De Stedeling

Set in the South just after the US Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband, believed killed in battle. By all accounts, Jack Sommersby was not a pleasant man, thus when he suddenly returns, Laurel has mixed emotions. It appears that Jack has changed a great deal, leading some people to believe that this is not actually Jack but an imposter. Laurel herself is unsure, but willing to take the man into her home, and perhaps later into her heart.

After ten years of war, plague and famine, the land is swept clean of people. The few remaining souls are scattered about, living in misery and lacking hope. An anxious silence hangs over the land. On one particularly starry night, two peasants find a stranger on the seashore.

After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.

A poverty-stricken woman raises her sons through many trials and tribulations. But no matter the struggles, always sticks to her own moral code.

In a small farming valley in Austria in the beginning of the 20th century a tyrannical farmer is found dead, and all the farmhands are relieved to be free of their tyrant. But the farmer was childless, so suddenly they all inherit the farm together. Now conflicts begin, as nobody is the boss and nobody has to obey.

The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.

Johan and his family are Mennonites from the north of Mexico. Against the law of God and Man, Johan falls in love with another woman.

The story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of president Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century.

A group of village boys found a gang under the leadership of the most intelligent amongst them - Pero the Lump. They decide to renovate an old and abandoned watermill on the outskirts of their village. A discord amongst the villages has caused the mill to remain unused. To make sure it stays closed, the corrupted steam mill owner is ready to bribe customers. Pero's gang does not want to give in under the pressure of corrupt villagers...

Giacomo Meyerbeer's pastoral opera,based on a Breton tale, is the tale of DINORAH who has gone mad because her bridegroom Hoël has disappeared during their wedding. This production, performed as part of Théâtre Impérial de Compiegne's purpose of reviving obscure French opera, is the only version of 'Dinorah' available on DVD, but it is a great production! The painterly pastoral settings and décor and rustic costumes are very easy on the eye. Opera traditionalists who dislike modern stagings will be delighted to know that this is a traditional production. Pierre Jourdan's stage direction is charming and always involving, never once falling into static movements or gestures, gratuitous distaste and irrelevance. With Isabelle Philippe, Armand Arapian and Frédéric Mazzotta. Conducted by Olivier Opebeek.

When the farmer's away, all the animals play, and sing, and dance. Eventually, though, someone has to step in and run things, a responsibility that ends up going to Otis, a carefree cow.

A high school graduate, Yusuf could not pass the university entrance exam. Writing poetry is his greatest passion and some of his poems are being printed in various obscure literary journals. But neither these poems, nor the rapidly falling price of the milk they sell, are being of any benefit to Yusuf and Zehra's lives. When Yusuf finds out about Zehra's secret affair with the town's stationmaster he gets disconcerted. Will he find the way to cope with his anxiety for the unknown future, the rapid change that he is going through and the pain of taking a step into adulthood and leaving his youth behind

Die Scheinheiligen

Aymé Pigrenet, a recently widowed farmer, is eager to find a new wife to help him run his farm. Desperate, he seeks the aid of a local matchmaker who suggest that he go to Romania to find a new wife. There he meets Elena.

With the death of her mother, eight-year-old Anna ends her childhood: From now on, she has to look after the nine-member family. Deprivation-rich years, which also find no end when Anna marries: Her husband Albert must be a soldier in the Second World War, and the pregnant Anna has to work hard in the farm and care sick relatives. Lonely and exposed to the harassment of the tyrannical mother-in-law, she waits for Albert, with no certainty that he will ever return.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox, bored with his current life, plans a heist against the three local farmers. The farmers, tired of sharing their chickens with the sly fox, seek revenge against him and his family.

When their bus is crippled on the side of a deserted road, a team of high school athletes discover an opponent they cannot defeat – and may not survive.

Devout Christians Töre and Märeta send their only daughter, the virginal Karin, and their foster daughter, the unrepentant Ingeri, to deliver candles to a distant church. On their way through the woods, the girls encounter a group of savage goat herders who brutally rape and murder Karin as Ingeri remains hidden. When the killers unwittingly seek refuge in the farmhouse of Töre and Märeta, Töre plots a fitting revenge.

Yugoslavia, 1948, the year of Inform Bureau's resolution and Tito's break-up with Stalin. The story takes place during a wedding in the Dalmatian inland in Croatia. Ante marries a much younger woman, Visnja; the groom's godfather is Andrija, the partisan war hero born in this very village, and a member of the new Communist political establishment. Two members of the Yugoslav State Security crash the traditional wedding ceremony. In the growing atmosphere of fear nobody knows who will be arrested.

As a child, Jairo William Gutiérrez traded a few onions for a ticket to the circus and from then on he only wanted to be an actor and playwright. Today Jairo is 50 years old and farms the land, milks his cow and writes theater. His passion for the stage is so great that he set up a theater company, which is made up of his wife, two daughters and a few neighbors.