"Just remember: We come through fire."
Two brothers, separated by time and prison bars, reestablish contact. Inspired by James Baldwin's short story, 'Sonny's Blues.'
Social & External
The people behind it
Troy Maxwell G. Blakey
Sonny
Harold Dennis
Earnest
MyLeah Givens
Gracie
America is in the midst of the Great Depression, and the Kamp family is struggling to get by, especially since Mrs. Kamp’s untimely death nearly a year ago. The older children do their best to take care of the family, but it’s the younger children—Hopalong Cassidy fan Norman and straight-talking little Ruthie—who struggle most. Now, with their mother gone and their father overwhelmed by doctor bills from young Norman’s battle with polio, the Kamp siblings fully expect a Christmas without presents. But when William scrapes together a dollar in coins to use for Christmas gifts, everything begins to change.
19-year-old Eric, arrogant and ultra-violent, is prematurely transferred to the same adult prison facility as his estranged father. As his explosive temper quickly finds him enemies in both prison authorities and fellow inmates — and his already volatile relationship with his father is pushed past breaking point — Eric is approached by a volunteer psychotherapist, who runs an anger management group for prisoners. Torn between gang politics, prison corruption, and a glimmer of something better, Eric finds himself in a fight for his own life, unsure if his own father is there to protect him or join in punishing him.
Since the moment they met at age 5, Rosie and Alex have been best friends, facing the highs and lows of growing up side by side. A fleeting shared moment, one missed opportunity, and the decisions that follow send their lives in completely different directions. As each navigates the complexities of life, love, and everything in between, they always find their way back to each other - but is it just friendship, or something more?
LOVE’S ROUTINE is a dark comedy about a discordant elderly couple, who ultimately prove that love is greater than flesh and blood.
Twenty-six-year-old Hiroto Suwa; his wife, Naho; and their old high school classmates—Takako Chino, Azusa Murasaka, and Saku Hagita—visit Mt. Koubou to view the cherry blossoms together. While watching the setting sun, they reminisce about Kakeru Naruse, their friend who died 10 years ago. Mourning for him, they decide to visit Kakeru's old home, where they learn the secret of his death from his grandmother.
Six families in different compartments of a train, moving through a rainy night. In a single, 145-minute take, the film depicts the families and how their lives are interwoven with each other. Vacillating between dream and reality, each story builds on the one before and leads into the next. Each destiny is influenced by the other one on board, and all hurtle to the same destination.
Two couples meet for a painful and raw conversation in the aftermath of a violent tragedy.
En el Nombre de la Hija tells the story of a nine-year old girl whose name is in dispute. Manuela has been named alter her socialist-atheist father, but her catholic-conservative grandmother insists she should carry the name the first daughters of the family have carried for generations: Dolores. The story takes place in a Valley in the Ecuadorian Andes, during the summer of 1976. Manuela and her little brother, Camilo, are spending vacations with their cousins and grandparents at the family's farmhouse. Eager to defend her father's ideas, Manuela confronts her cousins and grandparents, but an unexpected encounter leads her to confront herself instead. Hidden in the family's abandoned library, schizophrenic uncle Felipe is devoted to setting words free from the constraints of dogmas. His wisdom sets Manuela free from her own dogmas and forever changes her relationship with words, including her own name.
Five stories, all taking place on New Year's Eve in Zurich, Switzerland.
Ida is cleaning out the house that her grandfather, an artist, used to live in. She wades through a studio overflowing with artefacts, oddities and lost history. Similarly to S P A C E S, Štrbová treats the theme of memory and loss, combining fiction and documentary, letting the images of nostalgic childhood and the suffocating past flow associatively. To the sound of Francesco Geminiani's Concerto grosso no. 12, subtitled Madness, the fragile physicality of both dead and living relics stands out. The head of a dead parrot, a cast of her grandmother's breasts or a moss-covered real estate agent represent the discoveries of a personal archaeological site and exhibits of an introspective museum of family history.
Stricken with grief after the loss of a loved one, a woman must confront her past in order to find peace.
Following the death of a close uncle, siblings Guillermo, Lucia, and Nora are forced to interact with each other and their extended family during the customary nine days of a Novenario.
Sequences of love and youth in Rome, Italy are tied together through the reoccurring dream of a woman trying to make terms with her past.
In the wake of their Amma's deteriorating health, estranged brothers Rajesh and Shiva reunite, only to clash over BREATHE, an app offering to erase painful memories from their brains. Rajesh, a realist, and Shiva, a BREATHE addict, grapple with divergent approaches to coping. Against the backdrop of a society seduced by memory erasure, their battle becomes a poignant exploration of family, culture, technology, and the human spirit's resilience.
After a chance meeting in a quiet New York City park, two young women embark on a life changing weekend of romance and regret in this subversive love story
"Sonder" follows the journey of a teenager who yearns to be the protagonist of his own dramatic life story. "Sonder" explores the consequences of glorifying and romantizing depression and pressure to live a seemingly cinematic life and the liberating realization that simplicity can be its own profound narrative.
Niken faces familial pressure to marry despite her lack of desire. With both her ex-fiancé and current boyfriend pushing for marriage, Niken grapples with a critical question: to wed or not to wed? Oh, and more importantly, to whom?
Atindranath Bannerjee, a retired teacher, faces harassment from his family members and decides to discipline them. Later, he shifts to a slum and starts teaching underprivileged children.
"KOKO" is an extraordinary story of a young financial guru (Randy) who suffers a lifetime of heartaches only to discover that the one purest form of love was found in his only true companion - his dog (Koko). This is a remarkable love story with a triumphant and spectacularly happy ending. It's about a young accounting executive, RANDY, who lives through hard life issues ranging from heartbreak to job loss - ...Randy later adopts a dog named Koko and with the gentle companionship of his new trusted friend, finds a new lease on life and love. As he heals from all of his wounds, he finds himself immediately bonding with Koko, like all pure and natural love does. His concern and empathy blossoms and is innocent and pure in nature. There is no malice, designs on self-gain or otherwise, and his relationship with Koko is purely one of the greatest emotions - LOVE. Randy feels a connection so deep that the only way he can express his commitment to Koko is through the bonds of matrimony.
A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the lifecycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.
Evan, a musically gifted orphan, runs away from his orphanage and searches New York City for his birth parents. On his journey, he's taken under the wing of the Wizard, a homeless man who lives in an abandoned theater. After discovering his talent, the Wizard gives Evan the name "August Rush" and devises a plan to profit from his talent. Little does Evan know that his parents, Lyla and Louis, are searching for him too.
In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.
When a renowned architecture scholar falls suddenly ill during a speaking tour, his son Jin finds himself stranded in Columbus, Indiana - a small Midwestern city celebrated for its many significant modernist buildings. Jin strikes up a friendship with Casey, a young architecture enthusiast who works at the local library.
A young boy fighting cancer writes letters to God, touching lives in his neighborhood and inspiring hope among everyone he comes in contact. An unsuspecting substitute postman, with a troubled life of his own, becomes entangled in the boy's journey and his family by reading the letters. They inspire him to seek a better life for himself and his own son he's lost through his alcohol addiction.
A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past.
Two hoodlum brothers are brought into hospital for gunshot wounds, and when one dies, the other accuses their Black doctor of murder.
With Christmas Eve just around the corner in bustling New York, five lonely and sad strangers find their lives inadvertently intersected.
Three juvenile delinquents arrive at a correctional center and are put under the care of an experienced guard.
An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.
Searching for a doctor who can help him get his son to speak again--the boy hadn't uttered a word since he saw his mother die in the fire that burned down the family home--a Confederate veteran finds himself facing a 30-day jail sentence when he's unfairly accused of starting a brawl in a small town. A local woman pays his fine, providing that he works it off on her ranch. He soon finds himself involved in the woman's struggle to keep her ranch from a local landowner who wants it--and whose sons were responsible for the man being framed for the fight.
In 1966, Texas Western coach Don Haskins led the first all-black starting line-up for a college basketball team to the NCAA national championship.
A three-year-old boy disappears during his mother's high school reunion. Nine years later, by chance, he turns up in the town in which the family has just relocated.
This lengthy docudrama records the harrowing conditions at the Confederacy's most notorious prisoner-of-war camp. The drama unfolds through the eyes of a company of Union soldiers captured at the Battle of Cold Harbor, VA, in June 1864, and shipped to the camp in southern Georgia. A private, Josiah Day, and his sergeant try to hold their company together in the face of squalid living conditions, inhumane punishments, and a gang of predatory fellow prisoners called the Raiders.
Set backstage at three iconic product launches and ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac, Steve Jobs takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution to paint an intimate portrait of the brilliant man at its epicenter.
Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley. When Atticus, their widowed father and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson against fabricated rape charges, the trial and tangent events expose the children to evils of racism and stereotyping.
