De Castigo

Guillaume is getting ready to meet his wife in the maternity ward where she has just given birth. But an unexpected phone call plunges him back into bitter childhood memories: his father, whom he has not seen for years, wants nothing more than to see his daughter-in-law and the newborn child.

Padam...

Overwhelmed by grief following the death of his wife, Donnelly shares a train carriage home with a troubled young man identified only as the 'Kid'. As the Kid becomes more agitated and foul-mouthed, the journey takes on a violent and dangerous hue – for the bereaved Donnelly and for other hapless passengers on the train. Academy Award Winner: Best Live Action Short Film – 2005

It's Christmas time, and a grandmother spends a quiet afternoon tending to the family chores. But the arrival of an unexpected visitor brings with her some deadly consequences.

Three men hammer on an anvil and pass a bottle of beer around. Notable for being the first film in which a scene is being acted out.

[…] A reel was shot of the Noh drama Momiji-gari (Maple Leaf Hunters, or Viewing Scarlet Maple Leaves), in which Danjuro played opposite Onoe Kikugoro V (1844-1903) as an ogress who has disguised herself as the Princess Sarashina. Filmed by Shibata Tsunekichi in the open air on a windy day in November 1899, Danjuro would allow only the one take, so that when his fan blew away in mid-performance the scene had to stay. The film re-emerged at the Kikikan theatre in 1907 where it was a great success and inspired a wave of fiction filmmaking based on traditional Japanese narratives. (cont. http://victorian-cinema.net/danjuro)

Through a series of auditions, a young actor in New York City struggles with his identity.

In this fragile yet frightening poetic fantasy set against a dark industrial landscape, a woman sits knitting on the porch of her home when a man appears and takes the knitting from her.

A green-skinned demon places a woman and two courtiers into a flaming cauldron.

Directed by J. Stuart Blackton.

During a wedding party, according to tradition, hide-and-seek is played in a local abandoned castle. The bride falls into a hidden corridor. As she enters a room, the door falls shut behind her. Inside, she finds a dead woman and a book that says she cannot get out of here. However, a cat taking her scarf outside is her salvation. The cat puts the searchers on the right track, and the groom finds his bride.

A young man's struggle with his sexuality overtakes his life, driving him deep into his subconscious where guilt and fears of physicality chase him still further. Cornered by an intangible terror, he realises he must either break out or break down.

Adela has just settled in Madrid with her father, Claudio, a retired concert musician and a hermit. Both teach piano to small children in a quiet, sparsely-furnished flat in the centre of town.

Saori, a school girl, is molested on the notorious "molester train" of the Hanagawa line and rescued by another school girl who witnesses the act. The girl who rescues her turned out to be a new student of the same high school Saori attends. The mysterious new student Yuriko is rumoured to be a "parent killer". Yuriko then leads Saori and her friends to hunt molesters.

It's Christmas night when Victor gets stranded in a deserted hotel in Baltimore. To pass the lonely hours, he decides that for first time in his life he's going to order the services of a call girl. When Victor mistakenly recognizes a beautiful young woman at the bar for the call girl, he is taken aback by her warm response to his shy approach. From this moment on, the line between real love and paid love quickly dissolves.

Chronique de l'ennui

Mairy, a thirty-year-old woman from Philippines, works in a village in Cyprus. She takes care of Mr. Michalis, an eigthy-five-year-old man with arteriosclerosis. Mr. Michalis spends his days in front of the television, watching time and again a soap opera with a heroine named Anna. He soon becomes obsessed with this heroine, to the point of calling Mairy 'Anna', despite the remarks of his daughter Melpo. When Mairy finds some old photographs she makes an important discovery...

A hobo takes revenge to a miller who didn't give him something to eat.

After a dreadful incident coupled with an ungovernable paroxysm of violence, a butcher will fall into a downward spiral that will burn to the ground whatever dignity still remained in him.

Claus von Wagner - Theorie der feinen Menschen I