East West

Joy Brown (Billie Dean) is a 40-something woman with little confidence, less self-esteem and a burning desire to realise her dream of being a singer/songwriter. But she cant sing. When Joy takes in a stray dog, Raffi, her life immediately changes. Her best friend, the tarot card reading Tessa (Janet Watson Kruse), moves in, Joy changes her name to Luna Starr, and she meets Peter Wolfman (Andrew Einspruch). When Peter encourages her to perform with him at the local pizzerias folk music nights, Joy sings sort of hiding behind masks of wigs and silliness. Despite the singing, Peter and Joys relationship blossoms. But there are lots of hiccups along the way -- ex-wives, ex-husbands, frightening performances, and bucket loads of doubt. Set to the backdrop of the folk music scene in an arty country town, the film celebrates universal themes of friendship, low self-esteem, love relationships, and the joy of dogs.

Isi and Finn are planning their first time together. This becomes a complicated undertaking, not only because of their physical disabilities and it threatens to derail their relationship.

A lonely boy finds his passion in football and pursues the sport to endure the difficulties of growing up.

More interested in partying and flirting with young musicians than work, veteran rock journalist Ellie Klug has one last chance to prove her value to her magazine’s editor: a no-stone-unturned search to discover what really happened to long lost rock god, Matt Smith, who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend. Teaming up with an eccentric amateur documentary filmmaker, Ellie hits the road in search of answers.

With this DVD and Blu-ray of Rodelinda, one of Handel’s most emotionally complex operas, conductor Emmanuelle Haïm adds to her impressive Erato catalogue of the composer’s works. The imaginative production, by Jean Bellorini, was seen at the Opéra de Lille in Autumn 2018, and the cast features soprano Jeanine De Bique in the title role, countertenor Tim Mead as her husband Bertarido and another countertenor, Erato’s rising star Jakub Józef Orliński as Unulfo. Reviewing the production, Le Monde noted Emmanuelle Haïm’s “intimate connection with this music, which she knows how to unleash in all its violence, passion and heart-wrenching expressivity.”

80,000 Thoughts is a poetic autobiographical and fictional film about testing oneself and one's possibilities—sexually, gender-wise, and bodily—conveyed through dance, music, poetry, and images. It is also a personal story about the narrator's traumas and memories, her love affair and one-time crush, God, drugs, missing her mother, and violence and abuse. Director Michele Mwikali Lauritsen deftly employs crackling prose to position her film in the impossible—and refreshing—position between the gallery-smart contemporary art of the time and a more accessible and popular format.

Serebrjakov, Uncle Vanya's brother-in-law, is widowed and has remarried Helena. He wants to sell the country estate where the family lives: this unpopular decision sparks one of Chekhov's most famous dramas.

After giving birth, a Top Gun pilot is assigned by the US Air Force to fly drones. At a hidden base in the American desert, she discovers another war, another way of flying and destroying, of controlling and punishing. By George Brant, translated by Monica Capuani.

The director of the Geneva Philharmonic Orchestra, Hans Peter Miller, returns home after a concert and is accosted by an intrusive spectator, Léon Dinkel, who introduces himself as a great admirer who has come from Belgium. The longer the conversation between the two continues, the stranger the visitor's behavior becomes.

Lamija (15) moves between the piano keys and the kickboxing ring, breaking down gender stereotypes and showing that strength, grace, and passion can coexist — an inspiring story of female empowerment through sport and art.

The goddess of love, Aphrodite, opens the tragedy and the goddess of hunting, Artemis, concludes it, but at the center of Euripides' “Hippolytus, Bearer of the Crown” (428 BC) are not the gods, but rather Phaedra's absolute, consuming human passion for her stepson, Hippolytus. Phaedra hides her love and wastes away.

Eva, a seventeen year old girl, tries to face the consequences of a rash decision.

Paolo Villaggio, tender and gruff at the same time, recalls his entire life in a long autobiographical stream of consciousness.

Euripides' Heracles, a passionate tragedy of intense pathos, performed by an all-female cast and directed by Emma Dante at the Greek Theater in Syracuse.

At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.

When Martin, a former GDR citizen, is released from jail, he lately becomes confronted with the consequences of the German re-unification.

Advertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.

Weaving recollections and letters from various migrant workers around the story of a Philippine man searching for his missing wife in a Middle Eastern city. Christopher Gozum creates an intimate, evocative and hypnotic mixture of documentary, poetry and fiction.

Sonya is a super-busy, sought-after model and dating doesn’t really fit her lifestyle. However, a one-night stand with a clumsy but considerate man changes her perspective.