In the mid-19th century, California, a Mexican territory, became part of the United States. Faced with the possibility of being dispossessed of his land by the new authorities, Don César de Echagüe, a Spanish nobleman, asks his son César, a capricious and insufferable fop, for help.
An adaptation of a story by a Ukrainian writer Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky that anticipates the Ukrainian "poetic cinema" of the '60s in its focus on star-crossed lovers and its celebration of nature. Set in the 1830s, the film follows two lovers on the run - a girl forced into marriage and her boyfriend, a serf who's being sought by the authorities - as they try to make their way to freedom.
Although based on a novel by Georges Simenon, director (and songwriter) Serge Gainsbourg has superimposed several dark emotions and a subtle brutality over the weak plot about a man's trip to Africa and his unfortunate passion for a murderess whose amorality sends the disillusioned fellow back to Europe. Sometimes described as frustrating and self-centered, reactions to this film swing across a broad spectrum of complaints -- not the least might be whether or not Gainsbourg is using a clichéd and stereotypical view of "dark Africa" to convey what he sees in his characters.
After her aunts death, young Miriam gets a position with the Allnes family. They have a son, Hans. Miriam and Hans fall in love. But the Hans mother is jealous and disapprove.
Pastor Samuel Bro has lost his faith in God. He is in conflict with the Church Council and is rejected from his priesthood. He moves away to a different life.
After fourteen years in Japan a small-time crook returns to his hometown.
Foma Gordeyev, the son of a wealthy Volga merchant, doesn't want to continue his father's work. The mind is sickened by the dirt and injustice of life around him. Foma is seeking solace in a drunken rampage and wild antics. After many years of desolation, he is half-ill at the opening of a night shelter built with his father’s money.
A story of lost love, young love, a legendary sword and one last opportunity at redemption.
Pedro Jarrapellejos is a ladies man who cannot turn the heads of Isabel or her beautiful daughter. When both peasant women are found raped and murdered in a brutal scene, a schoolteacher is falsely accused. Pedro knows his own nephew and his friend participated in the killings, but he uses his considerable influence over the police and courts to intimidate the witnesses into silence.
Based on a novel by the late Finnish writer Timo Mukka, this simple story focuses on what happens when Milka (Irma Huntus), a girl barely out of childhood, gets pregnant by Ojanen (Matti Turunen) a rustic fieldhand. Her own mother had been hoping to marry Ojanen, and her daughter's pregnancy turns their lives around. Set in the Lapp country of northern Finland, the scenery is breathtaking, made even more so by the isolation of the region. A sense of natural solitude is underscored by a slow-moving dialogue interspersed with long silences, and the connection between nature and the dialogue is underscored as the young Milka recites poetry while out in the countryside. The fate of Milka and her mother, however, is connected to the decision that Ojanen makes at the end.
Germany at the time of the economic miracle: the boorish and equally rude Jupp Grapsch has made a small fortune through his bustling activities. His wife Lisbeth, on the other hand, does not feel comfortable with this, but silently accepts the circumstances. Even when Jupp gets involved with the somewhat disreputable Nina Sonntag, an extravagant young woman, she accepts this at first. At some point, however, the situation escalates and Lisbeth slips a slap in the face, which Jupp cleverly wants to use to finally get rid of his wife by divorcing her. But Lisbeth refuses and so Jupp hires an unscrupulous man to create a reason for the separation in exchange for money...
Having put down his sword and given up the will to fight, the masterless samurai Iemon lives in solitude while being haunted by his violent enigmatic past...
Following the brutal rape and murder of his 16-year-old daughter, Sang-hyeon stumbles into an ever-widening conspiracy of rage, revenge, and murder.
A group of wealthy American Jewish businessmen have been captured by the SS and are told that they are to be traded to the American army for several SS officers. However, these hostages are being required to pay bribes for their "transportation costs." In order to ensure that the businessmen will be more cooperative in paying up, a beautiful female singer is placed in their midst as a bargaining chip. The group of hostages are then placed on a train which is supposed to take them to the ship that will deliver them to freedom, but a series of "mishaps" delays their escape.
The doomed love of a city girl caught in the vise of poverty is detailed in Vavra’s fluid, romantic work, one of the most elegant creations of the Czech Modernist era... The film lingers over its characters’ habitats and haunts, finding psychological truths in what each owns or desires, and countering every Hollywood-ready scene of gleaming restaurants and dazzling penthouses with realist moments of employment lines and crammed flats. Vavra’s classical camerawork and aura of romantic defeatism give Virginity a force comparable to the master of this genre, Hollywood’s Frank Borzage. (BAM/PFA)
An old woman has died and her widower with dementia confesses to killing her. After this, the story goes back in time to show the events leading up to her death.
A ruffian sends his assistant to force a peasant girl to marry him, but while he is bringing her to him, he falls in love with her.
Under the USSR oppression a family breaks up and its members find themselves on opposite sides of the barricades. Based on the Mykolas Sluckis' novel, the film tells the story of a dramatic and painful reality of the post-war Lithuania.
Out of love, young Corinna follows the plantation owner Mannsfeld to the Far East - where she has to realize that he is already married. A small consolation for her is the fact that Mannsfeld is not about a womanizer, but that he is serious about his love for Corinna. The only thing standing in the way of this love is his wife, who, despite the broken marriage, does not want to let Mannsfeld go. When the wife is murdered, this crime seems to bring dubious happiness to the two of them - but it doesn't last long.
Based on a novel by Bo Nishimura, the film is about an extramarital affair between the wife of an estate agent and a 22 year old man.