Strand Releasing (Firm)
Description
This Academy Award nominated documentary is the first authorized film look at the life and work of the controversial Russian-born author Ayn Rand. The writer of such renowned novels as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged is the subject of Michael Paxton’s first feature film. A flux of events, ideas, emotions and accomplishments combine to make Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life a portrait of one woman’s genius and point of view. ..Narrated by Emmy Award-winning...
2) Paper Dolls
Description
"Paper Dolls" is a documentary film which explores changing patterns of global immigration and expanding notions of family through the prism of a community of Filipino transvestites who live illegally in Israel. Cast out by their families because of their sexual and gender preferences, these people work 6 days a week as live-in, 24 hour a day care givers (and in many cases as surrogate children) for elderly orthodox Jewish men, in order to earn money...
3) Xenia
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Xenia follows two young brothers in search of their birth father across the colorful landscape of Greece. Dany, 16, leaves Crete to find his brother Odysseus who lives in Athens and they journey to Thessaloniki where they think their father is living. When the handsome Odysseus isn’t protecting his daydreaming, gay younger brother, he auditions for the television talent show Greek Star where he pursues his fantasy of becoming a singing star. A comic...
Description
From the original voice of British auteur Terence Davies comes a visual poem about the director’s life in Liverpool from 1945 to 1973. It is a very personal portrait of Liverpool, beyond its Beatles and its football clubs, the home of the writer’s birth, where youth and inspiration weave his own story into the recent history of the city with fascinating found footage and a lyrical soundtrack. ..The visual poem is played out against a backdrop...
Description
Love is the Devil is John Maybury’s unflinching portrait of painter Francis Bacon (Derek Jacobi) and his tumultuous love affair with small-time crook George Dyer (Daniel Craig). Bacon is at the height of his fame in the 1960’s when the would-be thief breaks into his studio. Thus, begins a cruel romance in the greatest artist-as-monster film ever made.
Description
Gregg Araki’s acclaimed Outlaw Couple romance has been totally revamped in The Living End: remixed and remastered. This take-no-prisoners story of two HIV-positive lovers on the run in 90’s America is even more powerful and politically charged than ever. Featuring 5.1 Dolby Stereo sound, this new version has been personally remastered, re-color-timed and remixed by the director, Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin, Totally F*** Up, The Doom Generation)....
Description
Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic) at the Sundance Film Festival, PETER AND VANDY is a unique take on the exhilaration and frustration love can bring.. Most movie romances end when the relationship is beginning. Peter and Vandy's love story goes much further than that. The story shifts back and forth in time, whipping between their romantic beginnings and the inevitable struggles that follow.. With star-making performances by Jason Ritter...
Description
The critically acclaimed, The Missing Picture, a 2014 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language film, is filmmaker Rithy Panh’s personal quest to re-imagine his childhood memories. From the time when the Khmer Rouge ruled over Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, the only recorded artifacts that remain are propaganda footage. Panh uses beautifully detailed sculpted clay figurines and elaborate dioramas to recreate the missing images from his memory. His...
Description
"Jan and Antonina Zabinski, the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo in Poland, saved nearly 300 Jews during the Second World War. This is a poignant documentary that is an extraordinary true story about the humanitarian spirit, as exemplified by two people who, with enormous personal risk to themselves, faced the most challenging circumstances with bravery and decency. In 1965, Jan and Antonina Zabinski were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations."...
10) The Kind Words
Description
This quirky and wry comedy follows three Jewish Israeli siblings – Dorona and brothers Netanel and Shai – who, in the wake of their mother’s death, learn the man who raised them is not their biological dad. The revelation sends them on a road trip from Israel across France to discover the truth about their real father. The sixth feature from writer-director Shemi Zarhin explores an unraveling family secret and the bittersweet journey of self-discovery...
11) In the Fog
Description
It is 1942 and the western edge of the USSR is under German occupation. In the region, local partisans are waging a brutal battle against their foreign enemies. Sushenya, an innocent rail worker, is arrested with a band of saboteurs when a train is derailed not far from his village. The German officer decides to set him free rather than hang him with the others, but rumors of Sushenya’s treason spread quickly and partisans Burov and Voitik seek...
12) Africa
Formats
Description
"When a retired 68 year-old Meir discovers that his 30 years of planning the annual village celebration have been summarily discarded and the job has been given to inexperienced local teens instead, the ground beneath his feet begins to give way. In his effort to restore a sense of meaning and vitality, Meir begins to rebel against the inevitable: the betrayal of his physical body, the growing distance from his children, and the loss of relevance."--container....
13) Front cover
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Ryan is a handsome fashion stylist living in New York City who rejects his traditional Asian upbringing in favor of enjoying his life as openly gay. However that all changes when Ryan is assigned to style Ning, a famous Chinese actor, for an important photo shoot for his firm. Despite a rocky start, an unlikely romance develops between the two, leading Ryan to re-examine his roots and consider an enticing new path for his career. FRONT COVER is a...
14) Have A Nice Day
Description
In a desperate attempt to find money to save his fiancée’s failed plastic surgery, Xiao Zhang, a mere driver, steals a bag containing 1 million from his boss. News of the robbery spreads fast within the town and, over the course of one night, everyone starts looking for Xiao Zhang and his money… Nominated for Best Film at the **Berlin International Film Festival**. "*Have a Nice Day has the rough contours of an early Quentin Tarantino film with...
15) Ecstasy
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Love is immortal. Seduction is inevitable. Revenge is irresistible. A journey into America in the year 2019. A man in search of a lost love. A woman lost in desire for revenge. A country paralyzed by heat and lost in suspicion and paranoia. And a twenty-year-old diary that evokes memories and the yearning to waste yourself in destruction.
16) 17 girls
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Inspired by events that took place in Massachusetts, Delphine and Muriel Coulin's provocative debut focuses on a group of bored teenage girls who all make an irrevocable pact. When Camille (Louise Grinberg, The Class) accidentally becomes pregnant, she encourages her friends and fellow high school classmates to follow suit. It's only a matter of time before 17 girls in the high school are pregnant and the town is thrown into a world of chaos. Set...
17) Mogul mowgli
Description
"A British-Pakistani rapper on the cusp of his first world tour, is struck down by an illness that forces him to face his past, his family, and the uncertainty of his legacy."--container.
18) Adam
Formats
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The Official Oscar entry for Morocco, Abla runs a modest local bakery from her home in Casablanca where she lives alone with her 8-year-old daughter Warda. Their routine of housework and homework is interrupted one day by a knock on the door. It is Samia, a young woman looking for a job and a roof over her head. The little girl is immediately taken with the newcomer, but her mother initially refuses to allow a pregnant stranger into their home. Gradually,...
19) Mom + Mom
Description
Karole and Ali love each other and dream of starting a family together. They soon realize it won’t be as simple as they’d hoped, and as their enthusiasm falters their love is challenged. In order to overcome the obstacles, they must believe in the power of their desire and support of their loved ones. If they can do that, miracles will happen… Based on the real-life love story of director Karole Di Tommaso.
Description
Before entering a prestigious American university, Gabriel Buchmann decides to travel the world for one year. After ten months on the road with his backpack full of dreams, immersed at the heart of various countries, he arrives in Kenya determined to discover the African continent. Winner of two prizes at the **Cannes Film Festival**. "*A perceptive and poetic hybrid of documentary and fiction. It both captures and gently critiques Gabriel's free-spirited,...