In 1929 an impoverished nine-year-old named Chiyo from a fishing village is sold to a geisha house in Kyoto's Gion district and subjected to cruel treatment from the owners and the head geisha Hatsumomo. Her stunning beauty attracts the vindictive jealousy of Hatsumomo, until she is rescued by and taken under the wing of Hatsumomo's bitter rival, Mameha. Under Mameha's mentorship, Chiyo becomes the geisha named Sayuri, trained in all the artistic and social skills a geisha must master in order to survive in her society. As a renowned geisha she enters a society of wealth, privilege, and political intrigue. As World War II looms Japan and the geisha's world are forever changed by the onslaught of history.
Starring: Ziyi Zhang, Ken Watanabe, Michelle Yeoh, Koji Yakusho, Kaori Momoi
Directed by Rob Marshall
English language with latvian and russian subtitles.
Based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil is a love story set in the 1920s that tells the story of a young English couple, Walter (Edward Norton), a middle class doctor and Kitty (Naomi Watts), an upper-class woman, who get married for the wrong reasons and relocate to Shanghai, where she falls in love with someone else. When he uncovers her infidelity, in an act of vengeance, he accepts a job in a remote village in China ravaged by a deadly epidemic, and takes her along. Their journey brings meaning to their relationship and gives them purpose in one of the most remote and beautiful places on earth.
Cast: Naomi Watts, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber, Toby Jones
Directed by John Curran
Action takes place in Latvia in 1920-thies. Entrepreneurial Edgar Ceplis establish joint-stock company, to produce and export clay bricks. He attracts to project many investors in the hope of the promised huge profits. Soon Ceplis gets enamored to his office typist, but the business stays neglected, and it turns out that the selected clay is not valid for export bricks. While no one has learned, Ceplis quickly changes his plans and puts young officer in charge of company. A strory about the destructive human features: envy, greed, selfishness, cynicism, cruelty.
The film dramatizes November 11, 1919- a crucial date in the battle for Latvian independence. A year after the end of the official hostilities of WWI, a renegade German general and troops remain outside the Latvian capital. Latvian riflemen, most of them inexperienced volunteers, somehow managed to defeat a larger, better-armed force of German and Russian mercenaries.