Rotten Tree

A man, desperate and ready to commit suicide for having lost everything, is interrupted by a mysterious stranger in a hat and top hat. This man proposes a challenge, a last bet that could change his life. In an instant, the man's destiny will be balanced between hope and ruin.

L'ultima scommessa

POLAROID - Nel tempo di un ricordo

The first film to deal with life in creches in coalmine areas.

A dramatic story of the emotional, moral and political maturation of two young people during the Slovak National Uprising.

Seven people are conjoined inside a black box of love and hate as they become destined by their emotions to get dragged into their darkest depths.

The film begins by presenting the elderly and elegant Duke and Duchess of Maldon, engaged in charitable acts in a Dickensian village. The following day, the duke falls off his horse and is mortally injured. Mourning the loss of her great love, the duchess collapses in church, and in the “moment before death” she reviews her own life. “It was in her youth that she had fractured practically all the Biblical commandments,” says the intertitle. In fact, when she was young, Madge the duchess was a seductive gypsy, engaged to the fiery gypsy John, but fascinated by Harold, the idle aristocratic son of the Maldons, who was prone to the family vice of excessive drinking. In love with the gypsy, Harold brings her home as a servant, scandalizing his older brother. A fight between the brothers and John’s jealousy lead to a fatal accident that forces both Harold and the gypsy couple to flee to Australia.

The film opens in Ireland, as a dying Patrick McNairne tells his daughter Jerry to go to New York and look up Norton Burbeck, a wealthy young man whose life Patrick had saved some time earlier (the surviving print, largely complete, lacks the second page insert of a letter explaining the full background). The affable Burbeck is due to inherit his uncle’s fortune provided he’s married by November; if not, the inheritance will go to his cousin Howard Curtis. An adventuress, Beatrice Gaden, and her husband Dick are in cahoots with Curtis: Beatrice pretends to be single in order to string Norton along up to the November date, at which time Curtis will come into the money and give a share to his unscrupulous partners.

The impressive cast is headed by the great Heinrich George as Boris Stroganoff, an opera composer and conductor who’s also a notorious lothario. Albani is ballet dancer Viola Suroff, who’s put her career aside to look after her partner Maxim Sadi, a baritone with unspecified health issues that have kept him off stage. Stroganoff sets his sights on Viola and offers her a job in the corps de ballet for his new opera The Boyar, which she accepts provided Maxim is also hired. However, dancer Margot (called Myrra in the French version) maintains a seething passion for Stroganoff, as does Countess Geschow (called Countess Ziska on this print), both of whom are resentful when watching his interactions with Viola. Jealousies run high on opening night between all the characters and Stroganoff is shot mid-performance, but who is the killer: Maxim, Margot, or Geschow?I

Yolanda is a young girl who practices athletics, it's her passion. But she's not training the way she wants, there is something wrong on her life and it's about to explode.

15-year-old Mia faces an overwhelming transformation which puts her entire existence into question. Her body is changing radically, and despite desperate attempts to halt the process, Mia is soon forced to accept that nature is far more powerful than she is.

Paul Clark and his children are still heartbroken a year after the death of Jane, Paul's wife. When he unexpectedly falls in love with Mary, a former tennis-player, the couple decide to marry and live together. However, their lifestyles are completely different, and Mary is continuously reminded of the deceased Jane.

An Irish immigrant lands in the Bronx, working at an Italian-owned bar while living with fellow undocumented immigrants. Fears of deportation and uncertainty about their place haunt him and his cousin.

Actress and filmmaker Robyn Adams discusses her experiences with autism, gender identity, and learning to embrace her flaws. Also, she's Frankenstein's Monster now.

In post-Soviet Azerbaijan, Sevda’s mother raises her in Russian, convinced it will secure her future. But as Sevda grows, her Azerbaijani fades, cutting her off from friends, culture, and her own roots.

A young woman kidnapped for ransom turns the tables on her captor, using wit and seduction to blur the line between victim and partner. As dangerous secrets unravel, their unlikely bond forces them to choose between betrayal, desire and redemption.

Maggie’s from the West Country; Craig’s from the Future - and together they might just save the planet. But should she take a chance on the handsome man with the far-out backstory? Or is she just desperate for a connection? As their bond deepens, the danger escalates, smashing the boundaries between reality and delusion, science and possibility, betrayal and True Love.

After traumatic, coerced encounter at party, best friends Nica and Lia discover they're more than just friends and begin a secret, tender romance. When their love is exposed and met with family rejection, Lia is forced to leave -- but the two vow to reunite someday and fight for the life and love they truly want.

A bipolar sculptor drifts through life surrounded by friends whose marriages and happiness mirror the glossy perfection of social media. Feeling increasingly alienated, he decides to end his life on a day when his inner turmoil reaches its peak. But the sudden arrival of an uninvited guest disrupts his plan. This unexpected intrusion forces him to confront a disturbing realization: he is no longer free to choose death on his own terms. What follows is not a story about living or dying, but about who truly owns a decision when life itself refuses to stay private.

While everything threatens to pull an apartment tenant apart, memories of his father keep him together. When his father appears in the present, the tenant must choose whether to meet his father once again, or disappear forever.