ARTE

In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the Stasi secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.

Ava, 13, is spending the summer on the Atlantic coast when she learns that she will lose her sight sooner than expected. Her mother decides to act as if everything were normal so as to spend their best summer ever. Ava confronts the problem in her own way. She steals a big black dog that belongs to a young man on the run...

Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, escaping life's troubles - even if just for a moment - by dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.

After a local factory worker named Dorem Clery dies under mysterious circumstances, Werner Herzog travels to Getunkirchenburg to investigate his perplexing death. But Herzog, our narrator, is not who he seems, and the film is not what we expect…

Léo is dragged to a nudist camping resort by his mother. Like most boys at the age of 12 or 13, being nude in public holds little appeal for Léo, who protests by wearing extra layers. Until he meets a certain special girl, who captures his heart and releases his inhibitions.

Margherita, a director in the middle of an existential crisis, has to deal with the inevitable and still unacceptable loss of her mother.

Afghan documentary maker Najiba Noori offers not only a loving and intimate portrait of her mother Hawa, but also shows in detail how the arduous improvement of the position of women is undone by geopolitical violence. The film follows the fortunes of Noori’s family, who belong to the Hazaras, an ethnic group that has suffered greatly from discrimination and persecution.

Jack Manfred is an aspiring writer who to make ends meet, takes a job as a croupier. Jack remains an observer, knowing that everything in life is a gamble and that gamblers are born to lose. Inevitably, he gets sucked into the world of the casino which takes its toll on his relationships and the novel he is writing.

With his grizzled moustache and chiselled features, Charles Bronson is the embodiment of a slightly archaic, brooding and almost reactionary virility. But who is he really? Often hired to play marginalised Native American or Mexican characters before he was typecast as the image of a lone killer, Bronson was a major figure in the popular cinema of the 1960s and 70s and his stony-faced, physical acting and career are worthy of a second look.

7-year-old Sasha has always known that she is a girl. Sasha’s family has recently accepted her gender identity, embracing their daughter for who she truly is while working to confront outdated norms and find affirmation in a small community of rural France.

Alex Kerner's mother was in a coma while the Berlin wall fell. When she wakes up he must try to keep her from learning what happened (as she was an avid communist supporter) to avoid shocking her which could lead to another heart attack.

Palermo, Sicily, 1980. Mafia member Tommaso Buscetta decides to move to Brazil with his family fleeing the constant war between the different clans of the criminal organization. But when, after living several misfortunes, he is forced to return to Italy, he makes a bold decision that will change his life and the destiny of Cosa Nostra forever.

The tale of an individualist proletarian in a time marked by the rise of mass political movements. In early 20th-century Italy, illiterate sailor Martin Eden seeks fame as a writer while torn between the love of a bourgeois girl and allegiance to his social class.

What "That's Entertainment" did for movie musicals, "The Celluloid Closet" does for Hollywood homosexuality, as this exuberant, eye-opening movie serves up a dazzling hundred-year history of the role of gay men and lesbians have had on the silver screen. Lily Tomlin narrates as Oscar-winning moviemaker Rob Epstein ("The Times of Harvey Milk" and "Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt") and Jeffrey Friedman assemble fabulous footage from 120 films showing the changing face of cinema sexuality, from cruel stereotypes to covert love to the activist triumphs of the 1990s. Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Curtis, Harvey Fierstein and Gore Vidal are just a few of the many actors, writers and commentators who provide funny and insightful anecdotes.

Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brought together 33 of the world's pre-eminent filmmakers to produce short pieces exploring the multifarious facets of cinema and their perspective on the state of their chosen artform in the early 21st century.

Utilizing potent TV interviews and many forgotten performances from his 30-year career, we are immersed into Frank Zappa’s world while experiencing two distinct facets of his complex character. At once Zappa was both a charismatic composer who reveled in the joy of performing and, in the next moment, a fiercely intelligent and brutally honest interviewee whose convictions only got stronger as his career ascended.

Japan, 1944. Trained for intelligence work, Hiroo Onoda, 22 years old, discovers a philosophy contrary to the official line: no suicide; stay alive whatever happens; the mission is more important than anything else. Sent to Lubang, a small island in the Philippines where the Americans are about to land, this role will be to wage a guerrilla war until the return of the Japanese troops. The Empire will surrender soon after; Onoda, 10,000 days later.

It’s 2023, and in a small conservative town in Pennsylvania an intense cultural and ideological battle is raging around the public school curriculum. With elections approaching for the majority of seats on the school board, fundamentalist board candidates are on the campaign trail, roaming Elizabethtown’s leafy neighborhoods.

In the 16th century in the Cévennes, a horse dealer by the name of Michael Kohlhaas leads a happy and prosperous family life. When a lord treats him unjustly, this pious, upstanding man raises an army and puts the country to fire and sword in order to have his rights restored.

When Jonas was 14 he met the charismatic but mysterious Nathan. In addition to guiding him in his sexuality, Jonas soon confronts something dark and even dangerous about his new friend. Now an attractive, sexually assured adult, memories still haunt him. Trying frantically to put the missing pieces together, Jonas becomes determined to break the shackles of the past and finally set himself free.