Monastery Of Misery

In 1798, a feral boy is discovered outside the town of Aveyron, France. Diagnosed as mentally impaired, he is relegated to an asylum. A young doctor named Jean Itard becomes convinced that the boy has normal mental capacity, but that his development was hindered by lack of contact with society. He brings the boy home and begins an arduous attempt at education over several years.

Three young Irish women struggle to maintain their spirits while they endure dehumanizing abuse as inmates of a Magdalene Sisters Asylum.

A mysterious man arrives at the offices of an FBI agent and recounts his childhood: how his religious fanatic father received visions telling him to kill people who were in fact "demons."

A soldier returns to his small town and exacts a deadly revenge on the thugs who tormented his disabled brother while he was away.

In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by the sexually repressed Sister Jeanne.

An aged tailor recalls his life as the schoolteacher of a small village in Northern Germany that was struck by a series of strange events in the year leading up to WWI.

North Africa, World War II. British soldiers on the brink of collapse push beyond endurance to struggle up a brutal incline. It's not a military objective. It's The Hill, a manmade instrument of torture, a tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. And the troops' tormentors are not the enemy, but their own comrades-at-arms.

Prof. Henri Laborit uses the stories of the lives of three people to discuss behaviorist theories of survival, combat, rewards and punishment, and anxiety. René is a technical manager at a textile factory and must face the anxiety caused by corporate downsizing. Janine is a self-educated actress/stylist who learns that the wife of her lover is dying and must decide to let them reunite. Jean is a controversial career-climbing writer/politician at a crossroads in life.

Following the death of his mother in '80s Poland, 12-year-old Wojciech has taken the brunt of his stressed father's frustrations with him; the boy frequently gets punished via belt. Wojciech's father occasionally tries to, instead, bond with him, but soon snaps back to his short-fused habits. Apart from Wojciech's friend Bartek, no one does anything to help. Jump to present day, Wojciech is a furrow-browed journalist who spends most of his spare time spelunking alone. Just like his father, he has serious anger management issues. Fellow caver Tania feels inexplicably attracted to him, but the love of a good woman may not be enough.

Three women are secretly plush prostitutes. They are successively called by a mysterious person to have sex with three different men and assuage their weird fantasies.

A sensitive girl is sent to an all-girls boarding school and develops a romantic attachment to one of her teachers.

A 17th-century nun becomes entangled in a forbidden lesbian affair with a novice. But it is Benedetta's shocking religious visions that threaten to shake the Church to its core.

After being used and betrayed by the detective she had fallen in love with, young Matsu is sent to a female prison full of sadistic guards and disobedient prisoners.

18 years after the mysterious death of her mother, Maya takes religious vows to find out what terrible things happened to her mother inside the Sacred Heart Convent. As soon as the door closes to the nunnery, the nuns start torturing her. She also has to deal with a lecherous archbishops and a lesbian mother superior.

A peasant who works in a mahogany camp in the Mexican jungles with his family is disgusted with the miserable living conditions imposed upon himself and his co-workers, the peasant finally spearheads a revolt against the sadistic bosses.

Ancient Korea, July 4, 1762. The Crown Prince Hyojang, posthumously named Sado, son of King Yeongjo of Joseon, is accused of treason. Thus, the king asks him to commit suicide, but his closest vassals prevent it, so the king orders the prince to get inside a wooden rice chest, where he suffers deprivation of food and water.

Inmates fight, pair off, try suicide and attempt escape at a British reform school for girls.

Based on documents compiled by leading French philosopher Michel Foucault, this unique and original film charts the gruesome events which took place in a Normandy village in 1835, when a young man, Pierre Rivière, murdered his mother, sister and brother before fleeing to the countryside. With a cast made up of real-life villagers from the area where the events took place, the detailed re-enactments and careful attention to the gestures of their ancestors serve to create an intense and sometimes disturbing atmosphere of hyper-realism. Details of the crime and of the trial that followed are told from varied perspectives, including the written confession of Pierre himself, and form a rich and complex narrative that interrogates the concepts of “truth” and “history”.

Kanae, a nun, left the convent where she had lived in one early morning. In her hand is an entertainment magazine full of nude photos. She was convinced that she was the reincarnation of Jesus. Then, instead of living in a safe sanctuary, she must save sexually vulnerable people suffering in the streets of desire. Standing Junko is astonished when she hears the thoughts of Kanae, who appears in the alley at night, dressed as a sister. Then she tells Kentaro, a homeless man who is passing by, that if he prays to God, he will be able to hold this sister. Kentaro recites a passage from the Bible to her, makes her undress, and devours her shining body...

Sisterhood is powerful. Before leaving for a mission in Africa, Runa, a nun, visits her sister three years after entering the convent when her sister stole Runa's boyfriend. Runa comes to forgive and to help her sister make enough money buying and selling some convent property so she can marry. The old boyfriend has new women in his life, but he and the sister tell Runa they're a couple in order to keep the property deal. To make even more money, Runa's sister wheedles large gifts from various men she's stringing along. There are flashbacks to Runa's sexual awakening at the convent. But what are her real reasons to close this deal?