An almanac of short feature films based on stories by Mikhail Mishin from the collection of short stories "Pause in a Major".
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The people behind it
Viktor Bychkov
Boris Toporkov/Bob (Isklyuchenie 1: «Ekskursant»)
Olga Samoshina
Luiza - inturist (Isklyuchenie 1: «Ekskursant»)
Yuri Aroyan
inturist (Isklyuchenie 1: «Ekskursant»)
Aleksandr Vidgop
Rashel Gedalyova
ekskursovod-perevodchik (Isklyuchenie 1: «Ekskursant»)
Sergei Losev
master na fabrike igrushek (Isklyuchenie 1: «Ekskursant»)
Sergey Okman
Aleksey Babutskiy
L. Buryakova
(Isklyuchenie 1: «Ekskursant»)
Vladimir Vasilyev
Four different stories about young kids' destinies in different time periods in Lithuania.
Puple, Valerian and Asiko are elderly actors. People no longer pay attention to the famous actors of the past. The troupe went on tour without them. They gladly agree to introduce their art to the residents of the village of Fandauri, but as they arrive in the village they find out that they have been invited to the opening of the spring, and they are only asking them for a poem or just a word that touches their heart. The cheerful mood of the actors will be replaced by a sad one.
The film tells about the inhabitants of the Russian city of Tsaritsyn-Stalingrad-Volgograd. The film consists of three novellas, united by the theme of love and the scene - a city on the Volga.
A film almanac consisting of two short stories, united by a common idea of the need to maintain harmony between private and public interests: “Suite” and “One Fine Day”. The hero of the story ”Suite" is a lifeguard on the shore. The events taking place at sea do not bother him at all. To the music of Bizet, he dreams of Carmen, her exploits, valor and strong love... The hero of the short story “One Fine Day”, a promising researcher, one morning saw a spaceship from his balcony. Do this a little restlessly to his mother-in-law, neighbors, acquaintances, boss and, finally, to a psychiatrist...
Two episodes about the relationship between men and women in the Lithuanian Soviet era. In the first one, Laima decides to leave her alcoholic husband and run away with priest Vaisieta. In the second one, long-distance driver Bronius decides to change his life after years of a careless lifestyle.
The film comprises three cinematic novellas: (1) “And They Arrived at the Peasant’s Hut… or the Adventures of Writer Senya in Search of the Hidden Word,” in which writer Senya draws inspiration for his rural novels from his housekeeper Yermolayevna’s tales; (2) “The Song, or How the Great Louarsab Organized a Choir,” where a city visitor attempts to form a choir of centenarian elders in a Georgian mountain village; (3) “What Is Our Life?! or What Is Our Life?!”—during a musical reenactment of pre-Revolutionary France, a drunken actor’s tardiness forces King Louis XIV (also the theater committee chairman) and the cast to improvise the play’s ending.
A film anthology featuring three stories: 1) “The Capron Christmas Tree” - Two men and a city dandy, courting a village girl, return home on New Year’s Eve, with the dandy’s nylon Christmas tree gift offending the men. 2) “A Ticket for the Second Showing” - Timofey, an elderly village swindler, regrets his life and prays to Saint Nicholas for a second chance. 3) “The Version” - A rural braggart recounts his city adventure with a restaurant manager, challenging disbelievers to join him on a repeat trip.
The film tells the tragic story of Tutu (Sevil Zeynalova), a kind-hearted and courageous orphaned Romani girl.
A man and his grandmother hide out from an ominous broadcast. The Grim Reaper hosts a TV show. The formerly incarcerated recount and reinterpret their first days of freedom. A suburban mom's life is upturned by the beast growing inside of her. And a high school gym teacher runs drills from inside a volcano. What happens when five of independent film's most adventurous filmmakers join together to literally adapt each other’s dreams for the screen?
A satirical express train sets off on its way. The driver S. Mikhalkov gives a farewell beep ... On the first carriage an inscription - "Summer cottage". The following are 8 short stories ...
Armenian film containing three short stories: the story about the first driver and coachman of old Yerevan, the complicated psychological relationship of a loving couple set in the backdrop of Garni Temple during reconstruction and a story about human life from the point of view of a poor and homeless dog.
In 1930s Berlin, Dr. Jakob Fabian, who works by day in advertising for a cigarette company and by night wanders the streets of the city, falls in love with an actress. As her career begins to blossom, prospects for his future begin to wane.
Agamemnon returns home from the Trojan war and is murdered by his wife, setting off a chain of revenge that stretches across this trilogy of play. Directed by Peter Brook for the National Theatre, this is an all-male performance with masks.
Eamon (Bazuk), a disillusioned college dropout, decides to take the low road, working as a gas station attendant in rural Ontario and purposefully keeping to himself. The narrow life he has prescribed for himself is disrupted by Daisy (Leroux), a lonely, hearing-impaired girl with a persistent crush on him.
Starring in numerous singing films, Zhou Xuan was one of the most beloved singers in both cinema and recording industries for her 'golden voice'. Popular nightclub singer Zhu Lan (Zhou) is originally in love with impoverished painter Fang Zhiwei (Gu Yelu), but is taken advantage of by rich playboy Ye Chunhua (Wang Hao) at her most vulnerable time. To add to her misfortune, Zhu discovers her being an adoptee. She also learns the heartbreaking truth about her birth parents which intertwines with her own life across generations. Eventually, irreversible tragedy awaits with revenge exacted for past wrongs. In a case of art imitating life, the songstress's life and upbringing resemble Zhou Xuan's own, making the film even more heart-wrenching. The 'Song Fairy' Chen Gexin composed the film's entire music with six songs sung by Zhou. 'Song of a Songstress', sung towards the end of the film, adds poignancy to the film with its discourse on the joy and sorrow in life.
A man awakes ready to be tortured
Da Xiang, a girl whose father died early, was deceived and sold to a brothel, and her desperate mother chose to commit suicide. Now a prostitute, she faces a tortuous life.
Four tales unfold in Wes Anderson's anthology of short films adapted from Roald Dahl's beloved stories, "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar", "The Swan", "The Rat Catcher", and "Poison."
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Frank Farrelli takes on the job as a middle man in the God-forsaken town of Karmack, USA, a community in a depression so deep that they need a middle man to professionally communicate more of the bad news.
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.
When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?
A burned-out paramedic tries to survive his last 24 hours on the job while training a new recruit.
A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.
Mitch Buchannon, believed to have died in a boating accident survived and only has amnesia, he has been recovering in a Los Angeles hospital. His new fiancée, Allison Ford, resembles his old lover, Lt. Stephanie Holden who died years ago.
Seven mini-stories of adultery: a widow misbehaves at her husband's funeral, a wife turns to streetwalking for revenge, a prudish girl surprises, a neglected wife vies for her husband's attention, a fight over a dress, a death pact, and a detective revealed as a jealous husband's spy.
Three friends try to save their mummified friend, Harold, from greedy criminals by returning him to his resting place before midnight on Halloween.
A teenager living with her sister and parents in Manhattan during the 1990s discovers that her father is having an affair.
An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.
A group of hip retro teenage outsiders become involved in an interschool bowling rivalry.
Fred is cast as Ebenezer Scrooge in a stage adaption of the classic Christmas story, but is acting a bit stingy in real life.
Nathan Flomm, in order to avoid the humiliation of having missed out on a hugely successful business, assumes a new identity on Martha's Vineyard. He plots revenge when his former business partner moves to the same town.
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.
Upon his release from a mental hospital following a nervous breakdown, the directionless Anthony joins his friend Dignan, who seems far less sane than the former. Dignan has hatched a harebrained scheme for an as-yet-unspecified crime spree that somehow involves his former boss, the (supposedly) legendary Mr. Henry.
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.
When a change of circumstances leaves Miriam unable to pay her college tuition, she makes a surprising decision: to start performing in adult films, using the pseudonym Belle Knox. Miriam lies to her family and her friends at school, keeping her double life a secret. But soon rumours spread and Miriam becomes the subject of vicious online attacks and unwanted attention. Miriam fights back: she talks to the media, saying her new line of work empowers her as a feminist. But her confident stand has unintended consequences. Miriam is shunned by her conservative family and her colleagues in the adult film world. One impulsive decision has quickly spiralled out of control - and Miriam's problems are just beginning.
