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About two key pioneers of Swedish dance in the 1900s: Birgit Åkesson and Birgit Cullberg. Both were born in 1908 and became choreographers who made a big impression in the international dance history. Birgit Åkesson, in the serious "Fertility" directed by Alf Sjoberg, debuted in 1934 in Paris. She was co-designed the European avant-garde modern dance language, and created in the 1950s and 1960s, legendary works for the Stockholm Opera together with others including composer Karl-Birger Blomdahl and Erik Lindegren as librettist. Birgit Cullberg gives a much more relaxed and humorous impressions in "Antonius & Cleopatra", directed by Gerd Osten. Cullberg got her big break as a choreographer a few years in "Miss Julie" in 1950. After spending some time abroad Birgit Cullberg returned to Sweden and formed in 1967 the Cullberg Ballet, which she led until 1985. Topsy Håkansson, who performs the role as the gypsy.

Alvin Ailey played a key role in the growth of modern dance in USA and his company, founded in 1958, is one of the USA’s oldest dance troupes as well as one of the most youthful and vital on the dance scene. In this two-part program, members of Ailey's dance company celebrate his memory by performing three works choreographed by Ailey himself, as well as a special ballet tribute choreographed by Ulysses Dove. Each piece is introduced by Judith Jamison, the dancer and choreographer whose career was nurtured to stardom by Ailey, and who was, at the time of this production, Artistic Director of the company. The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater is uniquely eclectic in range, repertory, and style. As a choreographer, Ailey explored the black experience and went beyond, finding universal human truths in all his work.

The radical new take on Dickens’ classic seeks both to exhume the original story’s gritty commentary on social inequality and the corrupting influence of greed, and to breathe new life into the lyricism of the original text by setting its scenes to extraordinary tableaux of modern dance.

Dazzling, brash and dynamic, yet equally graceful and poetic. DIVINING was Judith Jamison's first major work as a choreographer for Ailey, evoking a strong feeling for African tribal ritual, is set to hauntingly rhythmic drum music. REVELATIONS, often describes as the company's signature tune, has become an American classic. It expresses Ailey's intense feelings for his roots, with Ailey's vivid "blood memories" of the blues, spirituals, gospel music, ragtime and folk songs as well as the hard life of the Southern black during the Depression. Set to Modern Jazz, THE STUCK-UP takes place in modern-day Harlem, about the cruel reality of urban street life as a young man is destroyed by drugs. CRY, choreographed by Alvin Ailey in 1971 for Judith Jamison, is one of his most famous pieces. Created as a birthday present for his mother, it is Ailey's tribute to black women and inspires moving emotions with its portrayal of struggle, anger and most importantly, its feeling of celebration.

The Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan performs their elegant Tai Chi-based dances to the music of J.S. Bach. Choreography by Lin Hwai-Min. This dance film examines the correlation between essence and appearance, effort and effortlessness, man and woman , all explored using water, mirror, light and reflections.

Maurice Hines, a charming, gay African-American entertainer navigates the complications of show business while grieving the loss of his more famous, often estranged younger brother, tap dance legend Gregory Hines.

After the coal mine he works at closes and his father commits suicide, a Finnish man leaves for the city to make a living but there, he is framed and imprisoned for various crimes.

Nikander, a rubbish collector and would-be entrepreneur, finds his plans for success dashed when his business associate dies. One evening, he meets Ilona, a down-on-her-luck cashier, in a local supermarket. Falteringly, a bond begins to develop between them.

Sunday in August

Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.

Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, escaping life's troubles - even if just for a moment - by dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.

An ugly ducking attempts to become desirable.

Everyday Is Like Sunday is a comedy/drama aiming the lens at post-collegiate characters stuck between their imminently-ending youth and impending adulthood. The film follows Mark, Jason, and Flora, as they realistically attempt to pull themselves out of economic and emotional doldrums.

A young hippie couple rent a secluded cabin on the beach in an attempt to re-connect with each other and save their marriage. Unfortunately, the man they rented the cabin from is a military-brat sociopath with two dogs more vicious than his temper.

A young officer returns to his base after a daring mission. The cook's assistant, a religious Holocaust survivor, is envious of him. He believes that there is a place in heaven reserved for the brave officer who endangers his life for the sake of his Jewish brethren. The officer, in the spirit of the Zionist ethos, is secular and a non-believer. At the moment, he is so hungry that, for a plate of shaksuka, he is prepared to sign a contract transferring his secured place in heaven to the cook. Some forty years later, the present time of the movie, the tables have turned - the officer, now a retired general, is on his death bed in the hospital. His son who, to his father's horror, has found religion, is in a race against time. Before his father dies, he has to find that cook's assistant who, forty years earlier, bought his place in heaven. If and when he finds him, the son has to nullify the contract. If he doesn't, his father will go to hell.

Based on real events, and set in Rio de Janeiro, A Wolf at the Door is the nerve-rattling tale of a kidnapped child and the terror of the parents left behind. When Sylvia discovers her six-year-old daughter has been picked up at school by an unknown woman, police summon her husband, Bernardo, to the station for questioning. From that point on, the film takes increasingly sinister turns as it delves into the events that led to the girl’s kidnapping. With plot twists that will keep the audience on the edge of their seats, A Wolf at the Door is a darkly disturbing journey into the extreme limits of the human capacity for obsession and revenge.

A nine-year-old boy’s preening obsession with straightening his hair elicits a tidal wave of homophobic panic in his hard-working mother, in this tender but clear-eyed coming-of-age tale.

Two brothers and their wives have dinner in a fancy restaurant to discuss their teenage children's misdeeds. An excoriating assessment of Europe’s contemporary social ills.

Over the course of one feverish day, a harried narcotics detective and his reluctant partner frantically track down a recently released convict who knows a secret from the past.

The debut feature from Franco-Senegalese filmmaker Dyana Gaye charts the interconnected destinies of three far-flung sojourners across three continents. A quiet drama, about the anxieties of negotiating journeying to foreign countries and making a place for oneself in the world.