One day at the end of the 1800s, 14-year-old Lise’s life is changed forever. She is the eldest of her siblings, the first in her family to go to school and full of hope and confidence in life. But when her mother goes into labour, it quickly appears that something is wrong. As night falls and the labour progresses, Lise begins to understand that a day that began in childhood might end with her becoming the woman of the house.
Packard Schmidt is a burnt-out, middle-aged college English professor. In a desperate attempt to restore some sense of vitality to his lonely existence he embarks on a series of impulsive romantic exploits resulting in a cavalcade of disaster both personally and professionally. These disasters change and educate Pack and serve eventually as a meditation on the meaning and power of desire, loss, and love.
A torrid affair between a recently discharged serviceman and an attractive widow leads to murder.
A blind man's master told him that after he has broken 1000 strings on his Banjo, he can open the Banjo to get a script for his eyes. After 60 years he broke the 1000th string.
In the late 19th century, Lord Tichborne, the ninth richest nobleman in England, disappears after a South American shipwreck. Some years later his erudite Afro-English valet, Bogle, is sent to investigate rumors that Tichborne survived and settled in Australia. An alcoholic ruffian answer's Bogle's inquiries claiming to be the lost heir. Bogle suspects fraud, but conspires with the claimant to split the inheritance should the latter succesfully pass himself off to friends, family and the courts. As the claimant returns to England to continue his charade, enough people confirm his identity to make both the claimant and Bogle believe that he just might be the rightful heir after all.
Strip Search follows several parallel stories examining personal freedoms vs. national security in the aftermath of 9/11; two main subplots involve an American woman detained in China and an Arab man detained in New York City.
Middle-aged couple William and Luisa travel to the Spanish city of Seville during Semana Santa (Holy Week), where they honeymooned exactly 30 years prior, seeking to rejuvenate their lackluster marriage. Upon arrival, however, they begin to experience time-bending encounters with their younger selves, leading them to contend with the deep regrets and painful losses that led to the breakdown of their marriage.
A story of three couples and their intertwining love stories set in 1940s Taiwan and Shanghai, centered around the 1949 sinking of Taiping.
The Old Beekeeper brings a suggestive reflection on the pure soul of a brave simple man who strives to live honestly and selflessly. His relationship to the order of the world and nature also reflects his relationship to people, and he achieves harmony in life through his ability to live in accordance with his conscience and moral principles.
Macabéa has just moved to the big city after her aunt, who raised her, died. She gets a job as a typist and moves into a boarding house with three other women. In her spare time, she listens to a radio station called Time; on Sundays, she likes to ride the metro. Then she meets Olímpico, a northeasterner like herself, who has dreams of becoming a congressman.
Génius jednej noci
Jennie Gerhardtová
Buck is a big-hearted dog whose blissful domestic life is turned upside down when he is suddenly uprooted from his California home and transplanted to the exotic wilds of the Yukon during the Gold Rush of the 1890s. As the newest rookie on a mail delivery dog sled team—and later its leader—Buck experiences the adventure of a lifetime, ultimately finding his true place in the world and becoming his own master.
In a farmhouse in southern Italy, an old woman dies. Her husband summons their sons: from Rome, Raffaele, a judge facing a political case for which he risks assassination; from Naples, the religious and ideological Rocco, a counselor at a correctional institute for boys; from Turin, Nicola, a factory worker involved in labor disputes. Once home, each encounters the past and engages in reveries of what may come.
Charles is a bored civil servant struggling through a harsh Utah winter. He spends most of his time reflecting on his romance with Laura, a coworker who left him to return to her husband, an A-Frame salesman.
An adaptation of Henry James' novel about the Countess Eugenia Münster and her brother Robert, expatriate Americans who have grown up in Europe. Returning to prosperous relatives in New England, Eugenia hopes to make an advantageous marriage with a wealthy cousin. While Eugenia encounters obstacles, Robert finds his suit bearing fruit.
A Southerner--young, poor, ambitious but uneducated--determines to become something in the world. He decides that the best way to do that is to become a preacher and start up his own church.
Berlin, 1930, during the rise of Nazism. Hermann Hermann, a Russian emigrant and chocolate manufacturer, married to the capricious Lydia, loses his temper more and more every day when dealing with his workers and other businessmen; until he meets Felix, a vagrant, who seems to be physically identical to him; a disconcerting fact that leads Hermann Hermann to plot a particular way out of a fake world he actually hates.
A typist threatens to expose her lover when he prosecutes the divorce of a woman he means to marry.
Alliances are tested when seven college pals reunite to watch two of their own say “I do” at a seaside wedding. But the maid of honor and the groom share a passionate history, and the bride isn’t the only one who’s wondering if it’s all in the past.