rarefilmm | The Cave of Forgotten Films Posts

July 19, 2025 / Short

Don Owen’s groundbreaking short drama tells the story of two young women who go to the city to work in a dress factory, and who share a room to ease their expenses and their loneliness. The film shows the currents that brought them together and the facets of their natures that first made them seem compatible but eventually drove them apart. Their story reflects, to a degree, the situation of anyone who has ever shared the life of another.

July 19, 2025 / Documentary

Someone Else’s Country looks critically at the radical economic changes implemented by the 1984 Labour Government  where privatisation of state assets was part of a wider agenda that sought to remake New Zealand as a model free-market state. The trickle-down ‘Rogernomics’ rhetoric warned of no gain without pain, and here the theory is counterpointed by the social effects (redundant workers, Post Office closures). Made by Alister Barry in 1996 when the effects were raw, the film draws extensively on archive footage and interviews with key “witnesses to history”.

July 10, 2025 / Documentary
July 10, 2025 / Arthouse

Siss and Unn are two 11-year-old girls. An alluring contact develops between the two girls, a relationship filled with dawning anticipation and a tacit longing for warmth and tenderness. One evening they meet, and for the first time in their lives they are thrown into a strong emotional confrontation. The next day, Unn is unable to meet Siss again. Instead, she ventures alone into the cold, lonely winter landscape.

July 10, 2025 / Documentary

Nearly a decade before data confirmed that children of lesbian mothers thrive, this groundbreaking documentary showcased this vital truth. Shot largely in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, the film explores the diverse experiences of eight families facing custody battles, legal scrutiny and widespread societal bias. Through tender interviews and intimate footage with the parents and, most poignantly, their children, this documentary offers a heartrending portrayal of parental love, challenging stereotypes and normalizing an exceedingly valid family model. 

July 10, 2025 / Drama

Deceptively simple and executed with a documentary feel, this drama represents a highly personal journey home for expatriate Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman. The film is divided into two sections. The first documents the paradoxical but sleepy existence in the Arab part of Nazareth. The second part takes a more political view of the city and in it, Suleiman takes a more active role. He has come to his former home in search of inspiration, but what he sees are many disturbing images of Arab people trapped in a cultural identity crisis, a point best illustrated by the plight of a young Arab woman who wants more independence than traditionally allowed in her part of town but cannot find it because of prejudiced residents on the Jewish side.

July 10, 2025 / Drama

When government attorney Mike Mandell begins to suffer from a mental disorder that periodically transforms him into another mobster personality known as “Sonny,” his strange behavior doesn’t escape the notice of a narcotics agent.

July 10, 2025 / Thriller

A girl, whose entire family was murdered by a serial killer, tries to isolate herself in New York City. Her fear escalates when the murderer starts stalking her on the internet. With his prison sentence about to end, the game of cat and mouse begins.