A young factory worker struggles to figure out what she wants to do with her life.
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A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.
In 2035, where robots are commonplace and abide by the three laws of robotics, a technophobic cop investigates an apparent suicide. Suspecting that a robot may be responsible for the death, his investigation leads him to believe that humanity may be in danger.
A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century London.
David's comfortable world is turned upside down when his birth mother Melissa unexpectedly reaches out, longing to meet the eighteen year old son she's only held once.
An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.
In nineteenth-century Łódź, Poland, three friends want to make a lot of money by building and investing in a textile factory. An exceptional portrait of rapid industrial expansion is shown through the eyes of one Polish town.
In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.
Kanichiro Yoshimura is a Samurai and Family man who can no longer support his wife and children on the the low pay he receives from his small town clan, he is forced by the love for his family to leave for the city in search of higher pay to support them.
A small group of cosmic explorers, including a woman, leaves Earth to start a new civilization. They do not realize that within themselves they carry the end of their own dream. They die one by one, while their children revert to a primitive native culture, creating new myths and a new god.
An absurd man, feeling hopeless, decides to end his life. The night before, he dreams of a perfect world with no pain. In this dream, he sees how good people can be and how he can change. When he wakes up, he understands he must choose between giving up and finding hope. He realizes that even a silly dream can bring big changes.
Host Scott Forrest presents a curated compilation of eight independent short films in this rapid-fire science-fiction feature. Genres collide, narratives twist, aesthetics clash, and even humor, both campy and dystopian, showcase the vast creative possibilities of each story's individual world, offering the viewer a brief glimpse into the lives of every character's attempt to survive the otherworldly chaos around them. Released in 2001, the selected shorts span original creation dates of 1997 to 2001; most of the featured filmmakers also appear as themselves in short video interviews to talk about their inspirations, creative process and motivations while working on their individual shorts.
The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.
During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history: international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.
An alien and a robot land on Earth after World War II and tell mankind to be peaceful or face destruction.
The Master’s late-night diner welcomes a woman troubled by funeral fans, an elderly scam victim, and a noodle delivery man struggling with love.
When men take up arms to go against their brothers, women have to take up gravediggers’ shovels. Ceebla (Fardouza Moussa Egueh, who we also saw in Gravedigger’s Wife), refuses to bargain for the cost of her labour. When her grave finally finds a taker, the revenue logic takes an unexpected twist. The Earth Has Ears is a civil war film without gunfire. It shows how the absurdity of war also turns everyday life at the home front irrational. / MSFF
Teenage Mutsuko comes to Tokyo for work but ends up at a repair shop. She befriends the owner's family. Neighbors Hiromi, writer Chagawa with admirer Junnosuke strive alongside them in postwar Tokyo's evolution.
Shaina lives 600 years in the future. War, greed, prejudice, poverty, pollution, violence, loneliness, depression – these are things that she’s read about in history books. When an accident in a physics experiment sends her on a time-travel journey to our times, she assumes that everyone around her is honest, generous and caring, as she recruits the help that she needs to get back home.
Aboard a specially decorated motorhome made by Lulu, they will travel the roads of France for the first time, following "an itinerary as twisted as Lucie's spine" (sic). From the French Riviera to Mont-Saint-Michel, via the Arcachon basin, Hauts-de-France and Lot, before reaching the Champs-Elysées for a finish as prestigious as the Tour de France. On the agenda: a reunion with a fourth-grade class, funny gypsies, a haunted castle, oysters and white wine with the most famous oyster farmer, but also a few activities strongly discouraged for people with muscular dystrophy... and above all, big-hearted French people, as funny as they are generous, who offer us the best of their country through their hospitality.
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
Playboy Thomas Fuentes has so far been able to skate by in life on good looks and charm alone. But when his duplicitous relationships with three women -- impassioned waitress Cici, meticulous lawyer Lorena and bored socialite Patricia -- spiral out of control, he suffers a mental breakdown. His doctor recommends that he choose just one girlfriend -- but can he choose in time before they discover his deception?
In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.
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.
Artists in LA discover the work of forgotten Polish sculptor Stanislav Szukalski, a mad genius whose true story unfolds chapter by astounding chapter.
The story follows the social intercourse between a cameraman, Masaya, with a visual impairment, and Misako who disconnects from the world.
A documentary on seniors at a high school in a small Indiana town and their various cliques.
A documentary about the closure of General Motors' plant at Flint, Michigan, which resulted in the loss of 30,000 jobs. Details the attempts of filmmaker Michael Moore to get an interview with GM CEO Roger Smith.
A 21-year-old girl is released from prison, only to deal with the neighborhood gossip about her and family conflicts. She decides to save one million yen, move to where no one knows her and keep repeating the process.
With only a year left to live, 17-year-old Akito finds new meaning in life by bringing joy to a terminally ill girl who has just six months remaining.
A music-loving kinkajou named Vivo embarks on the journey of a lifetime to fulfill his destiny and deliver a love song for an old friend.
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
Nine filmmakers each profile a young girl from a different part of the world to weave a global tapestry of youth in the 21st century.
A young, aspiring hero and superhero fan inadvertently unleashes a powerful new villain looking to rid the world of the Avengers.
A group of dated appliances, finding themselves stranded in a summer home that their family had just sold, decide to seek out their eight year old 'master'.
A lawyer who is a drug addict fights a medical-supplies corporation in court while battling his personal demons.
From DC Comics comes the Suicide Squad, an antihero team of incarcerated supervillains who act as deniable assets for the United States government, undertaking high-risk black ops missions in exchange for commuted prison sentences.