Tradeoff

19 remastered French short films from the 20's. After the horrors of the First World War, a sultry madness takes hold of the French society that no authority can stop. The clandestine cinema is commercialized at the back of specialized booksellers and whorehouses for very delighted customers, through short films. Costumed as priests and nuns, ballet dancers, satyrs, sparrow, apes, telegraph operator, in monk or in bellboy, never mind, everything is a pretext to describe love affairs which crudeness and humor have nothing to envy to the contemporary erotic cinema.

A Los Angeles detective is sent to New York where he must solve a case involving an old Sicilian Mafia family feud.

Darta, a man from an impoverished family, is rejected by the wealthy parents of the woman he loves. Desperate, he strikes a bargain with the Monkey King, performing a dark ritual to gain wealth. However, in doing so, he accidentally curses his wife and child to a life of suffering. Rooted in Indonesian mysticism, this universal narrative explores the insatiable hunger to become something one is not and the boundaries one is willing to cross to achieve it.

A three-chapter (Hell, Purgatory and Paradise) meditation on the city of Sarajevo in the wake of the Bosnian war, on Palestine and Israel, and on war itself.

Set in 1973 Spain, a struggling encyclopedia salesman and his wife take advantage of an offer to make adult films. The act turns him into an aspring legit filmmaker and her into an international sex symbol.

When Florette, a popular actress, and her friend Edith become rivals for the love of Walter Stanley, a leading man, Florette sacrifices her feelings for the other girl. Three years later, Phillip Rowland, a young aristocrat, falls in love with Florette. When Edith intrudes in her affairs, Florette--although she fears unhappiness will result because of their differing social positions--decides to marry Rowland regardless of the consequences. Rowland stands by his wife, although she is snubbed by his family, but when Edith conspires with Walter Stanley to place Florette in a compromising position, Judge Rowland accepts circumstantial evidence as truth and plans for a divorce. Florette, however, cleverly puts her brother-in-law on the defensive; making amends, he has her reinstated in the family's good graces. A lost film.

Poutníci

The Beast in Man

A Jewish tannery worker, Nahum Beychik, invents a machine that makes hard work easier in leather tanning. A private entrepreneur, former kulak Lopatin, tries to buy the invention and use it for his own selfish interests. Having met with a decisive refusal from Nahum Beychik, the kulak exploits the anti-Semitic sentiments of the backward part of the workers and, with the help of his accomplices, hooligans and truants, tries to kill the inventor.

Genji and his victorious G.P.S. alliance find themselves facing down a new challenge by the students of Hosen Academy, feared by everyone as 'The Army of Killers.' The two schools, in fact, have a history of bad blood between them. And the simmering embers of hatred are about to flare up again, burning away any last remnants of the truce they had so rigorously observed until now.

The real-life deportation of gangster Lucky Luciano was the inspiration for this romanticized and slightly crackbrained crime drama. Jeff Chandler plays the Luciano counterpart, who once he arrives in Italy renews his criminal activities.

Married for 22 years, Mary Emerson treats her husband, John, more like a son than a husband. He is stung by her rebuffs and, therefore, succumbs to the youthful charms of Gloria Sanderson, whom he meets on a business trip. But just after he mails a letter to Mary telling her that he will not return, John finds Gloria in the arms of her fiancé.

A money launderer finds himself in a bind on Christmas Eve when a case of mistaken identity leads to him spending the evening with an unpredictable runaway instead of his family.

An American heiress who goes to Ireland meets a bankrupt lord. She switches places with her maid to avoid fortune hunters.

Henri Le Rocque's arrival in an island village causes much anger when he insists upon advanced rental for the land he owns. Accompanying Le Rocque is his nephew Paul, who is recovering from a broken heart. One day, little flower girl Fleurette visits the Le Rocque estate to make a present of a rare flower and is shot as a trespasser. She is nursed back to health at the mansion, and Paul falls in love with her. However, trouble is brewing in the village which will endanger all their lives.

A forger's arrest shocks his pregnant wife, causing their daughter to suffer strange trances.

On her way to the theater, Vera, star of a Russian vaudeville troupe, is rescued from a falling girder by Eugene Foster, a wealthy broker who persists in his efforts to win the girl. Foster engages the troupe to perform at his home, and Vera, stunned by a fall, awakens to find Foster pleading his love, while Norodin, her partner who loves her, sees them embrace. Norodin, who performs an underwater stunt, asks Vera not to be present for his act and causes her to believe him dead; heartbroken, Vera tells Foster of her mistake; and enraged, he attempts to seize her. The magician appears, pins Foster to the wall with knives, and advises him to leave before the last blade is thrown.

Giuseppe Tornatore traces three generations of a Sicilian family in in the Sicilian town of Bagheria (known as Baarìa in the local Sicilian dialect), from the 1930s to the 1980s, to tell the story of the loves, dreams and delusions of an unusual community.

When Carmine “The Beans” Pasquale is nabbed by the FBI, he decides to testify against his mafia boss and go into the Witness Relocation Program with his wife Gina and son Vincent. Now known as George, Linda and Patrick Cheeseman, the Pasquale family is sent to suburban Utah to begin their new life. But can the “Cheesemans” survive in a world where everyone is Mormon, all coffee is bad and scrapbooking reigns supreme?

A tough-as-nails burglary crew from the streets, a Cuban cartel, heavy into voodoo, ruthless Albanian gangsters, and a blood diamond deal that erupts into all out violence. This throws the criminal underworld into chaos. Double-crosses and brazen gangland executions entwine everyone in a street war that plays out to an explosive ending.