A contest is being held in Cremona for the best violin, with Giannina's hand in marriage as the prize. Filippo is secretly in love with her, but is also ashamed of being a cripple, so he switches his superior violin with that of another apprentice, Sandro, whom Giannina loves.
The short drama film follows the daily life of the Juan and Jorge, two brothers living on the streets of Mexico City. It won an Academy Award in 2001 for Best Live Action Short Film.
A Short Film by Lars Ostenfeld. Inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's fairytale, this Danish film tells the story of a Christmas tree from a most unusual angle - through the 'voice' of the tree itself. The tree has big ambitions, doing everything it can to grow so tall that it reaches the sky. Featuring extraordinary photography, the film follows the adventures of its life from sapling to maturity, culminating in a triumphal Christmas Day. Along the way, viewers experience the natural - and human - world from a strangely moving perspective.
In the Second World War, probably in a concentration camp somewhere, Gary Sinise is a soldier who conducts Jews everyday to some place where only clothes come back, under the eyes of an young prisoner boy (Elijah Wood). This witness disturbs the soldier, driving the story to a tragic and sad end and a new beginning.
Phyllis is a moving and atmospheric portrait of a ‘psychic’ vampire, a woman obsessed with synthetic Nollywood dramas, that lives alone in Lagos, Nigeria. The central idea of this short experimental film is the practise and significance of wig-wearing in Nollywood film; a practise the director has invested with deeper psychological as well as science-fiction layers. Underpinning this central idea however is a critique of the unforgiving treatment of single women in Nollywood and Nigeria. The film is an example of what the director, Zina Saro-Wiwa, has termed “alt-Nollywood”, a genre that plays with and reworks certain narrative, stylistic and visual conventions of Nollywood. Phyllis explores the gothic possibilities of the Nollywood aesthetic creating a new kind of low-budget atmospheric film that is very much of Nollywood and yet subverts the genre. Using Nollywood to subvert Nollywood.
Ira wanders around the streets of Moscow. She's pregnant with the child of Adrissa, an african student.
The surrealist film shows repetitive imagery involving a string fashioned in a bizarre, almost spiderweb-like pattern over the hands of several individuals, most notably an unnamed young woman and an elderly gentleman. The film also shows a shadowy darkness and people filmed at odd angles, an exposed human heart, and other occult symbols and ritualistic imagery which evokes an unsettling and dream-like aura. Considered an unfinished film.
A Cambodian immigrant plays chess in the heart of New York .....
Sudanese filmmaker Ibrahim Shaddad provides a dramatic and powerful account of the trials and tribulations of a Sudanese villager in a large alien city. Shot entirely without dialogue, the film's innovative use of sound helps tell the story of a shepherd who leaves his wife and herd to settle in a nearby town. Since its premiere at the Alexandria Film Festival, Human Being (إنسان / Insan) has been shown in a number of festivals in the Middle East and Europe. This film is a prime example of experimental Arab cinema.
A short directed by Marian Meidel.
In 1932, Michel Simon plays in "Boudu sauvé des eaux" under the direction of Jean Renoir. Three years later, he was again invited to don the clothes of the famous tramp on the sets of Boulogne.
A short film influenced by the feel of the Italian giallo films of yesterday. Dedicated to filmmaker Mario Bava.
Inspired by the 1928 experimental film by Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapich, The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra, this amateur short is the story of a man who spends his entire life under the thumb of anonymous bureaucrats. The titular seal adorns everything in life, from birth to death, in a criticism of bureaucracy and power over the individual, in a film that makes stylistic references to silent cinema.
Trailer for the lost giallo from director Diego Larràz. A wide variety of people are involved in an impenetrable web of murder, seduction, blackmail, alcoholism, etc. etc.
Bored cinephile Mark Arthur stumbles upon an underground theater where they show films unlike anything he's ever seen. Entry for The AV Club's "Parameter" short film contest in 2012.
A young woman, stressed by her busy and continually crowded New York City existence spontaneously retreats to a solitary lake deep in the Adirondacks.
The film is about five men who meet up at their old hang-out spot after finishing their first semester of college.
The extended Steyer family lives together in a cottage in the mountains. The younger Steyer's wife Ludmilla wants money, and doesn't care if she must ruin the lives of the Steyer family to get it.
Two reprobates go on a spree killing killer bats. This short film can be found exclusively on the Blu-ray release of Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla.
A filmmaker comes back to his grandparents' house to make them a video-portrait. That's what cinema is about, isn't it?