The city of Mariupolis is by the Azov sea. It is also on the river Kalmius. Most of the city’s residents, half a million according to the last census, are working for the steel factory and do fishing, for leisure or food, in between shifts. The orthodox church towers above the city and its newly build bronze domes are sitting next to it, waiting to be donned. A tent near by is sheltering a crying icon, which receives a steady flow of visitors.
What happens in the eyes of a 100-year-old filmmaker? Rolands Kalniņš, one of the great masters of Latvian cinema, sits down to have his photo taken and looks straight in the lens. Kalniņš’ life has spanned an authoritarian regime, a world war, long years under Soviet occupation and censorship, and retirement in independent Latvia. His films have been censored, destroyed, found and restored. But here, like Herz Frank once did with a child, for ten minutes we shall observe the micro-emotions of a man who has dedicated his life to film. Confronted directly by the tool of his trade, the camera. As we face Kalniņš eye to eye, we hear the sounds of his present, and the memories of his past.
Mykola is an eccentric pacifist who wants to be useful to humanity. When the war begins at Donbass, Mykola’s naive world is collapsing as the militants kill his pregnant wife and burn his home to the ground. Recovered, he makes a cardinal decision and gets enlisted in a sniper company. Having met his wife’s killers, he emotionally breaks down and arranges “sniper terror” for the enemy. He’s saved from a senseless death by his instructor who himself gets mortally wounded. The death of a friend leaves a “scar” and Mykola is ready to sacrifice his life.
Egor Melenin, known to his friends as Mel, lives in a small seaside town and is graduating from high school this spring. Mel cannot stand the routine and the tedium of his life much longer, and with his loyal friends Kisa and Hank, they start to look for excitement in their small seaside town that offers little to nothing for them. This all changes when a famous film director comes to town to shoot a commercial. Things take a turn when the director seduces Angela, an underage girl who Mel is in love with. Enraged, Mel challenges the director to a duel with a pair of antique pistols he and his friends had recently found. In this duel the Director is killed, but rather than revulsion, the group of teenagers find the thrill of the duel and the risk of death to be the antidote to their mundane lives. And so, ‘The Black Spring’ dueling club is formed – and with it the series asks, what will these teenagers be prepared to look down the barrel of a gun for?
WHAT? is a black and white, silent (and signing) comedy about a struggling deaf actor, sick of agreeing to increasingly humiliating tasks just to get a role, who decides to take matters into his own hands.
Taped live at the Belasco Theatre in Los Angeles, this hour-long special features the comedic stylings of multi-hyphenate legend Marlon Wayans and five up-and-coming stand-ups. Serving as emcee, Wayans shines the spotlight on actor D.C. Ervin, social media star Tony Baker, niece and stand-up comic Chaunté Wayans, writer Sydney Castillo, and noted “closer” Esau McGraw.
Awkward, shy and delightfully funny, Polly Vandersma is an "organizationally impaired" temporary assistant who finally gets her first permanent job at the age of 31. While she works for the curator of an art gallery, Polly narrates her own story, sharing the comical and bittersweet pretensions of the art world. At the same time, she reveals a special part of her own private world, taking the viewer to enchanted places in this quiet assault on the notion of authority everywhere.
In the shadow of the pandemic, a small town rallies to protect a beloved local bookstore. A landmark in Lenox, Massachusetts, The Bookstore is a magical, beatnik gem thanks to its owner Matt Tannenbaum, whose passion for stories runs deep. This portrait of The Bookstore and the family at its heart offers a journey through good times, hard times, and the stories hidden on the shelves.
Anaïs is thirty and broke. She has a lover, but she’s not sure she loves him anymore. She meets Daniel, who immediately falls for her. But Daniel lives with Émilie – whom Anaïs also falls for. This is the story of a restless young woman. And the story of a profound desire.
The fall of 2021 marked the 50th anniversary of Fiddler on the Roof, the film Pauline Kael (The New Yorker) called "the most powerful movie musical ever made." Narrated by Jeff Goldblum, FIDDLER'S JOURNEY TO THE BIG SCREEN captures the humor and drama of director Norman Jewison's quest to recreate the lost world of Jewish life in Tsarist Russia and re-envision the beloved stage hit as a wide-screen epic. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Daniel Raim puts us in the director's chair and in Jewison's heart and mind, drawing on behind-the-scenes footage and never-before-seen stills as well as original interviews with Jewison, Topol (Tevye), composer John Williams, production designer Robert F. Boyle, film critic Kenneth Turan, lyricist Sheldon Harnick, and actresses Rosalind Harris, Michele Marsh, and Neva Small (Tevye’s daughters). The film explores how the experience of making Fiddler deepened Jewison as an artist and revived his soul.
Set in San Tiburon, the world's most dangerous maximum-security penitentiary and home to the world's most treacherous superpowered criminals, where tensions among the inmates and staff heighten, leading to anarchy that engulfs the prison and order is turned upside down.