Five shorts spanning a century on lives impacted by the Panama Canal. Men, women and children who are influenced by the existence of the "Canal", the event that changed the history of not only a country but the world.
Social & External
The people behind it
Lakisha May
Clarice Thompson (segment "1913") / Clarice Jones (segment "2013")
Andre Morris
Phillip (segment "1913")
Charlie Goldstein
Jake Wright (segment "1950") (as Carlos Eduardo Goldstein Alemán)
Kathleen Wise
Patsy Wright (segment "1950")
Hannah Schöbitz
Lucy (segment "1964")
Luis Manuel Barrios
Silverio (segment "1977")
José Angel Murillo
Leonidas (segment "1977")
Meredith Carley
Aunt Perla (segment "2013")
Henry Twohy
Jeremiah (segment "1913")
Earl Patrick Watson
Pastor Thompson (segment "1913")
Reluctantly, a sulky adolescent returns to her parents' house for yet another boring summer vacation, dabbling in desire and the art of desirability, eventually mixing reality with vision, caged fantasies with the fierce female sexuality.
A tragic comedy of a sweet little girl, who grows up to be a crazy old cat lady.
A Jewish woman named Jettel Redlich flees Nazi Germany with her daughter Regina, to join her husband, Walter, on a farm in Kenya. At first, Jettel refuses to adjust to her new circumstances, bringing with her a set of china dishes and an evening gown. While Regina adapts readily to this new world, forming a strong bond with her father's cook, an African named Owuor.
Jimmy Muir comes from a typical gritty, northern town where there are only two options: working down the pit or in a factory. But Jimmy has other ideas — he dreams of becoming a professional footballer. Confronted by a bitter and unsupportive father, hard-drinking friends and a lifetime of bad habits...has Jimmy the will to achieve his ultimate goal?
A biography of artist Frida Kahlo, who channeled the pain of a crippling injury and her tempestuous marriage into her work.
One winter night, Pilar runs away from home. With her, she takes only a few belongings and her son, Juan. Antonio soon sets out to look for her. He says Pilar is his sunshine, and what's more, "She gave him her eyes"...
A group of male friends become obsessed with five mysterious sisters who are sheltered by their strict, religious parents.
Buenos Aires at the outskirts of XIX century. A society rigid in patriarchal rules. A war between brothers of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Two young and very much in love youngsters, fight for their right to be together. Obeyance and fear sets them apart along more than ten years. When they are finally reunited, will they be able to overcome the pain and tragedy that haunts them?
Telling the true story of Marvin Bijou, a young boy from a working-class family in a small village, who suffers constant bullying at school and home for being ‘different’ – too sensitive and too feminine. A chance encounter with a drama teacher opens the doors to a world that offers him the chance to escape his situation.
A fictionalised exploration of Beethoven's life in his final days working on his Ninth Symphony. It is 1824. Beethoven is racing to finish his new symphony. However, it has been years since his last success and he is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A copyist is urgently needed to help the composer. A fictional character is introduced in the form of a young conservatory student and aspiring composer named Anna Holtz. The mercurial Beethoven is skeptical that a woman might become involved in his masterpiece but slowly comes to trust in Anna's assistance and in the end becomes quite fond of her. By the time the piece is performed, her presence in his life is an absolute necessity. Her deep understanding of his work is such that she even corrects mistakes he has made, while her passionate personality opens a door into his private world.
A story of adoption told without glamour and hypocrisy that usually accompanies this topic.Anna is a top model, who was adopted by a French couple as a child. She returns to her hometown with a charity mission from France.A story of an orphan turned princess becomes a legend in her native provincial town. Anna gets treated like royal person and everyone expects miracles from herAnna is confused and cannot understand what all these people want from her. She is used to a calm and logical western lifestyle. Her home is France, in Russia she is a guest. Horrified, she watches her photographer boyfriend Michelle, admire incomprehensible Russian mentality
Grete Minde, based on the novel by Theodor Fontane, tells the story of a girl trapped in the turbulent religious and social prejudices of 17th-century Sweden.
Senya, a young hunter, hunts for two wolves that have been preying on sheep of various farms in Siberia. Kira Muratova and husband Oleksandr Muratov's diploma film.
After returning home from an extended tour in Afghanistan, a decorated U.S. Army medic and single mother struggles to rebuild her relationship with her young son.
After a disfiguring leg injury, a young woman develops an unsettling secret relationship with her own body in which pain is pleasure, mutilation is love and hungers of the flesh have a mind of their own.
Marie, who works as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, has been married to her husband Francois for 12 years and has a two-year-old son. Though she is relatively content with her life, she feels something is wanting. Enter 50-year old African-American Bill. Initially she is annoyed by his insouciance, but she finds that she is irresistibly attracted to him. Soon the two are in the midst of sordid illicit affair. She knows little about her new lover, and he seems uninterested in learning about her, but the long sessions of lovemaking are something else entirely. Feeling out of control, Marie is increasingly repelled by her own actions. Psychologically, she struggles to reconcile her torrid encounters with Bill and mundane domestic chores such as bathing her son. Moreover, she finds herself incapable of hiding her adulterous behavior, rather she comes home with scratches and hickeys all over her body, to the devastation Francois.
On her birthday, Juliette is too upset to worry about the strange cleaner who imitates her every move and lusts after her clothing.
Amanda struggles to keep something inside as she spends the day taking pictures of her best friend.
On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.
The story of three couples, one of which just broke up, one that seems to be about to, and one perfectly okay. They are all friends, and from time to time, they gather to talk about everything. One time, they gather for dinner at the second couple's "mansion“— the husband became rich with his business. We see each couple as they prepare themselves for the party and learn a lot about their relationships. At the dinner, they get to talking about recognizing each other's peer with closed eyes and decide to try it, naked.
In a remote South American colony in the late 18th century, officer Zama of the Spanish crown waits in vain for a transfer to a more prestigious location. He suffers small humiliations and petty politicking as he increasingly succumbs to lust and paranoia.
María Margarita is the youngest of four siblings in a family living in a mining town in the Atacama Desert (Chile). The most special time of the week for this family is Sunday, when they all go to the movies to enjoy stories that let them escape their everyday lives by transporting them to other worlds. The girl’s parents soon realise that the little girl has a very special gift: an almost uncanny ability to recount movies. The girl’s extraordinary talent will spread throughout the village, changing the fortunes of her family as the country is transformed forever.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Based on true events about the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State.
Young women toiling in a factory are exposed to hazardous material which takes a disastrous toll on their health.
At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.
Tells the parallel stories of nine-year-old Carlitos and his mother, Rosario. In the hopes of providing a better life for her son, Rosario works illegally in the U.S. while her mother cares for Carlitos back in Mexico.
In the year 2000, Nevenka Fernández, 24 years old, Councilor for Finance in the Ponferrada City Council, suffered relentless persecution, both sentimental and professional, by the mayor, a man accustomed to doing his will politically and personally. She never decides to report, although she knows that she will have to pay a very high price: her environment does not support her, the society of Ponferrada turns its back on her and the media subjects her to a public trial. A story inspired by real events that turns its protagonist into a pioneer by taking an influential and popular politician to court for sexual and workplace harassment for the first time.
At the behest of an old and dear friend, playwright Lillian Hellman undertakes a dangerous mission to smuggle funds into Nazi Germany.
In 1575, the young soldier Miguel de Cervantes is captured on the high seas by Barbary pirates and taken to Algiers as a hostage. Aware that a cruel death awaits him if his family does not pay his ransom soon, he finds refuge in his passion for storytelling.
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
The inspiring true story of Richard Montañez, the Frito Lay janitor who channeled his Mexican American heritage and upbringing to turn the iconic Flamin' Hot Cheetos into a snack that disrupted the food industry and became a global pop culture phenomenon.
Patagonia, 1960. A German doctor meets an Argentinean family and follows them to a town where the family will be starting a new life. The family welcomes the doctor into their home and entrust their young daughter to his care, not knowing that he is one of the most dangerous criminals in the world.
Based on the true story of the collapse of a mine in San Jose, Chile—that left 33 miners isolated underground for 69 days.
In this sprawling, fictionalized history of the Black Panthers, 1960s Oakland becomes a war zone as the Panthers battle for the right to exist.
The warmhearted story of Polish immigrant and mathematician Stan Ulam, who moved to the U.S. in the 1930s. Stan deals with the difficult losses of family and friends all while helping to create the hydrogen bomb and the first computer.
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
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.
A British spy is banished to Panama after having an affair with an ambassador's mistress. Once there he makes connection with a local tailor with a nefarious past and connections to all of the top political and gangster figures in Panama. The tailor also has a wife, who works for the Panamanian president and a huge debt. The mission is to learn what the President intends to do with the Canal.