I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1979)
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Psychological horror about a lonely young woman traumatized by a difficult childhood, and her increasingly desperate attempts to connect with the people around her.
A dramatic thriller based on the incredible true David vs. Goliath story of American immigrant Dr. Bennet Omalu, the brilliant forensic neuropathologist who made the first discovery of CTE, a football-related brain trauma, in a pro player and fought for the truth to be known. Omalu's emotional quest puts him at dangerous odds with one of the most powerful institutions in the world.
Ram Bowen and Eddie Cook are two expatriate jazz musicians living in Paris where, unlike America at the time, Jazz musicians are celebrated and racism is a non-issue. When they meet and fall in love with two young American girls, Lillian and Connie, who are vacationing in France, Ram and Eddie must decide whether they should move back to America with them, or stay in Paris for the freedom it allows them. Ram, who wants to be a serious composer, finds Paris more exciting than America and is reluctant to give up his music for a relationship, and Eddie wants to stay for the city's more tolerant racial atmosphere.
Three cousins â Arjun (Arya), Divya (Sri Divya) and Kutty (Simhaa) get to realise their childhood dream of living in Bangalore, and have to deal with the turns that their lives take there.
Based on the autobiography of Sonny Bono, this film focuses on the volatile relationship between Sonny (Jay Underwood) and Cher (Renee Faia) during the early 60's to their divorce in the late 70's.
In 1983, in France experiencing intolerance and racial violence , three young teens and the priest Minguettes launching a largely peaceful march for equality and against racism, over 1,000 km between Marseille and Paris . Despite the difficulties and resistance encountered, their movement will bring about a real boost of hope in the way of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. They unite with their arrival more than 100 000 people from all walks of life and give France its new face.
A dying man in his forties remembers his past. His childhood, his mother, the war, personal moments and things that tell of the recent history of all the Russian nation.
A small circle of friends suffering from post-collegiate blues must confront the hard truth about life, love and the pursuit of gainful employment. As they struggle to map out survival guides for the future, the Gen-X quartet soon begins to realize that reality isn't all it's cracked up to be.
After returning home from a traumatic tour of duty in Iraq, John finds himself struggling with PTSD. What little peace he had managed to build around him is shattered one fateful day when he rescues a local call girl from a group of violent Aryan Brotherhood pimps. Having killed several of the high-ranking brotherhood during the rescue, John and his family are now the prime targets of Hollis, the ruthless criminal leader of the group.
After several years of sexual dysfunction, Ada and her boyfriend, Calvin travel to her hometown in rural Oklahoma in hopes of piecing together her fragmented childhood memories. They find their answers, but can they find their way back home?
A biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, discovering the suffering and strength of America's working class.
Itâs 1982, and Taeko (voiced by Daisy Ridley) is 27 years old, unmarried, and has lived her whole life in Tokyo. She decides to visit her family in the countryside, and as the train travels through the night, memories flood back of her younger years: the first immature stirrings of romance, the onset of puberty, and the frustrations of math and boys. At the station she is met by young farmer Toshio (voiced by Dev Patel), and the encounters with him begin to reconnect her to forgotten longings. In lyrical switches between the present and the past, Taeko contemplates the arc of her life, and wonders if she has been true to the dreams of her childhood self.
Based on the autobiographical novel, the tempestuous 6-year relationship between Liberace and his (much younger) lover, Scott Thorson, is recounted.
Sophie Jacobs is going through the most difficult time of her life. Now, she just has to find out if it's real.
Black college graduate Richard Kelly (Cedric Sanders) reluctantly accepts a plea bargain requiring him to spend two semesters at an all-white seminary after he's wrongly accused of crimes committed during the 1965 Watts riots. Facing bigotry on all sides, he's close to cracking until he meets an elderly custodian (Louis Gossett Jr.) who helps him navigate the trials of racism. Lauren Holly also stars in this indie drama inspired by a true story.
Testament of Youth is a powerful story of love, war and remembrance, based on the First World War memoir by Vera Brittain, which has become the classic testimony of that war from a womanâs point of view. A searing journey from youthful hopes and dreams to the edge of despair and back again, itâs a film about young love, the futility of war and how to make sense of the darkest times.
An ensemble film about four everyday people: a store manager, a security guard, a fire fighter and a clerk who struggle in the aftermath of trauma.
As every summer, Georges Lajoie, his wife Ginette and grown-up son Léon go on holiday to Loulou's campsite. They join old friends, the Schumachers and the Colins. Brigitte Colin, the daughter, is quite a pretty young girl now. One day, Georges rapes and murders her. He hides the body near the barracks of the immigrant Arab workers. The racism of the campers will do the rest... A virulent lampoon against the average Frenchman's racism.
On 15 January 2009, the world witnessed the 'Miracle on the Hudson' when Captain 'Sully' Sullenberger glided his disabled plane onto the frigid waters of the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 aboard. However, even as Sully was being heralded by the public and the media for his unprecedented feat of aviation skill, an investigation was unfolding that threatened to destroy his reputation and career.
Best-selling novelist Kosaku Igami has made a career out of using his family as fodder for his novels, much to their dismay. When his mother, the spirited family matriarch, is diagnosed with dementia, Igami must come to terms with the toll his own behavior has taken on his increasingly distant family and resolve his own long-simmering resentments. Evocative of classic Ozu, this gorgeously wrought epic family portrait explores the tenderness and trappings of familial bonds. (Chicago International Film Festival)
Soo-myung and Seung-min, both 25 years old, meet for the first time at Soori Hope Hospital, a run-down psychiatric facility located on a mountain. Soo-myung has been institutionalized since he was nineteen after the trauma caused by his mother's suicide, and has a phobia of scissors. Seung-min is sane and a champion paraglider, but was forcibly committed by his greedy half-brother to get Seung-min's share of the family inheritance. Soo-myung is a model patient, peacefully and passively spending his days in the hospital despite its abusive nurses, unlike Seung-min, who is a walking time bomb. Soon, Soo-myung gets roped into Seung-min's reckless plan to break out of the hospital.
"42" is the powerful story of Jackie Robinson, the legendary baseball player who broke Major League Baseball's color barrier when he joined the roster of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The film follows the innovative Dodger's general manager Branch Rickey, the MLB executive who first signed Robinson to the minors and then helped to bring him up to the show.
Drama telling the story of Blue, a young man of Jamaican descent living in Brixton in 1980, as he hangs out with his friends, fronts a dub sound system, loses his job, struggles with family problems and has his friendships tested by racism.
Due to inadequate use of anesthetics, a young boy experiences "intra-operative awareness" during his own heart surgery, hearing every sound and movement of the procedure. The little boy is severely traumatized from this horrific accident. As a result, he ends up brutally murdering a young girl soon after the incident...
An FBI agent (Debra Winger) falls in love with a white supremacist (Tom Berenger) whose group she infiltrates.
A Korean war vet and his bride face subtitle and sometimes extreme racism when they return to his home in rural California.
A small boy discovers a mystical power as a child. He is then separated from his childhood girlfriend. He grows up to be a computer scientist who is hacking into the most secret national and international secrets, as well as being an acclaimed novel writer. His childhood 'finding' gives him amazing paranormal powers. He is reunited with the childhood girlfriend, mystically, on his hospital deathbed... as his relationship with his current drug addict girlfriend is deteriorating. The passions build between the threesome. Mystical, psychiatric and worldly forces rise to prevent him from revealing the hacked secrets. He attempts to reveal all in a Washington DC large press conference, with 'fateful' and dangerous consequences.
Set in a California subdivision, the story follows four couples who have bought homes and are neighbors. Among the problems facing the couples are alcoholism, racism, and promiscuity.
The story truly revolves around the idea of, "NO DOWN PAYMENT" and the over extended nature of some of the families economic situation. Tony Randal is in a role that you would never expect, a car salesman and looking for a good time. Other issues include discrimination against a former war hero for lack of education. The morality lesson is clearly the reason for the film.
Tom, now in his 40s, begins to write the memoirs of his 1960s childhood, as the little boy whose mother Rose was a glamorous Shanghai nightclub singer. When Rose meets Aussie sailor Bill, they are quickly married, and she packs up Tom and his older sister May to head for Melbourne. The marriage just as quickly breaks up and Rose moves with the kids to Sydney. After a succession of male friends and little success, in 1971 Rose moves back to Melbourne, in an uncomfortable arrangement living again with Bill â and his mother. With Bill called away to sea, Rose takes up with young Chinese cook Joe, but despair and conflicts over May's relationship with Joe tear the family further apart. Little Tom is deeply hurt, but May's ongoing conflict with her mother takes a respite when Rose tells her daughter about her traumatic teenage years.
A gloomy vision of the possibility of decent relations between whites and blacks anywhere, including the South. Undertaker L.B. Jones, the richest black man in his county of Tennessee, is divorcing his wife for infidelity with a white policeman. Taking a stand against racism, he is greeted with a hostile bunch of Southern bigots and other various stereotypes.
Waxing nostalgic about the bittersweet passage from childhood to puberty in this tender coming-of-age tale, four childhood girlfriends -- Teeny, Chrissy, Samantha and Roberta -- recall the magical summer of 1970. During their walk down memory lane, they reconcile experiences with boys, secrets, bullies and more.
Love and unity in a school torn by racism and hate in the 1970s.
On a March night in 1964, 37 neighbors in Queens, New York, witness the brutal murder of Kitty Genovese. None of them takes action or calls the police. 37 tells the story of a few of these people and what led up to the night when they unexplainably remained passive observers. The film is a convincing portrayal of a borough in change and a time characterized by racism, the Civil Rights Movement and political shifts. The actual event that inspired the filmâs plot has been called a symbol for the moment when America lost its innocence. The director Puk Grasten skillfully weaves into her feature film debut various fates, dreams and family conflicts by leading us through an apartment building that comes to bear a collective failure.
The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (Detstvo Gorkovo) was the first of Russian director Mark Donski's trilogy based upon Gorky's memoirs. Alexei Lyarsky plays the young Maxim, who grows up under the czarist regime with his grandparents as guardians. Continually demeaned by his martinet grandfather, Maxim is drawn to his warm-hearted grandmother (Varvara Massalitinova), who instills in him the willingness to pursue his writing muse. Gorky's (and Donski's) deep abiding love for Russia is conveyed through the film's remarkably romanticist landscape shots along the Volga River, which cry out for Technicolor.
Based on the novel by the same name from Nicholas Evans, the talented Robert Redford presents this meditative family drama set in the country side. Redford not only directs but also stars in the roll of a cowboy with a magical talent for healing.
Poetic journey through the shards and shadows of one boyâs war-ravaged youth.
A cop decides to take on his godfather, who raised him from childhood, and make him realize the error of his ways.
Mayor Nick Wasicsko took office in 1987 during Yonkers' worst crisis when federal courts ordered public housing built in the white, middle class side of town, dividing the city in a bitter battle fueled by fear, racism, murder and politics.
Dito Montiel, a successful author, receives a call from his long-suffering mother, asking him to return home and visit his ailing father. Dito recalls his childhood growing up in a violent neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., with friends Antonio, Giuseppe, Nerf and Mike.
"GORDOS" is a comedy about life's excesses and deficiencies; about our insecurities, phobias, obsessions, traumas, mistakes, fears, blame, desires, hopes, challenges, concessions, goals, relationships, love, sex, health, family... about survival in the widest and "largest" sense of the word.
On a college campus in modern America, ideas that have long been neglected as "issues of the past" emerge as racial tensions and frictions grow between different student groups.
As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy spend their childhood at an idyllic and secluded English boarding school. As they grow into adults, they must come to terms with the complexity and strength of their love for one another while also preparing for the haunting reality awaiting them.
Architect Peter Ibbetson is hired by the Duke of Towers to design a building for him. Ibbetson discovers that the Duchess of Towers, Mary, is his now-grown childhood sweetheart. Their love revives, but Peter is sentenced to life in prison for an accidental killing. Mary comes to him in dreams and they are able to live out their romance in a dream world.
Sultry Sandra Julien stars as a teenage virgin who is traumatized after being raped by her 2 "friends", a young man and his sister, leaving her with no interest in sex. Discouraged, she embarks on a journey of sexual awakening in hopes of curing herself.
Los Angeles citizens with vastly separate lives collide in interweaving stories of race, loss and redemption.
Based on the true childhood experiences of Noah Baumbach and his brother, The Squid and the Whale tells the touching story of two young boys dealing with their parents divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980's.
Could a brilliant composer's music actually be killing his loved ones? Eliseo can't help but believe it when his younger sister dies tragically and then his pianist Georgina suddenly dies on the piano. Completely traumatized, Eliseo is taken to a mental hospital where he can find escape only through music.
Haji is severely traumatized by the war with Iraq. Back from the front, he's unable to adapt to civilian life. Despite family opposition, his fiancée stands by him as together they challenge both the authority of family and state to lead their own lives.
After living in Madrid for many years as a teacher, Lucia returns to her hometown after her father's death results in the inheritance of his tomato farm. While fighting the community's racism toward the new illegal workers, Lucia falls in love with the farm's accountant, Curro, a man who shares her cause. The couple is forced to confront the racism of the town and as tensions come to head, they will have to make some decisions that could cost them everything.
A story of childhood life during wartime Japan. Takeshi, the intelligent son of a fisherman, is the schoolyard bully. When his cousin comes to stay with his family to avoid bombing raids, Takeshi at first treats him well, then begins bullying him too. Takeshi eventually loses his position of leadership.
In Kyushu, southwest Japan, one hot summer morning, a municipal bus is hijacked. In the carnage only three people survive: the driver, a school girl, and her older brother. Suffering from trauma, the driver disappears. The children withdraw in silence. Two years later, with their parents absent, they now live alone in the family home. The driver returns to town and takes up household with the children, who are soon joined by their cousin, a college student on vacation. The body of a murdered woman is discovered on the river bank, and the police suspect the driver. Soon after, he buys an old bus; fits it with beds; and invites the three young people to leave on a trip.
The drama, the story of three childhood friends and a young woman who are torn apart in their fight for freedom, is billed as the first fully-financed film to come out of the Palestinian cinema industry.
Director Alfred Hitchcock is revered as one of the greatest creative minds in the history of cinema. Known for his psychological thrillers, Hitchcockâs leading ladies were cool, beautiful and preferably blonde. One such actress was Tippi Hedren, an unknown fashion model given her big break when Hitchcockâs wife saw her on a TV commercial. Brought to Universal Studios, Hedren was shocked when the director, at the peak of his career, quickly cast her to star in his next feature, 1963âs The Birds. Little did Hedren know that as ambitious and terrifying as the production would be to shoot, the most daunting aspect of the film ended up coming from behind the camera.
In the towm of Tynen, Louisiana, a black Master Sergeant is found shot to death just outside the local Army Base. A military lawyer, also a black man, is sent from Washington to conduct an investigation. Facing an uncooperative chain of command and fearful black troops, Captain Davenport must battle with deceipt and prejudice in order to find out exactly who really did kill Sergeant Waters.
Childhood friends reunite later in life in Spanish tuberculosis sanitorium. Pressures of death all around combine with dark secrets of their past.
In São Paulo, Vanessa who is normally spoiled rotten, is neglected and rejected by her mother, practically raised alone by her butler and driver Pedro and the maid, Dalva. Vanessa has disturbing daydreams and sexual fantasies, but doesn't let Arlindo, a teenager that flirts with her get close to her. Her best friend is Denise, a promiscuous girl that has intercourse with different men. When Vanessa discloses to Denise her problem, Denise gives the address of her psychotherapist Dr. Artur, to her friend. The unethical shrink pushes Vanessa to the edge, bringing memories of a severe trauma of her childhood. Then the disturbed Dr. Artur induces the girls to commit suicide
A privileged rich debutante and a cynical struggling entertainer share a turbulent, but strong childhood friendship over the years.
A young man wakes up naked on a pallet on the street in Montreal. Who is he, what is his name? How did he get here? The only thing he seems to remember is that he's gay. And so begins one of the most compelling gay-themed mysteries weâve seen. Based on a true story, this young man has been through some trauma that caused his memory loss -- or is he an imposter avoiding the law in some way?
The Yosemite Valley Railroad, which runs through the breathtaking scenery and stunning vistas of Yosemite National Park, is on the brink of failure. The grandson of a Chinese railroad laborer embarks on a romantic, but ultimately doomed, quest to save this railroad from being sold for scrap. His love of trains finds him working as a railroad-man, instead of at his father's profitable business. He manages to locate a wealthy eccentric investor to help him acquire the railroad, but its financial inviability makes this a quixotic reprieve, at best. The film also portrays the anti-Asian racism present in America at the conclusion of World War II.
An aging Hollywood star, Joe Scott, lives a life of narcissistic hedonism, observed by his laconic personal assistant, Ophelia. The death of his childhood best friend, Boots, takes our protagonist, and the movie, into an extended flashback to a sea-side town in 1970's Britain.
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