Bare Essence of Life

Four women, whose kids attend the same preschool class, get together for a "fun mom dinner". When the night takes an unexpected turn, these unlikely new friends realize they have more in common than just marriage and motherhood.

It's summer and very hot in Germany's only open-air swimming pool for women. There, women bathe topless, in a bikini, bathing suit or burkini. Each follows different rules. This always leads to friction, which the overwhelmed lifeguard is not quite able to control. When a group of completely veiled women enthusiastically discovers the women's bath for themselves, rags literally fly: Who owns the bath and who makes the rules? Who owns the female body? And when is a woman a woman at all? The lifeguard resigns, exasperated. But when a man of all people is hired as the successor as lifeguard, the situation escalates in unpredictable directions.

On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.

Nackt is the story of three couples, one of which just broke up, one that seems to be about to and one perfectly okay. They are all friends and from time to time they gather to talk about everything.One time they gather for dinner at the second couple's "mansion" - the husband became rich with his business. We see each couple as they prepare themselves for the party and learn a lot about their relationships.At the dinner they get to talking about recognizing each other's peer with closed eyes and decide to try it (thus the title "Nackt"=naked in German).

Esther's life is panning out nicely. She will soon move in with her boyfriend Vincent and she seems set to get a permanent position at the public relations company where she freelances. All would be fine if Esther didn't accidentally discover a piercing curiosity about her own body.

Marie, who works as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, has been married to her husband Francois for 12 years and has a two-year-old son. Though she is relatively content with her life, she feels something is wanting. Enter 50-year old African-American Bill. Initially she is annoyed by his insouciance, but she finds that she is irresistibly attracted to him. Soon the two are in the midst of sordid illicit affair. She knows little about her new lover, and he seems uninterested in learning about her, but the long sessions of lovemaking are something else entirely. Feeling out of control, Marie is increasingly repelled by her own actions. Psychologically, she struggles to reconcile her torrid encounters with Bill and mundane domestic chores such as bathing her son. Moreover, she finds herself incapable of hiding her adulterous behavior, rather she comes home with scratches and hickeys all over her body, to the devastation Francois.

On her birthday, Juliette is too upset to worry about the strange cleaner who imitates her every move and lusts after her clothing.

The film tells the story of Russian emigree and the only survivor from ship crash Yanko Goorall and servant Amy Foster in the end of 19th century. When Yanko enters a farm sick and hungry after the shipwreck, everyone is afraid of him, except for Amy, who is very kind and helps him. Soon he becomes like a son for Dr. James Kennedy and romance between Yanko and Amy follows.

On a fishing boat at sea, a 60-year old man has been raising a girl since she was a child. It is agreed that they will get married on her 17th birthday. They live a quiet and secluded life, renting the boat to day fishermen and practicing strange divination rites. Their life changes when a teenage student comes aboard.

Summertime on the coast of Maine, "In the Bedroom" centers on the inner dynamics of a family in transition. Matt Fowler is a doctor practicing in his native Maine and is married to New York born Ruth Fowler, a music teacher. His son is involved in a love affair with a local single mother. As the beauty of Maine's brief and fleeting summer comes to an end, these characters find themselves in the midst of unimaginable tragedy.

Secrets, rumors and betrayals surround the upcoming marriage between a young dissolute man and virtuous woman of the French aristocracy.

A woman employs a gay man to spend four nights at her house to watch her when she's "unwatchable".

A young woman working at a retirement home takes an elderly man living there on an excursion into the countryside, but the two wind up stranded in the titular forest.

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

Tanguy is 28 years old and still living with his parents. They think it's time he moves out. He doesn't, so they hatch a plan.

Successful writer/director Bernard Rougerie is at a creative dead end and decides to isolate himself from his wife in order to complete the script for his next film. Bernard moves into an apartment building whose tenants are in the midst of a revolt against their abusive landlord. Reluctant at first, he joins their cause and then becomes involved in an affair with young, unemployed resident Anne.

The mysterious "K" takes a humble job and falls in love with his landlady's daughter, Sidney Page. Sidney discourages her boyish admirer, Joe Drummond, and seeks training as a nurse. Infatuated with the head surgeon, Dr. Max Wilson, she accepts his proposal, which infuriates nurse Carlotta, who also loves Max. Carlotta lures Max to a roadhouse, where Joe, mistaking her for Sidney, shoots Max. K appears and, assuming his true identity as the famous Dr. Edwards, saves Max's life by performing his "Edwards operation."

A family spends three summer days in a beautiful lake mansion close to Berlin. Together with her new lover, Irene visits her brother Alex, who still inhabits the house with Irene's writer son Konstantin. Konstantin's girl-friend pops in, too, and all of them drift away from each other more and more.

A holiday celebration with the extended family gets stretched to the breaking point in this comedy from Germany. Sara is happily married to Jan, though this wasn't always the case -- Sara is Jan's second wife, while Sara has three ex-husbands, Gunnar, Andi and Erich, and she and Jan are raising children from each of their previous marriages. Jan is less than thrilled with the prospect of spending the holidays with Sara's mother, but things get worse when he learns his wife has planned a surprise for Christmas eve -- they'll be joined by Gunnar, Andi and Erich, as well as Erich's new wife Pauline, Andi's current spouse Rita and his own ex-wife, Eva. To call the atmosphere uncomfortable is an understatement, and things only get worse when Sara announces she's pregnant, which is quite troubling for Jan since he's been waiting for the right time to tell her he had a vasectomy several months before.

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