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.
Tag: 1990s
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.
Vadik Chernyshov is an impoverished dreamer who spends his life drifting though Moscow with a video camera, hoping to shoot footage that will interest Western press agencies. He falls in love with the beautiful Helen, an English media executive, and subsequently they must contend with the barriers that their different backgrounds present.
Fresh out of prison, Git rescues a former best friend (now living with Git’s girlfriend) from a beating at the hands of loan sharks. He’s now in trouble with the mob boss, Tom French, who sends Git to Cork with another debtor, Bunny Kelly, to find a guy named Frank Grogan, and take him to a man with a friendly face at a shack across a bog. It’s a tougher assignment than it seems: Git’s a novice, Bunny’s prone to rash acts, Frank doesn’t want to be found (and once he’s found, he has no money), and maybe Tom’s planning to murder Frank, which puts Git in a moral dilemma. Then, there’s the long-ago disappearance of Sonny Mulligan. What’s a decent and stand-up lad to do?
In modern-day Macedonia, East Indian gypsy Taip becomes friends with UN peacekeeper Riju and introduces him to his life of squalor. When Taip’s mother dies, he collects government money for the funeral – but then she comes back to life.
Indian-born, American-educated director Radha Bharadwaj based her allegorical thriller on the work of her husband with Amnesty International. The story concerns The Woman, a children’s book writer who, in an unspecified country, is abducted from her bed in the middle of the night and imprisoned for writing subversive literature. She declares her books to be pure fantasies, but her well-dressed inquisitor The Man sees the books as allegorical attacks on the State. In the form of a long dialogue between The Man and The Woman, The Man, through psychological and physical torture, attempts to get The Woman to confess.
Four year old Jairan is ignored at home, and is itching for something to do. She convinces her neighbour, an old lady who is partially blind, that the two of them should travel across one of the world’s busiest cities, Tehran, to buy rice. What could possibly go wrong? A gentle take on Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Talebi’s disarming film starts as an odd-couple adventure, then opens out into something profound and unforgettable.
At Kennedy Airport two frazzled New Yorkers are separately boarding a plane to Temecula, California. Comedian Bobby Stein, who’s trailing his ex-lover and Sally Shelton, a very pregnant travel writer on her way to interview a renowned playboy and owner of a vast vineyard. Their paths all cross at Ruth’s Inn where owner Ruth Oakley has taken naturalism to unnatural extremes. Budd Bailey and Susan and Michael Kaye join them at the Inn, where the guests discover that when you follow your heart it can lead to delight and unexpected places.