureen, the girl he was in love with when he left Australia. She is married to an older man, George, who she loves but have no children. Maureen – who once fell pregnant but had an abortion – tells Geoff her husband is sterile and asks for him to impregnate her.
The creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission would soon render anachronistic such crime melodramas as One Way Ticket. Upon discovering that a prominent banker has absconded with his customers’ funds, Jerry, one of the unlucky depositors, reacts by turning thief. He steals exactly the amount that he’d deposited, whereupon the cops close in and arrest him. Still feeling that he was merely getting back what was due him, Jerry bitterly stews in a jail cell until he’s swept up in a prison breakout. The other escapees are killed, but Jerry manages to get away, though from this moment forward he’s forced to live the toad-like life of a fugitive.
Jakub, a dreamer and budding magician, juggles between parcels and services rendered to the villagers. His eyes cross that of the beautiful gypsy Jolanka. Together, they will try to live a first and big love, despite the pressure of their respective communities.
A young Pennsylvania man moves to Los Angeles to begin work for an ambulance service. There he is teamed with a supremely confident vet who seemingly has gone through a large number of partners. Initially the novice is awed by the more experienced man’s capabilities to deal with the high pressure situations they encounter. However, gradually he discovers that all is not as it seems. While the vet is ice on the surface, he actually gets through the ordeals by heavy drug use and avoids commitments. Soon the younger man finds himself pulled into the same world and has to decide what direction he wants to take.
In the fall of 1963, Louise is a 13-year-old girl who lives with her widowed mother. Before she is set to leave for boarding school, she discovers a box belonging to her late father. The box contains secret documents in additions to condoms, but Louise thinks they are balloons. She also learns her father was a member of the secret order of Freemasons. While at boarding school, Louise attempts to explain to friends what the Freemasons are. The girls form their own version of a Masonic club. Meanwhile, Louise’s mother finds the box in Louise’s room and inadvertently thinks her daughter is sexually active. Louise learns her parents’ marriage was not what she thought it was.