A Man There Was

A Life in Suitcases: A History of Tulse Luper(en)

A comic study of 20th-century history, reconstructing the life of writer, creator and professional prisoner Tulse Luper. Born in 1911 Newport and last heard of in 1989, Luper’s life is pieced together from the evidence found in 92 suitcases scattered across the globe. A Life in Suitcases condenses the six-hour trilogy into a single two-hour feature, and in doing so, accentuates the project as a filmic essay in multiple narratives, listings, sidebars, footnotes, commentaries and anecdotes; a project for an Information Age ready to understand that there never is a phenomenon called History, there can only be Historians, gatekeepers to vested interests.

Battle Royale(ja)

In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.

AKP: Job 27(en)

A Yakuza hitman travels to North America for his 27th job, only to find lingering memories of lost love through a chance encounter with a beautiful prostitute.

Legends of the Fall(en)

In early 20th-century Montana, Col. William Ludlow lives on a ranch in the wilderness with his sons, Alfred, Tristan, and Samuel. Eventually, the unconventional but close-knit family are bound by loyalty, tested by war, and torn apart by love, as told over the course of several decades in this epic saga.

A Tale of Two Sisters(ko)

Two sisters return home after a stay in a mental institution, only to face disturbing events and a strained relationship with their stepmother. As eerie occurrences unfold, dark family secrets begin to surface, blurring the line between reality and nightmare.

Underground(en)

A working-class love story set in and around the London Underground of the 1920s. Two men – gentle Bill and brash Bert – meet and are attracted to the same woman on the same day at the same Underground station. But the lady chooses Bill, and Bert isn't the type to take rejection lightly...

Under the Lantern(de)

Else Riedel (Lissy Arna), locked out by her authoritarian father, seeks refuge with her boyfriend Hans. Complications threaten when Hans's roommate Max falls in love with her, but the situation is resolved: the three remain friends, and decide to form a music hall act. They want to ascend, but how? A way out beckons when a theatrical agent named Nevin enters Else’s life. He is played by Hubert von Meyerinck as a slick and oily villain, who oozes refinement; his experience behind bars is waved away with a silk scarf. He is cunning to the point of perfidiousness, but is not completely unsympathetic. He also embodies a new type - the scrounger.

Victim(en)

A father sacrifices an animal on the day of Eid al-Adha according to the traditions and customs of the past. According to the old custom, he gives the last bowl of water to the goat, but his son tries to save the goat. The father angrily looks for them. The boy makes the goat run away and puts the rope around his neck instead of the goat. This short film refers to the story of Ismail and Ibrahim in Islam.

Bookkeeper Kremke(de)

In this realistic, unsentimental portrait of Germany’s dire economic situation, a middle-aged payroll clerk loses his job due to technological advances and, unable to find another, descends into despair. The film’s director, Marie Harder, was one of only a few women directors of the time and was also the head of the German Social Democratic Film Office. She made only two known films before her accidental death in exile in Mexico in 1936.

PYRAMUS & THISBE(et)

In this modern adaptation of the classic Greek myth two young lovers bound by a tragic fate plot to escape their homes to start a new life somewhere far from their families.

Hamlet(en)

A ghostly visitor with a shocking secret, a daughter devastated by loss, a deadly duel – and the most famous question in all of drama. Just some of the reasons why Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy will hold you spellbound.

Behind the Door(en)

Oscar Krug is looked upon with suspicion by his neighbors because of his German name. When the US is drawn into the war with Germany, he enlists and travels the seas with his wife, Alice Morse. During a submarine attack Alice is snatched from Krug's side by a German officer. Krug now lives to have his revenge, and when the opportunity presents itself, he will have it.

The Bright Shawl(en)

Charles Abbott is implicated in the death of his friend Escobar, brother to the woman he loves.

Tortured Souls(ru)

The Breadwinner(en)

A headstrong young girl in Afghanistan, ruled by the Taliban, disguises herself as a boy in order to provide for her family.

Dear Mr Shakespeare: Shakespeare Lives(en)

An evocative and imaginative exploration of the racial tensions in Othello and how the themes in Shakespeare's play still resonate today.

Ran(ja)

Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.

Through the Wall(pl)

In November 1947, Wieslawa Pajdak was arrested for her activities in the anti-communist underground and sent to prison on Rakowiecka Street. A few days later, Jerzy Smiechowski was placed in the next cell. One night, they begin talking through the wall via Morse code. Although it's hard to believe, this is how they met and fell in love. They got engaged through a wall. Seven years later, they married in prison, where they met for the first time. They lived together for fifty years.

The Riddle: Woman(en)

Lilla Gravert falls into the clutches of a master blackmailer, Eric Helsingor.

The Devil's Toy(en)

The Devil's Toy is a 1916 American silent drama film directed by Harley Knoles and starring Adele Blood, Edwin Stevens and Montagu Love.

Not Without Hope(en)

A group of friends' fishing boat capsizes off the coast of Mexico and they're left alone stranded at sea and struggling for survival.

Belfast(en)

Buddy is a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, whose life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance. Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.

The Road Dance(en)

A young girl lives in the Outer Hebrides in a small village in the years just before WWI. Isolated and hard by the shore, her life takes a dramatic change when a terrible tragedy befalls her.

The Virgin Spring(sv)

Devout Christians Töre and Märeta send their only daughter, the virginal Karin, and their foster daughter, the unrepentant Ingeri, to deliver candles to a distant church. On their way through the woods, the girls encounter a group of savage goat herders who brutally rape and murder Karin as Ingeri remains hidden. When the killers unwittingly seek refuge in the farmhouse of Töre and Märeta, Töre plots a fitting revenge.

Lord Jim(en)

After being discredited as a coward, a 19th century seaman lives for only one purpose: to redeem himself. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2000.

The Bounty(en)

An idyllic voyage to Tahiti in 1789 turns a crew aboard the H.M.S. Bounty against its captain when they find a tropical paradise.

Mutiny on the Bounty(en)

Fletcher Christian successfully leads a revolt against the ruthless Captain Bligh on the HMS Bounty. However, Bligh returns one year later, hell bent on revenge.

America America(en)

A young Anatolian Greek, entrusted with his family's fortune, loses it en route to Istanbul and dreams of going to America.

Goodbye June(en)

Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.

The Shawshank Redemption(en)

Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages(en)

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

Oranges and Sunshine(en)

The story of Margaret Humphreys, a social worker from Nottingham, who uncovers one of the most significant social scandals in recent times – the forced migration of children from the United Kingdom to Australia and other Commonwealth countries. Almost singlehandedly, Margaret reunited thousands of families, brought authorities to account and worldwide attention to an extraordinary miscarriage of justice.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button(en)

Born under unusual circumstances, Benjamin Button springs into being as an elderly man in a New Orleans nursing home and ages in reverse. Twelve years after his birth, he meets Daisy, a child who flits in and out of his life as she grows up to be a dancer. Though he has all sorts of unusual adventures over the course of his life, it is his relationship with Daisy, and the hope that they will come together at the right time, that drives Benjamin forward.

Cool Hand Luke(en)

When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.

The Bluff(en)

When her tranquil life on a remote island is shattered by the return of her vengeful former captain, a skilled ex-pirate must confront her bloody past and unleash her deadly talents to save her family from a ruthless siege.

Untamed Heart(en)

Caroline, a young waitress who seems to have bad taste in men, is on her way home one night when thugs attempt to rape her. Adam, the mysterious busboy who works at the same diner, helps fight off the assailants, and she begins a relationship with him -- but not all their fellow Minnesotans are happy for them. Meanwhile, the couple face their own difficulties when Caroline finds about Adam's past, including his unique health condition.

We Live in Time(en)

An up-and-coming chef and a recent divorcée find their lives forever changed when a chance encounter brings them together, in a decade-spanning, deeply moving romance.

Titus(en)

Titus Andronicus returns from the wars and sees his sons and daughters taken from him, one by one. Shakespeare's goriest and earliest tragedy.

Waiting for the Barbarians(en)

At an isolated frontier outpost, a colonial magistrate suffers a crisis of conscience when an army colonel arrives looking to interrogate the locals about an impending uprising, using cruel tactics that horrify the magistrate.

Inferno(en)

Eddie Lomax is a drifter who has been in a suicidal funk since the death of his close friend Johnny. Riding his motorcycle into a small desert town where Johnny once lived, Lomax is confronted by a gang of toughs, who beat him and steal his bike. However, Lomax is not a man to take an injustice lying down, and soon he begins exacting a violent revenge on the men who stole his motorcycle, with local handyman Jubal Early lending a hand and several area ladies offering aid and comfort.