A man traveling in his truck on a desolate road...
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An animated short based on Hans Christian Andersen's tale about a poor young girl with a burning desire to find comfort and happiness in her life. Desperate to keep warm, the girl lights the matches she sells, and envisions a very different life for herself in the fiery flames filled with images of loving relatives, bountiful food, and a place to call home.
The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.
It's Christmas time, and a grandmother spends a quiet afternoon tending to the family chores. But the arrival of an unexpected visitor brings with her some deadly consequences.
Everyone has their own Chimera, something they try to achieve but never manage to find. For Arthur, the Chimera looks like the woman he lost, Beniamina. In an adventurous journey between the living and the dead, between forests and cities, between celebrations and solitudes, the intertwined destinies of these characters unfold, all in search of the Chimera.
The wealthy president of a company has built up an unpayable debt to a local crime lord, and to escape punishment he sells his famous dancer wife to the lecherous old man figuring a 90 year old can’t do too much bad with her. Perhaps not, but others can while he watches. She’s put on stage in an underground BDSM sex show and begins a spiraling decent from strongly independent woman to submissive sex slave
Jesus is asked to judge an inheritance dispute, but instead He uses this conflict to affirm the eternal ideals of His Beatitudes taught in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus teaches the wronged brother to forgive and love his brother. All who follow Jesus must learn that what we own has little to do with who we are. Important ideals of stewardship and preparedness are emphasized through the parable of the House Built on Rock.
It's Christmas night when Victor gets stranded in a deserted hotel in Baltimore. To pass the lonely hours, he decides that for first time in his life he's going to order the services of a call girl. When Victor mistakenly recognizes a beautiful young woman at the bar for the call girl, he is taken aback by her warm response to his shy approach. From this moment on, the line between real love and paid love quickly dissolves.
Saori, a school girl, is molested on the notorious "molester train" of the Hanagawa line and rescued by another school girl who witnesses the act. The girl who rescues her turned out to be a new student of the same high school Saori attends. The mysterious new student Yuriko is rumoured to be a "parent killer". Yuriko then leads Saori and her friends to hunt molesters.
A man recognizes the thief who had previously robbed him as one of the men involved in an unrelated mob shootout.
Adela has just settled in Madrid with her father, Claudio, a retired concert musician and a hermit. Both teach piano to small children in a quiet, sparsely-furnished flat in the centre of town.
When Ella makes a strange discovery about the lifestyle choices of her internet date, the recently bereaved Mark, she must choose whether to stay in her own comfort zone or take part in his unconventional grieving process. Twitching is irreverent, playful and subversive in its exploration of gendered narratives, relationship boundaries and grief.
Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.
In this fragile yet frightening poetic fantasy set against a dark industrial landscape, a woman sits knitting on the porch of her home when a man appears and takes the knitting from her.
After blowing his professional ballet career, John's only way to redeem himself is to concoct the demise of his former partner, Leah, who he blames for his downfall; he rehearses his salvation in his mind in the way that he rehearses a dance, but being able to break from the routine will be the key to his success.
Yeda, the green-faced woman, sells homemade bread to support the house where she lives with her sick husband. Through the context of green-faced people, we know the reality of those who live on the fringes of a purple-faced society.
The family of a Parisian shop-owner spends a day in the country. The daughter falls in love with a man at the inn, where they spend the day.
Yuri leaves Ryo with mysterious words. Ryo goes to Hokkaido knowing that his doppelganger magician is missing. Ryo realizes Yuri was also the magician’s lover and he learns magic. The story that crosses over two identities, illusion and magic.
In a repressive boarding school with rigid rules of behavior, four boys decide to rebel against the director on a celebration day.
A man searches for his father, Pedro Páramo, in a town doomed by violence and the fury of a frustrated love.
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
A psychic's ominous reading sends a man into a tailspin.
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
An ex-felon returns home from prison and must confront the demons of his past.
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.
On the French island of Mont Saint-Michel, Jack, a failed presidential candidate, Tom, a poet and Sonia, a physicist, engage in an intellectual conversation about politics, philosophy and life over the course of a single day.
Alone in her empty flat, from her window Anne observes the people passing by who nervously snatch up the personal belongings and pieces of furniture she has put out on the pavement. Her final gesture of taking a ring off her finger signals she is leaving her previous life in Holland behind. She goes to Ireland, where she chooses to lead a solitary, wandering existence, striding through the austere landscapes of Connemara. During her travels, she discovers a house that is home to a hermit, Martin.
A woman who works in a meat packing plant is continuously preyed upon by lecherous men.
Little Lide disappears in the forest while her family packs up their home. As a fire breaks out, her mother must race to reach her before the flames do.
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.
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
A former professional dancer volunteers to teach dance in the New York public school system and, while his background first clashes with his students' tastes, together they create a completely new style of dance. Based on the story of ballroom dancer, Pierre Dulane.
A disturbed and institutionalized 16-year-old girl struggles between fantasy and reality.
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
