——UPGRADED——
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.
Soon after the disparate yet compatible Naoya and Katsuhiro start to settle into a relationship, a slightly unhinged young woman named Asako asks Katsuhiro to father her child. While the couple navigate the implications of this unexpected proposal, they are forced to confront their conflicting understandings of what it means to be gay and in a committed relationship. A landmark work of LGBTQ Japanese cinema by pioneering director Ryosuke Hashiguchi, Hush! humorously and poignantly upends the traditional Japanese genre of the family drama to offer a deeply human story about three people doing their best to be true to themselves.
Bank executive Rainier allows his firm to deliver adventurous investor Chevalier d’Aven a huge loan, with what he thinks is his employer Mirement’s total backing. Chevalier’s business proves indeed to be disastrous, which forces the bank to cover up its high deficits. News of the scandal breaks out, and the bank now sees Rainier as the one being responsible for it – he is laid off. Wife Celine and union representative Arlette suggest he should sue his former boss.
Maya, a New York artist and model, meets Joe, a drifter. They begin a passionate affair. On an impromptu trip to visit Joe’s sister in the country, Joe’s inner demons begin to surface. Maya tries to help and eventually struggles to hold on as Joe becomes increasingly unstable.
Fashion model Sylvie falls asleep drunk in the cab of Munich taxi driver Paul, and an impossible love affair beckons. Renegade director Klaus Lemke had previously startled German TV audiences with the biker drama Rocker, announcing an unprecedented, unvarnished freshness and authenticity with nonprofessional actors, real dialect and on-the-fly style. In Sylvie, he adds a disarming tenderness.
Sexual escapades with a parade of beautiful women distract an American Author trying to establish himself in post WWI Paris. Henry, the young author, travels through brothels and the streets of Paris, making friends and falling in love along the way. The dark underbelly of the city is explored in nights of drunken revelry as Henry’s exploits become increasingly lascivious.
